NEW PUBLISHER BUSINESS PLAN

[greyorm]

Lets say I do a smaller printing and rely mainly on direct sales: how do I market my book to a wider audience? Is it possible to get good sales numbers selling directly?

Off the top of my head, I would ask those questions to Paul Czege, Ron Edwards, Vincent Baker, and Luke Crane, given their experience in direct sales (and retail) and the popularity of their products. (Paul would be an especially good source of information, as I seem to recall he does all his sales direct.) Also, the answer will depend on what you define "good sales numbers" to mean. X amount of profit per quarter? X amount of sales over time?

Would hooking up with a couple of smaller distributors be of any use?

It may be. It just depends on whether or not it ends up working for you. They can certainly expand the exposure of your product, or they might do nothing at all and you might find direct sales are your biggest source of profit and investable exposure. One thing to remember is that any first foray into publishing is going to be about testing the waters to suss out your long-term business plan, rather than following a pre-constructed business plan.

One thing you might want to check out doing is hooking up with Indie Press Revolution. They can not only handle direct sales for you, if that's something you don't want to do for yourself, but they also function as a retail-distributor. While ORX was in print, I received a surprising number of retail sales through IPR (many more than we ever suspected the book would receive) so my experience with them was excellent retail exposure. (Which actually caused me some issues, because I hadn't planned for any retail sales, and when my majority sales ended up being such it threw a wrench into my sales plans.)

Also, any recommendations for digital or POD?

There isn't a difference, POD printing is digital printing. Dedicated POD printers, however, are usually slightly more expensive than traditional digital printers, with the difference depending on the quantity of product being printed. Quality-comparison-wise, depending on what printer you use, there doesn't seem to be a difference between a traditional digital printer and a POD-dedicated one. But ask around before choosing a printer on various industry lists to see what other people's experiences have been with various companies.

[Seamus]

Lets say I do a smaller printing and rely mainly on direct sales: how do I market my book to a wider audience? Is it possible to get good sales numbers selling directly?

Off the top of my head, I would ask those questions to Paul Czege, Ron Edwards, Vincent Baker, and Luke Crane, given their experience in direct sales (and retail) and the popularity of their products. (Paul would be an especially good source of information, as I seem to recall he does all his sales direct.) Also, the answer will depend on what you define "good sales numbers" to mean. X amount of profit per quarter? X amount of sales over time?

Would hooking up with a couple of smaller distributors be of any use?

It may be. It just depends on whether or not it ends up working for you. They can certainly expand the exposure of your product, or they might do nothing at all and you might find direct sales are your biggest source of profit and investable exposure. One thing to remember is that any first foray into publishing is going to be about testing the waters to suss out your long-term business plan, rather than following a pre-constructed business plan.

One thing you might want to check out doing is hooking up with Indie Press Revolution. They can not only handle direct sales for you, if that's something you don't want to do for yourself, but they also function as a retail-distributor. While ORX was in print, I received a surprising number of retail sales through IPR (many more than we ever suspected the book would receive) so my experience with them was excellent retail exposure. (Which actually caused me some issues, because I hadn't planned for any retail sales, and when my majority sales ended up being such it threw a wrench into my sales plans.)

Also, any recommendations for digital or POD?

There isn't a difference, POD printing is digital printing. Dedicated POD printers, however, are usually slightly more expensive than traditional digital printers, with the difference depending on the quantity of product being printed. Quality-comparison-wise, depending on what printer you use, there doesn't seem to be a difference between a traditional digital printer and a POD-dedicated one. But ask around before choosing a printer on various industry lists to see what other people's experiences have been with various companies.

Thanks for the info. And thanks for telling me about Indie Press Revolution.

[xenopulse]

Here's some more info, in case you care.

Personally, we've sold about 400 copies of our game over 2 years.  It's kind of a special, narrow appeal game, though.  About half of those sales are PDF.

A couple of friends of mine printed their first game in 2004, before discovering the "modern" indie publishing approach.  They had 2,000 copies printed, got into distribution, went to all kinds of conventions with their own booth, and so on.  Last I checked, they still had 600 or so left, and have just been able to stop paying high warehousing fees.  Now, after that experience and after realizing the power of POD and electronic distribution, they would do things a lot differently.

Good luck on your endeavor, whatever business plan you end up with :)

[Noclue]

I'm not a publisher, just a business banker, but I want to say I am much happier and much less scared for you at the end of this thread then I was at the beginning. Things are starting to sound halfway reasonable now :)