Monday Report – November 5, 2012

[Kevin]

Monday Report – November 5, 2012

Youmacon Weekend

You never know what to expect when you go to a convention, especially one that is not, strictly, your market.

The idea is that you have the opportunity to introduce your product to a potential new market that shares similar demographics to your traditional one. In this case, a 16-30 year old age group and people into science fiction, fantasy, adventure and a wide range of other games. Indeed, I personally sold three core rule books to people who had never played Palladium RPGs before, and gave a copy of the Rifts® Ultimate Edition to a young lady who said their group was just getting into role-playing and had considered playing Rifts®. Of course, four people isn’t exactly a lot. Moreover, we only sold enough product to break even.

Hey, at least we broke even, and it wasn’t just Palladium who was experiencing poor sales. I spoke to most of the vendors and only about 25% reported good to excellent sales. Most complained loudly and used words like “terrible,” “awful” and “disappointing.” Like Palladium, most feared they’d barely make their expenses. Some said they’d lose money. These complaints came from the artists alley as well as from vendors. One artist told me how she made $2,000 the year before and had only made $500 by Sunday morning. I should point out that Sunday sales were actually pretty strong. Saturday sales were the best, and Friday sales were abysmal. So, considering the awful start, breaking even seemed not too bad.

The main reasons for the weak sales 1. The new, split-venue and the fact that the 10,000+ attending had to walk 4-5 blocks from the hotel to get to the Dealers' area, and frigid weather (freezing in the morning and evening, with afternoon highs of 38-42 degrees Fahrenheit – about 15-20 degrees below normal). If you’ve ever gone to an anime convention, you know that 90% of the attendees dress in costume. Many of them lightweight or minimal articles of clothing. In short, they froze their kiesters off walking those 4-5 blocks. A lot of the people who came by the dealers' area on Sunday, said it was the first time they found the time to walk over.

While we didn’t lose money, we didn’t make a profit either, and we did lose 3 days of work. I'd have to say our experience with Youmacon was disappointing, but I still see potential in it.

On the plus side of Youmacon:

I found two potential new artists and two potential writers.

I got to chat a bit with Mark Dudley and the Imaginos crew.

I had fun with Chuck Walton who was helping out at the booth and selling his art prints.

Chuck and I talked about some tweaks and additional art for Northern Gun, and we made a few other interesting contacts.

We enjoyed speaking with many Palladium fans.

The convention support people at the dealers' area were all very nice.

Oh, and I bought a new Cowboy BeBop T-shirt. BeBop is probably my favorite anime after Robotech/Macross. They didn't have XL so I bought a 2XL. It will be a bit baggy but that's okay.

Monday, November 5, 2012

With the time change and so many things on my plate, I woke up at 4:30 AM and could not fall back to sleep. So I got up at 5:00 AM and was working by 6:00 AM.

I processed Surprise Packages, signed a pile of books, answered some emails, sorted through weekend mail, paid a batch of bills, made some notes, unloaded the van with Julius, made a deposit at the bank, dropped some mail off at the post office, did a little editing, ran out to the printer to approve the print copy of the new Catalog (it looked great), ran some other errands, wrote this Murmur and now, after a 14 hour day, I’m going to be heading home.

A couple positive things also happened on the business front and excitement is starting to percolate again.

I hope to do nothing but work on writing and assigning remaining art for the rest of the week. Need to get books finished. Game on.

Sincerely,
Kevin Siembieda
Publisher, Writer and Ghoulmaster

© Copyright November 5, 2012 Palladium Books Inc. All rights reserved.

Rifts®, The Rifter®, RECON®, Splicers®, Palladium Books®, Phase World®, The Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game®, Megaverse®, Nightbane®, The Mechanoids®, The Mechanoid Invasion®, Coalition Wars® and After the Bomb® are Registered Trademarks of Palladium Books Inc. Heroes Unlimited™, Beyond the Supernatural, Dead Reign, Warpath, Shemarrian Nation, and other published book titles, names, slogans and likenesses are trademarks of Palladium Books Inc., and Kevin Siembieda.

Robotech® and Robotech® The Shadow Chronicles® are Registered Trademarks of Harmony Gold USA, Inc.