Bar codes for self publishers?????

For bar codes/upc information visit

http://www.gs1us.org/gs1us.html this is the main group behind UPC, but you may find it a bit costly to go full board on getting UPC Barcodes. There are other places like http://www.buyabarcode.com/barcode%20page%201.html that will allow you to buy one single UPC barcode, but I dont know much about this company so use them at your own risk.

For liability insurance, check out http://www.wachovia.com/small_biz/page/0,,443_577,00.html I have been directed to them by various references, though I have not looked into pricing.

As for hazard warnings, I dont know much about this, but I think putting anything that warns the consumer would help you in the long run. Two useful sites I found that might help you out, http://www.discovergames.com/choking.htm and that one refers to http://www.cpsc.gov/

Hope this helps you decode at least part of the secret info!

--Dave

No problem.... I just happen to be investigating some of these areas for my company. So I had some links handy.

...

If I understand you right, you would like to know about any information that I might have about marketing?

If so, I am not sure I can answer this yet. Marketing is such a difficult part of overall process. It takes a little bit of everything to market a product. Getting on a shelf in a store if a huge step in marketing your product, think about it, you have a spot on a store shelf that "everyone" can walk by and see. But getting to those shelves is not easy. You mentioned you talked with sales reps, do you have distributor guidelines set up for yourself? If not you might want to look into it, here is a sample guideline, http://contracts.onecle.com/castelle/ams.distrib.2001.04.24.shtml, . Sorry if it is overwhelming, but you need these things to protect yourself.

I honestly have not done much outside of convetions, ads and word of mouth. Ads are very costly for most people, I am amazed at how much magazine people want to charge for advertising... ugh! As for conventions, they add up quickly too! GenCON runs $1000+ for a booth, though many small shops have started sharing to reduce this overhead.

Not sure how much experience I have to share, I have done a ton of things, but I am still learning. By no way do I understand the biz yet. But if you have any other questions, let me know and I will do my best to help you out if I can.

Leading Edge,

It sounds like we have alot in common. I have been working on a childrens game for over a year. It starts production in about two weeks and I'll have my 5000 copies around Oct. 1st. I have planned to submit my ideas to QVC and HSN as well and have a host of other ideas (this months issue of entrepreneur had a good article about a woman starting on QVC). I got a UPC symbol and it cost $750. I truly think I've covered all of my bases in preparation with the exception of product liability insurance and a functional web site. I have the domain names reserved and will have my project manager start on the web site design in a week or so. I incorporated a company so that I could protect my personal assets. I hope to find out more about product liabaility when I have the chance. I hope to be able to capitalize on some of Christmas, but understand that some buyers have already made their selections by the time I have a game. Good luck.

HR Puff

I am now in the process of manufacturing about 6000 copies of a game. When I was looking into UPC registration, I found this information pretty helpful:

http://bellsouthpwp.net/l/a/laurergj/UPC/Needcode.html

It has some information about a couple different options, if you don't want to shell out several hundred dollars right away.

Cheers,
Bill