thread: 2011-03-17 : My First-time Publishing Advice
On 2011-03-17, Andy K wrote:
Re:
>>> You can probably afford to go with a PDF marketing/fulfillment outfit like RPGNow a little sooner, since the stakes are lower
I think IPR's cut is shallower than RPGNow's IIRC (haven't looked back into RPGNow for years). It led to things like people posting the product on both sites, with a cheaper purchase price at IPR etc.
I agree on all counts. If you just really really really want to throw your printed product on IPR, I'd still say to ride out the first three months after your game's release through direct sales fulfillment (that means you mailing the game out yourself, taking a bunch of them to the post office 1-3 times a week). That way you keep most of that initial buzz money, and leave IPR for sustained fulfillment (right around the time you're sick of going to the post office constantly).
But for PDF sales, they are easy to use and administer and don't take as much as others off the top. If I had to do Maid again, I'd still do direct sales for the first three months like I did, but I'd have pushed the PDF through IPR, it was just that much easier to send vs coordinating all the PDF only purchases by hand.
Oh, and don't forget the option to avoid retailers with your printed product. You don't *have* to sell to retailers through IPR, and stand to lose a lot (in the hypothetical situation of "Guy who wants your game, but buys from the local game store rather than IPR directly) if you don't think about this going in. We don't sell Maid direct to retailers anymore through IPR in order to keep the cover costs down as much as possible, but directly we deal with retailers all the time.
