'tis the season

Season's greetings. My holiday wish for you this year is that you're “good busy” right about now (versus overwhelmed) and still glowing from having your blackest Black Friday weekend yet. Right now, we're busy too, and soon will be even busier as we embark on the long days and nights of putting together our January and February issues, home to our all-important coverage of the American International Toy Fair.

For us here at Playthings, December is deadline season. By now, I'm hoping that, if you're a manufacturer, your marketing/communications team has sent us all of the pertinent details of your 2007 lines so we can include you in our coverage. (Our deadline, after all, was December 1…Have you not seen the ads and the email blasts?) But, let's just suppose by some odd chance your company has been slow to pull all that information together and get it to us in time—I know, that's not your company, yours is fast, efficient and always out front when it comes to publicity, it's your former company that was like that—but humor me and let's say that's the situation you currently find yourself in. You may be thinking, 'Uh oh, now what?'”

Well, basically, at this point, you've got two options: you could ignore the fact that you've screwed up and hope no one notices that your company's products aren't featured in our Toy Fair issues … Toy Fair, after all, is a really busy time and who has time to read a magazine in the middle of it, right? Let me tell you, as one who has tried the ignore-it-and-it'll-go-away strategy (many, many times, unfortunately—ask my boss), it never works. So, here's what you can do instead: call or email me (if you look over to the right of this page you'll see I've already given you my contact info—go ahead, look over there, I'll wait…), and we'll discuss what we can do to try to squeeze in your information.

While our goal is to cover everyone who will be at the show, if you're a first time Toy Fair exhibitor, I especially want to hear from you. There's nothing better in this job than stumbling across a brand new toy company, even if by “toy company” all you really are is some guy with a prototype, a storage unit and a dream. If you've got a business card, I'll assume you're legit, so don't be shy. Odds are, you'll make an impression with someone and we'll want to know about it when you do. (And our job is to know about that sort of stuff…preferably before anyone else.) It's a fun business that way, this toy business—very entrepreneurial and open to new people with new ideas. If you have a good idea, people notice, often with checkbook in hand… And if you actually reach out to me to tell me about yourself, maybe we can speed that process along, and I won't have to “stumble across” you randomly at Toy Fair. That's what I call a win-win for both of us. After a certain point during Toy Fair, trust me, we of the coveted “press badge” begin to lose interest in stumbling across people in the bowels of Javits doing the carnival barker shtick at us while we're on our way to grab a $7 pretzel or heading to the booth of someone who made the effort to guarantee we stop by. It'll be worth your while. Coverage in our humble yet storied publication gets read. People in the toy business have been poring over this magazine since 1903, and 2007 will be no different.

And while I'm on the topic of Toy Fair appointments, let me just say that I will personally be in both Hong Kong and Nuremberg, so drop me a line to set up an appointment for either of those shows, too. That way, I'll feel like all that flying was worth it, and you can free up your New York schedule to meet with the people I'm sure you most want to see at any show: the buyers.

Who ever said I didn't look out for my friends?