Publishing Advice - [Steampower Publishing] Q3 Sales 2010

Posted by: Andrew Kenrick On: Oct 15th 2010

I had my first full quarter results for Dead of Night second edition the other day, so thought I'd share them with you along with a couple of observations.

As you can see, sales tailed off considerably in the last 3 months compared to the preceding month, especially with pdf sales. I'm not entirely sure why that is either, as the sales drop was fairly rapid. They seem to be up again this past month though, so who can say?

Understandably direct sales tailed off a bit after my initial forum blitz was over after its launch, but having had the book on sale since September via IPR that seems to have taken up some of the slack.

Dead of Night Q3 (numbers in brackets are for the last quarter)
IPR (launched in the last month of the quarter): 26 (0)
Direct: 7 (23)
Convention: 9 (8)
Retail: 2 (2)
PDF: 28 (67)
Total: 72

Lifetime Sales: 172

As for the future, well there are still quite a few copies left with IPR, but from now on future sales will be made via Cubicle7. Hopefully there'll be an uplift once they start promoting it, although I've got my own stock from C7 to sell at conventions.

Posted by: Gary Bowerbank On: Oct 16th 2010

The way to sell games is to run them... buy you know that ;)

I'd guess (with not actual information to back this up) that there was a bunch of people waiting for the new edition and that's where the strong initial sales come from, and why it tails off. A more healthy last month could be due to things like high levels of coverage at Cons such as 'Cow and Furnace where the game is pimped heavily?

Do you think the move to Cubicle 7 has also come with a less energetic pimping by yourself personally? With the old CE model I'd guess there was a healthy appetite for shoving your own game, whereas with someone else in charge of stock and distribution there's a temptation to ease off a little?

A thing of curious note was at Furnace Newt was running some games (or maybe a game singular) that wasn't from his stable to scratch his old skool gaming itch. Seems odd though, with so many (recently) released products not to pimp them like a mo fo at cons and get more awareness and excitement going. But then, no one is in it for the vast riches...