Online Markets

[Devon Oratz]

Has anyone around here ever compiled a list of websites that sell indie RPGs? (The emphasis here isn't necessarily as much on "sell" as it is on distribute.)I looked around here a bit but I couldn't find anything like that.

Where are people who want to buy/play RPGs going to shop and look at new releases? Restricting the answer, of course, to markets that will "stock" products from virtual unknowns. A "big list" kind of response is what I'm looking for.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Devon,

The sites which come immediately to mind are: Indie Press Revolution, The Un-Store, RPGNow, Drivethru RPG, Lulu.

If by "indie" you mean self-published, creator-owned (which is what it means to me), then IPR mostly accords with that; only the Un-Store is exclusively about that kind of independence; and Lulu sort of ends up being mostly independent publishing by default. I'm not sure what you mean by distribute vs. sell. None of these sites are distributors in the sense that bookstore retailers use the term. Or do you mean free downloads? Some of the above sites include those too.

A number of on-line retailers include independent RPGs, such as Noble Knight Games for one. See Hooray retailers! at Anyway for a list of stores carrying Vincent Baker's games, and if they have his, they have a lot of what you'll find at IPR or by perusing here or Story Games.

I'm sure people will add posts with more links to more venues too.

Is this helpful, or were you looking for something else?

Best, Ron

[Eero Tuovinen]

I run a pretty funky indie rpg store here in Finland myself. The selection is about 95% indie, I think - there's some stuff there that I'm not sure about and some things I'm selling because they're culturally important and out of print elsewhere; basically the store concept is not exclusive, I'll sell anything that I find good and that's not thoroughly available through conventional gamestores. My understanding is that except for the occasional shortages we suffer due to infrequent refill orders we have the best European selection of indie games, if not the widest anywhere.

Although the store is in Finnish, I'm happy to take money from other Europeans as well; I'm sort of planning to set up an English version of the store this year if I have the time at some point.

[Ron Edwards]

Boink! My apologies, Eero.

Also, I have never been quite able to understand whether Graham Walmsley is doing something similar or not. If someone could clarify, I'd appreciate it.

See as well Narrativa and Janus Design, which publish Italian versions of many independent games.

Best, Ron

[Eero Tuovinen]

I understand that Graham's dabbling (not in any bad sense) in selling stuff here in Europe, but he's self-limiting it to a narrow selection of his favourite games, and it's pretty informal so far; as I understand it, he just brought extra copies of some of his favourite games from Gencon and is selling those. It'll be interesting to see where he takes that particular project.

[Nathan P.]

While we're offering up non-English sites, La Boite à Heuhh translates and publishes indie games in French.

A really big list would be a list of publisher websites, I think.

[Devon Oratz]

Thanks guys, these are helpful (although I think I'll stick to English language/North American markets for now, in general).

None of these sites are distributors in the sense that bookstore retailers use the term. Or do you mean free downloads? Some of the above sites include those too.

I meant the latter and momentarily spaced out on the fact that the word had two meanings. Sorry for the confusion. The thing that I currently have ready to go "out the door" is freeware, and since I don't have ambitions of seeing it in print (even POD), Lulu is not the kind of thing I'm looking for at the moment. (I was actually told about it being the way to go by Luke Crane at a panel at I-CON a few years back and have kept it in mind since then for when I want to get something into dead tree format). Likewise, I'm not looking for lists of actual dead tree meatspace retailers, although those too could be useful to me later.

I will look into IPR, Un-Store, RPGNow, and Drivethru RPG. (I assume it costs them nothing to "stock" your game if your game is PDF only. Does that mean that "selling" them on "selling" your game is relatively easy? I can see how that would be a dangerous assumption, so it's not one I'm ready to make yet.)

Anyway, thanks for all the suggestions!

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Devon,

IPR does vet the titles they carry, although I think their list of rejected titles is short. The Un-Store is nothing more than a shared page for otherwise unassociated titles, in addition to wherever else they might be sold, and I think Vincent Baker is generally open to anyone as long as it's independent (creator-owned / self-published). You can check with him (see lumpley's profile here). As for RPGNow and Drivethru, I don't know their exact policies. At the moment I'm confusing myself as to whether Lulu includes PDF only products, but it costs nothing either way.

Best, Ron

[Elizabeth]

Lulu does sell PDFs with a cut of the profits taken out. If your price for your PDF is free, though, obviously they don't charge you.