GENCON 2003: April update

[rpghost]

I in no way want to take over the show so to say... just offering an option and a way to lesson the cost for all involved. I'm fine with just going to our own booth and sharing some promotional flyers and pointing people to each booth. Up to you guys really.

James

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

H'm, I'm kind of a boring person when it comes to business organization, especially when it comes to consolidating efforts. My take is always, "let's try the baby version first."

The baby version in this case seems to be James' latest idea - just having two booths and doing a lot of cross-promotion.

Gareth and James, I'm also willing to consider you guys participating in our booth, basically as another company among many. That would mean $55 per person for the badges, and $100 to defray the costs of the booth, plus the usual obligation to play and demo a variety of games, helping out in all kinds of ways. You'd also have to pay the costs for hooking up the booth with a phone line (they do charge for it). I'm not sure if that's what y'all want to be doing at GenCon, but it is cheaper than getting your own full booth.

I don't think we're quite ready yet for a full-on one-stop independent-RPG shop. Or rather, we might be ready, but all the interactions among us are taking a long time to shake out into a viable plan. Until then, I think going any further would be past the baby version and into my timid-old-man "too fast for me!" zone.

If you're interested, get in touch privately and we'll work it out there - people tend to forget that the forum discussion isn't, itself, a policy session. I'm interested in others' input but I'd rather it be about something more concrete.

Best,
Ron

[GMSkarka]

Gareth and James, I'm also willing to consider you guys participating in our booth, basically as another company among many. That would mean $55 per person for the badges, and $100 to defray the costs of the booth, plus the usual obligation to play and demo a variety of games, helping out in all kinds of ways. You'd also have to pay the costs for hooking up the booth with a phone line.

Cool with me, but I'll defer to James, since he's the money-man.

Point, though....the only purpose of setting up a phone line was to be able to process CC orders for *you guys*...we would need to figure out what percent of CC sales we'd get, since we'd be paying for the phone line as well as the per-use fees we'd get charged by the CC processor.  If you guys don't really want to deal with CC sales, then it isn't really needed.

I don't think we're quite ready yet for a full-on one-stop independent-RPG shop. Or rather, we might be ready, but all the interactions among us are taking a long time to shake out into a viable plan. Until then, I think going any further would be past the baby version and into my timid-old-man "too fast for me!" zone.

Good thing that you don't set policy for the "indie" community at large, then.  :)

The shop IS going forward---as we speak, in fact.   It should be up and running by next month.   Nothing more complicated for publishers to "plan" than a decision as to whether or not they want an additional sales channel that also gets them direct sales, piggybacked sales with other producers, as well as a place where retailers can also order direct.

If so, great.  If not, no big deal.   We'll still be here.

GMS

[Valamir]

My question on CC sales was really based on the assumption that you guys were having your own booth at which you'd be hooked up to accept them, and if so seeing what arrangements could be made to piggy back on that for the few sales we might get that would be CC.  Last year there were only a couple of people I dealt with who walked away when they found we didn't take plastic, but it seemed to me that if there was someone friendly to the indie booth who already did, than some sort of mutally beneficial shareing arrangement could be reached to cover such contingencies.

Second...when do you expect to have an announcement for what RPGmall entails / requires and terms etc. available?  I would certainly be interested in at least taking a look at what you've put together.

[Matt Wilson]

Matt Wilson (*may* be selling a game, dunno yet)

Hey:

I'll probably need another month before I know whether the game will be ready. Is that too late?

[GMSkarka]

when do you expect to have an announcement for what RPGmall entails / requires and terms etc. available?  I would certainly be interested in at least taking a look at what you've put together.

James is building the site now, so I expect that we'll have the info within the next week or so.

GMS

[Jeffrey Miller]

I'm curious if anyone else is thinking of GenCon So Cal this December. My summer trip will be to Trinoc*Con, but I'm gonna be in Anaheim in December as a lackey of the Wolf, and would be glad to see anyone else.

I'm definately going to head down there, if the Indianapolis GenCon rocks at all.

Hmm.. Indies In Indie.  How's that for aliteration?

-j-

[Jeffrey Miller]

Matt Wilson (*may* be selling a game, dunno yet)

Hey:

I'll probably need another month before I know whether the game will be ready. Is that too late?

Ditto for my contribution to the catalog.

-j-

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

Matt, another month is fine. Same goes for Raven with Orx and for Paul with My Life with Master. That's because all three of you have cleared the "I might have it ready" concept with me already.

Everyone: If you're not Raven, Matt, or Paul, and you haven't paid me $155, and if you haven't contacted me, do not expect to show up at GenCon with your game and check in hand and simply join up at the booth. We have to do this pretty formally well ahead of time.

Best,
Ron

[Jeffrey Miller]

Everyone: If you're not Raven, Matt, or Paul, and you haven't paid me $155, and if you haven't contacted me, do not expect to show up at GenCon with your game and check in hand and simply join up at the booth. We have to do this pretty formally well ahead of time.

Hmm, let me rephrase that since I accidently posted in the forum instead of a PM to someone entirely different.. :D

I mean, really, what kind of nob would just show up and say "dude!"

-j-