Forge East

[Luke]

Eastern Forges

I was very much inspired by being a part of the Forge booth at GenCon. It was a tremendous sense of community -- of individuals come together to do what they love. I can't help but want to spread the word.

Therefore, I am starting a Forge East branch of the Forge proper. Over the course of the fall I will be attending a number of conventions in Georgia, New Jersey and Philadelphia. At nearly all of these outings I am going to have a dealer's table. I want to promote the Forge while I am there. I want to continue to build this subversive and brilliant community.

What I am going to do is open my house and my table to other Forgies who want to come out to these conventions and promote their game. I can offer you a place to crash and a table to play on, not much else, but I think that should be sufficient.

What I need from you is a willingness to help me get to and from the convention with all our stuff, a decent sense of organization, and the ability to share expenses.

What I will have: A table display rack for all our games, Forge stickers, and a big Forge sign (so we can continue our branding campaign!).

Requirement: You must be pushing a currently supported, self-published roleplaying game. Preferrably one that has been seen by Ron, Clinton or myself. It doesn't have to be pretty like Riddle of Steel, Sorcerer or Burning Wheel, it just needs to be in your hands and presentable at the table. But the better the presentation, the better we all look.

There are two options for those who meet that requirement:

Option 1: Join Us in the Flesh
- Come to the con with me, promote your game through events at the con and by pitching it at the table. Meet people, play your game, get exposure and share expenses. The exact expenses will be determined at each con, but will probably be between $100-200 and will include: Table fees, gas and car rentals. You will have to book your own events and provide your own con admission fees; the free table badges for all of my upcoming cons are spoken for. You may crash at my swank Manhattan pad, or, if there is a hotel room involved we will arrange to split expenses.

Option 2: Join Us in Spirit
- If you can't join us in the Flesh, then you may send three copies of your game to me. These copies will be put on the rack on the table and displayed under the Forge banner for all to see. In order to have your game at the table in this fashion you must: send me copies, paypal me $21* per convention you want me to tote the game to, and provide a cheat sheet of talking points for your game. This cheat sheet can be a short paragraph, or simply a bulleted list, but it should describe a good pitch for your game to a prospective customer. I WILL NOT put games out unless I have talking points and $21 in my paypal account. After each convention, I will paypal you your earnings. This is more about continued exposure than profit, though.

* The additional $1 is to cover the paypal fee. I will consider reducing this fee for less expsensive and physically smaller games. But remember, getting your game to a con and displaying and talking about it (when I could be talking about my own game) is a big expense. Talk to me about it. I will also reduce this fee if we get a sizable response. If the burden of the cost of the table can be defrayed by everyone paying $10 instead of $20 then I will either refund the difference, or credit you toward another con. The main point here is that I don't end up paying to sell your games or struggling under the organizational nightmare of doing so. Just trying to make this as easy and as fair as possible.

Cons I will be at:
Dragoncon, August 29th to September 1st:
Atlanta, Ga
Dragoncon.com

I will not have a table for D*C, and will be taking this con old-school guerrilla style. You are welcome to join the attack. This convention is huge.

Ubercon, October 17th - 19th:
I'll be partnering with NERDNYC and sharing an exhibitor's booth with them. I'll be selling games and running melee demos from the booth.

Secaucus, NJ (right across the river from Manhattan)
http://www.ubercon.com


Lollagazebo/Wild Gazebo, November 7-9:
I have an exhibitor's table for Wild Gazebo. It will be shared between Mike Miller and Jason Roberts (FVLMINATA), Nerdnyc.com and Burning Wheel.

http://www.wildgazebo.com
Raritan, NJ


Philcon, December 12-14th:
I'll be partnering with the PAGE guys to run melee demos and demo adventures on Saturday and Sunday at Philcon. No games booked yet, though. (Hopefully, I'll have a table!)

http://www.philcon.org
Philadelphia, PA


Let's do this.

[DevP]

Me college spec-fic group runs VeriCon. It's kinda small, but I'm seeing if we'd want some indy-designers as guests. The con itself is non-commercial, but there are stores like across the street we can work with. (I'll get back to you all.)

There's also Arisia, which is a few weeks before VeriCon, also in Boston, and about 2-3 times larger than God. It might harder to find room in Dealer's row, but possible and possibly very profitable.

[iago]

Best of luck, man.  I'm going to be moving out east (DC area) during Dragon*Con, or I'd see you there personally.  Kind of a bummer, since my author friend Jim Butcher's going to be there, and my old high school gamer buddy is going to be running 6 demo games of the Fudge-free version of Fate (2 Cowboy Bebop, 2 Farscape, 2 Exalted/Harry Potter) all of which sound blisteringly cool.  Keep up the work so I can actually get *involved* next year!

[Luke]

There's also Arisia, which is a few weeks before VeriCon, also in Boston, and about 2-3 times larger than God. It might harder to find room in Dealer's row, but possible and possibly very profitable.

http://www.arisia.org

has anyone actually attended this con? has any one run games? has anyone been a dealer? I am going to contact the arisia people myself, but I am always looking for the inside track. Specific question: How sci-fi is it? I am always nervous about crashing genre-specific cons with my other-genre-specific stuff.  (perhaps i'll do a BW scifi module in celebration.)

their website is frankly bizarre. It has more about their corporate entity and officers than about any of the cons, science fiction or gaming.

[this post/response is another reason why there should be a Forge Conventions forum. I will post this in the Site Discussion.]

[Rob Donoghue]

Though that leads to me asking what's going on in Philadelphia (and when)? My knowledge of East Coast cons is weak.

-Rob D.

[Luke]

Philcon, December 12-14th:
I'll be partnering with the PAGE guys to run melee demos and demo adventures on Saturday and Sunday at Philcon. No games booked yet, though. (Hopefully, I'll have a table!)

http://www.philcon.org
Philadelphia, PA

PAGE also runs weekly events in Philly. They are really nice folks and I can put you in touch with them.

http://www.philagamers.org/

[Andy Kitkowski]

Cool Idea, man!  Good luck with that!

-Andy

[Rob Donoghue]

Someday, I hope to learn to read.

feh.

-Rob D.

[DevP]

About Arisia: it's very diverse. Random Rocky Horror, Anime, Spec Fic, Fantasy, gamering - I'll just say it's uber-diverse. a ForgeBooth should be neat, if we convince 'em.

[M. J. Young]

O.K., massive stuff here.

First, to answer

what's going on in Philadelphia (and when)?

You probably want to be aware that ShoreCon is across the river in Cherry Hill labor day weekend (last weekend in this month). The only details I know for certain (odd, given that it's a week away) is that it's at the Cherry Hill Hyatt, and Jim Denaxas and I are on the guest list.

Option 1: Join Us in the Flesh

Given that I'm expecting to be at Ubercon (although only tentatively at the moment), this sounds like a great idea. If I'm there, though, I'll have a car of some sort, and probably staying with relatives within half an hour (and is downtown Manhattan really closer than that, or worth the effort if you've got to figure out where to put the car?). I'll have to talk to Jim about the money, but I'm sure he'll approve it, as he's been trying to figure out how to get us on the floor there and was talking about getting a Valdron table.

How are you handling NJ Sales Tax? I never did retail at a con, so I don't know what's usually done.

Also, I should contact some of the other area cons and see about appearing there. Wild Gazebo and Philcon are both within a reasonable distance, although my relatives who lived near Raritan have all fled the Armpit of the Nation of fairer lands (New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina, I believe) so I'll be making longhaul trips if I do that one, and might have to consider splitting on lodging somewhere.

Thanks for the heads up on this thread.

--M. J. Young

[DevP]

It looks like we can actually have some indy-designers at VeriCon. We can get a nearby store to sell your product (maybe an in-store signing?), and maybe even have some panels. It's quickly coming together on my side of things.

Who's interested? Should I break off into my own thread?

[Luke]

Precisely my concern as well. If I sell 3 copies of Dust Devils, here's how it plays out:

Cost to produce the books: $12 (roughly)
Cost to ship the books: $5 (roughly, considering priority mail, perhaps less)
Cost to be able to sell the books: $21

Total costs: $38

Total revenue if all three books sell: $36

Clearly, this math ain't desirable. Let's assume I find cheaper shipping, and that my costs estimates are a bit high. So, I'm either breaking even or making, say, less than $5-$6. I'm breaking even to get three books out there in the world. This isn't very attractive, even as promotion. Sure, other non-buyers might see it, might even head to my site. But I have no way of knowing. Hence, my lack of interest in Luke's specific idea.

Ok, first of all the Forge East is an untested experiment. The goal of this experiment is to get exposure for Forge games that they would not otherwise get.

The $21 buy-in is not scheme to make me money. I am trying help out, but I know that going to conventions and selling my own game is enough to keep me preoccupied for weeks. Pushing other folks' games is going to be a challenge, but I think I am up to it and I think it is worth it. The $21 is to help me get signage, pins, a display rack, gas, boxes, and the convention table.

If the $21 buy-in fee proves either too problematic or too beneficial, I'll modify it. If, for example, I get enough Forge games to actually pay for the whole table at a con I won't ask those sellers for money at the next con. (I figure I should pay at least half of any table/convention fees.)

But this is all in flux; it's a work in progress. Here's another idea for pricing structure. How about a percentage of the cover price? Perhaps to balance out between smaller/cheaper/less profitable games and more staid better selling products. I would say a fee equal to 30% of cover price is reasonable.

I don't know about you, but I take a loss at every convention I go to. I don't go to turn a profit at all, but to be a presence and generate some interest in my game. I am trying to provide a venue for Forgies to continue to be a presence at conventions they would not otherwise be able to.

[M. J. Young]

O.K., we don't find the $21 particularly egregious, but our book costs more; and although our markup is less than most distributors want, it's enough that we can make up the $21 on one or two sales, depending on the book. (We've also got more than one book, which might make a difference.)

But I see the problem for those who can't turn a significant profit here. Let's play with the options.

Books on Consignment: we do this with a very few people ourselves. It's risky for us, of course, because it means we're depleting our stock without any income--but in some cases it's the best way to get product out there. In essence, we deliver books to these people, and expect them to send us our cut when the books sell. Of course, there are downsides to this in this situation. After all, if I had to pay for the table out of sales, and one book is going to net me $15 and another $5, that's an incentive for me to recommend the book that has the higher markup. However, if the publisher has books and not money, it is a way to satisfy their situation. It means no strings attached, of course--if I decide that I've got three copies of some game no one wants, I might choose not to put it on the table for that reason, and since my side of the deal is that I profit from the sale, you don't have much room for compaint.

Option on Quantities: one of the complaints is that the individual doesn't make enough on the sale of three books; and I can see that. If we sold three copies of our core rules at $49.95 each we'd make a fair amount on it; we'd make considerably less on our $22.95 world books. On the other hand, more gamers are going to pick up our $22.95 world books than our $49.95 core rules. When Abzu says "send me three copies", is that a maximum or a minimum? What if he says "send me books not exceeding $150 MSRP total"? That would hurt me, certainly; but it would mean you could have more of the cheaper books on display. Probably it's more fair to carry more of the smaller books and fewer of the bigger ones--they take up less space on the table, and they're more likely to attract impulse buyers. What is the "three copies" statement? A maximum? A minimum? A suggestion? If I sent six copies, could I be promised that three would be put on the table, and each one sold replaced by another from my stock? Should the limit be in pounds of books? The problem isn't that Abzu doesn't have a good idea; it's that a lot of you can't make enough money on three books to make it worthwhile. What's the deal on that Abzu? What of it, those who object? Would it be worthwhile to do it if you could provide him with more copies?  Obviously, no one can guarantee that any copies of your books will sell. I've done appearances where I sold nothing. On the other hand, from the beginning Valdron has been of the opinion that the only way to sell a role playing game is to convince a few people to try it, and hope they like it enough to introduce others to it. That's a slow process, but sending it places you can't be is a big help in that direction.

I guess we just need to clarify what's being done, and fiddle with the possibilities a bit. I see this as a good idea, even though I have some of my own questions (like, it's $21 to play; we've got 4 titles, more on the way, Ron's got at least five that leap to mind--does that mean we are limited to three copies of one title, or one copy of each of three titles, or three copies of each title, or what exactly are we getting for our money?). So it has holes in it that need to be addressed. This is our opportunity, on this thread, to address them, to figure out what works for the maximum number of people, including particularly Abzu.

Abzu, if we were to provide you with books on consignment, asking you to pay us, say, 65% of MSRP whenever you sold them, would that be something you would consider? (The 65% is extrapolated; we charge most retailers 70%, most distributors 50%, based on amount purchased, but this sounds like something most indie publishers could manage.) We would have to cover shipping to get them to you, and would expect that you would make a good faith effort to sell them, even if you didn't put them out on the table at every convention. (We could also provide posters or other promotional materials.)

Abzu, how much stock are you willing to carry to conventions? I can easily see sending you half a dozen of each of four books, and letting you keep them in your car until you need them, if you're actually going to display them. That saves me postage, and gives you some assurance that you've got the stock. It also means that if there's a run on my books you're less likely to run out.

I like the idea in the main; I just think it needs a bit of clarifying, so everyone knows what is being proposed.

--M. J. Young

[Mike Holmes]

Any plans to attend Gamefest - Richmond?

Mike

[Luke]

i will not be able to attend. Perhaps other Forgies?