From print-on-demand to a real print run: advice on US printers, distribution and Amazon for a 68-card game?
My wife and I designed Street Food Shuffle, a card-drafting party game about Indian street food: you build dishes while sabotaging your friends and stealing their cards. 68 cards, 2-6 players, 20-40 minutes. We playtested it with 100+ players and it's now live on DriveThruCards as print on demand.
POD got us to market, but the per-unit cost makes wholesale and retail pricing hard, and discovery on DriveThru is limited. The plan is a proper print run from a US printer and selling on Amazon (likely FBA).
Would love to hear from anyone who has made this jump:
Printers: which US card game printers have you used, or would avoid? What minimum orders, per-unit costs and lead times were realistic for a single-deck game with a tuck box?
Publishers and distributors: are any open to small indie card games? Did licensing or self-publishing work better for you?
Amazon: anything you wish you'd known before listing a game there (FBA fees, barcodes, brand registry, returns)?
Finding all of the above: directories, conventions or communities that actually helped?
Happy to share what we learned from 100+ playtests in return, especially about reading the table when you have no data.
(Game page for context: https://streetfoodshuffle.online/)