The Year Ahead: In Like Flynn in 2012...

Good Morning, All:

While times have been rough, I haven't forgotten about my blog. Indeed, I've been giving it a lot of thought over the last few months. Essentially, I view my blog as serving two purposes: 1) to provide me with a way of expressing my creativity and getting feedback from those interested enough to post comments; and 2) to help me develop things for my game and for my publishing imprint, Samardan Press.

This morning I looked through the sales numbers for various products I have sold under the Samardan Press label. As I have done before, here's a rough breakdown of total sales to date, by product, sorted by System and then Title:

Title	Lulu-Print	Lulu-Electronic	RPGNow	Total Sold	System	Type
Fantasy Concepts Campaign Resource	27	107	42	176	FC	System
OGL Alternatives: Alternate Advancement System	0	32	31	63	Generic	Rules
Modern Options: The Tome Of Talents	0	18	7	25	Modern	Rules
MyD20 Lite Bestiary: Common Creatures	1	3	5	9	MyD20	Monsters
MyD20 Lite Player's Guide	4	19	48	71	MyD20	System
Book of Races	7	9	29	45	S&W	Rules
Hammersong's Legacy	5	5	1	11	S&W	Setting
Flynn's Guide To Alien Creation	36	52	144	232	Traveller	Rules
Flynn's Guide to Azri Drakara: A Primer	3	1	21	25	Traveller	Setting
Flynn's Guide to Azri Drakara: Republic Starships	3	0	31	34	Traveller	Vehicle
Flynn's Guide to Azri Drakara: Rodan Subsector	3	3	35	41	Traveller	Setting
Flynn's Guide to Magic in Traveller	16	18	96	130	Traveller	Rules
One-Act Adventure: Vengeance By Proxy	13	12	0	25	Traveller	Adventure

From the numbers above, it is easy to see that my best sellers are my Traveller products, followed closely behind by Fantasy Concepts. MyD20 Lite and Swords & Wizardry bring up the rear at third and fourth place. On a product by product basis, Fantasy Concepts outdistances everything, but Traveller sales are still strong, easily twice that of MyD20 Lite on a per-product basis, which in turn is twice that of Swords & Wizardry. Since Fantasy Concepts was a one-off product, it would help my business to focus primarily on Traveller products in the coming year.

In terms of product types, I can see that I have the most sales with Rules-related sourcebooks, with a particular emphasis on my core system books in particular. Surprisingly, monsters don't sell as well, although my starship book is doing much better than I actually expected. We learned last time that setting books don't do well, but I've been surprised at the performance of the Traveller setting books I've written. Adventures are doing almost as well as my setting work, and they tend to support a product line that features a setting, so I may have to change my mind on their place in my publishing future. I think I'll publish a new one in the next few months and see how well it does. Besides, I like to put a lot of background information into my adventures, so it will be like a mini-setting sourcebook as well.

With that in mind, I'm inclined to put my efforts toward the following directions with future products:

• Traveller products will continue to be my main focus.
• I still intend to release at least one more MyD20 Lite product to complete the set, but otherwise, I am not going to be active here until I see how the D&D 5th Edition playtest material looks. MyD20 Lite was my solution to the same problem they are facing, and I may discover that their efforts may render mine mute.
• I will publish one more Traveller adventure, to see how it fairs and whether it proves profitable to publish adventures or not.
• I will not publish any of the other ideas that were bouncing around in my head, at least at this time, because it detracts me from focusing on the things that will actually help me become a more successful publisher.

The direction of In Like Flynn is also going to shift. My focus going forward will be on the Traveller system, although that does not require me to be focused on just Science Fiction. After all, the system can still be used to run fantasy-based games, so expect that this blog will also sport some of its usual Old School Fantasy flavor. (Besides, I know me, and I'm still likely to slip a few traditional gaming system posts in here from time to time.) Note, though, that this blog will be expanding into the realm of Science Fiction, so expect to see that diversity in future posts.

Thank you all for your patience and your presence on this blog, and I look forward to what 2012 holds for us all. It should be a fun year!

With Regards,
Flynn