Here's a question sparked by Jared's pole of who will buy octaNe. I'm aiming this at the folks who've done this before, namely Ron and Jason.

How many copies of Dust Devils should I bring to the con. Yeah, I know it's up to me, any any excess I can sell online. But do you guys have any notion of what might be a reasonable number of copies to be sold?

I was thinking of printing up 100 copies, but that adds up in cash pretty fast, and I doubt strongly I'd sell that many. More like, say, 25. So, perhaps Jared's right on with 30 copies? 50? What do you think?

Matt (and anyone else with the same question),

If you're going to have some copies printed up at Kinko's, then print low. I don't know what the turnaround is at Kinko's, but there's a Kinko's down the road from the convention center so if you run out, you can get more made. (What is the turnaround at Kinko's?)

It's really, really hard to gauge how well a new product will sell at GenCon. I moved a lot more of Little Fears at GenCon 2001 than I expected (of course, I brought a shload... most of which are _still_ in my car).

30 seems like a good number. Just bring a CD with the files on it, just in case.

Jason L Blair wrote: If you're going to have some copies printed up at Kinko's, then print low. I don't know what the turnaround is at Kinko's, but there's a Kinko's down the road from the convention center so if you run out, you can get more made. (What is the turnaround at Kinko's?)

Clinton R Nixon wrote:
That Kinko's gets real busy during GenCon, since everyone and their brother knows about it. (In addition, they get real antsy about copying copyrighted materials, since a lot of little cheap gamers are always coming in their to copy the book they just bought.)

There's a huge Kinko's around the corner from me, at Oakland & Brady, & I bet it won't be as busy as the downtown one during GenCon.

Hello,

I've advised people to bring 20 copies, with expectations of selling 5 to 10. In the past, some authors have taken this as a personal criticism of their game, but those are the same guidelines I've been giving to everyone.

Now, no one hopes more than me that one or more of the games present will spawn a raving horde of GenCon attendees who simply must have it. That would be wonderful. But folks, let that be exactly that, a wonderful possible development, and do not spend big bucks prior to the con preparing for that. If it happens, a trip to Kinko's is a quick and easy solution.

There will be, at last count, over fifteen games for sale at the Adept/Key20 booth. Considering that I expect everyone at the booth to promote for all the games present, directly or indirectly, sales of any single game are not expected to be outlandish, not by me anyway. Since I want to avoid the flea-market image of everyone waving their games in con-goers faces, it's simply fact that you won't be able to be selling your game, directly, the whole time you're there.

Best,
Ron

Yep, and there's a Kinkos out my way as well. Shouldn't be a problem.

OTOH, Quad Graphics' printing plant, the largest in this hemisphere, had a monsterous fire a couple of days ago (and yesterday they had a train derail; hmmm). So, who knows, printing in this town might be difficult for a while as smaller places pick up the slack. ;-)

Off to see if my printer is still interested in the Universalis run.

Mike

I think the single best guideline in any endeavour, period, is: Spend what you're comfortable losing.



But I'm with Ron. I know I'll be buying copies of probably everything at the booth, but who knows what everyone else will buy?

I printed 50 copies of Kayfabe (which I should be getting back any day now). I suspect I will sell a few online before GENCON plus I owe a few freebies to people. I figure I will end up bringing whatever is left (30 to 40).

I also plan to bring a bunch of business cards. That way if, by some miracle or marketing, I run out or copies I can direct people to my web site to order the PDF.

,Matt G.

Ippai!

Since I have a 1,000-copy run coming off the presses before GenCon, my experience is a little different from many of yours. Still, I plan to have 200 sent to GenCon (or, more specifically, a game shop in Madison which has agreed to deliver them to me at GenCon).

I don;t expect to sell all 200, but that's OK. The remainder I plan to ship home so I have some in my posession in Portland for consignments, other trade shows, and the like. The remainder of my print run is going to a fulfillment house in jacksonville, FL where it will presumably sit and rot for a while until interest picks up or until I can get a decent marketing push going.

Have you seen the article in Games Unplugged's July issue?

Hi Michael,

As you probably know, the 20-copy advice is specifically for the people who'll be working the Adept/Key20 booth and bringing their own games as well. Certainly someone who has their own booth, or part of a booth, dedicated to selling a specific game should bring a lot more.

Exactly how much more seems to be something of a crapshoot. I sold 100 copies of Sorcerer at GenCon last year, with very aggressive sales tactics. The biggest small-press sales blowout I've heard of is the GenCon in 1999, for the Apophis Consortium, with Obsidian. They sold 300 copies. Part of this might have had to do with the great sales at that con specifically, part of it with the excellent design of the cover, part of it with the booth setup (the first time anyone went "loud and scary" with a GenCon booth), and part of it with a member of the staff who was female, mildly flirtatious, and game-knowledgeable.

Best,
Ron

P.S. Check out this thread for discussion of Matt Forbeck's comments in Games Unplugged.

Ron Edwards wrote: The biggest small-press sales blowout I've heard of is the GenCon in 1999, for the Apophis Consortium, with Obsidian. They sold 300 copies.

Juergen,

That number for TLE seems really, really high. It's much higher than the number I heard. I'm not saying they didn't (though, honestly, I doubt they did).

I sold a little over 250 copies of Little Fears last year. Which was about three times the amount I moved at Origins.

Jason L Blair wrote: That number for TLE seems really, really high. It's much higher than the number I heard. I'm not saying they didn't (though, honestly, I doubt they did).

I think if you have your own booth and can afford it, you should bring 150% of the number of books that you think you can sell. It is very likely that we will have 300 copies of Materia Magica at the con but we also have the back cover of the onsite book (along with Lisa [Talsorian], Lewis [Misguided] and Pat [Firefly]) to increase visibility and are planning very aggressive sales and marketing. Hopefully we will sell 290 so we can give away a few copies! ;) This is our first GEN CON and we are trying to plan for anything but you never can tell. I believe we will be okay with that number. Hope that helps.

Regards,

I'm not sure about those numbers for TLE. I don't think they even had any to sell until Sunday, but I may remember incorrectly (am I thinking of Origins?). I had no idea that Obsidian had sold that many, wow. I have about 280 here, I think. I bought some foam floor tiles for the booth, though, and I'm not sure if everything will fit in the van. I guess we'll squeeze in as much as we can. Heck, if we come close to selling out of that many I'll be very pleased. We sold about 70 at Origins, but a good 10 of those were to retailers [one bought 7 and had us autograph them for various friends and employees].

Then again, as Ron has already said, it's a bit different having your own booth versus sharing. Before you go thinking "70 copies, why didn't I get a booth?" let me point out that Origins was a substantial monetary loss for us (nto a problem really, as it is a marketing expense). Ads in pre-reg books, booth costs and hotel rooms can add up quickly...

One person I think did VERY well at Origins was Ed Evans from Alien Menace. They sold hundreds of units of their inexpensive microgames.

Lewis,

No, they had TLE for sale all four days of GenCon. At Origins, they didn't have any copies as the boxes were still in Customs.

Thanks for the correction. Last summer kind of all runs together B^)

I have had people tell me it is actually a good thing to sell out Saturday afternoon or so for two reasons.

1. It means you don;t have any copies to ship home.

2. It increases demand at the web/retail level when people think your game is so cool it sold out at GenCon.

My goal for GenCon is to sell 100 copies of HeartQuest. Now everybody else in the business is telling me I'm nuts, that my product is so niche that I'll be lucky to sell 20 copies if that. I'm all out of snappy combacks for them.

I'm all out of snappy combacks for them.

Vince: would you give a guy a foot massage?
Jules: ... f*ck you
Vince: you give 'em a lot?
Jules: F*ck. You.
Vince: you know I'm kinda tired, I could use a foot massage myself.
Jules: yo yo yo man, you best back off, I'm getting a little pissed here.

The books shipped out from the printer tonight. (yay). 160 of them will be going to GenCon and 940 to the warehouse in Florida where my distributor is located.

160 copies. How many will I sell? How many will I give away knowing I have to account for every copy?