Hey Guys, not sure who to bounce this off of, but I just got the
domain "RPGMALL.COM" - mainly to keep competitors off of it. But I
was brianstorming for some uses for it... On that came up was what if
we created a store that was for direct shipping of products from
small/indie publishers alone with POD prodocts. Sort of like a
Wizard's Attic I guess... Maybe it pays 50%-60% of retail to the
publishers instead of the standard channels giving you 40-45%.

It might piss some people off in the standard. Then again, maybe people
don't care about the flood of indie/d20 small publishers out there?

Or maybe a POD only mall? Something that focuses more on giving exposure to the little guy?

Thoughts? Suggestions?

James
http://www.RPGShop.com
http://www.RPGNow.com

I'd definitely be interested in the possibility of moving some product through a channel like that.

I'm assuming your talking about holding an inventory and handling the fulfillment, or just as a more exposed order taker?

Hey,

I was thinking that a lot of Forge people needed something like this that had nothing to do with stores at all - just servicing direct-order alone.

The whole 40/60/MSRP concept would have to be thrown out the window, though. The cut to the warehouser would be much smaller, as he's not acting as a distributor in any imaginable way.

Best,
Ron

Two seperate concepts that I think would probably work VERY well together.

First, most indie publishers who sell direct handle they're own fulfillment. I'd be willing to pay some amount (not 40-50% by any means) to someone who'd take the orders and fill them for me so I don't have to treck down to the post office twice a week. Having several indie published works available in the same place would have some synergies to it as I think Clinton's Bookshelf has had for PDF games.

Second, however, I think there is room for an alternative way for retailers to get indie product on their shelves that doesn't involve the big distributors who have their own standards of profitable lines, nor working individually with each individual indie publisher. A place where Joe Bob's Games and RC can go, check out the latest indie offerings and order a copy or two of half a dozen different games to add to his "indie shelf". Something simple that passes on an appropriate retailer discount.

Both of these I think can be handled by the same basic website, with two seperate order portals...for direct orders and retailer orders.

Ralph,

That is a tremendously bad-ass idea. How I'd do it:

- POD is set up much like on RPGnow. The publisher pays and orders X number of books for his account, and is notified when the stack gets below Y.
- Direct-buyers can come to the site and buy the books, with the publisher getting (let's just make up numbers for an example) 70% of the cover price and RPGmall.com getting 30%.
- Retailers can get a retailer account on RPGmall.com, and pay 60% of the cover price, as they normally would. In this case, RPGmall still gets 30% and the publisher gets 30% (i.e. the actual profit is split 50/50) and the publisher gets more promotion by the game being in stores. (Plus, retailer sales should be a bit higher than direct sales, hopefully.)

I chose the numbers above solely because they let RPGmall take the same cut for every book, retailers pay what they expect, and the publisher doesn't get completely screwed on retailer sales.

Don't full distributor normally get to pay 40% of the cover, then sell to the retailer for 60% of the cover...leaving them with 20%? If so then a fulfillment house should get notably less than than 20% not more...or do I have my numbers wrong.

Also, there'd need to be non POD arrangements for publishers who choose to print elsewhere and just have RPGmall handle some inventory.

Ralph,

There's lots of bugs to be worked out to be sure - like the non-POD thing, which could probably be handled merely by letting people ship their books to RPGmall.com - but one thing to point out is that if the creator gets more money than normal through retailer sales (which I see as the big strength of a site like this - retailers don't have another good way currently to get indie games) and the distributor also gets more money than normal, then everybody wins.

I ran a fairly successful used-textbook store out of my dorm room in college this way. I noticed the bookstores were buying books for about 50% of cover and selling them for about 75%. I bought for 60% and sold for 70% - I got 10% of sales I wouldn't have gotten otherwise, the sellers got more money, and the buyers spent less.

Well the concept of a POD / Indie only Mall would help get everyone exposure, I'm not sure if we'd be able to handle mutltiple tier pricing (thus acting as a distributor)...

After some more though, I think that we could go down on our percentage we charge based on wether you will work with us on consignment or wether you'd ship yourself. Direct shipping though can add up if someone orders 3 items and everyone has to ship it out- we wouldn't reimburse you for shipping.

So, I'm leaning toward a site that would warehouse (not buy) products for free for any indie publisher that wants to have their stuff listed. We'd then pay something like 70% of retail after the sales are made. But we couldn't offer an affiliate program for this site at such low margins.

James
P.S. Wizard's Attic is going to be no longer very soon. So all those people who used to get sales from them will loose them.

rpghost wrote: But we couldn't offer an affiliate program for this site at such low margins.

James
P.S. Wizard's Attic is going to be no longer very soon. So all those people who used to get sales from them will loose them.

Clinton R. Nixon wrote: There's lots of bugs to be worked out to be sure - like the non-POD thing, which could probably be handled merely by letting people ship their books to RPGmall.com - but one thing to point out is that if the creator gets more money than normal through retailer sales (which I see as the big strength of a site like this - retailers don't have another good way currently to get indie games) and the distributor also gets more money than normal, then everybody wins.

Valamir wrote:

rpghost wrote: But we couldn't offer an affiliate program for this site at such low margins.

for the uninitiated...affiliate program?

Valamir wrote:
P.S. Wizard's Attic is going to be no longer very soon. So all those people who used to get sales from them will loose them.

??details??

James,

The two pricing tiers - well, that's just an extra setting on an account to denote they're a retailer. Not much there.

As for whether it'll make money for you - I don't know. I seem to think it would: I know retailers that would love to have independent games in their store, and do carry independent comics, because they have services like this.

Alliance operates on a different scale than this would, to be sure, but if staying at a smaller scale and making a decent - if smaller than Alliance - profit is good by you, then it sounds like you've got the resources, code, and domain to do it with.

That is a tremendously bad-ass idea.

I agree. It's a fantastic idea. Sales stats on the site, maybe even in graph form, could help retailers determine which products are consistent sellers and which are spike and decline sellers.

And the issue of game retailers being resistant to the POS inventory tracking systems goes away too, since the site would force retailers who don't track their inventory to acknowledge products that other retailers deem worthy of consistent re-order.

Paul

Hi there,

Wizard's Attic's situation is probably best left to Eric to discuss here, if he wants. There's a lot of rampant speculation going on that borders and frankly often exceeds decency, and I'd like to keep that from happening here.

James, what Clinton, Ralph, and I are talking about is essentially a very small-press fulfilment service.

Here's one example. A guy has 100 copies each of Universalis, Dust Devils, Trollbabe, Donjon, and whatnot, stored in his vault (games chosen due to physical nature, not implying any of the publishers really wants it done this way). Orders are placed to the publishers' websites, and they notify the guy. He sends the book to the customer.

In my example, anyway, I'm imagining that the guy is not actually paid by the customer at all, in any way. He collects a flat fee from each publisher. Commissions probably wouldn't be appropriate as he does not promote the games.

There are lots of possible permutations or versions of the basic idea; again, the above is only one of them. What I'm not seeing in my example is any need for an extra website, though.

Can you explain any reason to be more sophisticated than this?

Best,
Ron

Valamir wrote:
P.S. Wizard's Attic is going to be no longer very soon. So all those people who used to get sales from them will loose them.

??details??

Well, initially I (and a bunch of other e-publishers and RPGNow clients) received the original message via e-mail. I responded with my own initial thoughts, but apparently, instead of continuing the discussion via e-mail, I was told this thread was started. So I'll post my comments here.

At 02:25 PM 4/10/03 -0500, RPG Now wrote:
<< On that came up was what if we created a store that was for direct shipping of products from small/indie publishers alone with POD prodocts. Sort of like a Wizard's Attic I guess... Maybe it pays 50%-60% of retail to the publishers instead of the standard channels giving you 40-45% >>

I am presuming that RPGHost/RPGNow would own this operation and would be running it essentially as an online retailer.

If that's the case, then asking for a 40-50% discount as some sort of "bargain" over traditional distributors would be very misleading to potential clients. Granted, some of them might be very naive about the industry and jump at the offer. However, some of your potential clients have been doing this a while and know that the discounts you are suggesting are *already* standard for game retailers.

If you want to do a service for small publishers, the discount would have to be even less, IMO. Something in the 30-40% range would be a more realistic "bargain" for any publisher, small or not.

And if you will only be processing orders, and not handling any inventory whatsoever, then I think anything above 10% would be little to no bargain at all.

If any of my presumptions are incorrect, please feel free to explain to me just what, exactly, you are intending this online site to be and what services you plan to offer.

Tundra,

I couldn't tell from your site... but do you take credit cards? 75% of our orders at our stores are credit card based. Indie's rarely have access to that.

Also, wouldn't it make sense for your products to also be displayed on another more popular site with more small publishers? Make it easier for retailers to hit up one store for their indie game needs?

As for why a new website. First if we were to merge this into RPGShop it would get lost among the 15,000 products there and the tons released daily. Second, we need a seperate identity to avoid having to honor existing affiliate programs. Third, it doesn't fit RPGNow's model.

I think offering a place to get POD _ONLY_ product (as opposed to RPGNow which requires you to have PDF product as well) and one that doesn't require you to get the POD from us (though offers to do so) would make some sense. We could partner with you guys and with Gold Rush on their new POD , etc...

Anyway, just brainstorming here.

James
P.S. Ron, sorry about bashing WA... but people have to hear things or they continue to trust in them.

Ron Edwards wrote:
James, what Clinton, Ralph, and I are talking about is essentially a very small-press fulfilment service.

Here's one example. A guy has 100 copies each of Universalis, Dust Devils, Trollbabe, Donjon, and whatnot, stored in his vault (games chosen due to physical nature, not implying any of the publishers really wants it done this way). Orders are placed to the publishers' websites, and they notify the guy. He sends the book to the customer.

In my example, anyway, I'm imagining that the guy is not actually paid by the customer at all, in any way. He collects a flat fee from each publisher. Commissions probably wouldn't be appropriate as he does not promote the games.

There are lots of possible permutations or versions of the basic idea; again, the above is only one of them. What I'm not seeing in my example is any need for an extra website, though.

Can you explain any reason to be more sophisticated than this?

Hey Ron,

What I'm not seeing in my example is any need for an extra website, though.

I thought about this the whole drive home from work. I don't think we should underestimate what could be done with the sales information that RPGmall would have available. A good bean counter could come up with a way to calculate a metric for how consistently a product sells. RPGmall could promote itself to retailers as a portal that informs ordering, and provide them not just with access to rankings of current hot sellers, but of consistent sellers, titles they can stock and re-order with confidence, based on what the bean counter comes up with, as well as of publishers whose product lines are consistent sellers.

Nothing about this idea precludes a publisher from promoting their games from their own website. To the contrary, a publisher who does self-promote, who stays engaged and active with the game playing community, will bump his consistency scores.

Paul

I thought about buying the RPGmall domain name myself, but for a totally different idea than you have. We currently run all our stuff through Impressions, so fulfillment is something we've got covered.

Anyway, as far as what to do with it now, I think trying to run it as an indie distributor would be a lot more work than any one person could possibly handle and get paid enough to do it full time. Contacting retailers is a pain at best, and trying to talk them into picking up anything that's not already well established is even harder. We tried to do this ourselves and ended up dumping the whole idea. Way too much work for way too little return. Also, you'd be competing with the well-established distributors, who have a lot more advertising and cash flow than you do.

The POD and vanity pubishing (as it's sometimes called) market could use its own area, though. Mixing it in with RPGnow just seemed odd to me, since ya, you do get a copy of the pdf right away (ie, NOW), but the POD stuff isn't NOW at all, it's later. :) I think this is the direction you should think of going with this.

Also, it would be superfantastic to have a place that maybe is willing to carry used stuff? There are a lot of older games I'd love to pick up if I could, but don't want to go through eBay and have to get outbid all the time, or use the Buy Now thing, which always seems more expensive than not. I know this would be an extra headache in itself, but could be an idea.

I agree that it may be a lot of work and may not be worth the bother... but that hasn't stopped us from trying to support the industry before.

I agree that POD products are a hard sell at RPGNow for some reason. Though the recent test we ran with a d20 product released as PDF and POD at the same time sold about 20 POD copies ontop of goot PDF sales. So it has potential. A sit that help create POD and spotlight them seems like a good idea.

The other big idea that's been pushed my way is to use the domain for an all RPG Accessory site-- though maybe RPGAccessory.com would be better :) A site that sells and makes t-shirts and mugs and plushies for RPG logos and games, etc.

The idea of selling used products has also been on my mind. I own RPGSwap.com and it was initially setup that way, but I didn't want to invest in a lot of used product so we choose to let the customers sell their own stuff. I think ebay kind of shot that idea down... so if we were to do a USED/Vintiage product site, we'd have to start buying lots of old product. That's a huge and somewhat risky business. Plus there are some established competitors out there... the thing is, with each competitor in the used business realm - well frankly - their business skills and marketing totally suck. They are all unorginized, take months to respond to an order request, etc... I can't believe the owners are all that bad - so there must be a LOT of work tracking inventory and customer request there are just over burdening them.

I've not decided what to do yet. Maybe letting a group/association like the DPG or some Indie group run the domain would be the answer. Some team of people who have vested interest in trying to convince FLGS of the value of their product lines. If we took on Indie produt sales for this domain, we would NOT have the time to pimp the products to the retail chain anyway- so maybe there needs to be some sort of grass roots sales force behind the concept for it to really take off. But, what RPGHost can do is bring 250,000 readers to the site.

Would it make sense to have RPGMall.com be a melting pot for all these ideas? The domain name is generic enough...

James

H'm!

Everyone's provided good answers to my question. Here are some more.

1. What's the cost to the publisher?

Ron's preference: If we're only talking about warehousing and fulfilment, then I think a flat fee is appropriate. Something else would be applied, of course, if we're talking about kind of POD or Golden Pillar type situation.

2. Who gets paid by the customer?

Ron's preference: If we're talking about a single website, then I presume the Paypal/etc buttons are owned and utilized only by each respective publisher (in other words, James does no invoicing).

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: 1. What's the cost to the publisher?

Ron Edwards wrote:
2. Who gets paid by the customer?

Hi James,

Well, what you're suggesting isn't the same as my own, personal vision of what I'd like to see next - but I'm also the first person to say that my own, personal vision and $1.25 will buy this cup of coffee I'm drinking.

So never mind what I'd "prefer" - I was just putting it out there to make sure I understood what's being discussed.

I do like what I'm seeing. Tell us more. So far, let's say I eventually decide to put Mongrel into full production as an RPG (it's currently just a design-exercise example in one of my essays), and I decide to go with your service.

Um, let's put the MSRP at $30 (just as an example). Let's say we handle it as a POD. How does the arrangement work - positing that, say, 15-20 other small-press publishers are doing the same thing?

Best,
Ron

P.S. Oh yeah, quick note to Samantha. First, hi there! Good to see you and Todd at the Forge. Second, a lot of us, or well, me, think that "vanity press" is misleading, because our products tend to turn a profit. "Small press" makes more sense. This isn't a correction or anything, just food for thought.

rpghost wrote: Tundra,

I couldn't tell from your site... but do you take credit cards? 75% of our orders at our stores are credit card based. Indie's rarely have access to that.

rpghost wrote:
Also, wouldn't it make sense for your products to also be displayed on another more popular site with more small publishers?

rpghost wrote:
Make it easier for retailers to hit up one store for their indie game needs?

Tundra wrote: Retailers won't buy indie rpgs because it's easier to shop in one place. It will have no effect whatsoever. The problem is not the availability but the preceived value to the retailer. Most feel that indie rpgs will not sell in their store until a certain level of sales and reputation already. So don't worry about retailers: focusing it on the game consumer is a far better, and more profitable, plan.

Ron Edwards wrote: Um, let's put the MSRP at $30 (just as an example). Let's say we handle it as a POD. How does the arrangement work - positing that, say, 15-20 other small-press publishers are doing the same thing?

Third time's the charm, right?

Indie games are a big risk for game stores who are already over extended with all the d20 glut. But if the publishers work as a group to bring both customers and retailers to a supported mall location, I think it can still serve a purpose.

James, I think you're totally misidentifying the problem. Retailers are frustrated because they have stock that won't sell. And "hot product" stats, in my opinion, are garbage from a retailer perspective because they can trick you into ordering product on the decline side of a sales spike. That's how you end up with shit that won't sell. "Hot product" stats don't help you determine which products have "legs" and which have a spike and decline sales curve.

Imagine a retailer portal absent of "hot product" information. Imagine instead that each product is rated by how steadily it has sold, based on a combination of direct-to-customer sales and retailer orders. When a retailer comes to the portal, they can identify and order products that have sold steadily. And they can log in to their account and be reminded of products they've ordered in the past that are still selling steadily.

And the low price point of indie games is to your advantage. Ordering two or three $8-$15 indie games that can be expected to sell slow and steady makes way more sense than gambling on one $35 book that might sell in the next month, but might never sell at all. Retailers disillusioned by spike and decline sales would beat a path to your door.

Paul

rpghost wrote:

Tundra wrote: Retailers won't buy indie rpgs because it's easier to shop in one place. It will have no effect whatsoever. The problem is not the availability but the preceived value to the retailer. Most feel that indie rpgs will not sell in their store until a certain level of sales and reputation already. So don't worry about retailers: focusing it on the game consumer is a far better, and more profitable, plan.

Being that I am on both sides of the fence (owned a store for 7 years and run RPGShop.com) I tend to agree with you on the above. But people here seem to feel otherwise.

Secondary yes, but not absent.

Currently we have:

GamerGuy: Hey FLGS Guy, I just heard about this great game called Universalis, can you get it for me.

FLGSGuy: Never heard of it.

GamerGuy: Its by someone called Ramshead

FLGSGuy: Let me check <flips through book> Nope, must be out of print.


We also have situations where individually, Indie Publishers DO manage to get their product on the shelves in select stores. Jared's done this with a couple stores for OctaNe I believe. Usually, this involves individual negotiation and individual ordering directly between the store and the publisher. While there are a handful of stores out there that are willing to do this because they groove on the indie-vibe, by and large...it ain't going to happen. Huge investment of time for little volume.


So IMO, whats needed is a central repository of Indie Games. Someplace that has gotten in front of the retailers to say "If you're looking for small press independent RPGs, we've got 'em, and can get 'em to you with no hassle".

That way when GamerGuy ventures into the FLGS and says "Can you get me a copy of Universalis" FLGSGuy knows where to go to find it, and knows that alls he has to do is put in an online order without any of the hassle of negotiating bupkiss.

Further, its no big surprise that retailers aren't going to want to carry alot of unproven inventory. But a place like RPGMall could BE their inventory. Retailers could have an Indie Shelf where they keep 1 copy of a half dozen different games, and periodically reorder from a whole stable of games direct from 1 place. An Indie Game rack could have fliers of games that sound interesting but that the retailer isn't willing to put on the shelf just yet, but he know where to go to get them if someone shows an interest.


Thing is there's no need to swing for the fences and hit a home run with this at the first at bat. If 5000 game stores don't start placing orders right away, that doesn't make the thing a failure. Small Press publishers are SMALL, even an extra 10 sales is a noticeable spike. So to make it work, a central repository of indie games acting to fulfill orders has to be run very much on a budget, because it isn't going to have huge volumes. But 10 sales from a dozen different companies starts to add up. But efficiency is going to be the watchward of the day.

I have a short, but very important question.

What POD option could RPGMall offer me as a designer?

Sylus

Sylus Thane wrote: What POD option could RPGMall offer me as a designer?

To be a little clearer.

1. What sort of binding options would be available if I wished my game to be available as a POD product at RPGMall. I know everyone has their preferences. For example, what if I wish to not have my game bound but instead three holed punched, and placed in a binder with my logo on it. Could RPGMall do this?

2. The RPGNow site you linked does list printing prices. What would say 100pg book cost to be printed and in what amounts? How much extra would color pages cost?

3. Would RPGMall be doing the printing or have it outsourced to a different company?

4. What sources of advertising could I expect to be done by RPGMall on behalf of my game? How much may this advertising cost me?

5. What forms of promotional products could I expect to be available from RPGMall that promote my game? Would these products be arranged in house or outsourced?

Hope these questions are a little more specific and help you some.

Sylus

This probably isn't the thread to have this discussion and it's to early for some of the answers. Look closely on that page- there is a worksheet you can download with pricing and options. But if I do this there would be a few more options added. Anyway...

1) 3 ring binder isn't a standard option, but the printer we work with is very flexable, I'm sure they can do something like that. We'd have to check. But we do offer saddle stitch and perfect bound.

2) It depends on your paper choices and some other things, but a 100 page perfect bound book with color cover and back cover would be about $5 a copy. We like to work with 10 copies min.

3) It's outsourced to a company we have a volume deal with. So they have great equipment, full staff, and experience.

4) As for advertising- too early to tell. But I suspect we'd have some convention presence. You'd have to pay for (at discount) banner ads and links on RPGHost network. For example RPGNow Gold Vendors can by 100k impressions for only $25. We have run ads in Dungeon (check out our RPGNow.com ad in the the last 2 and upcoming Dungeon) and the like in the past, not sure if there is enough profit for this to support that.

5) By promotional products do you mean the t-shirt and mugs idea? That can certainly be investigated (and would be outsourced) but it's not for sure right now.

Again, I'm just thinking out loud and asking for input... I'm not settled on anything specific yet- but the indie support site seems to be the best of 3 major options.

James

I totally understand about thinking out loud. I just hope these questions help you out. They're all ones I had to ask myself and research into to find the answers. I'm looking forward to seeing how all this works out. I've considered doing it myself several times.

Sylus

Valamir wrote: We also have situations where individually, Indie Publishers DO manage to get their product on the shelves in select stores. Jared's done this with a couple stores for OctaNe I believe. Usually, this involves individual negotiation and individual ordering directly between the store and the publisher. While there are a handful of stores out there that are willing to do this because they groove on the indie-vibe, by and large...it ain't going to happen. Huge investment of time for little volume.

Cut to: One Month Later!

So after much good discussion here, James went ahead and launched RPGmall.com as a storefront dealing exclusively with indie games.

The numbers? Well for my printed and bound game that I ship to his warehouse for him to then sell and ship to customers I get 60% of cover price and he gets 40%. It's really not bad.

I've been working with James for a couple of months now selling my game on RPGshop.com. I have to admit I am a bit excited with what he is shooting for at RPGmall.com.

There has been a lot of talk of money and other business type stuff in this thread, but as a (small indie) publisher I just want two things: Exposure and to be treated fairly. Through RPGmall James has given indies a venue to exploit. You get your thumbnail, you get nifty stats and stuff, you even get to post free buttons, but most importantly you get access to the thousands of kids who surf RPGshop and RPGnow. For a small (small small) game publisher that is far more important than money.

People I don't know, people I have never directly solicited--never even spoken to in my life--have found my game through James and bought it. This excites me.

Did I mention that james pays promptly? it's lovely! He seems to understand the perils of indie game publishing.

So, my testimonial: RPGmall.com, so far so good. Give it a shot, you never know what gamer kid in northern idaho is going to buy your game!

ahem.
-luke

Thanks for the kind words. We do appreciate the support.

Also, starting this weekend, EVERY order at RPGMall.com will go out with a full print version of Darwin's World from RPGObjects! The following week we send out a full print version of Guildcraft from Bastion Press. The following week some products from Gold Rush Games, after that SSDC has some donations...

In short, people will be coming to RPGMall just to get free products buy picking up one of yours!

Get started today!
James

rpghost wrote: The following week some products from Gold Rush Publishing...