Chase Me!

A couple of distributors who've signed up to take some It's Alive! chased me yesterday to see when It's Alive! is due to arrive. I'd originally told them mid-August, but the manufacturers are now saying first week of September. Apparently several shops are champing at the bit to get their stock - my emailing everyone seems to be paying off :-)

I've also received a final quote for Carpe Astra from the German manufacturer. It's very reasonable, so I can get on and get that together.

In hindsight I made a mistake with the pricing of It's Alive! I tried to make it for £15 again, the same as the Limited Edition. I then spent several weeks desperately trying to the manufacturer's quote down to an acceptable level. The final result was margins that are way too tight - I can't carry on making so little profit. A better way to have gone about it was to realise that I couldn't get it done for £15 with a sensible margin, and to have gone for £20 then upped the quality of several components (cards -> tiles, thin card -> thick card for the guides and slabs). Assuming I could make a decent margin on that version I might have been better off. As it is, I'm going to hope that I do well at Essen where I'll get a better margin - selling directly to customers.

Carpe Astra will be more expensive, it's got over 100 cards, lots of thick card components (tiles, scoring markers, coins) and a few wooden pieces. The German manufacturers are cheaper too, so my margin will be a bit more sustainable.