Monday, February 11, 2019

Doctor Esker's Notebook: One week in

OK, I've had a published game out there for one week. Yay! Here are some numbers:
  • I started with 1080 copies; I've sold 24. 
  • After shipping (which I'm offering free and covering from sales revenue) and payment processing fees, I've cleared about $220 in net revenue. I'll owe a little bit of North Carolina sales tax on in-state sales.
  • Of the 24 sales, at least 22 are to people who have a personal connection to me. One of them I don't have a name for yet, and one of them (purchased on Amazon) seems to have found me in another way, but I don't know how. 
  • I really need to expand my sales beyond just people who know me, because I don't have 1080 friends.
  • I've spent about $3300 on this so far, as broken down in the chart here:
  • That comes to about $3 per game in costs. After the selling and fulfillment fees on Amazon (I'm having them ship the product), I clear about $7.50 per game. For the ones I've sold on my site via PayPal and shipped myself, I clear a little under $10 per game. So, I have to sell somewhere between 500-700 of my print run to make back what I've spent so far. 
  • I've done small ad campaigns with Facebook affinity ads and Google search ads directed to my site. They've both produced about the same (small) number of clicks, but Facebook has about 400 times the impressions (showings) as Google. That suggests that Google search results are much more efficient (i.e. clickable) than  Facebook ads. Neither of them have (as far as I can tell) resulted in any sales. Not sure I'll continue with those.
  • Board Game Geek's minimum ad package is $500, which would mean it would have to produce at least 50 sales to pay for itself. If reports from Kickstarter campaigns (which don't even have real games yet) who've advertised on BGG can be believed, that might be possible.
  • I do have a bit of a secret weapon, although I have no idea how strong it is. Although I no longer have an ownership stake in the Snood corporation, my partner there has said he would be amenable to advertising Doctor Esker's Notebook to their mailing list. The audience between Snood and a puzzle card game probably doesn't have a strong overlap, but it might have some, and there may be some residual Snood customer goodwill there.
  • I've sent the game out to several reviewers. I'm hoping to get some reviews up, either from those review sites, or from Amazon customers, or Board Game Geek users, before I do too much more marketing, because right now, there is no way for a potential buyer to know if the game is any good or not.
I'll update more later, but it's been a really exciting week.

2 comments:

  1. Hi! Since you're curious: I purchased on Amazon because I misread your check-out page as charging shipping. I found out about the game because I follow the RSS feed of this blog. I first knew you through Snood, then through your teaching at Guilford College in the late 90s.

    I bought this game in particular because I have a friend who enjoys puzzle games, and I wanted to have this to hand for his next visit.

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  2. Hi John, thanks for trying it out! I remembered you from Guilford, so I counted you along folks who had a connection. The mystery person is a Texan. I hope you enjoy the game!

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