None of us make zine games to get rich. And almost no one is making a living at it.

So when I talk about about making my games easier for retailers to sell, my goal has little to do with money and a lot to do with pragmatic ways to increase joy in the world. I'm also a big believer and cheerleader for Friendly Local Game Stores, Local Book Shops, and comic stores. So I want to make it easy for them to get zines -- mine, yours, everyone's -- in front of a receptive audience.

To that end, I consulted with the owner of one FLGS, Game Kastle College Park, for some advice. What I recount below also includes tips from Indie Press Revolution and chats with many other retailers in my local area. Expect me to modify and expand this page as I expand my scope of conversations.

Experimenting with what I learned, I released a Retailer Kit to help stores better promote the Bonsai Diary with their customers. Apropos to the advice below, I've marked a ✅ where I've been able to deliver, and an ❎ where I still have more work to do.

Product design

✅ Make your cover legible at different sizes and visually striking to people walking by. Some designers I've talked to are big believers in making eye contact.

✅ Put your title in the top third of your cover so it's visible in a vertical zine rack.

❎ Consider perfect binding if your zine is thick enough so it's visible when filed away on a bookshelf. I'm convinced that 95% of nonfiction books is filler so they can meet this requirement. I can't and don't want to do this for the Bonsai Diary because the drawing and tracing mechanic needs the book to lie fully flat.

Below is of several spaces Game Kastle College Park devotes to zine-size games. At first I thought that glossy beige surface was part of the zine stand -- only now do I realize that it's a shrink-wrapped game. Can you identify the yellow sealed boxes in back? What about the staple-bound zines, or the blue box? Unless you're WOTC, you don't control how stores display your product, so design with flexibility in mind.

Product pricing

✅ Provide a Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). Set it and stick to it -- be consistent and honest about pricing.

❎ Some retailers suggest putting the MSRP right on the cover; this increases their certainty at the cost of later price flexibility. (I got this advice right after I'd already locked in my second print run order for The Bonsai Diary).

✅ Whatever you do, don't undercut your retailers by offering the same game at a lower price online. When working conventions with a local retailer, they told us that they liked carrying our games because we're not on Amazon where browsers can pop the game into their cart for a lower price.

❎ Include a bar code -- ISBN for books, UPC for everything else. These codes are, unfortunately, quite expensive to buy individually. I understand the Indie Game Designers Network buys ISBN codes in bulk for member use.

Retailer conveniences

These tips are as much about showing you take retail seriously as it is about actual conveniences for them. Understand that ordering indie zines often involves a lot more hassle than games with stronger distribution networks, so retailers who want to buy indie are already meeting you more than halfway.

✅ Link to your wholesale distributors.

❎ On the listing, if you've got an ISBN, UPC, or SKU, make it visible.

📍 Have clear and understandable terms for wholesale pricing (generally, 40-60% off MSRP) and what it takes to qualify (generally, a minimum order). I sell wholesale through Indie Press Revolution, which has a set wholesale rate, but when selling direct to retailers (which I did in the Kickstarter and now whenever it's easy to handle), I needed to set it myself -- I found 50% off easy and fair.

📍 Offer a "free ship break" -- the quantity of order when the purchaser qualifies for free shipping. Again, IPR handles this for me, but when selling direct, I looked up media mail on USPS and found that 25 copies was a reasonable breakpoint for shipping costs (this will vary by product weight, so do your own research!).

❎ Participate in Bits-and-Mortar so in-store purchasers also get access to a digital version, just as they would online. With only one title published, the annual fee for this service doesn't quite work for me, but it's something I look forward to being able to afford.

Marketing to retailers

Retailers are different than consumers! They stand in for their consumers, yes, but they also have their own considerations.

✅ Provide a sell sheet that explains why they should buy your game. The sell sheet should address both halves of the retailer's interest:

1. Why would my customer want this?
2. What does this mean for me?
   

1. Why would my customer want this?

✅ Be clear and direct about what this product is: "An alternative setting for 5e;" a "World-building toolkit; " a "Bestiary of monsters for any fantasy setting." When in doubt, try the Hollywood elevator pitch: "Dungeons & Dragons meets silk stockings" or "K-Pop Demon Hunters, but grunge."

✅ Specify the intended audience as clearly as possible: "romantacy readers; "OSR players looking for a sci-fi setting"

✅ Use pictures and be concise; avoid the dreaded "wall of text." (IMO, making a fancy graphic version of your text just makes the problem worse).

2. What does this mean for me, the retailer?

✅ Offer photos that help the retailer can imagine your product on their shelf -- so as described above, if your product has a spine, make sure one of your photos shows it. Show your product in context of other common objects to give a sense of scope.

✅ Describe the physical properties of the product:

• Dimensions. Retailers want to know if your product will fit on their shelves and how much space it will take up.
• Other key descriptors: "hardcover," "softcover," "staple-bound zine," "shrink-wrapped"

✅ Include all the pricing information suggested above.

✅ Suggest how the retailer might cross-sell your product through store placement, staff recommendations, or events

Retailer aids

✅ Offer media packs with photos of your product at different angles. Even if the retailer doesn't advertise your game by itself, they might include it in a group promotion (say, by theme). Odds & Ents offers easy-to-use templates to create 3D mockups of your zine.

✅ Don't forget to include your company logo and, if you're willing, your face. Social media algorithms really like faces!

✅ Offer social media images in all the major aspect ratios: 5:9, 9:5, 1:1, 4:5.

✅ Leave space on the images for the retailer to insert their own information!

✅ Offer a quickstart guide, especially for RPGs, so staff can understand your game well enough to pitch it.

✅ Label your files clearly with their intended purpose.

✅ Make it clear that retailers have permission to use and modify these assets and under what conditions (e.g., for purposes of promoting the product).

Examples

• Wizards Play Network : Hasbro / Wizards of the Coast pretty much sets the bar.
• VOID 1680 AM Press Kit: top-tier marketing materials for Ken Lowry's award-winning game
• The Bonsai Diary retailer kit The thing this post is attached to

Publishers, retailers, what did I miss? Please comment below. I plan to keep this post updated as I continue to learn more!