imagining Brigadoon

So, I've been mulling the http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=41694&highlight=#41694">"Brigadoon Store" concept for some time. In fact, part of my motivation for building the Indie RPG display unit for GenCon was that maybe I'd eventually use it for a Brigadoon store (at small, local conventions). And so, having given the idea quite a bit of thought, Luke's http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=7674">"Forge East" proposal compels me to describe how I'm thinking I'd do things, and see what people think:

It would be a store. So I would choose what I wanted to stock and sell. That is, I would use The Forge as a vehicle for contacting designers and asking them to send me their games, in quantities specified by me on a game-by-game basis.

I've done the GenCon booth three years in a row. My decisions for what to stock would be based on what I personally know I can sell well. For instance, I know I can close a deal on Dust Devils, so I'd probably want five copies. I have never quite figured out how to close a Trollbabe sale, so I might only stock one copy.

I would be buying the games from the designers for my "store," and would plan to pay a retailer price of 50% of cover (which is more than a designer would get for selling their book into distribution, and less than a retailer would pay to buy a book from a distributor). Designers would ship the games to me at their own expense; this cost would be the extent of their cash outlay. Probably I would pay for the books after the event I ordered them for, and probably I would reserve the right to return anything I decided not to keep back to the designer at my own expense.

I realize this favors low cover price books, but I like that.

Anyway, the only reason I haven't done it is because what I'd really like to do is a variation: an "indie RPG day" at local comic and game stores...and I haven't figured how to opt participating store owners in for a portion of what gets sold. They'll expect 40% of cover. I wouldn't be paying booth costs like I would at a convention, so I could do like I'm the distributor and pay designers 40% (with them paying for shipping to me, as above), but as a designer I know how much I paid to print my books, and how reluctant I'd be to sell them for 40%. So the whole damn idea is still simmering on my back burner.

Paul