Pre-orders Proceed Apace: Sketch Editions are Gone
Posted March 30th, 2009 by Howard TaylerPre-orders have gone exceptionally well, and for this I again thank you. We’re out of numbered sketch editions, right on schedule. You can still get a Scrapyard without the sketch, though, and it will be signed. We still have plenty of boxed sets and slipcases left, too… but when I say “plenty” what I really mean is “exactly the wrong amount.” (I’ll get to that in a minute.)
Some stats, just so you know how things are going:
- The first day’s sales were our second-best day ever, beaten only by first-day sales of The Tub of Happiness in late 2007, and then only by a sub-1% margin.
- In just three-and-a-half days we beat the six-day totals of both The Tub of Happiness and The Teraport Wars (by 15% and 9% respectively)
- As of right now we’ve got eight months of “The Taylers can pay the bills” socked away in the bank. That includes expenses like printing and shipping all of these books and slipcases. I’m pretty sure that’s the “sigh of relief” point.
- Sandra wrote me two paychecks today. Apparently she’d been holding off on paying me in March until we actually had some money in the bank again. And I think that means one of the eight months in the bank was March.
Now, on to “exactly the wrong amount.”
We have ordered 2000 slip-cases, and have sold almost 800 of them. We have roughly 350 copies of Under New Management left from which to build boxed sets.
Since I’m planning to attend GenCon Indy and WorldCon, it would make sense for me to have plenty of boxed sets on hand for those events. Unfortunately I might need to re-print Under New Management, and if enough slip-cases sell individually I might need to order more of those, too. This means getting the order to the printer by April 30th, which is just a month away.
It would also mean taking our “sigh of relief” money and spending almost a third of it on inventory.
If we’d already sold out it would be a no-brainer. The problem would have arrived with its solution (money!) in tow. If we sell out in mid-April it’s also a no-brainer. But right now it’s really hard to tell. The last thing we want to do is overspend on inventory. But the next-to-the-last thing we want to do is not have inventory when we need it.
Decisions, decisions. Will enough boxed sets have sold by July for us to be able to justify spending almost $15,000 on reprints in April? What if the economy tanks between now and then? (HA! I kid.)
In related news, I need to tell you about the project that is eating April alive. But I’ll save that for tomorrow. HINT: GenCon Indy. Also, I mentioned it in a recent podcast…
Explore posts in the same categories: Uncategorized
March 30th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
My (unsolicited, free and worth every penny) opinion is that you should let the slip-cases go out of print. I know how expensive they are to produce, and marketing-wise they’re more of a special interest event than a regular stock item.
I *would* reprint Under New Management, both so that you can fill the other 850 slip-cases and because it discourages sales in general when people know one of the series is not available.
If you find that not having slip-cases is more of a problem than I envision, there’s always the holidays to aim for.
March 31st, 2009 at 6:22 am
Alice, you are wise. Thank you for taking time out to provide advice, unsolicited though it may be. You’re one of the few folks I’ll always listen to in these matters given your extensive experience.
April 1st, 2009 at 5:25 am
I know I’ve had the same thoughts elsewhere: Once I decide I’d like to get a book, I’d much prefer to get everything in one go, or at least know that I can get it whenever I have some cash, with no holes in the collection.
April 1st, 2009 at 7:49 am
Yeah, Alice’s comment pretty much cemented the issue for me. Alice runs the Girl Genius booth at some shows, and has direct experience with what one out-of-print or out-of-stock volume can do to sales.
April 1st, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I’ll add this: I specifically ordered on the first day of the pre-sale so that I could make sure I got the whole set. (And believing there was a chance this would be the last opportunity to do so.) I likely would not have ordered (or possibly just ordered the most recent book) if the whole series had not been available.
So, just a comment to echo Alice from the other side. ;)
April 1st, 2009 at 4:46 pm
so when can i buy the $100 collection from amazon.com ? i never buy from anywhere else.
April 1st, 2009 at 4:56 pm
We can’t make them available to amazon.com until we have them in our hands. Then there is processing that Amazon has to do, so probably in July or August.
April 1st, 2009 at 9:12 pm
*sigh* – no sketch edition for me this time.
I was unfortunately being held incommunicado over that entire time period, so I wasn’t even aware that pre-orders had opened. Didn’t find out until Tuesday…
But at least I got a slipcase to store my entire collection!
Only one thing worries me – when you get to book 10, you *will* do another slipcase then, right?
April 1st, 2009 at 10:31 pm
People who want a slipcase and don’t already have one — would probably be happy to buy one anyway when you’re out of inventory.
April 2nd, 2009 at 9:33 am
We’ll be doing slipcases for the next chunk of books, yes, but we can’t do the case until we know exactly how big the books are, and we don’t know THAT until bonus materials are complete. Thus the slipcases will only be available when they can be completely filled.