Andrew Innes started Anomia Press in May of 2009. However, quite a lot happened before that. He came up with an idea for a game when he was about 12 years old. Mostly, the concept just rattled around in his head for years and years. In Andrew’s 30s, he decided to finally try and make a p...
Andrew Innes started Anomia Press in May of 2009. However, quite a lot happened before that. He came up with an idea for a game when he was about 12 years old. Mostly, the concept just rattled around in his head for years and years. In Andrew’s 30s, he decided to finally try and make a prototype of his idea. Five prototypes and many, many play-testing sessions later (not to mention a full-time job, a wedding, a baby, a move from Brooklyn to Boston, and another baby) ANOMIA, was finally done.
In the spring of 2009, Andrew started Anomia Press and set out to raise enough money to pay for the first printing of ANOMIA. He used Facebook, Twitter, email, and AnomiaPress.com to appeal to the hundreds of people who had attended play-test sessions over the years. He asked everyone to pre-purchase copies of Anomia to help subsidize the first printing. (Sound like a familiar approach? Kickstarter.com launched right around the same time.)
By the end of July 2009, he had pre-sold over 500 copies of ANOMIA and had succeeded in raising enough money to go into production. The games arrived in mid-November and he shipped out all 500+ copies just in time for the Thanksgiving holidays. The momentum continued and by the end of 2010, ANOMIA had sold over 25,000 copies, won major toy industry awards, and had been picked up by hundreds of stores across the United States, Canada, and Australia. In December 2010 Andrew's wife, Jody Burr, came on board to help out with both marketing and design, not to mention Quickbooks. And yes, they have subjected their kids (and their friends) to tons of play-testing sessions, truly making this a family business.