Re: Report To The Stakeholders
Yeah, I wish mine was well capitalized and well run. :D
Oh well it's been fun, stressful and painful but I sure have run a lot of D&D and GURPS these last six years. To be honest I think the old distribution and store model is dead. Especially for rpgs but the one to three month sales window that Steve talked about is the same one Games Workshop talks about. Their best sales for any model are in the month it's released and the two months after that. After that it's all back catalog and long tail.
I've spent a lot of the last six years frustrated with how difficult it's been to get product. In the last year I've been in a financial death spiral and I probably won't be in business this time next year. SJG does a great job of reaching out to retailers and I really regret not having been able to afford a direct order from them but the GURPS books they have in print aren't the ones my customers are looking for because they've already got them. :(
What needs to exist, for retail roleplaying games in particular is a print and bind on site system that lets stores have every book in the entire history of gaming available every day. The technology exists but the infrastructure doesn't. If you can't get a retailer discount on the file, the paper, the toner, and the binding sleeve you can't compete.
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