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Dream Wizards

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I'm going to be dropping by Dream Wizards in Rockville, Maryland tomorrow between noon and 3pm (probably closer to noon) to have a chat with the owner and the store manager.

I have no real expectation of anyone else I know being there at that time, but if you think you could be or might be, let me know! It might even help bolster the case I'll be making. :)
Filed Under: EHP Business, ipr Tagged With: , , ,

The horror… the horror…

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So, with GTS coming up in a couple weeks, it's the early edge of the convention season. And that means it's time to get my hair back to Professional Blue.

But THAT means I gotta get the canvas ready for the paint, first.


And the top of my head is positively GLOWING. That CAN'T BE GOOD!

Blue hair soon to follow. I hope.
Filed Under: EHP Business, ipr Tagged With: , , , , , ,

GAMA Trade Show

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I'm going to be at GTS in under two weeks as a part of the IPR flotilla.

Will you be there?
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Pyramidworthy

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My long State of the Hat posting actually made it into Pyramid Magazine's news update for this week. I'm a little startled and a lot pleased! IPR's news items have also been getting picked up there.

I think this is due to the wonders of RSS-ability in part (there's clearly a human agency doing some filtering, though) and I'm tickled about that too because getting IPR RSS-able (and Evil Hat too) and at least semi-regular with the news updates has been an important thing for me this past year.

In other news, I've been hacking away at the IPR database to get it to generate some reports for the members, in an effort to improve overall visibility into product performance, when to reorder products that are low in inventory, all that. Some snippets of Evil Hat's follow

The reports are somewhat limited for older products by dint of there having been a different software setup starting in 2007, so the "lifetime sales" figures for some products... aren't. A lot of these stats are very very approximated -- lifetime sales doesn't include anything off of the website either, and the view-count may be marginally suspect in some cases (i tend to look at my own product pages with some frequency, and each time that counts as a 'view')...

Anyway:

Don't Rest Your Head
261 items in website inventory count
27 items sold via the website last month
129 items sold via the website in the last six months

Don't Rest Your Head [PDF]
8 items sold via the website last month
40 items sold via the website in the last six months

Don't Rest Your Head [Print+PDF]
261 items in website inventory count
5 items sold via the website last month
32 items sold via the website in the last six months

Spirit of the Century
44 items in website inventory count
67 items sold via the website last month
301 items sold via the website in the last six months

Spirit of the Century + Don't Rest Your Head [PDF]
2 items sold via the website last month
15 items sold via the website in the last six months

Spirit of the Century [PDF]
10 items sold via the website last month
36 items sold via the website in the last six months

Spirit of the Century [Print+PDF]
44 items in website inventory count
39 items sold via the website last month
187 items sold via the website in the last six months

Spirit of the Season
136 items in website inventory count
43 items sold via the website last month
43 items sold via the website in the last six months

Spirit of the Season [PDF]
5 items sold via the website last month
5 items sold via the website in the last six months

Spirit of the Season [Print+PDF]
136 items in website inventory count
51 items sold via the website last month
51 items sold via the website in the last six months

LIFETIME SALES RANKINGS
-----------------------

1. Spirit of the Century
566 lifetime sales
3. Spirit of the Century [Print+PDF]
373 lifetime sales
5. Don't Rest Your Head
242 lifetime sales
20. Spirit of the Century [PDF]
112 lifetime sales
25. Don't Rest Your Head [PDF]
90 lifetime sales
40. Don't Rest Your Head [Print+PDF]
67 lifetime sales
45. Spirit of the Season
61 lifetime sales
52. Spirit of the Season [Print+PDF]
53 lifetime sales
92. Spirit of the Century + Don't Rest Your Head [PDF]
26 lifetime sales
184. Spirit of the Season [PDF]
8 lifetime sales

LIFETIME CONVERSIONS
--------------------

Spirit of the Season
61 sales vs 332 views
18.37% over 28 days
Spirit of the Season [PDF]
8 sales vs 78 views
10.26% over 4 days
Spirit of the Century
566 sales vs 8444 views
6.70% over 498 days
Don't Rest Your Head
242 sales vs 3774 views
6.41% over 498 days
Spirit of the Century [Print+PDF]
373 sales vs 6375 views
5.85% over 384 days
Don't Rest Your Head [PDF]
90 sales vs 1685 views
5.34% over 369 days
Don't Rest Your Head [Print+PDF]
67 sales vs 1839 views
3.64% over 369 days
Spirit of the Century [PDF]
112 sales vs 3219 views
3.48% over 385 days
Spirit of the Season [Print+PDF]
53 sales vs 1590 views
3.33% over 28 days
Spirit of the Century + Don't Rest Your Head [PDF]
26 sales vs 1366 views
1.90% over 293 days
Filed Under: EHP Business, ipr, sales numbers Tagged With: , , , ,

Department of Practice What You Preach

So, we've been having some speed-of-shipping problems lately at IPR. I don't want to go into the details of it too much, but suffice it to say that after I talked at some length about what to do when you screw something up, it was time to put the advice into effect.

Here's a link to the announcement to IPR's customers that I made. You should see the elements of what I talked about before, here: taking action, hanging a lantern on it, getting in front of it, establishing an avenue for making it personal, doing the thing that I determined we could do, and leaving the door open to figuring out what ELSE we could do.

That was last night. I went to bed, and figured I'd wake up to some requests for free PDFfage, or shipping refunds, or whatever. But I slept easy, because I knew I'd gotten the message out there that we were concerned, that we cared, and that we wanted to do right by people.

Two people have written in with complaints (actually one of them preceded the post by a few hours) -- a slow shipment complaint (valid), and a "my merchandise showed up damaged" complaint (standard, and we always try to get that stuff replaced ASAP when we're told about it). I was glad to see those; it meant the problems didn't go unreported. Unreported problems yield resentment, and that's the last thing we want.

Then there were the other kind of replies:

I didn't order in March, but I wanted to let you know that this email impressed me quite a bit.

Thanks for thinking of your customers at a time when you are busy enough thinking about making things work on your end. No doubt this means I'll end up ordering something sooner than I otherwise would have.

Cheers!

Gee, Fred, no complaints here, but if you're giving away free stuff, feel free to send some my way...

;)

Hi IPR Gang,

I wanted to let you all know that my order XXXX, was within what I considered an acceptible delivery window. The order was placed in the evening on March 3rd (and processed on the 4th), and shiped on March 11th (I've seen faster and I've seen slower click to ship times). After leaving your warehouse, my products were delievered in great condition.

So, in short, I wanted to let you guys know what my order turn around was like and to say that I was pleased with the process of getting my books from you and look forward to providing you with more business.

Thanks!

I did notice that it took awhile to ship my stuff, but I figured it was
because you ran out of stock on something and waited until the next
shipment came in...

No harm, no foul.

(Oh, and IPR makes me awesome).

This is what I'm talking about, folks. An admission of a mistake, a fast apology, and a genuine effort to fix something when it goes wrong does more than damage control. It can even improve your situation from where you started.

Mistakes aren't problems, if you treat them right. They're opportunities.
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It’s Not Just For Improv

One of the phrases that has emerged from the lessons the gaming community is learning from improv techniques is "Here's how I make you awesome." This is a good lesson, one which folks can and should be taking to the gaming table. It's far more rewarding to the game, to the sense of camaraderie, to the social fabric of play, when everyone around the table is working hard to make everyone else awesome -- rather than grand-standing to show off how they are, by themselves, awesome. Don't get me wrong -- grandstanding is good and fun and has its place, but I find it works far better when it operates as the punctuation mark at the end of each sentence of communal play.

I'm using the word "communal" there with much intention, because here's what's going on with "here's how I make you awesome": when put into practice, it builds communities. This is in pat because communities form around emotional bonds with one another, and it is an incredible feeling when you get that moment of being awesome by being carried on the shoulders of those you're playing with, those people you respect and admire. It's a feeling of belonging, and as social mammals, that's a pretty important feeling for us to have.

So I'm glad that portions of the gaming community are picking up on this, and putting it into their play, whether through play-habits at the table or through systemization in the game texts themselves.

But that's just a starting point, if you ask me. The principle can, and should, be used more outside of games, inside the communities themselves, in social interactions with one another, online and off.

It's a principle I use when I'm participating in forums like RPG.net. I don't get into those threads to ring out the clear note of "me me me me". I get in there to say "here's how I make you awesome" to the rest of the folks in the discussion. I point at ideas that aren't mine that are cool and say "Yes! That's great! And here's something building on that!" When I act in a customer service capacity for either IPR or Evil Hat, I try to make use of it as well. It informs what I do and who I am online, whenever possible.

Heck, this is part of why good game reviewers are worth their weight in gold. When they do their job right, they are pure machines of "here's how I make you awesome" in action, bringing exposure, clarity, and insight to the good stuff out there. They are on the construction crews of community.

Yes, I do talk about my own stuff and the things that I do, but I do my level best to talk about the cool stuff out there that's not mine: that's how I make *them* awesome -- with attention, with audience, with respect, with praise. This is how I do what I can to feed and build communities I'm a part of.

(This is also why I go absolutely bug-nuts when folks who should be community builders suck the life out of them by failing to follow the principle of making others awesome. I try to go bug-nuts quietly rather than overtly, but it's hard to keep that particular demon down sometimes.)

There are plenty "be a good human" reasons to make this a part of your lifestyle. We are social creatures who wish to belong: create belonging through who and how you are online. But there are solid, pragmatic business reasons to do this as well.

If you're a game designer or publisher, you are your brand, you are as much a part of the product experience as the product itself. When people bond with you emotionally and positively, they're forming an emotional bond with your product, your brand. And you can take that to the bank.

This is why as a publisher it's so important to think about what you are doing as a community builder, as a participant who makes others awesome and in turn strengthens those emotional bonds that will keep the community strong and healthy. That's the currency -- in my opinion, the best kind of currency -- that you'll be investing in the years to come to build your success.

Make the folks who aren't you awesome.

The rest will follow.

Extra credit: Tell me who you made awesome today.
Filed Under: EHP Business, ipr Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

IPR Has a New Investor

We are excited to welcome a new member to the IPR family. Effective March 1st, Chris Hanrahan (most notably of EndGame, in Oakland California) has invested in a small piece of the company, and we are happy to have him aboard. Chris wanted to share his thoughts and reasoning for jumping onboard, and we figured this would be a nice way for you all to meet him:

"I'm thrilled to suit up as a Revolutionary. As many of you know, I've worked with IPR as a client for a few years now, and I am a believer in the community that has formed around Indie Press Revolution, the things we sell, and the model the business lives and breathes. When Brennan contacted me to gauge my interest there was no hesitation. IPR is helping change the face of gaming and I am more than happy to be a part of that. In the coming months, I hope to work with my fellow retailers, gamers, publishers, and the whole IPR community to get the word out there. Viva la Revolution!"

Please welcome Chris to the family. He will be at our Gama Trade Show booth in April, and has threatened to stop by our booths at Origins and Gencon. If you see him, say "hi!"
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IPR – Stock Status Change Feed

The last feed I wanted to create (for now) is set up. It'll eventually start updating on [info]iprprodstatus for you LJ-heads. But for now, your direct link is:

http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/stockstatus.xml

This feed shows status shifts -- when something goes out of stock, something shows up new in stock, and (probably most importantly) when something comes back in stock. The 'new in stock' part overlaps with the previous feed I mentioned a bit, but this is a more compact presentation than that feed offers, while covering broader ground.

Those who look at the feed's current contents will see a whole big wodge of out of stock as the first (bottom-most) entry -- that's just the initialization part; those didn't all go out of stock at once!
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IPR – New Products Feed

I did a little tinkering yesterday and put together something that provides an RSS feed of the last 20 products added to IPR. This should work pretty well as a way of seeing What's New on the site:

Livejournal feed -- add to your friends list here: [info]iprproducts

Direct RSS feed at: http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/latestproducts-rss.php

Note that the feed only gives the last 20, so when giant catalogs get added (like Archaia Studios') your feedreader may not update frequently enough to catch all of 'em.
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IPR: Crossover Potential

Now that we've got a big hunk of comic books at IPR, I've been thinking about how a "this with that" mentality could be applied to that part of the catalog. [info]judd_sonofbert is to blame for this, in part, when he started talking about it the other day -- the first clearest crossover being Revere: Revolution in Silver and Colonial Gothic. I think [info]gamera_spinning may have hit on this too -- my recollection's fuzzy.

So, LJ project! Reply to this post and propose a crossover between one of IPR's comic book titles and one of its role-playing games. Surprise me!
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