Oh, catching up with the internet and Malcolm and Andy's threads. Here are the BoxNinja numbers for Q1.
Best Friends
Best Friends had another good quarter, boosted by some decent sales at conventions and a strong February through IPR. Even though it's in the third calendar year of sales it still does well. Reviews in Pyramid and KODT at the end of January probably helped sell an extra 4-6 copies through IPR in February. I really need to find the time to finish hyperlinking the PDF and get it on IPR as I'm convinced having seen Solipsist's PDF sales that I can get some action there.
Cons: 12
OBS PDFs: 2
IPR Print: 21
Total: 35
The previous years' sales (excluding comp. copies)
2006: 154
2007: 176
2008: 035
Sales to Date: 365
Solipsist
David's green-covered game of non-delusional reality changers debuted in late March at Conpulsion (with a few weeks of pre-orders beforehand), so it was on a "short" quarter. Still, it has come out the traps strong and hit 50 -- which is at the very top of my wildest expectations. (Sales in April have kept on too, but I can look at them in 3 months from now!)
Cons: 20
OBS PDFs: 8
IPR PDFS: 6
IPR Print: 9
Direct: 7
Total: 50
Sales to Date: 50
Um, that's it.
How many of those Solipsist
Submitted by Andrew Kenrick on Mon, 21/04/2008 - 10:44.
How many of those Solipsist sales were preorders Gregor?
And those remain some very healthy Best Friends sales figures too - if you keep up that rate you should hit the same sorts of numbers as you have the previous 2 years.
Pre-orders
Submitted by Gregor Hutton on Mon, 21/04/2008 - 11:53.
IPR sold 3 Print+PDF bundles as pre-orders and I think David did 3 or 4 direct. Which was OK.
And, yeah, some of these "old" games still do OK. ;^)
Well it's good to see that
Submitted by Andrew Kenrick on Tue, 22/04/2008 - 09:57.
Well it's good to see that you and Malc are showing us that the theory that indie games are perennial sellers is correct - age really doesn't seem to be slowing down sales!
I did 7 pre-orders direct,
Submitted by David Donachie on Tue, 22/04/2008 - 12:15.
I did 7 pre-orders direct, so there were 10 total
http://www.solipsist-rpg.com/
Good Games
Submitted by Gregor Hutton on Tue, 22/04/2008 - 12:36.
Well, I think in the case of a|state and your Dead of Night, they are good games. And if someone comes across them, whenever, then they'll buy them and play them.
Since none of our games have sold so outrageously (i.e. millions) to have touched everyone that would ever be interested in them then they continue to sell... if people find them.
It's that visibility that is a factor. For a|state that was boosted by some threads online and the appearance of A&A. I fell, for sure, that a reformatted DoN would sell well.
Not because everyone that bought it would buy it again, but because its visibility would rise again.
So, yeah, old or new my view is that good games sell if they are visible and available.
Best Friends PDF
Submitted by Tim Gray on Thu, 24/04/2008 - 17:58.
"I really need to find the time to finish hyperlinking the PDF and get it on IPR"
No major changes are needed to produce a saleable PDF version. Really you just need to add bookmarks to the main sections - especially for a short book.
I'm sure you'd see extra sales from doing this - and no mucking about with print costs or stock levels.
Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk