The New Thing
Ben Lehman:
Oh, yes.
I look at a dollar a book and go "well, uh, that's grossly unsuitable for me, since with a single publisher that won't amount to minimum wage, and I have some books that are cheaper and smaller than others."
Vincent, cool. I await the e-mail tour. Can I set up a fake account and fool around for a bit?
yrs--
--Ben
iago:
Does this business model (unpolished, highly polished, or otherwise) include some specific thoughts about how to sell to retail stores? Or is this specifically sourced from the idea that it's all about direct to customer sales?
lumpley:
This approach to fulfillment - it's not a business model! - doesn't include any specific thoughts about sales whatsoever, to retailers OR to customers. Sales is the publisher's job, not the fulfiller's.
I think that it's going to offer very good opportunities for sales down the road, though, including sales to retailers. Having a shared storefront or sales portal will be an essential first step; once I create that, it'll be trivial to create a matching portal for retailers (which the publishers will opt into or out of, of course, and very strictly on their own terms). Having big-name games unavailable elsewhere will surely help. That's why I'm pulling my games from IPR, to give this thing a shot at reaching into retail. Personally, I don't expect to lose my best retail customers - I'll drop a note to Endgame, for instance, letting them know how to get Dogs in the Vineyard now, and I expect they'll figure it out pretty quickly - and I hope that that'll create the same opportunity for other publishers.
-Vincent
HighmoonMedia:
Out of curiosity, aside from the fulfillment issue, what is the difference between this approach and IPR? Is it the ability to be more in-the-know about who is buying your games? Having more up-to-the-minute info on your stock levels?
lumpley:
Strange question, Daniel. It's a way to fulfill your books. "Aside from the fulfillment issue" leaves me scratching my head.
Those that you mention, they are a couple of ways that my web app is different from IPR's, sure. There are others too. But they're just trivialities of execution. IPR could offer them too, any time they felt like implementing them.
The important difference IS the fulfillment issue.
-Vincent
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