Weird Ebay reseller

This is weird. Somebody is selling two "new" copies of my game on Ebay, for $6 over new list price. They can't really be new, because the only new copies are in my basement and in the Amazon warehouse. Only two people have bought more than one copy at a time, and they're not ebay marketers - I know them personally. I also know where all the single copies that exist got sent to. So, a puzzle.

I'm not sure if they have used or promotional copies somehow, or if they're planning on fulfilling through Amazon or through me (although neither Amazon nor me offers two day shipping, which the Ebay seller promises). I guess it's possible they bought from Amazon and are repackaging, trying to make an extra $6 from markup. Or maybe it's that they're some kind of game store upselling trade-ins. Their other items for sale are all board games. If so, it would be hard for them to have gotten two copies already, and they wouldn't be new.

Obviously this doesn't really compete with me, because they are selling above my price, but it's weird. If people want to sell the game in game stores, I'm totally happy offering a discount for distribution.

Amazon early reviewer program

I signed up for Amazon's Early Reviewer program for Doctor Esker's Notebook, and I just got my first review through it. For $60, Amazon will offer buyers of the game a $3 Amazon gift card to purchasers who review my product until they give out five cards for five reviews. I don't have any input or control over the content of the reviews or who Amazon decides to ask. So, a pretty good deal for Amazon - they get $60 in exchange for giving out $15 in gift cards, which are only good on Amazon anyway.

Despite the benefit to Amazon and the cost, it has value for me too. I signed up for this before I had any reviews, because I thought it would help if there were early reviews on Amazon for a product few people had likely heard of, especially if the reviews came from verified customers. In the interim, four reviews have appeared there from other folks. So, at the end of this program, if five people take the gift card bait from Amazon, I'll at least have nine reviews.

This seems like a good idea, especially given all the controversy Amazon has faced with regard to review-stuffing scams. In this case, the reviews have bought the game from Amazon and should be providing authentic reviews, so they're just being compensated for sharing their opinion, whatever it is.

For more info on the program, see here.

Esker business update

For those of you following the business side of my indie game publishing project with Doctor Esker's Notebook, here's an update. I'm up to 115 total sales with revenues of $1,108, set against costs of $3,530, for a current (but shrinking) loss of $2,422.

The bulk of the costs is the development process and the print run, but I continue to have additional costs with marketing and promotion. If I sell out the entire rest of print run, I probably have another $8,800 in potential revenue, which (barring massive future marketing expenses) would make the project profitable. That assumes my time is worthless - if we paid me even a minimum-wage hourly rate for my work on the project, I'm deep underwater. Given that this is a so far a passion project, I'm fine with my time being counted as free.

Here are the numbers is in graph form:

The time axis advances to the right here, showing increasing revenue compared to mostly fixed costs, but the time isn't linear - it's just whenever I do an update.

For this one, time is linear - this is the history of the project starting with the print run at the end of last year, with additional costs added to revenues as time progresses to the right.

Plankton Games on Facebook

Hey, if you wouldn't mind, please like Plankton Games on Facebook. Here's the page:

https://www.facebook.com/planktongamesco

Some guy who's account is clearly hacked or fake took the planktongames username, and Facebook doesn't care, so I had to add the "co." I guess I should be flattered that my trademark is worth stealing.

Thanks!

TGC Esker Contest Continues

Only four more days until we know the winner of the TheGameCrafter Doctor Esker's Notebook Puzzle and Parts Challenge. 624 entries so far, which is wild. Who will win free games?