Hi Simon,

Thanks for joining the forums and for letting us know how Barbarians is going for you. For those who are perhaps unfamiliar with the product, could you provide us with some link to your site or to appropriate resources?

On a more sales related note, what to you attribute the success of the product so far? Have there been any marketing routes that you've seen as particularly profitable? That kind of information is solid gold.

Thanks
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

Hey Simon,

How are you finding that the different versions (Hardback, Letter, A4) are selling at Lulu? Does there seem to be much difference in what sells where? I ask because obviously Lulu decided recently that they don't want to ship hardbacks outside of the US, and have also decided to double the price of their Letter format books compared with A4 in the UK. The copy I have is Letter and therefore alas was printed in Spain and has the corresponding quality issues. Did you re-do the layout for the A4 version? Are you able to price the versions differently depending on the location of the buyer?

Welcome to the forums Simon, and thanks for sharing your sales figures. It seems to be quite a strong seller in both formats - have you considered selling it via IPR?

Ah, I notice Lulu has somewhat addressed the issue of shipping of hardbacks. The charges are now only extortionate, as opposed to ridiculously extortionate.

Hi Malcolm

With regard to marketing - I haven't really done any. I think BoL did quite well simply because the free version was good (if a bit ugly) and was around for about 5 years, so people got to know about it.

On rpgnet, when I mentioned a revised version was coming out, a few helpful threads started, which raised the profile somewhat.

I have now licensed the rules out to someone, who is working on a boardgame and a series of settings using the BoL rules - the first due out at the end of January.

Hi Rich,

With regard to LULU, it was trial and error really. I did start with a US Letter-sized version, but the printing costs of that are expensive compared with A4 (about £6 compared with £3-odd), so I quickly ditched the letter size (which, as you say, is printed in Spain).

Having seen Neil's Duty & Honour, I was rather taken with the Crown Quarto size, so I have now made a version in that format.

Basically, it is still available in hardcover, but only really an option if you are in the US, due to it costing £11 to order in the UK.

In the UK you are better off ordering the A4 size or the Crown Quarto size. Both sizes are printed in the UK too. I'm happy with the quality.

If I get enough interest in the UK in hardcover, I will look at further options - even maybe having a batch sent to a friend in the US and then shipped to me, but as the printing cost of hardcover is quite high before you even think about shipping, even that may not be an option.

Hi Andrew,

I did approach IPR but Brennan said "fantasy doesn't sell well with IPR customers". I didn't really know what to make of that, but haven't pursued it any further.

Simon W

Perhaps someone involved in IPR will pop up and respond.

Welcome to the forums and congrats on the sales figures.

Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk

That's not exactly what I meant. There are a lot of fantasy games out there, and I get a lot of fantasy game submissions. I have a pretty high bar for fantasy games because of this.

There are two main criteria I use: One, is the mechanic unusual or innovative? Two, is the setting something I have never seen before?

Brennan,

Thanks for popping up so quickly and explaining the situation, that helps avoid a lot of needless speculation and rumour. It's really appreciated.

In general, I think the topic of fantasy and how to produce a game that can achieve some cut-through in a crowded market deserves a thread of its own. I'll start that now.

Cheers
Malcolm

Contested Ground Studios

Those sales are amazingly good.

I think TBoL did have some very significant people online bring it to people's attention. I first heard the new version was out from Andy Kitkowski and he only had positive things to say on it. That means a lot. And, in a land where most games can't get a review, you've had four 5-star reviews on OBS. That is gold (and well deserved accoridng to the reviews!).

For comparison, 3:16 has had 184 PDFs this quarter on OBS sites, so 183 since 10 November is phenomenal.

I think the interesting thing will be to see if the game will break out on the back of this first wave of interest (as you note, fueled by the awareness of the original version over the last five years).

Well, BoL has now reached 200 PDF sales at OBS and 5 5-star reviews. It is a silver seller at RPGnow and has only just dropped out of the top ten (#11). Silver is 101 sales (OBS don't combine Drivethru & RPGNow sales, they are treated separately at each site, so its still a copper seller on Drivethru; this means I sell more on RPGNow than on Drivethru).

I've now had 35 direct sales via LULU, so that is 48 hardcopy sales in all.

The only thing I haven't had chance to do is to sell hardcopies at one of the Cons. I would be keen to give this a go sometime this year - where do I need to look for more information about doing this guys?

Simon W

Simon,

Different Cons are organised differently. Generally, you need to contact the organisers of said Con. Smaller, less commercially driven cons (like Concrete Cow, Furnace Conception and Indiecon), are usually quite happy for people to run games and sell product out of their bags. So really, it's just a case of finding Cons you can make it to, and contacting the organisers to ask if they mind you tipping up with a bag full of stuff to sell and running a few games. You won't exactly get treated like royalty, but you might get a dedicated table if you can fill it for the whole con. I only really know the ones in the south, but if you can make it to Milton Keynes, Concrete Cow (http://www.mk-rpg.org.uk/Concrete_Cow) is a great con to try, and the next one is in March. Neil Smith is the chap to speak to there, top bloke. Indiecon is the perfect con for you to make it to, it's specifically for small-press publishers and doesn't expect them to pay to sell stuff. It's explicitly for people to turn up and try new things.

Bigger, more commercially driven cons are usually organised in a way which prohibits people from selling stuff if they haven't bought a stall. To be honest I'd not bother with those too much unless you can partner with a retailer. For example, getting Squashed Goblin to carry the game on their stall at Dragonmeet and then running games in both slots would probably lead to some sales. Graham's had success partnering with Pelgrane to sell Play Unsafe on their stall at a couple of Cons.

Thanks for the info Rich; very helpful. I'll try and get along to one or two this year.

The only con I've got to in the last 6-8 years is Ambercon, and that is devoted to gaming ADRPG only.

Simon W

Simon,

Getting out to cons can be a real shot in the arm for a game. Getting out there and running the game is like a laying on of hands. It's especially great if you deliberately run games designed to show off the game's strengths and weaknesses. A great example is Chris Loizou of Spartans Unleashed, who's been pimping his Cursed Empire at several cons per year for the past few years. While the game is definitely not to everyone's taste, he's built up a very dedicated fanbase by getting a lot of people at his gaming table over that time.

Think about it: 6 players per game, at a typical con probably half those are fairly obsessive GMs and an average one or two per game are people who post online. If you run 2-3 slots at a one-day Con, that's potentially 18 people who might never have heard of your game who've now got some actual play experience and are likely to (a) buy a copy and/or (b) talk about how much fun they had playing it. That's pure gold!