Summing up the GTS 09 talks

So, what are the main points I've learned listening to these couple of talks? There's a ton of good stuff in these, but I think I can distill it down to a few major points that will be most useful to me.

• You can save a goodly amount of money printing in China vs. domestically (they say between 30% and 70%), but it's a big hassle. I'm not sure it will be worth it for me if it's at the 30% end.
• The savings in China will be bigger for bigger print runs, for bigger games (i.e. larger boxes, more pieces), and for games with plastic parts. None of these potential savings likely apply to me.
• Don't start with a print run bigger than about 3,000 - that seems to be the sweet spot they recommend between getting a low enough cost-per-game balanced with any hope of ever selling them all. 5,000 is too ambitious, and 10,000 is insane.
• Design is very easy; refining a design into publishable form takes some serious effort, and printing is harder still, but none of these hold a candle to the challenge of actually marketing and selling your game.

The talks didn't give a lot of help with that last part - the marketing and selling - other than to establish a relationship with distributors and go to the trade shows.