Why this business pisses me off

[Ben Morgan]

Just got the book in the mail. Giftwrapped in gold tissue paper. You guys rock. :smile:

[Ron Edwards]

Boy, everyone really likes that gold paper, don't they?

Troo Konfession: it was all Tundra's idea. I don't know if they just had a lot left over from Christmas or what, but someone said, "Hey, Sorcerer, gold paper, cool," and went for it.

I have no idea whether they'll be able to keep it up forever. But man, people do seem to like it. Maybe I'll call'em up and offer to pay for the next roll.

Best,
Ron

[Uncle Dark]

Ron,

Hold up... Don't offer, just be ready to agree if they ask!

The tissue paper is, of course, utilitarian: it helps keep the slipcover from being damaged in transit.  But I did find that the gold color was neat, individual and eye-catching without being pretentious.

I got mine today.  I expect to read it during my commute and between clients today.  Maybe I'll have an unofficial review posted overnight.

By the by, thanks for the mention, Ron.  It does my geek heart good.

Lon

[ This Message was edited by: Uncle Dark on 2001-08-21 17:48 ]

[james_west]

Got mine today as well. Liked the gold paper :smile:

Very nice production; haven't looked through it yet
to find the differences.

I've actually been running a game for eight sessions straight. Still working the bugs out of my style and my players ...

[Ian O'Rourke]

Mentioned this on another thread- but it should have went here.

I got mine today, don't know where everyone else is but I'm in the UK- so it would seem you have a pretty good delivery mechanism to the UK at least.

The cost of it aside of cost - my wife was in when the book arrived (I'll see it when I get back as I'm at work) and it cost 8 something to deliver it (not sure on the denomination, I'm assuming it was dollars).

[Ron Edwards]

Hello all,

I hope everyone realizes that I do not charge shipping & handling. I pay that cost, unlike everyone else in the universe. I've never understood why that isn't simply overhead.

No, I am not interested in your elaborate explanation for why shipping & handling are not overhead. I disagree with it.

Therefore, to clarify - when you buy Sorcerer from me, you pay $20 U.S., or $10 U.S. if you've prepaid by buying the old PDF. All shipping costs are paid by me out of what would otherwise be profit.

Best,
Ron

[Ian O'Rourke]

On 2001-08-22 10:38, Ron Edwards wrote:
I hope everyone realizes that I do not charge shipping & handling. I pay that cost, unlike everyone else in the universe. I've never understood why that isn't simply overhead.

Yes, this is true. I only mentioned it because I was interested in how much it costs Ron to ship the things internationally (expedited in this case as well).

I did not pay this fee :smile:

Looking back at the post - it could be read that way (it just never occurred to me people would read it that way, if you see what I mean).

[Bailywolf]

The S&H thing threw me!  i thought that was the reason it took a while to arive before Ron explained it.

I can only say, including the shipping in the cost of the book was a shockingly decent thing to do.

Thanks

[Tundra]

Hiya Folks,

I stopped in to cover some details and make sure you don't hate Ron :wink:

I liked the gold coating too.  When I brought back some leftover stock from GenCon, I went through a couple of presentation ideas that would work with such a nice book, and I settled on the simple tissue wrap.  Gold was a natural color, working well with the cover, and, as people suspected, it was also to insure that direct order customers recieved a product with a perfect dustcover.

As to the shipping delay, I'd like to explain why it happened. It is very bad business to send out direct orders before the distributor orders have shipped, expecially for a new company.  If a consumer walks in to a game store with a copy, and the retailer had ordered the product for the store (sight unseen, I might add, because it's the first book and there is not sales history, meaning the retailer takes a financial risk) but hadn't seen it yet, they call the distributors.  If the distributors don't have it yet, they call the manufacturer (or us, in this case). If we said "Oh we shipped direct first", they come back with "Gee, we took a chance on these guys and you are bypassing the potential sales of our stores, so we don't want any".  For a startup company, this can potentially kill any shelf presence at stores, leaving the playing population to luck into the game via websites.  Kill the playing population like that means you folks will lose out too, and Ron will be one grumpy prof. :wink:

So, we ship direct orders out the same time as the distributor orders.  This mean that direct customers get the product at the same time as the distributors.  Then, if they immediately walk in to a store and wave it callously in the face of the retailers, and the retailers call their distributors, the dist can say "Oh, we just got that in and your copies will arrive on your next order".  Additionally, for those stores who DIDN'T order, they call their dists and are told "Gee, we just got that in. How many should we get for you now that a fan of the game has convinced you that it's fabulous and you are a louse for not preordering it?".  See how nasty this is? :wink:

Now, the reason for the delay was entirely on myself and Sphinx(who handles Ron's sales).  We should have had all dist preorders closed (a fancy term for doublechecking preorders and making sure everyone get's what they want) before GenCon.  However, because both companies were busy preparing for the show, we didn't communicate well with each other ahead of time and we realized that orders HADN'T been closed.  We remedied that, and Tundra got the product out the door.

I apologize for the delay, folks, and hope that you'll forgive my conservative, protectionistic ways.  We want Ron to be as sucessful as possilbe (because I am a mercenary, afterall ), but more than that, we want him to enjoy sharing his vision with people, and games are one of the best ways to do that.

Now, back to your deliberations.  I'll start:

Boy, that Ron Edwards is SUCH an ego-centric world famous game designer.  Anyone understand his drivel?

:wink:


ttfn - woody

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

Everyone welcome Woody from Tundra, the man of gold foil. (Show respect, monkeys!)

As I stated above, the problem was mine in accepting direct orders at all until the damn thing had shipped to the stores. Woody and Liz saved my ass.

With any luck, another rock on the developing road of "how to combine direct and store sales" has been broken, so that others may traverse it more easily.

Best,
Ron