When the KS project ends and you have in hand an extra few hundred decks of cards the first question is: How can I turn this into cash?  The simplest and most effective way (and least profitable) is to find distributors who will consign or outright buy your excess...mind you, for pennies on the dollar.  Another way is to sell them on Etsy which has a reasonable find and search buying group, but don't expect to sell a lot.  You can sell it on Amazon, but then you need to have keywords or related links that will make your stuff more visible.  Or.... and here is my advice and my point to all this:  Make the circuits where your buyers are.

I attended ComicCon for the first time this year (yay me) and guess what.... no playing cards!
I just spent this past week at the World Board Gaming Championships filled with guess who... consumers who will think nothing about spending $70 on a board game and NEED playing cards to fill the time between heats.  Guess how many deck designers were represented?  Just one.  Bent Castle from Rochester had three decks and two card games represented through a gaming distributor (I bought one of their decks).  Meanwhile, over 300 board games were represented. 

My point... the newer art and comic based decks have buyers who DO NOT (I sat through a two hour seminar to learn this) use Kickstarter.  I talked to over a hundred people about crowdfunding and kickstarter and it was as foreign as scrapple is to a Californian.

I have five events next year that I am signing up for to sell games and decks.  I don't mind healthy competition.  I think it may actually help sales! 

Please post here if you have other creative ideas on how to sell your "extra" decks.

As I've grown a little older and a little wiser, I realize that my first deck while well received did not have the design elements nor the branding that USPCC can provide to help legitimize the deck.  So I took a trip back to the drawing board and began making some serious changes.  First, the court cards.  Originally these were the same on both ends, however as a board gamer I learned quickly that I'd be able to create more games if I could reverse the cards making them pre- and post- zombie.  It's not a new concept, but I like to give this deck as much flexibility as possible.

First Change:

Courts - Changes in fonts and alignment as well as pre- and post- zombie images

The last of my independant decks.  From this point forward all my deck design will be done through my game company, Man Made Games.  Up to this point the art and design have been my own, moving forward I will be joined by some talented individuals to release even more exciting decks.  For now, check it out:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/344063227/a-victorian-adventure-custom-playing-cards-uspcc

I was pushing together a deck for a game I call 4 Jokers.  The game play isn't as smooth as i'd like and I am finding very little interest in card games themselves.  It seems the comic book and specialty gaming stores are more interested in collector cards (yawn).  One guy looked over the game and said, "I love the jokers, do you have a set of those?"  Um... I have 4.  But then I had an idea, and before I get too far down the road on my own, I thought it would be fitting to call the deck 'Four Jokers' and have it be an all 'Joker' deck in keeping with a carnival type theme perhaps.  And each suit would represent a different type of Joker:
Classic/Vintage, Risque, Dark/Sinister, Comical/Romantic.  Now, it doesn't make sense for one joker to design the entire deck, so I wondered if any designers would be interested in collaborating and volunteering to be one of the other 'Jokers' (4 Joker Types, 4 Suits, 4 Creators).  I don't want to give too much away, but I have.  So I'm taking names, who's game?

It would be interesting to see the trending themes for decks to understand the market saturation, and to get a thumb on the forecast for new designs.  In the textile industry they talk about the new colors of the season.  This summer we will be trending in light aquas and pansy pinks... whatever that means.

You can easily look at the most recent launches and see that Lovecraft, Steampunk, and Zombies have made huge numbers in their themes, but as been said here many times, they are all a bit overdone.  So as these themes begin to ebb, what are the next themes?  I know everyone wants to know that so they can start designing.  Normally trends come from the movies that are being released, so when pirate movies are popular, pirate cards are popular. 

I'd like to see a line graph based on major themes to see how they trend.  I don't have enough back data to do it justice.  While I understand that unique 'one of a kind because no one has ever thought of it before' decks are the best to design, but the problem is that those ideas typically only come along once in a lifetime.  The rest of the time, you have to cater to the wants of the masses.

By the way I'm still playing with the idea of Cheese's of the World where different types of cheese would be carved into the shape of Jesus.  I kid... or do I?

Okay, I'm neither Amish or in the mafia.  I do however live in Lancaster PA on a farm where all my neighbors are Amish or Menonite.  My commute too work every morning requires driving around and passing buggies.  I am a collector and creator.  I enjoy outstanding artwork on playing cards and interesting subject matter.  I look forward to getting feedback from projects I've been working on and appreciate constructive criticism.

Thanks

ManMadeGames