Field Report: Book Expo America

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

This week, Paizo publisher Erik Mona (that's me in the picture!) and Sales Director Pierce Watters are in New York City for Book Expo America, an annual conference of booksellers, librarians, publishers, and book distributors that's one of the largest conventions in North America. We've been attending Book Expo for about five years, and in that time it's been amazing to see how the profile of our favorite roleplaying game has changed.

Back when we launched, we had to really explain Pathfinder to just about everyone who approached our booth. To make matters a bit more complex, we're in the "Diamond Alley" of Diamond Book Distributors, our book trade distribution partner, who mostly distributes comics and graphic novels. With a booth next to the likes of IDW, Image, and Oni Press, most folks coming to our booth wanted to know about our comics and trade paperbacks.

These days, things have changed considerably. Not only is Pathfinder well known to book distributors and librarians as a highly successful and very popular tabletop roleplaying game, but many of them come up to tell us about their Pathfinder RPG campaigns! Oh, what a difference a half-decade makes, as they say (they do say that, right?).

This year we've got some absolutely wonderful treats for Pathfinder fans at the show, including early looks at actual printed samples of HUGE summer releases like the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition, the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary Box, the Player Character Folio, every single page of the first issue of the upcoming Pathfinder comic book from Dynamite, and more!

If you're one of the lucky folks attending the show this year, please swing by the booth to say hi and check out the cool new products! (In the likely event that you are NOT at Book Expo America, don't despair, we'll have all this stuff at PaizoCon and Gen Con as well (where you will even get to buy most of it—there are no book sales at BEA, which is first and foremost an industry trade show).

But even though most of you can't make it to Book Expo, I wanted to drop by the Paizo Blog today with some sweet pictures of some of the most exciting products we're showing off at this year's show.

And I don't mean books, or comics, or even little plastic figurines.

I'm talking about GOBLIN PLUSH, BABY!

Say hello to my little friends:

That's right, later this year these cute little monsters will be making their way to the marketplace! They stand 10 inches tall, and while soft and adorable, they're rigid enough to stand on your game shelves or on guard over your bed, protecting your dreams from evil dogs and horses. We've got three goblins in production right now. The ones in the background are prototypes, and will change a bit before production, but I wanted to at least hint at the variety in store.

This guy looks exactly like he will when he ships later this year, complete with his eerie smile, earring, arm band, belt, and shorts. The other two goblins (with slight variations to their facial expressions) will follow shortly thereafter, with the plan being to release all three varieties by the end of the year (and more in the months to follow!).

Since the cameras are flying fast and furious at Book Expo, we wanted to take this chance to let the goblins out of the bag ourselves, lest you find the news too incredibly awesome to believe.

Believe it, my friends. The (plush) goblins are coming.

And they are hungry!

Keep your eyes on the Paizo Blog for more details about these awesome plush creatures as they develop, and post your suggestions for additional goblin looks you'd like us to try out in the future in the comments below!

Erik Mona
Publisher