OBAM Second Printing

[kenjib]

Yeah, it's at my local FLGS.  This brings up a conundrum - is it more important to support the independent press by buying direct (where they get a better margin on the cover price) or is it more important to support the local game store by buying it retail there...

[Valamir]

When you buy from the FLGS you support all small press companies.

When you buy non d20 product at the FLGS you support all non d20 publishers.

Small press non d20 product has difficulty getting into game stores because "no one plays that stuff and it won't sell".  The only way to prove them wrong is to actually demonstrate how well it does sell.

I can't speak for Jake directly, but most small press publishers would rather lose a little on an individual sale that promotes reorders in a store than make a little more on the individual sale and get no reorders from the store.

[kenjib]

Cool, then it's just a shame that there's the delay between release and store distribution.  I'm impatient.  hehe.

[Claymore]

Yeah, it's at my local FLGS.  This brings up a conundrum - is it more important to support the independent press by buying direct (where they get a better margin on the cover price) or is it more important to support the local game store by buying it retail there...

You very much support Independent press by purchasing retail, you are sending a message to your FLGS that you WANT Indie games.

Publishers rely on Distribution (where retailers buy their books from) pre-orders to determine the size of their print runs, or even if a product is viable to be published at all. With all the d20 craze most distributors have been loathe to carry any indi games. I carry Ros, Burning Wheel, and Sorcerer, to name a few (err..ahh...ehhh...err...ahh...Ralph...I don't carry...err...Universalis, does Alliance carry you... :-). I actively encourage distribution to carry a variety of products, but I am only 1 store. If you decide to skip past me and buy directly from from the publisher, while should  I as a retail stores owner carry small press games?

Also, stores carrying a game help sell it. Internet advertising is great, but many people won't spend their hard cash on a game if they can't see it, look through it, smell it, cuddle with it (you get the point....WHAT?). There are only two ways to do this. One is to go to a convention that the company will be attending and check it out there, and maybe get into a demo. That however assumes that the customer can get to the convention and that the game company will be there. The second is to check it out at your local FLGS.

Many game stores have in store gaming. I ran a 7 month Riddle of Steel campaign and moved 12 copies alone to members of the group and pople who walked in while we were playing the game. A good store owner will get to know about the product, and talk about its features to his perspective customers.  

-Claymore
Empire Games

[Claymore]

Cool, then it's just a shame that there's the delay between release and store distribution.  I'm impatient.  hehe.

That you need to yell at Jake about, I wasn't too happy with it either, the first print one was only sold at cons and mail order, with the second run coming out as a general release. That being said, he had quite a few problems which I am not going to go into here (but he mentions in the back of OBAM if you really want to know :-) and really didn't have a choice. I do hope Flower of Battle will be released to both retail and mail order at the same time.

-Claymore

[Salamander]

Here in Calgary we have a FLGS called "The Sentry Box". It was at this store that I bought TRoS, on the advice of a buddy of mine, Spartan. Since then, we have started a campaign and the books routinely fly off the shelves. In my group alone there are four copies and three of OBaM. From what we can figure there are at least ten to twenty copies circulating in Calgary and soon to be more. Check it out... http://www.sentrybox.com

[Claymore]

Here in Calgary we have a FLGS called "The Sentry Box". It was at this store that I bought TRoS, on the advice of a buddy of mine, Spartan. Since then, we have started a campaign and the books routinely fly off the shelves. In my group alone there are four copies and three of OBaM. From what we can figure there are at least ten to twenty copies circulating in Calgary and soon to be more. Check it out... http://www.sentrybox.com

I've been to the sentry box, a Damn fine store! Glad to hear they carry it.


-Claymore

[AnyaTheBlue]

I've purchased Sorcerer plus all it's supplements, as well as TRoS, at FLGSes.  Unfortunately, I haven't seen OBaM at any of them, or I'd have that, too.  I have seen copies of things like Dust Devils and Universalis, but they vanished quickly and don't seem to have been restocked.

For what it's worth, TRoS seems to have sold well here -- one store sold out, replaced, and sold out again (and that was with five or six copies each time) and the other store only has one left.  I haven't seen a third restock at that first store, though.  Grrr.

Nobody seems to have Burning Wheel, either.  Dunno why not, it's as good as the others.

I usually try to get stuff at stores if I can.  Sometimes that means I wait several months for it to show up locally (Uresia: Grave of Heaven, frex, and that's not even 'indie'!!!).

Anyway, I wasn't sure that was the best way, but this thread has convinced me I've been taking the right approach.  Yay! =)

[Brian Leybourne]

Although we love selling books via the webpage, we love knowing that they're in stores even more, that way more people have exposure to them etc.

If your local stores stock TROS but not OBAM, why not ask them if they're planning to get it in? There are heaps of distributors in the US they could contact (the same one they get TROS through).

Brian.

[kenjib]

My local store carries both of them.  I bought TROS there, but not OBAM because it took some months to appear.  I'll wait for flower of battle to show up there this time though.

[Claymore]

Nobody seems to have Burning Wheel, either.  Dunno why not, it's as good as the others.

Luke doesn't go through distribution at the moment. They can order directly from him however (which is what we did).

-Claymore
Empire Games

[Jake Norwood]

The plan is to put TFOB out through distribution right away. There are, of course, a few problems with distribution. One is that even if they pay on time, there's still a long wait between when we ship and when they send the checks, meaning that if we're printing on a limited budget (which we always are) that I have scrape by until the money comes in. Driftwood lives off of direct distribution and the mass distribution thing is really just "extra," and hardly profitable when compared to direct. On the other hand, ever since the Diana Jones nomination that is beginning to come around. Most importantly, the FLGS can reach people that our webpage can't and won't. So we'll be giving mass distribution the same-time release on the next book, and we'll see if it helps or hurts profits. That will then determine what we do with the next book (due out at Gen Con, Fahal willing).

Glad to hear that TROS is selling well. Generally speaking I find that any store that nods people in the direction of TROS will sell between 5 and 12 copies, though I occassionally hear that it sells poorly in other areas.

Jake