# What kind of Sales can you expect from PDF?



## Pharaun (Nov 11, 2002)

It is I, Kent, again, from Khan's Press.  I was just wondering, what can I expect in sales for a PDF book?  Are we talking hundreds of copies, thousands?

Also, I would like to announce, assuming everything goes as planned, our first book should be out Friday, November 22nd.  It is titled Tremon:Kingdom of Sorcery.  You can find a small preview at our website http://www.khanspress.tk   In it, you can find one new race, a new prestige class, and a new monster.  Take a look and enjoy.

You can direct any questions or comments to myself at khanspresskc@yahoo.com

Thank you,
Kent Cramer
Co-Founder of Khan's Press


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## Morrus (Nov 11, 2002)

Varies immensely.  Most sell under 100 copies.  The top few on RPGNow's bestsellers list have sold 600+.  If anyone has sold over 1,000, then it's only Monte Cook (and I have no idea how many he sells, but he sells a lot!)


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## Alzrius (Nov 11, 2002)

I just feel like pointing that that, in my opinion, most PDFs don't sell too widely is because its immensely easy for people to get them free from friends. 

I know this is frowned on by the entire community, but it does happen, since no one asks other people if they got their PDFs this way (and its easy to lie even then). One guy buys a PDF, and is happy to email it to a friend, etc. and it goes on from there. The amount of people using a PDF product probably far exceeds the amount of people who actually purchase it. Thats another reason why print products are better.

Please don't shoot the messenger on this one folks.


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## Bagpuss (Nov 11, 2002)

Well since about of my gaming friends have never bought a gaming product outside the core rules (and some not even them).

I doubt the friends factor actually effects sales that much.

I think it is much more likely that people prefer a paper product, plus you have a very limited audience. Not only can you only sell to gamers, you can only sell to gamers,
who buy RPG products
who buy RPG products by small D20 companies
who are online 
who shop online
who don't mind a PDF product
who like you product

Thats a very small group of people.


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## philreed (Nov 11, 2002)

*PDF Sales*



			
				Pharaun said:
			
		

> *It is I, Kent, again, from Khan's Press.  I was just wondering, what can I expect in sales for a PDF book?  Are we talking hundreds of copies, thousands?*




I don't have as much experience in this area as <I>many</I> others who visit this forum. But I have comments.

Each PDF I've released was designed around a break-even point of approximately 80 sales. I'm only spending about $200 on each one (split between time working on the project and any money I pay for a cover). I'm fairly confident that any D20 product I release can sell 80 copies in about one month.

After this point I consider the product profitable. 80 units sold means that I've made as much money working on the PDF as I would have working at my day job. The bonus is that I own what I complete.

To date I've sold almost 170 copies of 101 Spellbooks and almost 140 copies of 101 Mundane Treasures. I have no idea if these are typical of other PDF sales.

NOTE: I have been releasing $3.00 PDFs. I'm certain this has affected sales but I have no idea how much the price has affected the numbers.

I hope some of this rambling helps you.


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## MEG Hal (Nov 11, 2002)

We only have one pdf at the moment but have plans for more in the future.  Interludes: BetB sold well before we announced it was going to print now we have a handful every month.  I would say that 200 in 60-90 days is considered good in most pdf companies and except for Monte 600+ is very hard to accomplish.
Good luck.  I have not seen any of Phil Reed's stuff but it has had some excellent reviews so take his opinions seriously, with 3 products out he is getting some good numbers.

Good Luck.


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## jmucchiello (Nov 11, 2002)

As a no-name press, I've reached 125 with my first (and only "for sale") PDF. And, at the risk of being immodest, it gets excellent reviews. If you go to the news part of my website you can see how long it took the first 50 and 100 to sell since I celebrated them.

Last Tuesday I release a 2 page PDF for free on my website and it has been downloaded 1100 times as of today.

And Alzrius, I don't really care about sharing friend to friend since I expect that if a player buys my book and wants to use it in a game, he's going to have to share it with the DM. I only get annoyed with P2P sharing with no prior friendship. Getting a PDF off of Kazaa or Gnutella (or whatever is popular these days) is far worse, to me.

Joe Mucchiello
Throwing Dice Games
http://www.throwingdice.com


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## Mark (Nov 11, 2002)

Bagpuss said:
			
		

> *Well since about of my gaming friends have never bought a gaming product outside the core rules (and some not even them).
> 
> I doubt the friends factor actually effects sales that much.
> 
> ...




Russell, Phil, Hal and Joe all make good points, and I'll add a couple more factors to the Iconic Plushy's  list, though my points are regarding _the utility of any given product_.  To whit, the usability by "DM's only" and the "Level Range" will also limit the amount of sales you will see.  So a setting product will be limited in appeal (and an adventure even moreso.)

Unlike print products which publishers gauge as having a three month window for initial sales, I think the conventional wisdom is that the first few weeks will be your main selling window for most PDFs.  Any good reviews will give you a small boost in sales provided they come fairly early (and most "staff reviewers" will ignore PDFs from most d20 pubs given that there are dozens of print products that are also released monthly.)

Don't be discouraged.  The work you put in on your early PDFs is probably best thought of as a learning period.  Taking a concept through the process, from start to finish, is a eye-opener and well worth it.  Keep remembering that even the main print publishers generally also have day jobs and you're doing this because you love your hobby.  

As always,
Mark Clover
www.CreativeMountainGames.com


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## Henry (Nov 11, 2002)

Bagpuss said:
			
		

> *I doubt the friends factor actually effects sales that much.
> *




Two words: _Kazaa_, and _Morpheus._


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## jmucchiello (Nov 12, 2002)

Henry said:
			
		

> *Two words: Kazaa, and Morpheus. *



Neither of which involve friends. The friends factor is irrelevant. If you buy my book, I assume only you among your circle of gamers is really going to pay for the PDF. That's almost a given. In fact, how else can you use the PDF without first printing off a few pages and giving them to the DM saying, I want to do this.

Kazaa and Morpheus do not involve friends. You don't put my PDF on those to send to your friend. You put them up there because you're an a**hole. (My apologies to Eric's gramma.)


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## ced1106 (Nov 12, 2002)

Random comments:

* Provide a product that's not in print. The FLGS shelves are clogged with settings, adventures, and prestige classes. Create, say, game aids so lazy GMs can do their work. (Plugs for NPC Essentials and Ambient's Everyone Else.)

* PDFs are a bear to read. A PDF thread preferred PDFs that allowed you to prepare material ahead of time: reference sheets, DYI paper terrain, etc. No 100-page books!!! You can't read them on the screen **and** they're difficult to flip through after they're printed out.

* Take advantage of the electronic format (part 1). The most powerful -- yet simple -- advantage of a PDF is that you can print a single, individual page from your printer, without the degredation of an inconvenience of finding a copier. 

* Take advantage of the electronic format (part 2). You have infinite sheets (sorta), so you can use whitespace effectively, rather than cramming in widows and orphans into your text. Plus you can use color!

* Take advantage of the electronic format (part 3). Create two copies, a high-end copy with color, and printer-friendly copy in b&w. 

* Take advantage of the electronic format (part 4). If applicable, create a document the owner can fill in and save on his computer.


Good luck,


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^


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## HellHound (Nov 12, 2002)

Sales over 100 copies is something to be proud of.

Honestly, breaking 200 sales makes you a "top 30" product on RPGnow.

Only about 6 products (maybe a few more) have ever sold more than 500 copies, not counting Monte Cook's products.

The Gaming PDF market is NOT an industry for making money.


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## Bagpuss (Nov 12, 2002)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> *Kazaa and Morpheus do not involve friends. You don't put my PDF on those to send to your friend. You put them up there because you're an a**hole. (My apologies to Eric's gramma.) *




I would second this plus since most PDF's are $6 or less you'ld have to be a real cheapskate to even think to use Kazaa or Morpheus to look for them.


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## philreed (Nov 12, 2002)

*I'll keep this in mind . . .*



			
				HellHound said:
			
		

> *Sales over 100 copies is something to be proud of.*




It's a target to aim for.


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## Henry (Nov 12, 2002)

Henry said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Two words: Kazaa, and Morpheus. *




Someone made a good point - just to clarify, this is BY NO MEANS an endorsement of said sources; but they exist, and as such, they do affect the already limited sales of PDF's - because chances are that the same gamers who buy PDF's also know how to use these sources, sadly.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that their target audience being computer-savvy makes them MORE succeptible to piracy - doubly a shame because there are some darned fine small-press companies out there who produce very innovative material.

Fair Use, as described by Jmuchiello, however, would be fine - most DM's would not want to read something off a computer screen when examining it in detail. A better example would be to print off one copy and lend it to your DM for perusing, requiring that he give it back once he has approved or rejected your idea. One Print copy + PDF handles the "one copy + one copy for archival purposes" quite nicely.


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## jmucchiello (Nov 12, 2002)

Henry said:
			
		

> *Someone made a good point - just to clarify, this is BY NO MEANS an endorsement of said sources; but they exist, and as such, they do affect the already limited sales of PDF's - because chances are that the same gamers who buy PDF's also know how to use these sources, sadly.
> 
> In fact, I would go so far as to say that their target audience being computer-savvy makes them MORE succeptible to piracy - doubly a shame because there are some darned fine small-press companies out there who produce very innovative material.*



Just to clarify: I wasn't calling the downloaders names*. I was calling the uploader names. The uploader who thinks he's doing mankind a service, or that he's so L33T cause his wares drive has more Gigs than your wares drive, or that he's sticking it to the corporations, or whatever. That guy is the name I called him.

* Downloader can be try and buyers. There aren't a lot of these types but there are enough of them that I cannot lump them in the outright a**holes that are uploaders. People who download and use the stuff but don't pay for it are pathetic.

As for fair use, well, without the copy loaned to the DM, there's no way to use the material. Who wants to sell a useless product?

Joe


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## MThibault (Nov 12, 2002)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> [* Downloader can be try and buyers. There aren't a lot of these types but there are enough of them that I cannot lump them in the outright a**holes that are uploaders. People who download and use the stuff but don't pay for it are pathetic.
> [/B]




I agree. 

I know it is controversial, but I also don't really mind the downloaders who use it and don't pay.  But *only* if they honestly can't purchase the product or it isn't available in their part of the world.  I think that too many downloader's convince themselves that they can't afford something when they are just not willing to forgo some other purchase.  But if some kid doesn't have a credit card and can't get my PDF, well, I'm not losing sales when he downloads it (he can't buy it anyway) and he's having his game supported until he is able to start spending more money on the hobby.

Again, I reiterate, these are special circumstances and not a general rule.  If you are downloading, think long and hard about your motives and my hard work.  Please.

Cheers.


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## Turjan (Nov 12, 2002)

The last time that I had a look at Kazaa was quite a few months ago. The list of available pdf's looked like a copy of the "Top sales" list from rpgnow, mainly Monte's stuff, Librum Equitis, and so on. I found this astonishing, because I think it's rather unfair to screw some very small companies in this way.

My view is somewhat different with Wizards' ESD's, because they don't sell them to most European countries (I don't know why), so there is no real alternative.


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## Bagpuss (Nov 12, 2002)

You can get the Wizards ESD from www.svgames.com even in the UK and the rest europe so there is no excuse with those either.


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## Turjan (Nov 12, 2002)

Thanks for that info. Maybe this service is relatively recent? I have to admit that I haven't looked for their ESD's quite some time.


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## Eridanis (Nov 12, 2002)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> *If you buy my book, I assume only you among your circle of gamers is really going to pay for the PDF. That's almost a given. In fact, how else can you use the PDF without first printing off a few pages and giving them to the DM saying, I want to do this.
> *




I'm glad you look at it this way. I bought your Enchantment book on the basis of some good reviews (btw, I think I was your 100th download!), and was really impressed. I liked it so much that I showed my printed copy to our party's enchanter, and I emailed him the pdf with the express instruction that if he liked it enough to use it, that he go to rpgnow.com to pay you your $5.

When one's budget is able to buy a gaming book OR put food on the family's table, but not always both, it's good to know that there are publishers like you and Malladin's Gate (whose paladin pdf I bought that same day for my own use) that put out high quality ideas at low prices.


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## jmucchiello (Nov 12, 2002)

Eridanis said:
			
		

> *I'm glad you look at it this way. I bought your Enchantment book on the basis of some good reviews (btw, I think I was your 100th download!), *



I believe that is correct. There are two sales on that day and you are one of them. I was vaguely familiar with your email address when I looked and not the other one so it's probably true.


> *and was really impressed. I liked it so much that I showed my printed copy to our party's enchanter, and I emailed him the pdf with the express instruction that if he liked it enough to use it, that he go to rpgnow.com to pay you your $5.*



Did he? (just kidding) I'd be more interested in hearing what he may have used from the book. I haven't heard any "war stories" involving my stuff. That would be cool.

Joe Mucchiello
Throwing Dice Games
http://www.throwingdice.com


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## The Sigil (Nov 13, 2002)

HellHound said:
			
		

> Sales over 100 copies is something to be proud of.
> 
> Honestly, breaking 200 sales makes you a "top 30" product on RPGnow.




The Enchiridion of Mystic Music is #26 on the list (As of this writing) and has sold exactly 160 copies at RPGNow.com (plus I sold one copy directly to a member of my gaming group - he liked it so much he wanted to pay me for it).  That should give you some idea of the (little) profit you can make.

As others have suggested, do it to practice your layout/writing, do it for fun, DON'T do it expecting to make money hand over fist.



> The Gaming PDF market is NOT an industry for making money.



That's for sure.  I do this for the love of the product, not for the money.  The money is nice "pocket change" to fund more gaming purchases (mostly from RPGNow).

--The Sigil


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## Krug (Nov 13, 2002)

Yes, definitely not for making money. Has anyone thought about approaching Amazon to carry some of these in their ebooks section? Or tried selling them via ebay or other avenues besides Rpgnow.com or via their own storefronts using paypal?


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## Terra_Ferax_Mark (Nov 13, 2002)

I looked in to Amazon this past spring. If Amazon hasn't changed their policies, I believe they require an ISBN to market PDFs on their pages  (not via zShops). www.bowker.com sells ISBNs; 10 ISBNs (the smallest lot you can buy) are $225 for regular processing (or $300 for priority processing).

Now on top of that cash layout, Amazon was taking (If I recall) about 40-45% per sale (this was/is the Advantage program, I believe). I can't find the link now; the bookmark I had is leading me to zshops, so it may be different. But assuming that's still true,
if you buy 10 ISBNs and sell PDFs at $5:

At 100 sales ($500) - ISBN ($225) and Amazon (about $200) = $75 profit for your efforts, whether that's your first magnum opus or your first three. 

Of course, after those 100 sales, profits would improve; as mentioned above, 100 sales is nothing to dismiss. Now, Amazon may have changed, if someone has an updated transaction figure and whether or not ISBNs are still required for Amazon -- that may help you decide if you wish to go this route. Physical books sell more copies than PDFs and it makes more sense to use ISBNs for books not ebooks.

Read (with a grain of salt) the newsgroup alt.publish.books for praises and condemnations of Amazon from many small publishers' viewpoints. And, no, I haven't chosen to sell via Amazon.

RPGNow does not require an ISBN and takes a lesser cut. http://www.rpgnow.com/info.php


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## tensen (Nov 13, 2002)

The Sigil said:
			
		

> *
> 
> The Enchiridion of Mystic Music is #26 on the list (As of this writing) and has sold exactly 160 copies at RPGNow.com (plus I sold one copy directly to a member of my gaming group - he liked it so much he wanted to pay me for it).  That should give you some idea of the (little) profit you can make.
> *



*

Is that number correct?  Because PJR has already stated his product sold more than that and he is several places down in the best seller list.*


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## HellHound (Nov 13, 2002)

Actually, PJR (sounds strange refering to him by his initials) doesn't have any products on the top 30 list, and hasn't claimed sales figures higher than 160 for any of his products in this thread at least. (I believe I read that he had put his products on sale for $2 each as a thank you for over 100 sales of each product).


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

tensen said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Is that number correct?  Because PJR has already stated his product sold more than that and he is several places down in the best seller list. *




Oddly enough, I have 3 products in the 150s.... so the difference between the bottom 10 or so entries on that list must be less than 10 sales or so in total.  The differences evidently get bigger as you move up the list.

Aww, what the hell - here are some figures.

Tournaments, Fairs & Taverns, at #2 on the list, has sold 730 copies to date.

Wild Spellcraft, at #4, has sold 578 copies.

So, that's a difference of 152 sales between positions 2 and 4.

Moving to the bottom of the list, we see above that #26 has sold 160 copies, and positions below #30 can have sold up to 155 copies, which means that the difference between #26 and #31 (at best, could be lower) is only 5 copies or so.

This is fairly educational - it would be cool to get a vague idea of what each position on that chart means in terms of sales.  Since I've just shared my figures, anyone else (on the list) care to do the same, so that we can get an idea?  Here's the list so far as we know it from the info here:

2   --   730 (TF&T)
4   --   578 (WIld Spellcraft)
10  --  381 (4C2F)
26  --  160 (Enchiridon)
<30 -- 155 

Interestingly, Phil Read says he's sold 170 copies of 101 Spellbooks, but it's not on the list.  That means either the list is screwy (which I have suspected in the past) or that he's sellng a lot of copies in places other than RPGNow.


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

Actually, if people are willing to participate and share their sales figures, I'd like to make this list fairly public.  It'd be of great help to those planning on going into PDF sales.


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## tensen (Nov 13, 2002)

HellHound said:
			
		

> *Actually, PJR (sounds strange refering to him by his initials) doesn't have any products on the top 30 list, and hasn't claimed sales figures higher than 160 for any of his products in this thread at least. (I believe I read that he had put his products on sale for $2 each as a thank you for over 100 sales of each product). *




Well he did say "almost 170 copies of 101 Spellbooks".  I guessing that is in the 160s.  or else it should have been almost 160 

Sorry, I'm not on a first name basis with him, so I used that instead of having to write out his whole name.... I'm lazy like that.


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## tensen (Nov 13, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *
> Interestingly, Phil Read says he's sold 170 copies of 101 Spellbooks, but it's not on the list.  That means either the list is screwy (which I have suspected in the past) or that he's sellng a lot of copies in places other than RPGNow. *




I imagine the list is a little screwy.  
Then there are combined sales to figure into account.
And issues such as our Moon Elves, which had reasonable sales..  and then we dropped that count when it switched under the Nautral 20 Press banner...  which means its currently only accounting for about 3/4 of its sales... and somehow every once and a while gets a sale applied to the old product ID number.


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## jmucchiello (Nov 13, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *Aww, what the hell - here are some figures.*



Don't you feel better now. 


> *Interestingly, Phil Read says he's sold 170 copies of 101 Spellbooks, but it's not on the list.  That means either the list is screwy (which I have suspected in the past) or that he's sellng a lot of copies in places other than RPGNow. *



He does sell through paypal on his website.

Joe
Holding steady at 125

_Edit: can't spell_


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## HellHound (Nov 13, 2002)

Alright Russ' - time to show our hands eh?

#6   = 528 sales = Librum Equitis volume 1
#13 = 329 sales = Thee Compleat Librum ov Gar'Udok's Necromantic Artes
#19 = 232 sales = Librum Equitis volume 2

and not ranked...

149 sales = Everyone Else
4,779 = Portable Hole Full of Beer

So yes, we are stuck in a limbo of "not quite good enough sales" to make it to the top 30.

As for the #5 & #6 slots, I've been trading back and forth with Inns and Taverns floorplans for the #5 slot, so they are probably holding it by less than a five copy margin right now. So we have figures on #2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 13, 19. I'm sure we can strong arm Tensen into giving up the #9 sales slot data too.


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## tensen (Nov 13, 2002)

I believe #9 was slightly over 450 sales the last I checked.


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

Cool!  So the list at present is (I'll ignore free stuff):

2:   730 (TF&T)
4:   578 (Wild Spellcraft)
5:   ~530 (Inns & Taverns)
6:   528 (LE1)
9:   450 (CG1)
10: 381 (4C2F)
13: 329 (Gar'Udok)
19: 232 (LE2)
26: 160 (Enchiridon)

Below #30:

160-170?:  101 Spellbooks   
152:  Moon Elves (+55 or so lost figures...grrr...)
149:  Everyone Else
146:  Drow (+6 Print On Demand not counted)
140: 101 Treasures
125:  Enchantment
121:  Death: GotG

Have I missed any?  I'd really like to know what #30 is at exactly - hopefully Privateer will be kind enough to share that info.

I might have to start gathering lots of info for a short PDFer's FAQ which answers all those questions which appear here on a seemingly weekly basis.


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## HellHound (Nov 13, 2002)

149 Everyone Else, not 129, but that's not here nor there since it hasn't broken into the top 30 yet.


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

HellHound said:
			
		

> *149 Everyone Else, not 129, but that's not here nor there since it hasn't broken into the top 30 yet. *




I edited it anyway.  This info is useful for people who want to know how far off the bottom of the list they are.  I much preferred the Top 40 to that silly Weekly Sales thing.


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## HellHound (Nov 13, 2002)

I like the weekly sales top 10.

Right now, the new products are coming out so fast that a product gets pushed off the "New This Month" listing within 2 weeks of release. But good sales of a product keep it visible through the week's top 10 list.


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## tensen (Nov 13, 2002)

Actually I pushed for the Top 10 weekly sales.
Although I did also push for longer lists in each of the categories.  So if you go into the d20 Fantasy list you can sort of judge how far off the main list you are.


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## jmucchiello (Nov 13, 2002)

HellHound said:
			
		

> *I like the weekly sales top 10.
> 
> Right now, the new products are coming out so fast that a product gets pushed off the "New This Month" listing within 2 weeks of release. But good sales of a product keep it visible through the week's top 10 list. *



Yeah, but about 8 sales in a 7 day period will get you anywhere from 4th to 8th place depending on the age of the other releases that are currently "hot". It's really a what's hot list. The placement order fluctuates too much. If it was "Top 10 sales for Nov 3 - Nov 9", and there were archives, it might be more meaningful. 

  Joe


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## 2WS-Steve (Nov 13, 2002)

I might as well jump in here as well...

Bodies and Souls: 20 Templates has been sitting at 99 sales for the last 12 days.

As a little comparison out the gate sales of Masters of Arms was around 1400; I have no idea where it's at now. Admittedly Masters of Arms will have broader appeal because of its size and the fact that its brown but any way you cut it people must like paper...


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## PosterBoy (Nov 13, 2002)

I'll add my 2 cents since I'm one of the bigger sellers of PDFs (and the fact that I do some work for rpgnow from time to time). 

Many of the books in the top 10 are there from the earlier day's of rpgnow.com (which could mean as little as a 3-4 months ago).  The number of PDF releases that come out each month seems to grow exponentially.  So the competition for sales is getting tougher and tougher.  I doubt the 1-10 ranked books will change very much over time...  and if some of the books were release today, I doubt they'd reach that rank again.   

That's one of the reasons rpgnow did the weekly top 10.  Because the the overall rank is somewhat skewed to the time when there wasn't a big number of PDF books.  If your book stays in the weekly ranking for a few weeks, you are doing really well.  I wouldn't concern myself so much with overall ranking.   

With that said, here's some tips for new PDF publishers: 

1) Make the product as complete as possible.  The larger the sale price the better.   I don't find that price has a huge affect on the # of sales.  I don't mean over price your stuff (or add a lot of filler content),  but better to sell a 72 page book for 6.95 then a 40 page book for 5.00.  You'll just make more money. 

2) Do some online advertising.  Online advertising on sites can be cheap.  Enworld may be a little spendy, but there are many other sites that are a great value (i.e. www.gamewyrd.com).  There's also a few free banner exchanges out there.  Make sure you're on them.


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## rpghost (Nov 13, 2002)

Interesting thread guys... I can't contribute in the numbers as it's not my place. But even in print books are lucky to sell more then 1000 copies so don't get the wrong idea. Most new prints from unknown vendors are lucky to get 500 sales. Sure if you're well known and have a following you can do a lot better 1000-2000 copies in print. But most of the people doing the PDF's are just warming up to the prospects and I hope that RPGNow.com goes a long way to help.

Anyway, for the most part the top 10 of the last week has been very popular. The top 30 is to stagnant. So maybe the 10 ten should be for THIS MONTH or a longer period like 10-15 days? That would make it more stable and/or reset once a month. What do you guys think would be most relevant? 
1) Change the top 10 to 2 week?
2) Change the top 10 to HOT THIS MONTH

James
http://www.RPGNow.com

P.S. Please be careful with all your guessing or stating of figure for other vendors, not everyone wants this info shared publicly.


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## GMSkarka (Nov 13, 2002)

Wow.

This thread has been _incredibly_ informative.  Thanks to everyone who has posted so far.   It's really opened my eyes.

It seems to me that there is definitely a niche out there for more high-quality PDF publishers---those who run their operations like that of a print publisher (with marketing, advertising, convention budget, etc.).

Something to think about, to be sure.

GMS


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## 2WS-Steve (Nov 13, 2002)

A little follow-up here; the print on demand options are looking much better nowadays too. The following site appears to have some pretty reasonable rates, fast turnarounds (they promise 24-48 hours from order to shipping), and the ability to print books not too far off the quality of what you can get from a regular printer:

Lightning Source

I'm not sure if this is the same service partner RPGNow uses.


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *Interesting thread guys... I can't contribute in the numbers as it's not my place. But even in print books are lucky to sell more then 1000 copies so don't get the wrong idea. Most new prints from unknown vendors are lucky to get 500 sales. Sure if you're well known and have a following you can do a lot better 1000-2000 copies in print. But most of the people doing the PDF's are just warming up to the prospects and I hope that RPGNow.com goes a long way to help.
> 
> Anyway, for the most part the top 10 of the last week has been very popular. The top 30 is to stagnant. So maybe the 10 ten should be for THIS MONTH or a longer period like 10-15 days? That would make it more stable and/or reset once a month. What do you guys think would be most relevant?
> 1) Change the top 10 to 2 week?
> ...




Monthly would be my preference.  Otherwise it fluctuates so much that it's more just a random list of recent products.

Given that a PDF's shelf life is realistically about 3-4 weeks, a period matching that shelf life would be ideal.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

PosterBoy said:
			
		

> *
> 
> The larger the sale price the better.   I don't find that price has a huge affect on the # of sales.  I don't mean over price your stuff (or add a lot of filler content),  but better to sell a 72 page book for 6.95 then a 40 page book for 5.00.  You'll just make more money.  *




I agree.  What I have noticed is that price seems almost irrelwvant as long as you don't price yourself out.  In fact, pricing yourself too low can actually hurt sales - it creates an illusion of a cheap, inferior product.

As far as I'm concerned, reducing the price of stuff only generates extra sales because it's a little extra promotion.  The effect of reducing something from $6.95 to $5.00 is much the same as the effect of producing a web-enhancement, news item etc. on the product.  Just an excuse to mention it. 



> Many of the books in the top 10 are there from the earlier day's of rpgnow.com (which could mean as little as a 3-4 months ago).  The number of PDF releases that come out each month seems to grow exponentially.  So the competition for sales is getting tougher and tougher.  I doubt the 1-10 ranked books will change very much over time...  and if some of the books were release today, I doubt they'd reach that rank again.




Absolutely.  I'd never had though it would happen, but the PDF market has reached a similar position to the print market - that of saturation.  The pie's still the same size, but now there are hundreds of products competing for those dollars on an even footing where once there were just tens of them. 

Just selling at RPGNow with no promotion will result in pretty poor sales.  You have so many PDFs there competing on an equal footing that your chances of being the PDF the customer selects are pretty slim.  

Of course, my problem with promotion is that I feel obliged to curb it as much as possible because I know it annoys people.  I'm convinced I could double my sales with next to no effort, but that doing so would just be irritating to a lot of EN World visitors.


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## jmucchiello (Nov 13, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *Monthly would be my preference.  Otherwise it fluctuates so much that it's more just a random list of recent products.
> 
> Given that a PDF's shelf life is realistically about 3-4 weeks, a period matching that shelf life would be ideal. *



But that would skew books released in the middle of the month.

I think a "Billboard's Top 10" style would work pretty well.

Current Rank  | Last Week's Rank  | Title

James can even generate the past data from his database. This would allow you to see how a book did in its first few weeks as it moves up and down the chart. (Maybe it's my musical background but I've always wanted to land a number one with a bullet.  )

The Top 10 would basically list last weeks sales figures.

Joe


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> *But that would skew books released in the middle of the month. *




No, not if it was "the last 30 days" as oposed to "during this calendar month".


----------



## jmucchiello (Nov 13, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *No, not if it was "the last 30 days" as oposed to "during this calendar month". *



Ah, I didn't realize you were sticking with the moving scale. That would cut down on the fluctuation, too.

  Joe


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

Here's our list as it stands now:

2: 730 (TF&T)
4: 578 (Wild Spellcraft)
5: ~530 (Inns & Taverns)
6: 528 (LE1)
9: 450 (CG1)
10: 381 (4C2F)
13: 329 (Gar'Udok)
19: 232 (LE2)
26: 160 (Enchiridon)

Below #30:

160-170?: 101 Spellbooks 
152: Moon Elves (+55 or so lost figures...grrr...)
149: Everyone Else
146: Drow (+6 Print On Demand not counted)
140: 101 Treasures
125: Enchantment
121: Death: GotG
99:   Bodies & Souls


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## rpghost (Nov 13, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *I agree.  What I have noticed is that price seems almost irrelwvant as long as you don't price yourself out.  In fact, pricing yourself too low can actually hurt sales - it creates an illusion of a cheap, inferior product.*




This is a point I've been trying to get across from day one. So many vendors would come to me wanting to sell their product for $2 or $3. What's the point when the processing charges eat up a large portion of the sale as well? People have to realize that there is a "perceived" quality besides the true quality. For example, a good book priced at $3 might sell a few more copies then if it was at $6.95 but, but the chances are you'd not make up for the lost margin at all. As a rule of thumb I don't like seen PDF's go for less then $5 if at all possible.




			
				GMSkarka said:
			
		

> *It seems to me that there is definitely a niche out there for more high-quality PDF publishers---those who run their operations like that of a print publisher (with marketing, advertising, convention budget, etc.).
> *




I'd have to second that ... RPGNow grows steadily and with more and more Out-Of-Print works coming to us (WEG, Atlas, Mongoose, Pinnacle, etc) we expect to see more acceptance of this format for both new AND old product.

I would never say do PDF _instead_ of print, but myself, Monte Cook, Bastin Press, and RPG Objects firmly believe that doing PDF _and_ print runs. Just get the bugs worked out of your PDF first and then send it to the printers 

As for our POD options - we're still finalizing them. But the concept of having our vendors pre-pay for 10 copy runs and then warehousing them at RPGShop.com has been well recieved from the Vendors (which was our major hurdle in the past for POD). The printer we're thinking of using isn't the one mentioned above, but POD services are getting very cheap and very high quality. Just ask Goodman Games.

Morrus, so you think a 3 week top list would be better?

James
http://www.RPGNow.com


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## rpghost (Nov 13, 2002)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> *James can even generate the past data from his database. This would allow you to see how a book did in its first few weeks as it moves up and down the chart.
> *




So now you want little graphical arrows for it's volocity on the list?   Is that really something a customer cares about? The lists are there to help draw attention to "popular" products, not to say X is better or being bought faster then Y.



			
				jmucchiello said:
			
		

> *
> The Top 10 would basically list last weeks sales figures.
> *




Actually, that's what it is right now - well sort of. It's sales for today - 7 days. They are generated nightly at like 2am or something.

I agree they should probably take a larger sampling so they don't change so quickly. But 2 or 3 weeks seems to be the wiser choice. Maybe it should just be the amount of time till someone would normally fall off the front page.

Tell you what, I'll go change it to 15 days and call it the HOT LIST and we'll see how that works for a bit.

OLD LIST:
1. DM Dungeon Designer (WIN) 
2. Modern Day Maps 
3. The Guard Tower 
4. Death by Corium Light 
5. Everyone Else 
6. GM Mastery: NPC Essentials 
7. 101 Arcane Spell Components 
8. 101 Mundane Treasures 
9. The Complete Guide to Drow 
10. Call of Duty – A Paladin Sourcebook 


NEW LIST:
1. The Guard Tower 
2. Everyone Else 
3. Modern Day Maps 
4. The Book of Curses 
5. The Complete Guide to Drow 
6. GM Mastery: NPC Essentials 
7. Call of Duty – A Paladin Sourcebook 
8. DM Dungeon Designer (WIN) 
9. Skreyn's Register: The Bonds of Magic, Vol. 2 -- The Faithful 
10. 101 Mundane Treasures 


Now is that any better representation of good product or just a new sorting?

James
http://www.RPGShop.com


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## johnsemlak (Nov 13, 2002)

I'm not a publisher/writer and not close to being one, but I thought I offer my 2 kopeks worth.

It would be interesting to hear what Monte Cook's opinions are.  (I assume he hasn't been posting under a handle I don't know.)  Does anybody know why he went into primarily PDF publishing?

I think one advantage PDFs have from a seller's point of view is how easy they are for certain consumers to buy.  Just point, click, and buy.  OK, you can do this  with Amazon, but you have to wait....   PDFs offer an instant, easy, and painless (assuming they're cheap, and they usually are) purchase.


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> Tell you what, I'll go change it to 15 days and call it the HOT LIST and we'll see how that works for a bit.
> *




I still think that's a little short and that it'll fluctuate too much.  I'd go for 30 days, but 3 weeks seems reasonable.

How about this:

1) Drop the Top 30 list.  As you say, it's stagnant.  Replace it with Top 30 in the last 30 days (or 3 weeks if you prefer).  

2) Then, have a Top 10 ever list, just for the gimmick of it, and something fun for the PDF publishers to compete to get onto.  It means nothing, but we all watch the list for purile egotistical reasons, so you may as well pander to it.  Just not the the extent you do now, where it takes up a lot of space and is essentially useless.

Basically, swap the lengths of the two lists around and increase the recent sales one to 3-4 weeks.  I think you'll get the best result that way.


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## tensen (Nov 13, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Given that a PDF's shelf life is realistically about 3-4 weeks, a period matching that shelf life would be ideal. *




The PDF shelf life used to be a lot longer.  The more items that have been added to RPG now have changed those figures rapidly.  Originally it used to take several months before the sales took off.  Now they either take off immediately or probably never do.


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## Erik Mona (Nov 13, 2002)

RPGHost said:
>>>
But even in print books are lucky to sell more then 1000 copies so don't get the wrong idea. 
>>>

No legitimate print publisher I'm aware of feels "lucky" to sell 1000 copies. In fact, I strongly doubt that a product that sells 1000 copies is even profitable.

I think it's safer to say that smaller publishers would feel "lucky" to sell 2000-3000 copies, and mid-tier d20 companies regularly sell 3000 or more copies, and would view 1000 copies sold a failure.

Perhaps print publishers can tell me I'm wrong (I only know what people tell me), but I think there's still a VERY wide circulation gap between PDF and print publishing.

--Erik Mona


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## jmucchiello (Nov 13, 2002)

tensen said:
			
		

> *The PDF shelf life used to be a lot longer.  The more items that have been added to RPG now have changed those figures rapidly.  Originally it used to take several months before the sales took off.  Now they either take off immediately or probably never do. *



Sales plummet when you fall off the front page. It's that simple. Out of sight. No sales. Sales bump when you get a review on a popular board (and when you shamelessly hawk the book on ENWorld in the forums when the topic aligns with the book's topic). That's my experience anyway.

Joe Mucchiello
Author/Publisher of Joe's Book of Enchantment 
http://www.throwingdice.com


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Perhaps print publishers can tell me I'm wrong (I only know what people tell me), but I think there's still a VERY wide circulation gap between PDF and print publishing.
> *




Absolutely - yes, there is.  A massive gap.

However, with the vastly lower costs of PDF, I think that a *successful* PDF publisher (one of the top-tier ones) can compete profit-wise with some low-tier print publishers if they handle it right.  But it's not easy.


----------



## MThibault (Nov 13, 2002)

I don't think that the Top 30 list is meaningless to consumers (and perhaps not to publishers, either).  

It certainly isn't a direct indication of quality or current sales, but it does allow newcomers to get a quick list of works that might not currently be hot, but have been popular in the past.  So if someone comes to RPG now, having just discovered Malhavoc Press, they will have a quick list at their fingertips that includes works from other publishers on other subjects that have been well received.

It could mean the difference between purchasing Dwarf Product A or Dwarf Product B, or cruising into a category that you hadn't intended to check out.

Those lists are as close to browsable shelf space outside of the catagories and current releases as exists on the site (as far as I can find).  I can't help but think that removing the list (or shrinking it) will cut the sales of some products from a few per month to zero per month.  It's not much difference, but you'd pull the product if you thought those few sales were beneath you.   

But sales aside, it does add to the shopping experience for customers so I'm not sure that the decision to remove or contract the Best Sellers list should be taken lightly.

Cheers.


----------



## MEG Hal (Nov 13, 2002)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> *RPGHost said:
> 
> Perhaps print publishers can tell me I'm wrong (I only know what people tell me), but I think there's still a VERY wide circulation gap between PDF and print publishing.
> 
> --Erik Mona *




You are not wrong there is a tremendous gap and we will release items a pdf but print is where the numbers are, Monte Cook and some of Nat20's stuff are a rare few not the norm.

Our numbers for our first pdf Interludes was reallt good until we announced print sales then it dropped fast.  We are still #23 or so on top list and we prolly sold around 175 copies.  Now our free release "sold" almost 100 in first month just at RPGNow.com and we have it posted at a number of sites including our own, so that was a huge difference, prolly 400+ in first 30 days.


----------



## philreed (Nov 13, 2002)

*My Numbers . . .*



			
				Morrus said:
			
		

> *Interestingly, Phil Read says he's sold 170 copies of 101 Spellbooks, but it's not on the list.  That means either the list is screwy (which I have suspected in the past) or that he's sellng a lot of copies in places other than RPGNow. *




On RPGNow I've sold (as of this moment) 156 copies of this one. 135 copies of the Mundane Treasures on RPGNow and 75 copies of Arcane Spell Components on RPGNow.

On RPGNet I've only sold 1 each of Spellbooks and Treasures.

On my own site I've sold 15 Spellbooks, 5 Treasures, and 28 components.

None of these have been out for two months yet. (Spellbooks will be 2 months old November 17.)

I hope that helps everyone gauge how well PDFs are doing.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

[Erik, I deleted one of your posts because you double-posted by mistake].

One question which occurs to me, and which is probably the most pertinent to current PDF publishers, is how to combat the growing glut.  Over the last year, sales of any given product have halved (that's a rough figure), and as time passes, they'll get less.

One thing to do is make sure you put out more products.  I'm aiming at one a month right now, and total sales are still much the same that they were when I started with Wild Spellcraft all those months ago.  But I can't go any faster than that, because in the current market, I'll just be competing with myself.  Eventually, I'll have to change strategy again.

So, what can we do to increase sales on individual PDFs?  here are some thoughts:

1) Try harder to "legitimise" PDF products.  They are seen as more legit now than they were two years ago, and that will hopefully improve.  Unfortunately, with the "glut" comes a large number of low-quality products, which can help to reduce that legitimacy.  On average, with so many products available, the chances that the buyer will pick up something shoddy is much higher.

2) Does the fact that RPGNow pretty much has a monopoly make a difference? [Sorry, James...].  RPG.net tried to do the same and failed, and SVGames currently charges 50% or so on electronic sales, which kinda prices them out of the market.  The other option is to sell them yourself, but then you lose RPGNow's publicity factor - that will matter to some less than others, of course.  I've been in two-minds about it for ages.  

3) How could info about PDF products be distributed better?  How can we make sure that people hear about the good ones?  

I'm sure there are other factors which escape me for the moment.  But it is somethng which bothers me, having seen my own figures over the last 18 months.  I feel kinda sorry for anyone joining in now - they missed the heyday.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

*Re: My Numbers . . .*



			
				philreed said:
			
		

> *
> 
> On RPGNow I've sold (as of this moment) 156 copies of this one. 135 copies of the Mundane Treasures on RPGNow and 75 copies of Arcane Spell Components on RPGNow.
> 
> ...




Ah, cool.  I'll amend my list accordingly, and just use the RPGNow figures (with others in parenthesis) so we're all comparing like-for-like.


2: 730 (TF&T)
4: 578 (Wild Spellcraft)
5: ~530 (Inns & Taverns)
6: 528 (LE1)
9: 450 (CG1)
10: 381 (4C2F)
13: 329 (Gar'Udok)
19: 232 (LE2)
26: 160 (Enchiridon)

Below #30:

156: 101 Spellbooks  (+16 elsewhere)
152: Moon Elves (+55 or so lost figures...grrr...)
149: Everyone Else
146: Drow (+6 Print On Demand not counted)
135: 101 Treasures (+6 elsewhere)
125: Enchantment
121: Death: GotG
99:   Bodies & Souls
75:  101 Components (+28 elsewhere)


----------



## jmucchiello (Nov 13, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *So now you want little graphical arrows for it's volocity on the list?   Is that really something a customer cares about? The lists are there to help draw attention to "popular" products, not to say X is better or being bought faster then Y.*



Arrows! Even better than bullets!!! (I did compare it to Billboard, didn't I?)

Well, selling better means they are more popular almost by definition. Besides once you generate the page it is basically static and they wouldn't eat up too much disk space or bandwidth. They are a curiousity.

Rock on!
Joe


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## philreed (Nov 13, 2002)

*List Updated*

Below #30:

156: 101 Spellbooks 
152: Moon Elves (+55 or so lost figures...grrr...)
149: Everyone Else
146: Drow (+6 Print On Demand not counted)
135: 101 Treasures
125: Enchantment
121: Death: GotG
99:   Bodies & Souls
75:  101 Spell Components


----------



## philreed (Nov 13, 2002)

*Great thread!*

I'm very happy to see people sharing numbers. When I released my first PDF all people would tell me is "50-100" and I couldn't find anyone to give me exact numbers.

This really helps!


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

MThibault said:
			
		

> *I don't think that the Top 30 list is meaningless to consumers (and perhaps not to publishers, either).
> 
> It certainly isn't a direct indication of quality or current sales, but it does allow newcomers to get a quick list of works that might not currently be hot, but have been popular in the past.  So if someone comes to RPG now, having just discovered Malhavoc Press, they will have a quick list at their fingertips that includes works from other publishers on other subjects that have been well received.
> 
> ...




The problem with it is that all it shows is who was around when there weren't many PDF publishers.  If you released a product a year ago, you're probably on that list; if you release it in early 2003 you're very unlikely to make it.

That doesn't help the consumer at all - it's just a list of the oldest products (with one or two exceptions).  It also probably adversely affects current publishers who find it so much harder to get their product seen by people, which could well be better than anything on that list.

So a last 30 days option seems to me to be a much more accurate, and much fairer way to do it.



> Those lists are as close to browsable shelf space outside of the catagories and current releases as exists on the site (as far as I can find).  I can't help but think that removing the list (or shrinking it) will cut the sales of some products from a few per month to zero per month.  It's not much difference, but you'd pull the product if you thought those few sales were beneath you.
> 
> But sales aside, it does add to the shopping experience for customers so I'm not sure that the decision to remove or contract the Best Sellers list should be taken lightly.




Again, I disagree.  If you go into a music or video store, you never see shelves with the best-ever selling albums or videos.  You see the "current chart".  The mucis industry suffers the same problem that this one does - it's bloated.  The number of sales required to reach #1 in the charts is vastly less than it was in, say, the 70s.  So all you'd ever see in prominent places in music stores would be old Beatles and Michael Jackson albums, and nothing current.


----------



## jmucchiello (Nov 13, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *1) Try harder to "legitimise" PDF products.  They are seen as more legit now than they were two years ago, and that will hopefully improve.  Unfortunately, with the "glut" comes a large number of low-quality products, which can help to reduce that legitimacy.  On average, with so many products available, the chances that the buyer will pick up something shoddy is much higher.*



There was talk about an ENnies category for PDFs is that still on for next year? Maybe you could promote them more in your reviews area. (No I don't know how you would do this. Perhaps a top-20 e-products list to go with your top-20 products page.)



> *2) Does the fact that RPGNow pretty much has a monopoly make a difference? [Sorry, James...].  RPG.net tried to do the same and failed, and SVGames currently charges 50% or so on electronic sales, which kinda prices them out of the market.  The other option is to sell them yourself, but then you lose RPGNow's publicity factor - that will matter to some less than others, of course.  I've been in two-minds about it for ages.*



I think their "monopoly" is a benefit. It makes it easier to find stuff outside of your normal purchasing block. The market is so small that if RPGNow had a serious competitor it would become ugly.

Oh, and if we're doing corrections, I've had two sales since this morning. Guess my shameless plug helped.


----------



## 2WS-Steve (Nov 13, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *
> 
> So, what can we do to increase sales on individual PDFs?  here are some thoughts:
> 
> ...




I'm not sure how much the "glut" really factors into things. I buy PDFs fairly regularly and they're so cheap that having too many to choose from isn't a problem. I'm more concerned with just making sure I'll enjoy the product I buy.

One thing that might help is re-arranging the site layout a bit; you have maybe 30 products with cover face out then I can't even see the spine on the rest of them; I need to go digging through the site to find anything. Ideally manufacturer web pages and reviews here at ENWorld linked to where to buy should help address this but RPGNow is like a game store and it should be fun to browse through but that's sorta difficult currently.

Perhaps ENWorld can actually do some of the work by seperating the PDF product reviews from the print reviews (or having a way to filter for PDFs) so that those already inclined to purchase a PDF cna easily scan through the available products and read quality reviews of them. This might be helped by having more staff reviews of PDFs too since those (and the affiliates) are the guys I trust the most.

re: 1) Just doing that might help legitimize PDFs, though I think most people hold back not because they think PDFs are low quality books but because they just want to be able to read the thing on the loo...

re: 2) Actually, I suspect this might be one of those rare cases where a monopoly helps a bit since I know exactly where to go to get e-books. Also, the new publisher features RPGNow has introduced are pretty nice so they don't seem to be sitting on their laurels. That said, everyone deserves their shot at dot.com fame and fortune...

*Sidenote:* I wonder if the PDF customer base is a small group of 500 or so people, 100 of which spend the vast majority of the money and account for most of the sales of everyone's books...

On a second sidenote; I know I'm far less likely to buy a PDF if it's going to hit print. Since the companies that consistently publish cool PDFs are frequently getting their books picked up by a print publisher I'm more ready to hold off and just wait for the printed product. I've come to expect that most Nat20 and Ambient books will end up at my FLGS.


----------



## jmucchiello (Nov 13, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *Again, I disagree.  If you go into a music or video store, you never see shelves with the best-ever selling albums or videos.  You see the "current chart".  The mucis industry suffers the same problem that this one does - it's bloated.  The number of sales required to reach #1 in the charts is vastly less than it was in, say, the 70s.  So all you'd ever see in prominent places in music stores would be old Beatles and Michael Jackson albums, and nothing current. *



That's almost convinced me except for one thing. We're complaining that the shelf life of PDFs is dropping from 60 days to 30 days. Shouldn't we include sales over the last 60 days (a wider window, but still narrower than forever) so that a product that does well out of the gate still stays on the front shelf for at least 2 months?

Joe


----------



## MEG Hal (Nov 13, 2002)

Ok, Interludes is #21, and about 235 sold so far and selling a few each month.  Right Beneath is about 150 and is free both stats from RPGNow.com.  I am also going to take the sale price off at the end of November to see what happens.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> *That's almost convinced me except for one thing. We're complaining that the shelf life of PDFs is dropping from 60 days to 30 days. Shouldn't we include sales over the last 60 days (a wider window, but still narrower than forever) so that a product that does well out of the gate still stays on the front shelf for at least 2 months?
> 
> Joe *




Yeah - I was pushing for a longer period, but James seems to think 15 days is the way to ago.  I agree with you - I suggested a month.



> Perhaps ENWorld can actually do some of the work by seperating the PDF product reviews from the print reviews (or having a way to filter for PDFs) so that those already inclined to purchase a PDF cna easily scan through the available products and read quality reviews of them. This might be helped by having more staff reviews of PDFs too since those (and the affiliates) are the guys I trust the most.




I just sent an email to the chap who helps with the reviews page to see if this is feasible.  if he says it can be done, then I'll do it.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

List updated with Hal's and Twin Rose's info:

2: 730 (TF&T)
4: 578 (Wild Spellcraft)
5: ~530 (Inns & Taverns)
6: 528 (LE1)
9: 450 (CG1)
10: 381 (4C2F)
13: 329 (Gar'Udok)
21: 235 (Interludes)
19: 232 (LE2)
24: 172 (Campaign Suite)
26: 160 (Enchiridon)

Below #30:

156: 101 Spellbooks (+16 elsewhere)
152: Moon Elves (+55 or so lost figures...grrr...)
150: Right Beneath (Right Under our Noses?)
149: Everyone Else
146: Drow (+6 Print On Demand not counted)
135: 101 Treasures (+6 elsewhere)
125: Enchantment
121: Death: GotG
99: Bodies & Souls
75: 101 Components (+28 elsewhere)


----------



## Twin Rose (Nov 13, 2002)

#24 Campaign Suite
172 Sales
(Just under $3,500)

That's on RPGNow only


----------



## MThibault (Nov 13, 2002)

*
That doesn't help the consumer at all - it's just a list of the oldest products (with one or two exceptions). It also probably adversely affects current publishers who find it so much harder to get their product seen by people, which could well be better than anything on that list.

So a last 30 days option seems to me to be a much more accurate, and much fairer way to do it.
*

Morrus, 

What I would prefer (for what it's worth) is a small current hot list (10 ranks, 5 days) so that new products can get their break.  They won't stay up long, and it will fluctuate madly, but if they sell a decent amount they will appear on the more stable Recent Bestsellers list (15-20 ranks, 30 days).  Then if they do really well they will appear on the Year's Bestsellers List (10 Ranks, 12 months).

If this industry were as mature (age-wise, I mean) as the literary industry then RPGNow could put up a "Classics" Page that will draw attention to products that are over a year old and still worth browsing.  Of course, the makeup of this list will cause more discussion and controversy than the naming of a Booker panel.  But most bookstores do this.  They will bring perennial sellers out to the aisle displays and shop windows every now and then just to let people know that they have more than the recent bestsellers.  No one really complains if Philip Roth gets onto the prime real estate this week instead of Wordsworth, it is the bookstore's perogative to try and do what it can to sell products.

Gamers seem to be a sensitive lot, though, and I can see why RPGnow wouldn't even consider a "soft" classics list.

*
I think most people hold back not because they think PDFs are low quality books but because they just want to be able to read the thing on the loo...
*


2WS-Steve,

I think that it was Ray Bradbury who said that for the computer to replace a book it would have to satisfy the three "B"s.  You must be able to read it in Bed, on the Bus and in the Bathtub.  

Cheers.


----------



## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

Here's another factor, with RPGNow's new "Customer Sources" option -- where do people hear about PDFs from?  I'll show mine here -- as expected, the majority of my sales come from my own site.  Is that fairly common (do most of your customers hear about your product from your own sites?) or from news sources like myself?

This will, at the very least, show new publishers where to send their new product info if they want to get it seen.

*TF&T:*

332 customers from ENWorld.org 
188 customers from Unknown 
30 customers from Search Engine 
25 customers from MonteCook.com 
16 customers from Website Refferal 
15 customers from Friend 
9 customers from Dragon Magazine 
8 customers from Dungeon Magazine 
8 customers from roleplayingtips.com 
7 customers from Wizards.com 
5 customers from NBos.com 
4 customers from google 
4 customers from Net 
4 customers from RPGShop.com 
4 customers from web 
3 customers from EN World 
3 customers from RPGNews.com 
3 customers from RPGObjects 
3 customers from Yahoo.com 
2 customers from Banners 
2 customers from Campaign Suite 
2 customers from Drago n 
2 customers from Internet 
2 customers from online 
2 customers from RealmsofEvil.net 
2 customers from RPG.net 
1 customers from - 
1 customers from Aldo Ghiozzi, via WZL Mailing List 
1 customers from blah blah blah 
1 customers from click through from thunderhead games 
1 customers from community 3e 
1 customers from Cybercon 
1 customers from Dark Quest Games 
1 customers from Darkfuries 
1 customers from darkquest 
1 customers from DM's Familiar 
1 customers from DNDL List 
1 customers from Duncan Fielden 
1 customers from Effie Rovers RPG 
1 customers from EN Wold 
1 customers from ENWorld 
1 customers from everywhere good gamers read internet d20 news 
1 customers from GENCON 
1 customers from GMMastery.com 
1 customers from google.com 
1 customers from Guild Companion 
1 customers from http://www.rpgd20.com/ 
1 customers from I don't know 
1 customers from Kingdoms of Kalamar Message Boards 
1 customers from Knights of the Dinner Table 
1 customers from magazine 
1 customers from Mongoose Publishing 
1 customers from Moongoose Site 
1 customers from Mortality.net and their radio show 
1 customers from Mortality.net radio show. 
1 customers from Nick 
1 customers from o grimorio 
1 customers from on line 
1 customers from on the web 
1 customers from on Wyvernsclaws site 
1 customers from PBMCube 
1 customers from Polyhedron 
1 customers from Posting Board 
1 customers from Product order (vacuum elemental) 
1 customers from Pyramid Magazine 
1 customers from REVIEW 
1 customers from rpg forum 
1 customers from rpgd20.com 
1 customers from rpghoard.com 
1 customers from RPGtips.com 
1 customers from seankreynolds.com 
1 customers from Someone from my D&D group 
1 customers from Twin Rose Software 
1 customers from WebRPG ad 
1 customers from www.gamingreport.com 
1 customers from www.mortality.net 
1 customers from wyvernsclawdesign.com 

*Wild Spellcraft*

267 customers from ENWorld.org 
156 customers from Unknown 
22 customers from MonteCook.com 
18 customers from Search Engine 
14 customers from Website Refferal 
14 customers from Wizards.com 
9 customers from Dragon Magazine 
8 customers from Friend 
6 customers from Dungeon Magazine 
3 customers from net 
3 customers from RPGNews.com 
3 customers from RPGObjects 
3 customers from RPGShop.com 
2 customers from Banners 
2 customers from Google 
2 customers from RealmsofEvil.net 
2 customers from RPGhost.com 
2 customers from Thunderhead Games 
1 customers from - 
1 customers from Altavista 
1 customers from Anubim Publishers 
1 customers from Campaign Suite 
1 customers from chatboard 
1 customers from Cybercon 
1 customers from d20 
1 customers from Dark Quest 
1 customers from Dark Quest Games 
1 customers from darkquest 
1 customers from Drago n 
1 customers from Dumb luck. 
1 customers from Duncan Fielden 
1 customers from Email 
1 customers from EN Board 
1 customers from EnWorld 
1 customers from everywhere good gamers read internet d20 news 
1 customers from from the Web 
1 customers from http://www.rpgd20.com/ 
1 customers from Jamis Buck's Generators 
1 customers from john ballew 
1 customers from Malhovic Site 
1 customers from Mongoose Publishing 
1 customers from Moongoose Site 
1 customers from Mortality.net and their radio show 
1 customers from Natural Press 
1 customers from NBos.com 
1 customers from on line 
1 customers from online 
1 customers from Privateer Press 
1 customers from Publisher's site 
1 customers from Pyramid Magazine 
1 customers from roleplayingtips.com 
1 customers from RPG Hoard 
1 customers from RPG Sheets 
1 customers from RPGNet Review of one of your products 
1 customers from Thunderheadgames.com 
1 customers from Warhound 
1 customers from While reading Reviews for Wild Spellcraft 
1 customers from www.hirstarts.com forum 
1 customers from www.mortality.net 
1 customers from Wyvern claws 
1 customers from Wyvern's Claw Design 
1 customers from Yahoo.com 

*4C2F*

154 customers from ENWorld.org 
113 customers from Unknown 
14 customers from MonteCook.com 
13 customers from Friend 
8 customers from Search Engine 
7 customers from Dragon Magazine 
7 customers from Website Refferal 
3 customers from Dungeon Magazine 
2 customers from enworld 
2 customers from here 
2 customers from Mongoose Publishing 
2 customers from net 
2 customers from roleplayingtips.com 
2 customers from RPGhost.com 
2 customers from RPGNews.com 
2 customers from RPGObjects 
2 customers from Wizards.com 
2 customers from Yahoo.com 
1 customers from - 
1 customers from Anubim Publishers 
1 customers from Banners 
1 customers from d20revies 
1 customers from Dark Quest 
1 customers from darkquest 
1 customers from Dunn 
1 customers from Email 
1 customers from EN World 
1 customers from found in the internet 
1 customers from From the Web 
1 customers from Game trade Magazine 
1 customers from GameWyrd RPG Reviews 
1 customers from Google 
1 customers from GPA 
1 customers from Husband told me about it! 
1 customers from just stumbled across it 
1 customers from Knights of the Dinner Table comic 
1 customers from mongoosepublishing.com 
1 customers from Natural D20 Press 
1 customers from Natural20 Press 
1 customers from NBos.com 
1 customers from online 
1 customers from oswaldo 
1 customers from Other roleplayers 
1 customers from privateer press 
1 customers from RealmsofEvil.net 
1 customers from rec.rpg.super-heros 
1 customers from RPG.net 
1 customers from RPGD20 
1 customers from RPGd20.com 
1 customers from RPGNet Review of one of your products 
1 customers from RPGShop.com 
1 customers from Sean K Reynolds 
1 customers from space 
1 customers from Spycraft member forum 
1 customers from Starwars Rpg Holonet 
1 customers from the DM of my current campaign 
1 customers from The web 
1 customers from Uncle Bear 
1 customers from Unknown 
1 customers from web 
1 customers from While reading Reviews for Wild Spellcraft 
1 customers from www.enworld.org 
1 customers from www.imperiumrpg.com 
1 customers from www.seankreynolds.com 
1 customers from x 

*Moon Elves*

58 customers from ENWorld.org 
46 customers from Unknown 
11 customers from Search Engine 
7 customers from Website Refferal 
5 customers from MonteCook.com 
3 customers from Friend 
2 customers from Dragon Magazine 
2 customers from EN World 
2 customers from Mongoose Publishing 
2 customers from RealmsofEvil.net 
2 customers from www.roleplayingmaster.com 
1 customers from - 
1 customers from EN Board 
1 customers from EnWorld 
1 customers from GameWyrd RPG Reviews 
1 customers from Husband told me about it! 
1 customers from magazine 
1 customers from malavoc press 
1 customers from Mongoosepublishing newsletter 
1 customers from Mortality.net 
1 customers from Mortality.net and their radio show 
1 customers from Net 
1 customers from Polyhedron 
1 customers from rpg online 
1 customers from RPGNews.com 

*Death: GoftG*

47 customers from ENWorld.org 
36 customers from Unknown 
8 customers from MonteCook.com 
4 customers from Dungeon Magazine 
4 customers from Search Engine 
4 customers from Website Refferal 
2 customers from Friend 
1 customers from - 
1 customers from chatboard 
1 customers from Dragon Magazine 
1 customers from Email 
1 customers from EN Board 
1 customers from enworld 
1 customers from FenrisWolf 
1 customers from Internet 
1 customers from Mongoose Publishing 
1 customers from mongoosepublishing.com 
1 customers from Moongoose Site 
1 customers from Mortality.net and their radio show 
1 customers from Net 
1 customers from RPGNet Review of one of your products 
1 customers from RPGObjects 
1 customers from Sean K. Reynold's site 
1 customers from Web 
1 customers from Wizards.com 

*Drow*

51 customers from Unknown 
48 customers from ENWorld.org 
7 customers from MonteCook.com 
7 customers from Search Engine 
6 customers from Website Refferal 
3 customers from RPG.net 
2 customers from Dungeon Magazine 
2 customers from Friend 
2 customers from Mongoose Publishing 
2 customers from RPGNews.com 
2 customers from Web 
1 customers from - 
1 customers from a friend 
1 customers from Ambient 
1 customers from chatboard 
1 customers from Dragon Magazine 
1 customers from EN Wold 
1 customers from EN World 
1 customers from EnWorld 
1 customers from From the Web 
1 customers from Guild Companion 
1 customers from Hero Mail List 
1 customers from Mongoosepublishing newsletter 
1 customers from Moongoose Site 
1 customers from NBos.com 
1 customers from net 
1 customers from RPGNet Review of one of your products 
1 customers from RPGObjects 
1 customers from Thunderhead Games


----------



## jmucchiello (Nov 13, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *Here's another factor, with RPGNow's new "Customer Sources" option -- where do people hear about PDFs from?  I'll show mine here -- as expected, the majority of my sales come from my own site.  Is that fairly common (do most of your customers hear about your product from your own sites?) or from news sources like myself?*



Don't forget. That list is where the customer found RPGNow. Not your product. See a familiar place shows up on my list as well. (I left out the 1s.) This is why places like Dungeon Magazine show up.

46 customers from ENWorld.org 
39 customers from Unknown 
7 customers from MonteCook.com 
7 customers from Search Engine 
3 customers from Friend 
2 customers from Dungeon Magazine 
2 customers from Web 
2 customers from Website Refferal 
2 customers from Wizards.com 

It would be cool if they had the actual referrer field but that would be hard to capture in a shopping cart app. Most of the referrers would be RPGNow (if you buy more than one item at a time). What this list shows is that ENWorld is a good place to advertise your product. I don't think that's really news.

Joe


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## Conaill (Nov 13, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *
> 24: 172 (Campaign Suite)
> 26: 160 (Enchiridon)
> 
> ...




With this small a difference between being on the list or off it....

any publishers willing to 'fess up that they bought a few of their own copies just to make it on the list?


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> *Don't forget. That list is where the customer found RPGNow. Not your product. See a familiar place shows up on my list as well. (I left out the 1s.) This is why places like Dungeon Magazine show up.
> *





Umm... if that _is_ the case, then, basically, I pretty much sell all of RPGNow's PDFs for them?

James, we need to talk....


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

Conaill said:
			
		

> *
> 
> With this small a difference between being on the list or off it....
> 
> any publishers willing to 'fess up that they bought a few of their own copies just to make it on the list?  *




Nah - we only just realised how close it is.  If any of that sort of thing's going to happen, it'll start about now.


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## jmucchiello (Nov 13, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *Nah - we only just realised how close it is.  If any of that sort of thing's going to happen, it'll start about now. *



So keep reloading the page for those whom you suspect will be doing this. Watch as the price drops to a penny and see if you can get a copy at the publisher padding price. 

Joe


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## rpghost (Nov 13, 2002)

I'm not sure I agree with what Morrus said about shelf life of a PDF... I know for a fact that RPG Objects continues to sales month after month - all it requires is supporting releases of PDF or some news or whatever. For example, the sales of the GM Mastery book were actually more last month then the month before, with the first month actually the highest. 

So for the most part, PDF has a good shelf life that even rivals that of print books which are cut in half each month for only 3 months. In other words, typical print books sell X on month one, sell X/2 on month 2, and sell X/4 on month 3 and just a pittens for the rest of a year. PDFs on the other hand, from what I can see, continue to draw sales regularly.

Of course that might have something to do with all our efforts of continually bringing new customers to RPGNow.com which then keeps sales flowing. So I don't think the "static" amount of people willing to buy PDFs has actually been reached.

James
http://www.RPGNow.com


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## philreed (Nov 13, 2002)

*Great Idea*



			
				jmucchiello said:
			
		

> *So keep reloading the page for those whom you suspect will be doing this. Watch as the price drops to a penny and see if you can get a copy at the publisher padding price.
> 
> Joe *




But won't it be noticable if someone jumps to #1 in a few seconds?

I mean, if you're going to fix things you may as well go all out and order 3000 copies at $0.01/each.


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## MThibault (Nov 13, 2002)

Geez, it's getting difficult to keep up with this thread.

Those are some interesting numbers.  At a glance, it looks like almost 10% of your sales start off as Malhavoc purchases or inquiries, and about the same amount find their way to your product from other publishers.  I wouldn't be surprised if most small e-publishers have similar statistics -- with Enworld being the major referer and Malhovoc being next.

Those are the numbers that I think will be reduced if the cross-publisher link is weakened.  Malhavoc and Natural20 will always be near the top of the best sellers list, whether it is a 30 day or one year time frame.  The smaller and newer publishers will stand more to gain if they can end up with a link to their product in the sidebar of product listings from those two organizations.  Shrinking the time frame, or the length, of the lists won't affect Malhavoc or Natural 20 much (their frontlist will push the backlist about as much as it can be pushed) but I think that it will reduce the impulse purchases of products from other organizations and their backlists will suffer.

I wonder how many transactions include multiple products.  Do customers go to the site and buy two or three products at a time, or are the sales more focused? i.e. Find the one product you are looking for and leave.

If they do purchase multiple products, how many are from the same publisher, category, best-seller list, etc.?  How do people move through the site from one product to another?  I think that the answers to these questions will ultimately tell RPGNow how to organize the site so that people can get that second product as easily as possible and aim for closing the third sale in the transactions.  

Cheers.


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## Morrus (Nov 13, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *I'm not sure I agree with what Morrus said about shelf life of a PDF... I know for a fact that RPG Objects continues to sales month after month - all it requires is supporting releases of PDF or some news or whatever. For example, the sales of the GM Mastery book were actually more last month then the month before, with the first month actually the highest.
> 
> So for the most part, PDF has a good shelf life that even rivals that of print books which are cut in half each month for only 3 months. In other words, typical print books sell X on month one, sell X/2 on month 2, and sell X/4 on month 3 and just a pittens for the rest of a year. PDFs on the other hand, from what I can see, continue to draw sales regularly.
> 
> ...




Well, I only have my own sales figures to go with, but it's certainly true for anything I've ever put out.  And as far as publicity goes, mine ain't too shabby, y'know. 

Posts from other people here seem to support that.  If RPGObjects is doing differently, then it's an exception, not the rule.


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## Cheiromancer (Nov 13, 2002)

You know, I've purchased 18 items of the top 30, and 8 more from the "under 30" list that Morrus posted.

Which makes me think that a small number of repeat buyers might  be responsible for a high proportion of RPGNow's PDF sales.

Anyone else have that impression?


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## Asathas (Nov 13, 2002)

*Kudos, file sharing, and a customer profile*

I'm not a PDF publisher but I'm definitely a major PDF consumer having purchased at least 30 or more PDF's and to be honest, many if not most of the PDF's from the publishers who've chimed in so far:

Libram Equitus I & II, all 3 of the 101 books from PJR, all but two of the Natural 20 Press releases, most of Monte's releases, Book of Broken Dreams, Requiem for a God, Bob's Book of Enchantment (looking forward to the next book from you), Enchiridion of Mystic Music (still waiting for the next Enchiridion book), Forgotten Heroes - Paladin (this one is excellent), Thee Compleat Librum ov Garudok's Necromantic Artes (please make the next one have an easier title , both Dollar Dungeons, Everyone Else, Book of Curses, Swords Into Plowshares, NPC Essentials, Portable Hole Full of Beer... ok that last one was free but you get the idea.  And as is, I think I've still left quite a few of the ones I've bought off this list.

So first, kudos to you guys who write and publish this stuff because I've been loving the PDF's I buy and as DM for our group I can tell you that the players have been loving the material as well (in fact they're getting a few of the books from 101 Spellbooks and a couple items from 101 Mundane Treasures in this weekend's game).  Last session was my first as GM and the one new thing I brought as DM that they enjoyed most was the maps made with Dollar Dungeons.  The party paladin has dang near been living with Forgotten Heroes - Paladin and the bard is absorbed by the Enchiridion of Mystic Music.  And in case I haven't listed one of your products in this paragraph, don't feel bad... I've only had one session so far with the next being this weekend but I know we'll be heading to town shortly and there's a necromancer waiting for them so I'll be pulling from quite a few other products soon.

And finally for file sharing...  Having said all I have above and listed just some of the PDF's I've purchased, I'll also tell you that I download PDF's via Kazaa.  Obviously it's not PDF's for sale at RPGNow because I've purchased about half the D20 PDF's they sell.   No... what I download from Kazaa are PDF versions of hardcopy books I already own.  Very handy being able to print off a couple pages from one of the books for reference during the game rather than having to go rifling through half a dozen books to find the rule/magic item/spell/critter I'm looking for.  I'd make the PDF's myself but don't have a scanner and don't want to pirate a copy of Adobe Acrobat to make the PDF's even if I had a scanner.

Now, I'm not so foolish as to think that most of the folks who download D20 PDF's use them the way I do but when you see them up there (and no, I don't make them available for download from me once I've downloaded them), remember that there are folks like me who only download the PDF's of hardcopies they already own.

One last note... yeah, I buy the hardcopy books like I buy PDF's... I think my bookshelves are wishing death upon me the way they've been groaning from the weight of books on 'em.


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## jmucchiello (Nov 13, 2002)

*Re: Kudos, file sharing, and a customer profile*



			
				Asathas said:
			
		

> *Bob's Book of Enchantment (looking forward to the next book from you)*



You and me, both. 

Joe Mucchiello
Off to fire the marketing dept.
Throwing Dice Games
http://www.throwingdice.com


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## Xeriar (Nov 13, 2002)

> One last note... yeah, I buy the hardcopy books like I buy PDF's... I think my bookshelves are wishing death upon me the way they've been groaning from the weight of books on 'em.




Something that often worries me is that I sleep right under two bookshelves, which hold about a thousand books all told, some of them seven feet above my napping head.


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## philreed (Nov 13, 2002)

*Bad idea . . .*



			
				Xeriar said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Something that often worries me is that I sleep right under two bookshelves, which hold about a thousand books all told, some of them seven feet above my napping head.  *




I actually had shelves of books fall on me one night while I was sleeping. Hurt like hell _and_ scared me. Not a nice way to find yourself at 3 am.


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## rpghost (Nov 13, 2002)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> *RPGHost said:
> >>>
> But even in print books are lucky to sell more then 1000 copies so don't get the wrong idea.
> >>>
> ...




I can only go by what I'm told and from the simular products as what we sell on RPGNow.com - I'm not comparing to the old-school or the full line publishers, I'm talking about the other d20 upstarts out there and what I've heard. Selling only 1000 print copies in today's over saturated d20 market is typical. Sure Mongoose, Monte Cook, Bastin Press, and Atlas Games and such break those numbers by a large margin - but I was refering to the upstarts.

James
http://www.RPGNow.com


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## The Sigil (Nov 13, 2002)

*Ideas for greater publicity...*

If it'll help, Morrus, I'll make a concerted effort to review the 50 or so PDF products I have - at about 3 per week - to help raise awareness.  I note Joe Kushner also does a lot of e-reviews.  I'm just trying to dig out from an impending home move, but I have copies burned to CD, so I can do them from work.

And if you want - and I don't know if you do - I'll be happy to be the ENWorld dedicated staff review for e-products (which would count out Natural 20 Press products in reviews)... LOL - like you really want controversial me as a reviewer.

Oh, I won't review my own products, of course. 

--The Sigil


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## Asathas (Nov 13, 2002)

*And since half the publishers are here*

Since at least half of the publishers are here, I'll toss this idea out...

I'd love to have a book on medieval superstitions with their D20 game effects.  I've considered writing such a book but don't think I have the time and/or talent to do it justice.

So if one of you guys decide this is a good idea and publish it, you've got at least one customer right here.

/giving up my pretensions of creativity now...


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## rpghost (Nov 13, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *1) Try harder to "legitimise" PDF products.... a large number of low-quality products, which can help to reduce that legitimacy.
> *




Effective use of the COMMENTS section of the website sure helps with this. If we get a product that has say 3 or more reviews all at 1 star, we usually pull the product. Please help us police product quality and report bad eggs to us.



			
				Morrus said:
			
		

> *2) Does the fact that RPGNow pretty much has a monopoly make a difference? [Sorry, James...].  RPG.net tried to do the same and failed, and SVGames currently charges 50% or so on electronic sales, which kinda prices them out of the market.
> *




I don't mind you saying it- but I'm not going to feel guilty about it. How many other sites spent $10,000 on promotion? How many others have our level of customer service? How many others have our level of tools for vendors to use? I think we earned our position and I am not afraid of competion. I didn't bad-mouth RPG.NET when they came out and copied my business plan and even the same software base. Now that I have their largest vendor as an exclusive at RPGNow.com I don't think they are going to be around much longer. Besides, look what was said above. A vendor sold 153 copies on RPGNow and 1 copy on RPG.NET - where would you go to sell your product?

As for SVGames, I'll leave comment out for now - but be assured we are addressing this one too.



			
				Morrus said:
			
		

> *3) How could info about PDF products be distributed better?  How can we make sure that people hear about the good ones?
> *




I've added some mailing lists to RPGNow that allow the Gold Vendors to automatically send mailings to reviewers and news sites. This feature and some cheap promotion we're giving out for RPGHost Network should help out. I encurrage people to join our mailing lists esp if you run a new site or are a reviewer. It's reviews and news that drive the PDF industry (besides our large regular customer base).  




			
				Morrus said:
			
		

> *I feel kinda sorry for anyone joining in now - they missed the heyday. *




Good product and good marketing still sell. Regardless of wether there are 500 products on RPGnow or not. Good product is the key. Good community support is just as important -- as proven by you Morrus - who has a monopoly on 3e/d20 news 

James


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## Morrus (Nov 14, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *Good product and good marketing still sell. Regardless of wether there are 500 products on RPGnow or not. Good product is the key. Good community support is just as important -- as proven by you Morrus - who has a monopoly on 3e/d20 news
> *




No, James.  They don't.  I'm not sure why you keep saying this, but all of us publishers seem to agree that sales are down by a long way.  Some of us disagree on the reasons (I think it's the glut), but there's no denying that it's happened.  We have numbers that say that.

In fact, even your partners, RPGObjects, have confirmed this.  The big sellers happened back when there were comparatively fewer products.  

These days, the front page of RPGNow is not "new products this month", it's "new products in the last 3 minutes".  For any single product, the shelf life, and the total sales, are all down.   they just don't get seen.

You can help with this by adopting some of the suggestions for your storefront (other than trying to wring another few % out of vendors who really aren't making anything anyway - they have to pay writers, artists etc, you know - you probably make as much from each copy sold as any given vendor).  That won't solve it, but it will make a small difference.  I'm looking at other ways to tackle the problem with my reviews page etc.  I'm also considering offering dirt cheap ads to PDF people, to see if that helps. 

But please stop telling us that things sell just as well now.  We're the ones sellnig them, remember.  We know how well our sales finances are doing only too well.


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## Sir Whiskers (Nov 14, 2002)

A thought (as a buyer of pdf's):

I've purchased from RPGNow a couple of times, and the only reason I haven't done so more often has nothing to do with quality or promotion, but ease of use. I can easily spend 1-2 HOURS looking through the selections, seeing what each one offers, etc. (yes, I have a dial-up connection...)  What I want is the ease of ordering online, combined with the ease of thumbing through a catalog to choose what I want. So, you guys tell me if this idea would be feasible at all:

Create a pdf catalog of all current products. Each product would contain only the information currently displayed on that product's information page, with no graphics. The catalog could be organized by theme, alphabetically, or however makes most sense. I suggest no graphics to save on file size. I suggest using the same text as the product page to save time preparing and updating this document. Then allow customers to download the catalog, make our choices off-line, then log in and order quickly by item number.

I see some obvious questions which would have to be answered:
1) How many products are currently available on RPGNow? 
2) How many products could such a catalog list before becoming too large for a reasonable download?
3) How much time would it take to create and maintain the catalog? Would RPGNow have a reasonable expectation of regaining those costs through additional sales?
4) Would anyone besides me actually use the thing, if it existed?
5) Can much the same thing be accomplished by simply having two product pages for each product - one with graphics, one without? The prospective buyer then chooses to search with or without graphics (still a slow process, but faster than the current option).

This is all off the top of my head - no offense taken if it gets shot down.


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## Andrzej the Firbolg (Nov 14, 2002)

*A message from Asathas' other half...*

I'd just like to take this chance to let you  folks know that Asathas isn't kidding about our .pdf purchases (or God knows about the hardcopy purchases we've made). 

He's also spot on about the usefulness of these tools within our group. As the "holy warrior" in our new campaign, I have been living inside of Forgotten Heroes: Paladin... 

However, if you would please, DON'T let him find out when you guys have new .pdfs available. Please, I beg you. He can't resist them, it's pathalogical with him. And if I have to spend another week hole-punching printouts and sorting them into binders for him, the bookshelves aren't the only ones who'll be wishing him bodily harm. <jk>

Seriously, you guys do some great work and we do really love the products. Keep them coming.


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## Morrus (Nov 14, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> I don't mind you saying it- but I'm not going to feel guilty about it. How many other sites spent $10,000 on promotion?  *




Incidentally - looking at those referrals lists, is that working out?  It doesn't seem like, for example, your Dragon and Dungeon ads really have much effect.  $10,000 seems a lot of money when you appear to be getting most of your customers from here.

Of course, that's your business.  But it does seem like you're spending too much on advertising that doesn't appear to be working, at least to the caual bserver.


----------



## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

2WS-Steve said:
			
		

> *Sidenote: I wonder if the PDF customer base is a small group of 500 or so people, 100 of which spend the vast majority of the money and account for most of the sales of everyone's books...
> *




This was an interesting question I've wondered about in the past... so I aggregated some data (on non-free product only) for you guys:

There have been 7891 distinct customers buying products.

The top 1% of these people are responsible for the top 15% of total sales.

Top 0.8% are responsible for 13.0% of revenues

top 0.4% are responsible for 8.7% revenues

What this tell you? I donno- I'm not a math major... but to me it means that we have a good amount of very regular customers that buy a lot of stuff... but it's certainly not a case of 10 people buying most of the product. It's a couple hundred at least buying heavily.

James


----------



## HellHound (Nov 14, 2002)

So that means there are thirty users out there that are responsable for 8.7% of revenues. 

Thank you, oh top thirty users!


----------



## Krug (Nov 14, 2002)

Well I think the glut was inevitable, and it's not getting better. Look at the margins for PDF products; which publisher wouldn't kill for 70-80% margins with little risk? 

The main problem seems to be the customer base isn't growing anywhere as fast as the supply of products. PDF Publishers, as well as RPGnow, need to reach this customer base. When it launched Monster Manual II reached #63 or so on amazon.com's bestseller list, and I'm sure that translates into the thousands. 

The key question: How to get more gamers to purchase PDFs? What about those who don't have access to a credit card? 

All I can say is RPGNow's ad in the WotC magazines isn't particularly outstanding. For $10k there are other avenues that might give you more mileage, and also a better non-standard fantasy woman-with-sword-and-magic ad.

I think the most interesting stat was how many time Portable Hole Full of Beer has been downloaded. Imagine those numbers buying a $5 PDF! The Customer Sources breakdown has been interesting as well. Are the stats similar for non-Natural 20 products?


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## Morrus (Nov 14, 2002)

Krug said:
			
		

> *
> The main problem seems to be the customer base isn't growing anywhere as fast as the supply of products.  *




Succinctly put, sir!  That's exactly how I see it. 



> I think the most interesting stat was how many time Portable Hole Full of Beer has been downloaded. Imagine those numbers buying a $5 PDF! [/quote
> 
> Yeah - for example, some Asgard mags have far exceeded 10,000 downloads.  I don't have the exact figures anymore, unfortunately, as every issue so far was released on the old server.
> 
> But that's a lot of people who download large PDFs.


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## HellHound (Nov 14, 2002)

Because of the registration process, only 1200 people have downloaded Portable Hole from RPGnow. (I've had complaints at having to sign up for an account just to download a free product - personally, I find it hard to believe that people aren't downloading it for that reason, and well, too bad for them).

We also had almost 800 downloads in the first day from the Ambient Inc www.dreadgazebo.com server, but we can't afford that kind of bandwidth.

We also have it available for download from www.mortality.net which has accounted for somewhere between 300 and 400 downloads (I haven't checked lately).

All in all, we have given away over 2000 copies... I'm sure the number would be doubled or more if we were offering it for direct download without requiring an RPGnow account.

Also, just for the record, we will be taking Portable Hole Full of Beer off-line March 31st, 2003. So that will be your last chance to get a copy yourself.


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## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *Umm... if that is the case, then, basically, I pretty much sell all of RPGNow's PDFs for them?
> 
> James, we need to talk....  *




Hee... You could say that about any number of publishers out there. You are THE d20 new site after all 

But thank you never the less 

James


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## ced1106 (Nov 14, 2002)

Krug said:
			
		

> *The key question: How to get more gamers to purchase PDFs? What about those who don't have access to a credit card?*




I'm a demo monkey for various "beer and pretzel" game companies, and while rpg companies have a poor demo system compared to these companies, IMO, PDF companies are in a very good position for this sort of promotion, since the marginal cost of providing promotional product is far less than a "non-electronic" company.

Specifically, go through your review comp lists (you do have one, right?  and solicit reviewers who are interested in running games (game demos) at their local game conventions and clubs. Just by **seeing** a printed out PDF, gamers will a) realize that PDFs **can** be as useful as hardcopies and b) **can** be printed out! And, of course, you will have exposure for your product which would be otherwise unavailable. Heck, even if you don't publish PDFs, contact your reviewers and see if they'll promote your products as a game convention rpg event.

And, of course, b/c the PDF has been printed out, you don't have to worry about pirating electronic copies for friends (particularly since most attendees of a game demos are strangers to the volunteer).

Not sure about the credit cards. I guess checks are that difficult to process?


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^


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## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

MThibault said:
			
		

> *I wonder how many transactions include multiple products.  Do customers go to the site and buy two or three products at a time, or are the sales more focused? i.e. Find the one product you are looking for and leave.
> *




Ok, since everyone is in the mood for numbers...

The average number of products per order is just about 2 (1.89)

Of course I would like to see that number as large as possible as it cuts down on our costs. With paypal.com and credit cards charging 35cents just to submit a transaction, that eats up a large portion of a $5 order. Paypal even charges more for foreign members and costs for Discover and American Express are also higher. So if I can get that to 3 items per order average that would be great news for everyone. But how?

I'm open to site orginization suggestions - just keep in mind I have a framework I must live inside as I can't re-write the whole system.

James


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## Gargoyle (Nov 14, 2002)

Here are our numbers as of 13 Nov.  Interesting thread.

Beyond Monks - The Art of the Fight is at 351.
Call of Duty - A Paladin Sourcebook is at 87. 

Beyond Monks is still selling steadily, Call of Duty is somewhat sporadic, probably because it's more of a niche, and because there are so many other products out there now.  

Most of our customers are from ENWorld as well.

Beyond Monk referrals:
105 customers from ENWorld.org 
90 customers from Unknown 
17 customers from Friend 
17 customers from Search Engine 
12 customers from Wizards.com 
10 customers from Dragon Magazine 
10 customers from MonteCook.com 
10 customers from Website Refferal 
5 customers from RealmsofEvil.net 
4 customers from Banners 
4 customers from RPGNews.com 
3 customers from Dungeon Magazine 
3 customers from google 
3 customers from RPG.net 
2 customers from Ambient 
2 customers from chainmail bikini games 
2 customers from dnd-l mailing list 
2 customers from Mongoose Publishing 
2 customers from net 
2 customers from roleplayingtips.com 
2 customers from RPGhost.com 
2 customers from RPGObjects 
2 customers from Yahoo.com 
1 customers from Aaron Jones 
1 customers from Aldo Ghiozzi, via WZL Mailing List 
1 customers from An Ad 
1 customers from at work, of all the strange places. 
1 customers from Chain Mail Bikini.com 
1 customers from darkquest 
1 customers from Dont Remember 
1 customers from Dumb luck. 
1 customers from Dunn 
1 customers from Email 
1 customers from everywhere 
1 customers from http://www.chainmailbikini.com/index.shtml 
1 customers from I don't remember 
1 customers from Internet 
1 customers from ironkingdoms.com 
1 customers from just happened to find it 
1 customers from malavoc press 
1 customers from Me 
1 customers from mongoosepublishing.com 
1 customers from Moongoose Site 
1 customers from Mortality.net 
1 customers from on the web 
1 customers from Online 
1 customers from Publisher's site 
1 customers from rpg forum 
1 customers from rpg net 
1 customers from rpghoard 
1 customers from RPGNet Review of one of your products 
1 customers from RPGShop.com 
1 customers from Thunderhead Games 
1 customers from Thunderheadgames.com 
1 customers from ummmmmmm,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,online 
1 customers from While reading Reviews for Wild Spellcraft 
1 customers from www.hirstarts.com forum 
1 customers from www.rondaksportal.com 
1 customers from www.seankreynolds.com

Call of Duty Referrals 

29 customers from ENWorld.org 
24 customers from Unknown 
6 customers from Search Engine 
6 customers from Website Refferal 
4 customers from Friend 
3 customers from MonteCook.com 
2 customers from RPGNews.com 
1 customers from - 
1 customers from chatboard 
1 customers from Dungeon Magazine 
1 customers from EN World (d20reviews.com) 
1 customers from everywhere 
1 customers from From the Web 
1 customers from Malhovic Site 
1 customers from Mongoose Publishing 
1 customers from Moongoose Site 
1 customers from net 
1 customers from RPGNet Review of one of your products 
1 customers from RPGObjects 
1 customers from spam 
1 customers from Thunderhead Games


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## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *No, James.  They don't.  I'm not sure why you keep saying this, but all of us publishers seem to agree that sales are down by a long way.
> *




Maybe I see things from another angle and don't notice recent trends. I see that RPGShop.com and RPGNow.com are doing more business then ever, but there are also MANY more products then ever. Problem is you guys are stuck splitting the pie smaller and smaller- that's probably what is happening. At least at a faster rate then I can get new customers to buy more. I hope to work harder on that very soon with some new promotions coming up.




			
				Morrus said:
			
		

> *You can help with this by adopting some of the suggestions for your storefront
> *



I'm very egar to do this... just have to make sense to me and not cause a rewrite.



			
				Morrus said:
			
		

> *you know - you probably make as much from each copy sold as any given vendor).
> *




I hardly doubt that a publisher sees about .35-65 cents per product sold. That's all we get and that doesn't even count for staff payroll or bandwidth/servers.

James


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## tensen (Nov 14, 2002)

Conaill said:
			
		

> *
> 
> With this small a difference between being on the list or off it....
> 
> any publishers willing to 'fess up that they bought a few of their own copies just to make it on the list?  *




It did spur a lot of tell two friends, who tell two friends, and so forth.  Come on man, get me a few more sales.  be proud of me, you can spare some change for a down and out game designer.  Erm..  maybe something like that.


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## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

Sir Whiskers said:
			
		

> *Create a pdf catalog of all current products. Each product would contain only the information currently displayed on that product's information page, with no graphics.
> *




This is something that was suggested before and why I put together this page:

http://www.rpgnow.com/new_products.php

It lists new product in a condensed maner. The problem with creating something zip'ed up is that it gets out of date quickly and requires some manual effort on a regular basis and we're understaffed as it is. But we can certainly give it a try if you think that will help. Would that formate do for you? Just some HTML pages saved to a ZIP that you can read at home?




> _Originally posted by Sir Whiskers _*
> 1) How many products are currently available on RPGNow?
> *




390 with another large batch on its way and about 5 per week.



> _Originally posted by Sir Whiskers _*
> 2) How many products could such a catalog list before becoming too large for a reasonable download?
> *




If it's just text, all of them would be fine. If it's thumbnails. I'm thinking just a few hundred. What's reasonable for a 56k download though? 1MB? 2MB?



> _Originally posted by Sir Whiskers _*
> 3) How much time would it take to create and maintain the catalog? Would RPGNow have a reasonable expectation of regaining those costs through additional sales?
> *




That's a key question. I'd prefer to have something automated if we do it at all.



> _Originally posted by Sir Whiskers _*
> 4) Would anyone besides me actually use the thing, if it existed?
> *




Probably 1% of the customers would. Maybe. Just a guess.



> _Originally posted by Sir Whiskers _*
> 5) Can much the same thing be accomplished by simply having two product pages for each product - one with graphics, one without?
> *




Isn't it an option in your browser NOT to display graphics? I'm sure there is one, just turn off images and browse that way.

James


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## Morrus (Nov 14, 2002)

Updated list:

2: 730 (TF&T)
4: 578 (Wild Spellcraft)
5: ~530 (Inns & Taverns)
6: 528 (LE1)
9: 450 (CG1)
10: 381 (4C2F)
11:  351 (Bey. Monks)
13: 329 (Gar'Udok)
21: 235 (Interludes)
19: 232 (LE2)
24: 172 (Campaign Suite)
26: 160 (Enchiridon)

Below #30:

156: 101 Spellbooks (+16 elsewhere)
152: Moon Elves (+55 or so lost figures...grrr...)
150: Right Beneath (Right Under our Noses?)
149: Everyone Else
146: Drow (+6 Print On Demand not counted)
135: 101 Treasures (+6 elsewhere)
125: Enchantment
121: Death: GotG
99: Bodies & Souls
87: Call of Duty
75: 101 Components (+28 elsewhere)


----------



## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *Incidentally - looking at those referrals lists, is that working out?  It doesn't seem like, for example, your Dragon and Dungeon ads really have much effect.  $10,000 seems a lot of money when you appear to be getting most of your customers from here.
> *




Promotion is also in other modes like pay search engines and conventions and such... But you're right... most of it isn't paying off directly in sales. We have had ads in most major magazines, they just don't do that well even for RPGShop.com

Still one of the major reasons we spent a lot of money in our first year was to build awarness and vendor confidence, which DID pay off. So I regret little of what we've spent, but don't expect to see many big ads in print from us in the forseeable future.

James


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## Krug (Nov 14, 2002)

Well my suggestions: 
1) An indepth survey. Find out why people who do big downloads (such as Asgard) don't purchase. Are they underage? No access to credit cards? 

2) Banner ads at targeted sites, announcing a discount if you spend $10-15 or more. Maybe a discount coupon?

3) More promotion in game stores sounds like a good idea, but would game stores benefit?


----------



## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

Krug said:
			
		

> *The key question: How to get more gamers to purchase PDFs? What about those who don't have access to a credit card?
> *




RPGNow takes paypal and even money orders. If you send a money order in with your REFERENCE number at checkout, we'll process it. We also offer an option to put your order on CD and mail it back. So hopefully that covers most people.

I have found though, that MOST people have access to a credit card and only 15-20% of orders we sell are paypal.com - something the independent publisher should consider.

James


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## Frilf (Nov 14, 2002)

Hey, gang,

I really enjoy this thread.  It has been most illuminating and entertaining to read.  So, I thought I'd just to supply a little more data for the list-makers among you.  Here are the sales figures for our products (as of now-ish):

*Book of Templates - 153 sales*
*Races of EVernor I - 66 sales*

Both products have done well for us and we are grateful to those of you who have purchased copies (now, go get your friends to buy copies! ).  Additionally, both products have received very good critical reviews and positive comments from customers.  (As an aside to Morrus and the staff reviewers - perhaps the system could be changed to 10 points rather than 5?  It might provide a better reflection of what the product is like.  That's a whole other topic, though...)

BEGIN TANGENT
Not to risk dwelling too long on a tangential point here, but I'd like to know the other publisher's views on how reviews in general (and in particular, from affiliate or staff reviewers on EN World) affect their sales in general.  How do comments on RPG Now affect sales?  Would it be good to encourage folks that browse the virtual isles of product at RPG Now to post their comments?  Perhaps there could be a list for those products that garner the best customer feedback, so that sales in general did not dictate everything as far as rankings go.  Just an idea.  I realize that this will be somewhat controversial due to the highly subjective and sometimes truly uninspired comments that folks can leave occasionally, but it might provide an avenue whereby products that are critically-acclaimed or well-liked by customers can be seen still.  I'm not just saying this because our products got good reviews but did not have corresponding sales, either.  I think there are other publishers out there with the same situation besides myself.  Anyway, back to my regularly-scheduled post, now...
END TANGENT

I agree with others here that I'd like to see the Top X lists at RPG Now adjusted somewhat.  I liked the idea of a chart for "Top Sellers This Month" on a floating 30-day basis.  Perhaps it could feature the top 20-30 products, as well.  As far as the current all-time top-sellers list goes, it could be expanded to the top 50 or 100 (which, in the great scheme of things, will become an ever-shrinking percentage of the total number of PDF products) and be left as it is.  However, to show some chronological perspective with respect to sales, perhaps a "Top 40" could be assembled for the year, as well?  My two scheckels on the topic, anyway...

I also agree with other publishers that the current RPG Now system is very much "out of sight, out of mind, out of money".  A better system for keeping track of what's been published and keeping it in view for a longer period of time would benefit everyone, I think - I'm not just speaking from my own pocket book here 

I'd also like to know whether or not sales were part of a multi-purchase transaction on RPG Now.  Perhaps a little (M) or some other icon could be added to the reports that would show this information.  Perhaps even a numeral system that would show how many items and the publisher's sales position among those various other products.  For example, M3/4 would indicate the product was bought as the third product in a four-product purchase.  Just another idea.  Prattling on, now... 

What do you make of that?
Cheers!
Ian

PS Cheese!  This is a long post for me!


----------



## HellHound (Nov 14, 2002)

Morrus: update - Everyone Else, 151 copies. Not that it makes a difference until we hit the 160 line so we can gauge exactly where the #30 spot is.

SO...

*THREADJACKING MODE ON*

Come on everyone. Have you been considering buying Everyone Else? This is THE game aid for the stressed DM working on a campaign world. You can provide the villains, you can provide the heroes, you can provide the rulers, the church heads and the adventure... Everyone Else will provide... everyone else.

Do it now, and know you are helping us gauge the exact sales figures of the RPGnow top 30!

Buy Everyone Else now and join in the experiment!

*THREADJACKING MODE OFF* 

_edit: color and removed sig_


----------



## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

Frilf said:
			
		

> *I agree with others here that I'd like to see the Top X lists at RPG Now adjusted somewhat.  I liked the idea of a chart for "Top Sellers This Month" on a floating 30-day basis.  Perhaps it could feature the top 20-30 products, as well.
> *




Ok, then... lets try this. I'm going to make the following changes and see how they go. I'm afraid the longer lists make it harder for low-speed internet connections, but let me know your feedback. Here's what I did:

1) Increased the HOT SELLERS list to use past 30 days of sales.
2) Increased the HOT SELLERS list to a top 20.
3) Increased the Best Sellers (of all time) list to Top 40
4) Increased the number of products shown on the front page from 18 to 24

As for letting people/reviewers know about new product - we have a mailing list link on the top center of the site that you can join.

Hope that helps.
James


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## Morrus (Nov 14, 2002)

Updated list - James has increased the list to Top 40.

2: 732 (TF&T)
4: 578 (Wild Spellcraft)
5: ~530 (Inns & Taverns)
6: 528 (LE1)
9: 450 (CG1)
10: 385 (4C2F)
11: 351 (Bey. Monks)
13: 329 (Gar'Udok)
21: 235 (Interludes)
19: 232 (LE2)
24: 172 (Campaign Suite)
27: 160 (Enchiridon)
31: 156 (101 Spellbooks) (+16 elsewhere)
33: 154 (Moon Elves) (+55 or so lost figures...grrr...)
35: 153 (Book Templates)
36: 151 (Everyone Else)
37: 149 (Drow) (+6 Print On Demand not counted)
38: 135 (101 Treasures) (+6 elsewhere)
39: 125 (Enchantment)
40: 122 (Death: GotG)

Below #30:


150: Right Beneath (Right Under our Noses?) [is that right?]
99:   Bodies & Souls
87:  Call of Duty
75:  101 Components (+28 elsewhere)
66:  Races Evernor


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## jezter6 (Nov 14, 2002)

*FLGS input*

As many of you know, I'm going through the process now of opening my own FLGS. I saw someone (Krug I believe) post about a perspective from us.

While I'm not in business yet, planning a business takes a lot of these details into account. I, personally, would love a way to offer PDF's to my customers. For those of us with high speed data connections, it would be easy for us (a few hundred dollars in a decent printer) to run a Print-on-demand service to our users. I'd also love a way to get PDF's to my people, especially since my customers are going to be younger gamers without credit cards.

Publishers: How would you like to see an FLGS handle transactions like this? I personally would like to see a bulk license to print out/make a cd for my customers. Even the possibility of putting multiple products on 1 cd for my customers. Not sure how to handle this with multiple publishers and the sort. Maybe some kind of deal through RPGnow?


----------



## Morrus (Nov 14, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Ok, then... lets try this. I'm going to make the following changes and see how they go. I'm afraid the longer lists make it harder for low-speed internet connections, but let me know your feedback. Here's what I did:
> 
> ...




I like it! Thanks, James.


----------



## Monte At Home (Nov 14, 2002)

I would hate to see the Top 30 on rpgnow go away or even be significantly changed. Personally, it would make the site a lot less useful to me as both a publisher and a consumer.

First, it shows overall a good hallmark of quality. It's unwise to think that everyone going there has been there before. To a newcomer, it gives them an idea of some of the older, established products as well as the brand new ones displayed on the front page. This clearly happens, or I still wouldn't be selling my backlist products as much as I am.

Second, it is still dynamic, just not as dynamic as it was. Bonds of Magic: Cabal just entered the list last week or so, and now it's up to #25. I certainly hope that with the release of Book of Eldritch Might III: The Nexus tomorrow, we'll get on the list with that one pretty soon as well.

I don't agree that pdf sales windows are short. In fact, I'd say that they are longer than for print products. We're still selling 3-4 copies of Book of Eldritch Might every day, for example (from both our venues). And that's after 18 months. Sure, we were selling a lot more than that when it first came out, but that 3-4 copies a day has been steady for the last 6-12 months.

As for sales being down, well, Book of Eldritch Might III will be a good test for Malhavoc Press. If it sells significantly less than BoEM II in it's first week, I'll agree. Otherwise, I'm not so sure. 

(Actually, I'm sure that overall, pdf sales are way up. They might be down for individual publishers or individual products, but clearly more people in general are buying pdfs than a year ago. We measure sales on a first day, first week, first month, etc. basis. I can tell you that, for example, Requiem for a God sold as well as If Thoughts Could Kill in its first week, so I'm not sure that sales for us are actually down.)

I still think pdf is a great way to deliver a product to a consumer. The best thing about them, I think, is speed. You can be sitting at home, read about a product you like, and in 3-20 minutes (depending on your connection speed) you're reading it. That's cool. I'm also happy that it's a way for our products to reach people who live far from a game store.


----------



## philreed (Nov 14, 2002)

*Changes to RPGNow Lists*

With 20 "Hot" and 40 "Best" listed it's overload on the site now. What could be done to make it easier for people to tell at a glance what's hot? As it is now my eyes glaze over and a puddle of drool forms on my keyboard as I look at the page.

I propose modifying the center area as follows:

MOST RECENT RELEASES

Show thumbnails of 9 covers here.

CURRENT "HOT" PRODUCTS

Show thumbnails of 9 covers here.

CURRENT "BEST" PRODUCTS

Show thumbnails of 9 covers here.

Keep the 20 and 40 down the side. What this will do is help those who rely on graphics. It will also make the product on the front page rotate more often which will help with repeat business.


----------



## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

*Re: FLGS input*



			
				jezter6 said:
			
		

> *I, personally, would love a way to offer PDF's to my customers. For those of us with high speed data connections, it would be easy for us (a few hundred dollars in a decent printer) to run a Print-on-demand service to our users. I'd also love a way to get PDF's to my people, especially since my customers are going to be younger gamers without credit cards.
> ...
> Maybe some kind of deal through RPGnow? *




Well when they mentioned FLGS all that I could think of was how they all must hate me and want nothing to do with someone who cuts them out... but this is actually a really cool idea. If there was more revenue to share I'd even do an affiliate program - but there is no revenue to share - what there is the option of is that a store could print them off and resell them. But is that what the Publishers want? Would they care? I think its a good idea. Something that can be done on their own without our direct involvement even.

Selling this idea to FLGS though is probably going to be very hard.

James


----------



## Morrus (Nov 14, 2002)

Monte At Home said:
			
		

> *I would hate to see the Top 30 on rpgnow go away or even be significantly changed. Personally, it would make the site a lot less useful to me as both a publisher and a consumer.
> 
> First, it shows overall a good hallmark of quality. It's unwise to think that everyone going there has been there before. To a newcomer, it gives them an idea of some of the older, established products as well as the brand new ones displayed on the front page. This clearly happens, or I still wouldn't be selling my backlist products as much as I am.
> 
> ...




I can't really take your performance as an indicator of the general trend, though Monte.  You are an exception - EVERYONE who buys PDFs buys your products.  No other publisher can claim that.  I doubt that RPGNow's layout has much effect, if any, on your sales.

You will continue to do well, I have no doubt of that.  I'm more concerned about the rest of us mortals. 



> Actually, I'm sure that overall, pdf sales are way up. They might be down for individual publishers or individual products, but clearly more people in general are buying pdfs than a year ago.




Yep, agreed.  Someone phrased it well above - the number of publishers/products is growing faster than the number of consumers.  Overall, sales are up, but individually they are down (good for James but bad for us!) I'm selling under half what I would have done a year ago.


----------



## Krug (Nov 14, 2002)

Urgh.. James, frankly you're putting TOO much on the front page. Maybe tidy things up a bit, with the new products on a seperate page on their own. Add a random factor that throws up an older PDF product whenever someone goes to your front page, or even take out the new products on your front page and instead throw up five or ten older products. You have a 'customers who bought this also bought so and so' feature; use it on the front page like amazon does. 

If the user wants to find out new products let them click on a link. This will increase the visibility of older products and ensure they don't sink to the bottom. 

As for RPGnow comments, there are so many 5-star reviews it's hard to take them seriously.


----------



## philreed (Nov 14, 2002)

*Agree Completely*



			
				Krug said:
			
		

> *Urgh.. James, frankly you're putting TOO much on the front page.*




It's always been a slow loading page but it gets slower with each week. The entire network of sites with the identical navigation bar across the top loads way too slow.

And I'm on a cable modem so I'm fairly certain it isn't my connection.

I am using Netscape which seems to be forgotten these days. Enworld's pages are impossible for me to read with Netscape.


----------



## Turjan (Nov 14, 2002)

Well, I can only comment from a buyer's view on this interesting topic.

I just had a look, how many PDF's I've bought so far from RPGnow, and that's 17 up to now.

Where did I hear of those products? That's almost exclusively EN World. I'm not browsing the online store on a regular basis, but only go there, when I read an anouncement, or even better, a review on this site.

Which products do I buy as pdf instead of print? Well, that's tricky. These are more or less three kinds of products:
1) Products I don't expect to see in print, never ever that is .
2) Products, where the topic doesn't interest me that much that I ever wanted to buy a print copy thereof.
3) Older products, where the print copies were more expensive than I ever wanted to pay for that topic.

Would I buy more pdf's under other circumstances? Well, actually yes. But I have to admit that this is a vision for the far future. I would like to see the devolopment of a new kind of print industry, something like "Print your PDF"-service stations. Then I can buy my pdf's, and if I really like them, I'll go there and let them be printed. Nowadays there is always a risk: Do I like it *that* much that I will spend even more money on the product by buying an additional print copy afterwards?

Do I register anywhere in order to get hold of a free copy of some "cool" pdf? Actually no. Who says it's really cool? I won't sit there and fill out boring forms in order to get my hold on something I actually don't know anything about.

Why are there much more downloads of free products than of products you have to pay for? Well, I've got DSL and a flatrate. That's one click. Any more questions ? I suspect that only 5% of those downloads get actually read. The rest waits for the next harddisk crash.

When on the RPGnow website, do you look at other products? Yes, I do. Most of the time, I browse the two columns on the right, best sellers and new products. Anything else? No. Except sometimes a link to "other products of this publisher", if I like the products, that is .

But there's this handy list of all fantasy products with pics and descriptions shown with a link in one of the prior posts. Yes? Oh, really! Looks great! Where did you hide this one ?

Do you look at the customer reviews on RPGnow? Well, yes, I do. I don't trust those 5 star reviews (unfortunately most reviews are 5 star, which invalidates them a bit in my eyes). I usually begin with the worst review and ask myself, whether those points the reviewer made may disturb me. Most negative reviews give a good insight into a product, but I take them as personal view, so they might actually convince me to buy a product . Usually I don't consider buying a product without a single review. Therefore, reviews help, definitely.

There was something else, but I'm afraid, I forgot it for now . Okay, next time .


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## jezter6 (Nov 14, 2002)

*Re: Re: FLGS input*



			
				rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Well when they mentioned FLGS all that I could think of was how they all must hate me and want nothing to do with someone who cuts them out... but this is actually a really cool idea. If there was more revenue to share I'd even do an affiliate program - but there is no revenue to share - what there is the option of is that a store could print them off and resell them. But is that what the Publishers want? Would they care? I think its a good idea. Something that can be done on their own without our direct involvement even.
> 
> ...




James:

The great part about this is, you're not really cutting the FLGS out of much. In all honesty, most of the PDF products out there aren't making it to print...which means they won't be on my shelf anyways.

I don't think POD for us would be out of the realm of possibility. And it would only be a few retailers who would be willing to do it. I'm still hoping a publisher will chime in with their opinions on this....

One scary thought for publishers I would assume is trusting the FLGS. It's much like Kazaa...you don't know that a FLGS wouldn't buy one copy and print like crazy and sell them. I know from a moral standpoint I couldn't do that to the publisher, but I'm sure there are those that might.

What about something like a 'blanket' license for vendors. A certain fee for X amount of PDF's. We'd pay for (let's assume 50) and would let us print out 50 of ANY pdf from that publisher's line or something like that. That would work for the big guys (Malhavoc, Nat-20, Bastion, MEG, et al, Grinning Goblin, Green Ronin) but not so much the indies...

What do you guys think?


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## RPGRealms (Nov 14, 2002)

Well since other folks are doing it 

We only have 2 PDFs available through RPGNow and RPG.net mall (though I have a few others to add and some upcoming projects). One is free and one is $5.00

We definitely sell MANY more PDFs through RPGNow than RPG.net by about 10 to one. Then again we sell most of our copies through our own store.

The following #s are for individual sales only of our non-free PDF and don't reflect the subscriptions we have in place for this line.

Traveller's Aide #1 ($5.00)
Personal Weapons of Charted Space
253 copies (55 at RPGNow, 6 at RPGnet Mall, 192 from our own store).

The largest number of referers according to RPGNow are 'Unknown' followed by ENWorld (you da man Morrus!)

I have been very happy with how the PDF series is going, particularly when you factor in the 6 and 12 issue subscriptions we have sold. If you add those numbers in, the sales totals somewhere around 500-600.


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## Krug (Nov 14, 2002)

*Re: Agree Completely*



			
				philreed said:
			
		

> *
> 
> It's always been a slow loading page but it gets slower with each week. The entire network of sites with the identical navigation bar across the top loads way too slow.
> 
> ...




Frankly, first thing I'd move would be upcoming products. Put them on a seperate page.. Right now the emphasis is on the new products. Yes, they're important, but not to the point of shoving out older product. 

The aim of the bestseller lists is to feature older product, but newcomers to the site would have missed out on all the other good stuff that have come and gone that are not in the lists. eg: Malladin's Gate _Forgotten Heroes: Paladin_, for example. Unless they stumble upon a review, they will NEVER have heard of the product. I think _Joe's Book of Enchantment_ will get shoved out soon as well, which is a pity.

A suggestion that might be implemented on the Enworld side: A top 20 reviewed products available on RPGnow.com?


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## the GreyOrm (Nov 14, 2002)

Don't know if anyone has mentioned him thus far, but Ron Edwards (Adept Press) started selling electronic copies of his game "Sorcerer" before that method of publishing became well-known.  Along with Monte Cook and a few others, he's one of the trailblazers of PDF publishing.

I dug around a bit and found Ron's notes on sales: "During Sorcerer's tenure as a PDF product in 1999, I sold about 50 copies. During 2000, I sold about 70. During the first quarter of 2001, however, I sold 35-40 copies, and sales picked up steadily from there until the PDF was discontinued."

If we asssume on the low side that he sold an average of 50 a quarter in 2001, up to the PDF's discontinuation, that's 150 copies in the first three quarters of 2001.  I expect that sales would have been better, but all this was just before the advent of PDF publishing became wide-spread or well-known.

To sum that up in terms of cash, he made about $500 in '99, $700 in '00, and $1500 in 3/4ths of '01 via sales of the "Sorcerer" PDF (as it sold for $10).  This isn't too bad, as his sales actually increased from one year to the next, more than doubling between 2000 and 2001.

The Sorcerer PDF was discontinued before the last quarter of 2001, after publication of the hardcover book.  Sales of the hardcover paid for itself and the publication of the first former PDF supplement (whose book sales then paid for publication-as-a-book of the second PDF supplement).

I don't have figures on the sales of the two former PDF supplements for "Sorcerer" or for the other PDF-only games Adept Press puts out, but anyone who wants such information can probably get the figures from Ron with a polite query via e-mail.

I myself have made nearly $200 in the last year with my PDF product, a mini-supplement for Sorcerer titled "Electric Ghosts."  I've sold 33 copies, if I'm counting the reciepts correctly.

I'm still getting regular sales on it, despite no advertising done for it on my part and it being over a year old now.  Most of my sales were post-GenCon 2001, when I did the majority of my advertising.

As of the end of this past July, for other PDF mini-supplements:
Dav Harnish had sold 75 copies of "Hellbound."
Jared Sorensen had sold 52 copies of "Schism."
Clinton R. Nixon had sold 35 copies of "Urge" (like me, he's done no advertising).

I don't have any sales info on the other mini-supplements.

I know this is all non-D20, but its more info for you PDF-publishing hounds out there to mull over.


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## jmucchiello (Nov 14, 2002)

Krug said:
			
		

> *3) More promotion in game stores sounds like a good idea, but would game stores benefit? *



Has anyone tried this? Put up a flier at FLGS with the tear-off cut-outs with a web address? (Like bands advertise in music shops.) I wonder if it would work at all.
{QUOTE]*The aim of the bestseller lists is to feature older product, but newcomers to the site would have missed out on all the other good stuff that have come and gone that are not in the lists. eg: Malladin's Gate Forgotten Heroes: Paladin, for example. Unless they stumble upon a review, they will NEVER have heard of the product. I think Joe's Book of Enchantment will get shoved out soon as well, which is a pity.
*[/QUOTE]Actually this tread (I assume) is responsible for 3 sales today so I'm catching up of 101 Treasures.  But, yeah, Eldritch 3 will knock me down a peg by Saturday or so.

Joe

39: 128 (Enchantment)


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## jezter6 (Nov 14, 2002)

I'm sure the possibility of the 'tear-off' sheet could exist, but as someone going into the industry, having 20 different tear-offs hanging on the wall just doesn't seem like a fun option, and honestly...I get nothing out of it.

Again, most of my consumers will be the younger crowd who probably don't have a credit card and can't use mommy and daddy's. It would be great for them to come in with $10 cash and get a PDF on CD and change for some gum or something.


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## jmucchiello (Nov 14, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *I'm more concerned about the rest of us mortals. *



You have a certain demi-deity status yourself there, Morrus. More people know about RPGNow because of your website than any other source. More people come to my website from yours than from mortality.net, rpg.net, rpghosts(news|now|etc), gamewyrd,  sjgames|d20weekly, and all the other RPG news sites _combined_.

You say your latest PDFs are not selling as well. I would guess that part of that is that your latest PDF have narrower appeal than your older ones. Also you use to plug your stuff more. I remember hearing about TF&T long before it came out. Death came out with little fanfare. Likewise, TF&T has no niche, it's a complete unknown if people will want it (apparently they do). Whereas Death is a definite niche product: a book about one deity portfolio. Narrow focus.

Re: Freebies
People download freebies because they're free. My Tuesday's Two-Pager which I announced only last Tuesday has been download over a 1000 times. So it's not hard to find people who will download PDFs. I think it's paying for them that's the problem. When threads about PDF sales show up in the general board here on ENWorld, a strong percentage of the "I don't buy PDFs" contingent say things like "If it's not good enough to print why should I buy it?" That is the core stigma that we need to eradicate.

Joe


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## jmucchiello (Nov 14, 2002)

jezter6 said:
			
		

> *I'm sure the possibility of the 'tear-off' sheet could exist, but as someone going into the industry, having 20 different tear-offs hanging on the wall just doesn't seem like a fun option, and honestly...I get nothing out of it.
> 
> Again, most of my consumers will be the younger crowd who probably don't have a credit card and can't use mommy and daddy's. It would be great for them to come in with $10 cash and get a PDF on CD and change for some gum or something.  *



Well that would be ideal. As long as we knew we could trust every FLGS out there. I was merely addressing the "how do we get people who've never thought to look for PDFs on the web to start doing so?"

Yours is a whole other kettle of fish. The only right way to do it is to create a POS machine that does the burn without intervention. This is not cheap. And how do we convince FLGSs that they need to buy this $400 machine so people can buy PDFs on CD and you get only 10% instead of your usual 30-40%?

Joe


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## jezter6 (Nov 14, 2002)

Yeah, that kind of machine is definately not something that FLGS guys are going to buy into, especially for the limited profit margin involved.

Even 20% isn't something we're too interested in.

Hopefully more responses will come from the bigger d20 guys (malhavoc, nat-20, etc)...

I'm definately not trying to hijack this thread to how to make me money, it's how to allow me to offer these products to my local customers who otherwise might not be able to buy from you guys. I'm more for getting you guys some exposure, because the more popular your stuff is, the more sales (in print) I'll make as well.


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## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

jezter6 said:
			
		

> *Hopefully more responses will come from the bigger d20 guys (malhavoc, nat-20, etc)...
> *




I'll give you their response right now. Since the bigger companys (Malhavoc, Nat-20, RPGObjects) go to print with their stuff anyway, you already have access to giving out their products. So there is no NEED for what you're asking and they won't be interested. It's the small vendors that might be interested in this grass roots support you offer- but they are also going to be the ones most concerned about you just burning a bunch of CDs.

One solution would be for a publisher to burn some "bundle" CD's for you to sell. On the CD can be lots of free demos (and OpenRPG and such) for the users. We did this at GENCON but it didn't go over that well. So maybe people don't understand. Anway, in this case we could pre-charge you for the CD's and let you do what you will. But then you risk having them sit on the shelf like any other physical product... 

Well it's a creative angle/idea, but I still find it hard to think of any way to make it fly.

James


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## jezter6 (Nov 14, 2002)

actually, i'd love to see some CD sets of some publishers' stuff. I know GG does that on their website. I haven't looked at any others yet...

I still think some of the big guys would have some interest, eg - Nat 20's TFT...It's a great book, I just don't know how much interest my people are going to have in a book to sit on the shelf if they're only looking for a few quick games for $5.

I still would like a way to introduce my customers to PDF's without having to send them home with a web link to do it on their own...as well as make a little money in the process. Not to put you down in any way james...but sending customers to another business to get their wares isn't making me squat. 

It's a bummer it's not profitable enough for an affiliate system....


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## jmucchiello (Nov 14, 2002)

> *It's a bummer it's not profitable enough for an affiliate system.... *



james,
That reminds me. Something else you could do to help customers find the lost gems. Take those top 0.4% who buy the most and offer them a coupon (say $5) if they would create an amazon-like Listmania. But in this case they would be instructed to pick out PDFs that they feel should not be forgotten.

You'd want to limit the number of lists and dicourage duplicating stff on someone else's submistiom

Joe


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## Xeriar (Nov 14, 2002)

> _Originally posted by rpghost _*
> 
> This is something that was suggested before and why I put together this page:
> 
> ...




Holy cow, man, even browsing the fantasy page has a hundred entries!

Though it takes a lot of maintenance, people have a serious aversion to dealing with more than ~30 items.  ~7 is a real nice number.

I look at that list and just have to go 'wha?'

Products come in genres (fantasy d20, fantasy, horror, modern, sci-fi, superhero, and other, or some other short list)

And categories (Settings, supplements, GM Aids, adventures, characters, maps, other, as before)

No category of a genre should have more than 30 items, even people seriously looking through everything will begin to forget or just skip over items otherwise.  It's nice if this can cut it down to less than 18 items.

As it stands, it really does scream 'glut' to me.  I mean, some of the products there are uh, a little uninspired.

And though I'm not exactly a terribly prudent person, a picture of exposed breasts on the front page is going to annoy a couple of people.


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## Krug (Nov 14, 2002)

Anyway James, thanks for listening to us. It's rare that you get direct interaction with a Internet commerce site, or one that actually tries to pay attention. (Anyone tried to talk to Jeff Bezos lately?  )


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## Spywez (Nov 14, 2002)

*Exposure = Sales*

Well, I am a not a hardcore D&D'er by any means however I found this thread to be very interesting.

I purchased two e-books as a result of reading this thread. My only bit of advice for creators and RPGnow is to maximize  exposure. 

Top 30 lists are nice but not the answer. And with that snide comment said I am off to read my purchases.


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## tensen (Nov 14, 2002)

Xeriar said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Holy cow, man, even browsing the fantasy page has a hundred entries!
> 
> ...




Look back at the left side.  d20 Fantasy once you go into the whole list, has a lot more category breakdowns.


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## 2WS-Steve (Nov 14, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> 
> I'll give you their response right now. Since the bigger companys (Malhavoc, Nat-20, RPGObjects) go to print with their stuff anyway, you already have access to giving out their products. So there is no NEED for what you're asking and they won't be interested. It's the small vendors that might be interested in this grass roots support you offer- but they are also going to be the ones most concerned about you just burning a bunch of CDs.
> ....
> ...




I'm not so sure print publishers would be all that reticent about this. Many print publishers are starting to shift their OOP stock to e-books and having a new way of selling those would be very appealing.

LSI's print-on-demand service has some pretty reasonable print costs. A small setup fee, then under $4 per book for a 108 page 8.5x11 book with 4-color cover and B/W interior. You do lose full bleeds and both the cover and interior stock are fairly light but I'd much rather have a bound, double-sided print book than the ugly stuff that comes out of my printer. 

If an independent gaming store could afford whatever machine they use, has the space for it, and can keep the paper and ink costs reasonable it'd be a pretty convenient way to have a wide inventory base, a large selection of OOP books, and minimal inventory risk.

I'm confident that the technology for such an operation is either already here or shortly on its way. The only outstanding issue then is going to be accountability. When Ryan Dancey talked about something similar to this, but regarding in-store "spincasters" and miniatures, he suggested having special keys ship with the templates and each use of the key racks up a charge. Regardless, the accountability problem can't be that difficult to solve.

On a side note, from what I understand the PoD service even has an added feature in that it uses digital printing, which can make for crisper images in the printout. There's no reason it couldn't also offer 600 dpi prints as compared to the typical 300 lpi you get from a conventional print house.


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## MEG Hal (Nov 14, 2002)

jezter6 said:
			
		

> *
> I still think some of the big guys would have some interest, eg - Nat 20's TFT...It's a great book, *




T, F and T will be available in print in Jan/Feb 2003
from Mystic Eye Games .
No worries Jezter6 you will have this expanded beauty at your store .


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## philreed (Nov 14, 2002)

*POD Machines*



			
				2WS-Steve said:
			
		

> *If an independent gaming store could afford whatever machine they use, has the space for it, and can keep the paper and ink costs reasonable it'd be a pretty convenient way to have a wide inventory base, a large selection of OOP books, and minimal inventory risk.*




One of my (many) current projects for SJG is researching and testing these machines. The quality is not yet there . . . even on the $96,000.00 machine I'm testing right now.

I don't know of many stores that could afford this much just for the machine.


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## ToddSchumacher (Nov 14, 2002)

2WS-Steve said:
			
		

> *
> 
> 
> On a side note, from what I understand the PoD service even has an added feature in that it uses digital printing, which can make for crisper images in the printout. There's no reason it couldn't also offer 600 dpi prints as compared to the typical 300 lpi you get from a conventional print house. *




Just a technical note...Dpi and Lpi are two completely different things...The films that are produced to make plates for printer (at least the small press place where I worked) were calibrated for 2400dpi. Printing is MUCH better. And that was with 5 year old equipment.

Digital is cheaper, faster, and for many things a 'better' decision. But for Quality you are not going to beat conventional printing.


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## 2WS-Steve (Nov 14, 2002)

ToddSchumacher said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Just a technical note...Dpi and Lpi are two completely different things...The films that are produced to make plates for printer (at least the small press place where I worked) were calibrated for 2400dpi. Printing is MUCH better. And that was with 5 year old equipment.
> 
> *




That's interesting; the printers I've been working with request 300 dpi images for grayscale and color and say that their half-tones are typically done at 300 lpi (I think). Is it two different resolutions, one for the text and one for the images?


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## ghoti69 (Nov 14, 2002)

Personally, I love PDF products.  I generally scan my gaming materials in to have them in electronic form, anyway.  They're a great timesaver, and for the price on one print book, I can usually get 3-4 PDFs.  I've purchased about 50, so far.  True, some have sucked, and some have been awesome.  But, they're generally cheap, so who cares.


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## ToddSchumacher (Nov 14, 2002)

2WS-Steve said:
			
		

> *
> 
> That's interesting; the printers I've been working with request 300 dpi images for grayscale and color and say that their half-tones are typically done at 300 lpi (I think). Is it two different resolutions, one for the text and one for the images? *




OK... Greyscale images and most interior illustrations are OK at 300dpi resolution scanning wise..as long as you scan them at 100% the size you want them in the book.  Line art and text (Especially text) pretty much need as much reslolution as you can muster. (line art is 800dpi minimum). I've been on projects where art for the cover was sent out to a place with a drum scanner that could get a really good high res-12-24dpi resolution.

LPI is a standard for measuring halftone 'screens'. Conventional printing is done with tiny-tiny cyan, magental, yellow and black dots all clumped together in different sized to make images. 

DPI is used to measure 'dots per inch' and is a measurement of digital image stuff (computer screens -typically 72-100dpi, scanners, digital cameras, inkjet and laser printers all use that as a measurment of quality.

Comparing DPI and LPI is like comparing inches to degrees. Can't do it.

Getting a 300dpi image and a 600dpi image outputted to a film calibrated with a 300lpi screen will look pretty much the same..which is why printers don't recommend anything higher...it just wastes all that presious memory.

Text and line art (Vector art such as from illustrator...logo making) are made with a different format. They can have sharp edges without being memory hogs that raster images (pixels) are, but need the high dpi capable imagesetter (the equipment that makes films that are used to make plates).

Help a bit?  Its been 2 years since I had to know all this stuff.


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## 2WS-Steve (Nov 14, 2002)

Thanks for the info Todd. It sounds like the real hit if using digital should be to text and line art.


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## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

The POD service RPGNow plans to offer WILL allow for bleeds and is perfect bound and costs less then $4 as well. We just have to buy in 10 quantity batches and thus have to warehouse them at RPGShop.com

Again, why would a FLGS want to bother getting some books made on POD and selling them? Why wouldn't they just order some POD from us and resell them at a profit? Maybe we could work out some deals with a larger discount on POD product sent to a FLGS type of store. That way the CAN sell some products that my never see the light of true print.

James


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## RangerWickett (Nov 14, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *Since the bigger companys (Malhavoc, Nat-20, RPGObjects) go to print with their stuff anyway, you already have access to giving out their products. So there is no NEED for what you're asking and they won't be interested. *




Not entirely true.  We don't have print agreements on all of our books (but if some publisher wants to offer to put out a print version, we're all ears, ), and though we do eventually hope to get enough capital to put out print runs of some of our own books, it is definitely a bit of a ways off.  An interim opportunity for print sales like this might be a good idea.


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## MThibault (Nov 14, 2002)

Back to the question of how to bring more customers to the shop to keep up with the increasing number of products.

Off the top of my head, there are a few ways that advertising can be leveraged to do this.  But what are the benefits and drawbacks of each.  I'm just throwing this out for discussion, I'm probably way off base way too often to run with this, but hopefully it can be turned into something useful.

1. Differentiation:  If I recall the RPGNow ads in Dragon they were very broad.  "This is our service.  Its easy.  Try it."  That is the impression that I was left with -- there may have been more details, but they didn't stick with me.

That's a good message, but it is not very focused.  Emphasizing one or two key selling points will have more of an impact.  Ideally these selling points should differentiate the service from other vendors: Amazon, B&N, and, unfortunately, FLGS.  These are places where people buy RPG materials.  I think that a service-based ad-campaign should really emphasize "why should you buy products here instead of there".  You really need to answer the question, What makes PDF purchasing better than print purchasing?, and answer it clearly and unequivocably.

Speed, Convenience, Time Savings, Inexpensive, Unique Products, Cutting-Edge Products, etc.  Pick one or two adjectives, maybe three if two of them are closely related and sell those adjectives in relation to the Site.  I would probably go for the Cutting Edge and Convenience angles so you don't sound like a bargain-basement store.

2. Parity: Many people already know the basic drill of purchasing online.  If the potential customer has internet access and a credit card and still isn't checking out RPGNow there must be another reason.  The advertising should make the similarities to book purchasing (through Amazon as well as FLGS) as clear as the differences.

I would start with the broad selection (there is a comparable number of d20 products in RPGNow as in my FLGS or on Amazon).  Browsable? Well, to an extent. You can't flip through the product, but many products have previews, samples or web-enhancements available.  Publishers should really take the lead on this one and provide a representative sample, as well as a full table of contents on their web-site.  Ideally, RPG now would host these so that you don't have to leave the site then return to purchase the product if you like it.  I would also emphasize that it is a specialized RPG materials store.  Amazon doesn't have a separate category for RPG books, let alone separate categories for Fantasy d20 vs. Superheroes d20.  RPGNow is laid out for the convenience of Gamers, and only Gamers.

3. Flagship products: WotC has an entire marketing strategy built around selling a small handful of flagship products.  But I do think that this is synergistic to a large degree and the flagship products also sell the supplements.

RPGNow (and this goes back to the "cutting-edge" angle) sells a few products by big-name publishers before they are in print.  The more people who can be convinced to set up an account to purchase Monte's next book or the next Natural20 book the wider the potential market for everything else in the store.

We already see this effect in the large number of referals from ENWorld.  It might be beneficial to enter into a partnership with Malhavoc to share certain advertising costs -- higher profile advertising that neither company would use if left to their own budgets.  This would help out both companies directly int he short term (immediate increased sales of that product) and indirectly in the long term (expanding the customer-pool for subsequent products).  Obviously the numbers have to be crunched, but it would be something that I would be looking into.

Additionally, I might even offer limited time reduced fees or advertising subsidies for other established publishers/authors to encourage them to place high-profile products on the site.   In fact, if it can be done without losing the company's focus, reselling advertising might be another revenue stream.  RPGNow purchases in bulk and offers space to publishers at a rate that is lower than what they would normally pay, but higher than a bulk rate.  Again, numbers would need to be crunched and specific advertising contracts examined.

So that's my brainstorm for strategies to increase the customer base.  LIke I said, I'm probably wrong in a lot of places so be gentle (and constructive) if at all possible.

Cheers.

Mike


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## Joshua Randall (Nov 14, 2002)

This is a fascinating thread and I hope you guys don't mind me jumping in. I'm not a PDF d20 publisher. However, I am a marketing analyst for a subscription-based website with a ton of members, so perhaps I have some insights.

One of the big problems of selling stuff on the web, especially electronic stuff, is that it is difficult to create the perception of value for the customer. "Why should I pay for this PDF / membership when similar things are (or *were*) available for free?" is a commonly heard refrain. As the Internet becomes more and more commercialized and more and more big sites go pay, there will be some alleviation of this problem. The "everything is free!" mentality that afflicted the Internet when it first achieved critical mass has created a hurdle that is only beginning to be overcome. Consumers need to be retrained in the basic economic realities of life. Unfortunately, this takes time, and it may take too much time for a small d20 PDF publisher.

A converse to the "why isn't it free?" complaint is this: The low price of some Internet-based products *also* hampers sales, because it damages the value perception. ("Only five bucks for a D&D sourcebook? It must be crappy.") The membership my company sells costs in the $10 - $15 range *per year*. That is incredibly cheap when compared to magazine subscriptions (often $30+ per year) or Internet access ($23 per *month* for AOL). I believe we have hurt our revenues by not charging more. In fact, a price test we recently conducted shows that raising prices can eek out more revenue without hurting volume as much as we feared. In other words, our demand curve is relatively flat along certain price points. Of course, we have to balance this against the fact that in the future we would like to cross-sell to existing customers, so more members is good. (1000 members at $5 is better than 500 members at $10.)

For a PDF publisher, though, I don't think cross-selling is that much of a concern. The major concern is: what can I do *right now* to sell my product? Others have discussed some marketing aspects such as referring sites, banner ads, and so forth. I submit that PDF publishes should also examine their pricing. At five dollars you may not be charging enough. I will leave the hows of price-testing as an exercise for the reader.   But if you are serious about making money off your PDFs, you need to gather this information, analyze it, and apply the findings.

One more thing. It can be tricky and expensive to sell to those who do not have credit cards. You *can* accept checks or money orders, PayPal, or even send someone a bill, but you incur costs for those alternative methods. Again, as consumers become more accustomed to shopping on the web, more of them will have credit cards and they will be more comfortable giving out that information. But, again, this takes time.

I hope my rambling is useful in some respects.


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## Sammael99 (Nov 14, 2002)

This is a very interesting thread, guys !

First of all, some people above mentioned a survey or study on the subject. I'm a market analyst in the telecoms and internet business, and would gladly (and obviously, freely) participate in a workgroup to design, administer and analyse the results from such a survey. I probably can't do this myself without the help of Morrus and/or James, and I don't have the technical expertise to deal with the coding involved, but if either are interested in discussing it with me, feel free to e-mail me at ben@planetharmonica.com


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## GMSkarka (Nov 14, 2002)

Speaking as someone who has done print advertising and marketing for various print RPG companies since 1996, what I'd suggest as an ad campaign for RPGNow would be something that focuses on the variety, and difference from the print products....

"What do you do when you've seen every D20 product your local store has to offer?


...come and see the stuff that THEY CAN'T GET."

Or something along those lines.

Basically, you're looking at moving into the second phase of advertising now.   You've succeeded in establishing your brand, to the point of near-monopoly.   Now, you should concentrate on "putting asses in seats", as they say in the movie biz.

I'd love to help, in fact.  Drop me an email.

GMS


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## Fast Learner (Nov 14, 2002)

*dpi and lpi examples*

Print on demand (and all digital printing) is hampered by resolution issues, though it's beginning to look like newer PoD equipment can print reasonably well (better than most home printers, anyway).

Here's a little more lpi vs. dpi info that may help.

DPI stands for Dots Per Inch (obviously, perhaps), and refers to the _smallest-sized dots_ -- actual little digital (on/off) dots -- the printer can cram into a 1-inch space. Things tend to look better than photocopy quality at about 600 dpi, and tend to look "perfect" to the average (but not super-picky) human eye at 1200dpi. All solid-color (black, cyan, magenta, or yellow) line art and text can take full advantage of the dpi of the printer.

LPI stands for Lines Per Inch, and refers to the number of _lines of variable-sized dots_ that fit along a 1-inch stretch when creating a "screen" or "halftone". Printers simulate shades of gray (or shades of cyan, magenta, and yellow) by clumping dpi dots together into bunches, effectively creating variable-sized dots. Anything that's not pure black, cyan, magenta, or yellow is simulated by creating arrays of these variable-sized dots. That means all photos, anything that's photo-like (JPEGs, TIFFs, BMPs, etc.), and any colors other than the four i listed (red is composed of little dot-clumps of magenta combined with little dot-clumps of yellow, for example).

Most digital printing shoots for 256 shades of gray (or cyan, magenta, or yellow) in a given halftone to give it the most realistic look possible, but to make 256 different-sized dots (clumps of dots), if the resolution (dpi) isn't high enough the clumps of dots get really big. As such there's a constant tradeoff between shades of color and clumped-dot size.

Here's how they compare (numbers from memory but are close):

300 dpi printer is capable of 37 shades at 53 lpi. 53 lpi is _extremely_ coarse: you can't make out any details at all. As such most 300dpi printers by default only print about 25 shades of gray at about 65lpi, which still looks lousy. Virtually nothing commercial (except for pizza flyers, perhaps) is printed at this resolution/screen combination.

600 dpi printer is capable of 50 shades of gray at 85 lpi. 85 lpi is the resolution of poor-quality newspaper photos.

1200 dpi printer is capable of around 150 shades of gray at 133 lpi. This is what "decent-quality" printing looks like. Many magazines are printed at this resolution and screen. If a PoD device printed at this quality you'd have something tht looked not quite as good at the stuff you mostly see on store shelves, but it's quite reasonable.

2400 dpi printer (imagesetter, usually) is capable of 256 shades of gray at 250 or so lpi. This is very good quality, as nice as you'll see in almost any professionally printed material.

To get a sense of it...

Newspapers: 85-100 lpi

Magazines that aren't focused on photography: 133-150 lpi

Magazines where photography is important but not essential: 200 lpi

Magazines where the whole point is photography, like Playboy: 300 lpi

SUMMARY: If you're getting your PDF printed on demand and you want it to look as good or at least nearly as good as the good stuff on store shelves you'll need _at least_ a 1200dpi printer than can create 133 lpi halftones/screens.


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## 2WS-Steve (Nov 14, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *The POD service RPGNow plans to offer WILL allow for bleeds and is perfect bound and costs less then $4 as well. We just have to buy in 10 quantity batches and thus have to warehouse them at RPGShop.com
> 
> Again, why would a FLGS want to bother getting some books made on POD and selling them? Why wouldn't they just order some POD from us and resell them at a profit? Maybe we could work out some deals with a larger discount on POD product sent to a FLGS type of store. That way the CAN sell some products that my never see the light of true print.
> 
> James *




The picture I had, if the technology made it viable, was where the retail owner had the machinery in their own store; alternately, I thought what jezter6 was suggesting was putting a good computer in the store hooked up to a good printer, double-sided printing out copies of an e-book, perhaps comb-binding it, then selling that. The computer/printer technique could be fairly affordable, especially for a small retail owner who wanted to have a nice computer and printer for their own use anyway.

The significant advantage of this over ordering from a PoD company or RGPNow's PoD service is that the retailer takes zero inventory risk other than the cost of the machinery. Moreover, they wouldn't face the capital flow problems that stocking regular print products require; they don't pay for their e-stock until the customer hands over his credit card.


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## Fast Learner (Nov 14, 2002)

Oh, and one more _big_ issue for PoD and PDFs in general: File size vs. resolution/compression.

In order to produce the details in a particular line screen (lpi) you need to have roughly twice as many dots (dpi) in the original (minimum of 150% of the lpi). For that 133 lpi print you need a 266 dpi image.

In order to get a PDF down to a reasonable size, though, Acrobat suggests you throw away a lot of those pixels. It also suggest you convert pics to JPEGs to reduce file size, but JPEG compression really messes up the pictures. In order to get PDFs down to the 1-4mb size most people are willing to download, you end up with a poor-quality print. In order to get a decent PoD product you'd need to have ~20mb files, sometimes much larger (depending on the number of pictures and colors).

Obviously this could be solved with multiple files (one for downloading, one for PoD), but it adds a whole layer on top of the question.


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## 2WS-Steve (Nov 14, 2002)

Thanks for the info on the print process FL; that's very cool.

I figure the PoD companies and a store that offered even rudimentary print services wouldn't mind even downloads 40MB in size. One thing I would imagine RPGNow does for the products using its PoD services if ask the vendors for a Press Quality version of the file as well as the compact version.


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## Arnix (Nov 14, 2002)

I figure its time to hear from me.  I currently am not a d20 publisher, though that is in the works now, but I do work for a print/online publishing company.

I have been toying with many ideas on how to do a couple of things with pdfs.  A major concern for me is printing speed. Something I have seen on too many occasions, are pdfs with fancy page wrappers and in-depth artwork interspersed with the text.  This makes printing take ages.

As many of you know, the more images and tables that a pdf contains, the slower that it will print on the average person's printer.  This leads me to believe that a pdf could contain a "printer friendly" version of the document as well.   Now this will lead easily into a larger (file size) pdf, but is that acceptable for a product that you can actually print in a short period of time?  Is the trade off of greater download time worth the quicker print time? 

This steps on one the big selling points, for some people at least, of pdfs, the ability to put nearly unlimited artwork of excellent quality into a document.  I know that I have several friends who will not buy products that have crappy artwork or bad layouts (judging a book by its cover, anyone?).

There needs to be a compromise.  My alternate idea, was simple.  Seperate the beauty from meat.  Allow the user to print the text sections seperate from the artwork.  This way they can say print pages 2-20, 23-30, and 32.  The pages will print quickly and at a reasonable quality.  Then iff (yes the double ff is there intentionaly),  a person feels the need to print the images, they can print the images in whatever quality that they desire, while still being able to print the text in black and white at high speed.

Thoughts anyone?

Arnix (tm)


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## James Heard (Nov 14, 2002)

In regards to cds, has anyone thought about banding together many pdf products onto a single title cd and trying to release it as an "almost print" form? If sales are declining (or non-existant) you could place them all on a single cd and inside a slide jacket and shrink wrap for fairly cheap and sell them for 8-15 dollars at regular game stores maybe. Even in limited print runs of the cd it would point more people to everyone's products and still it would be cheaper than dead tree printing. I'd venture to guess that the main cost would be in distribution?


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## Twin Rose (Nov 14, 2002)

James Heard said:
			
		

> *In regards to cds, has anyone thought about banding together many pdf products onto a single title cd and trying to release it as an "almost print" form? If sales are declining (or non-existant) you could place them all on a single cd and inside a slide jacket and shrink wrap for fairly cheap and sell them for 8-15 dollars at regular game stores maybe. Even in limited print runs of the cd it would point more people to everyone's products and still it would be cheaper than dead tree printing. I'd venture to guess that the main cost would be in distribution? *




There has been some discussion of this, yes.  Indeed, on my Campaign Suite CDs we sell 'advertising space' that lets people put free PDFs on for a small price, enticing people to look into their products more.

My eventual goal is to also release 'for sale' PDFs as well.


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## James Heard (Nov 14, 2002)

I really think this is the way to go eventually. Not only would the perceived value go up by lumping products together and placing the product on shelves as "eye candy" for consumers, they'd get print consumers more comfortable with the idea of pdf's. I'd even venture to say that, barring distribution costs racing up into the stratosphere, the cd would more than pay for it's costs if nothing else because it would "sit on the shelf" longer. It would also serve to defeat the "glut" perception since people would associate the products together in a branding sense I think. "Best of" and "RPG Greatest Hits" volumes come immediately to mind. What would even be better is if someone could convince any of the larger publishers/distributers to add in content and their names to the disk. Even saying something like "Malhavoc Press Presents:" on the front cover (kind of like Steven Spielberg presents movies he doesn't make himself) would go a long ways to gain some automatic sales.


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## jezter6 (Nov 14, 2002)

James:

If something could be arranged to sell POD of certain higher need products that might not make it to print, I'm all ears.

What about the smaller ones that aren't worth it for me to keep 10 on the shelves? Any thoughts on a deal made between you and FLGS to get discounts on PoD from you...

My thought is this...pay full price and give monthly/quarterly rebates or freebies based upon how much we would use your service. IE: If one month I paid full price for 50 of your products, I would get credit on another purchase. Or maybe just a standard x% discount on all purchases if I can hold up to a certain amount per month?

Honestly...I'd rather use YOUR PoD service, as I don't have to invest in equipment in my place or find someone locally. I could have my customers order now and pick up in-store when it comes in.

Let me know your thoughts here or via personal email: orcandpie@nepa-tech.com


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## jezter6 (Nov 14, 2002)

Also, I forgot to add my thoughts on the CD scene...

I'm not sure the legality of it, but I do have my own burner in my machine, and could do burn-on-demand IN store based upon thos purchases. It would be easier for me to (and this may not be legal, but it's easy) keep a 'store copy' of each PDF purchased on the local HD, and burn on demand and report sales to publisher/rpgnow. Again, there's the trust issue of this, which I am fully aware of.

I wouldn't mind CD's in stock of certain products, but it's like buying music CDs...many people waste money buying a full CD only to get one or two pieces they want to have. I think after a while (in such a small market like d20) that people would give up on buying CD's full of stuff they never wanted.

I like the customized burn-on-demand. James, have you ever thought about that yourself? Again, saving me having to keep inventory of certain things in the store...but I'd have to wait for shipping which would suck.

Anyone else's thoughts on this?


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## philreed (Nov 14, 2002)

*I see changes to RPGNow . . .*

The "Hot" went from 20 to 10 and "Best" from 40 to 30. Probably for the better.

It's too bad the "Newest," "Specials," and "Comments" thumbnails are all on one side of the page now.


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## Pramas (Nov 14, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *Yep, agreed.  Someone phrased it well above - the number of publishers/products is growing faster than the number of consumers.  Overall, sales are up, but individually they are down (good for James but bad for us!) I'm selling under half what I would have done a year ago. *




I find it interesting the PDF market is mirroring the print market in this way.


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## James Heard (Nov 14, 2002)

I think the idea would be like that of a greatest hits volume - since you're selling from many proven sellers (even in the small "proven sellers pdf market") you'd be bound to hit upon something that was useful or interesting to the consumer. I'm not so sure about printing out cds on demand, on site cd burning would up the price on the cds and mean that the printer would have to have access to the sleeve jackets or else have access to a printer that could handle printing out color cardstock and be able to comfortably put the little buggers together. Also, costs withstanding you'd want a cd to have a pretty cd stamp on top too.

I _really_ think the larger publisher "seal of approval" name on the front would go a long way. A lot of my players go out and buy products solely on name recognition of the authors and publishers of their purchases.


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## tensen (Nov 14, 2002)

I'd imagine for the trust issue with a retail store, it would actually make more sense to license the retail store.  Effectively giving them a flat monthly fee and allowing them to make unlimited sales.... with the excess sales being a major selling point.  The publisher's themselves wouldn't be making much, since excess sales vanish from them, and go 100% in the pocket of the retail store.  But it would be the retail store pushing the marketing of PDF sales on CD...  (They'd want to sell enough to justify their monthly costs)... and since it would probably make more money..  the monthly rate could rise slightly over time to account for the more products the retail store had available (and they'd have been making that much more sales...  so the limited extra amount wouldn't be a cut in their own profits.)


Highly unlikely this will happen.  But it sounds good in theory.


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## jezter6 (Nov 14, 2002)

well, i wasn't thinking the SUPER professional CD's with covers and stuff all super printed. Maybe just a CD with one of those nice label printers to put the names of the files on it and a quick printout on plain paper for the cover, and instead of using the plastic cases just use the cheap paper-thin cases.

Just thoughts. I'd love to burn-on-demand.

As for the monthly fee...that is something that's hard to do because there are just TOO many publishers out there to do. If I were to be able to set something up right now, I'd only go with Malhavoc, maybe Nat-20 or MEG, and probably Bastion. There's just too many publishers to negotiate flat rate deals with.

Now, if they could set something up with James where I could in-turn pay him a monthly fee for access to ALL publishers, that would be ideal, but probably not too profitable for him.

Who knows.

EDIT: I'm a little worried about a monthly license being more expensive than it's worth. Realizing that most products only sell a few hundred copies, what would a license like this cost? $20 month per publisher assumes I can sell at least 4 per month from that publisher. I'm not sure if that's realistic for the time being.


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## ced1106 (Nov 14, 2002)

Arnix said:
			
		

> *As many of you know, the more images and tables that a pdf contains, the slower that it will print on the average person's printer.  This leads me to believe that a pdf could contain a "printer friendly" version of the document as well.   Now this will lead easily into a larger (file size) pdf, but is that acceptable for a product that you can actually print in a short period of time?  Is the trade off of greater download time worth the quicker print time? *




Well, a company could sell a multiple versions of its PDF under one purchase. Each version would be a separate download (dial-ups) or you could download the entire thing (cable, dsl, download managers). 

I'm already downloading videos of 20+ MB with Go!Zilla. PDF files aren't getting **that** large already are they??? 


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^


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## Twin Rose (Nov 14, 2002)

ced1106 said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Well, a company could sell a multiple versions of its PDF under one purchase. Each version would be a separate download (dial-ups) or you could download the entire thing (cable, dsl, download managers).
> 
> ...




Bastion Press usually has a print and a pretty version, one with borders and oner without... Their free "Norse Gods" PDF for example has both.  I believe others rae going towards this model.


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## jezter6 (Nov 14, 2002)

In all reality, I think all PDF's should come with 2 files (not versions). The one file is the PDF which can look a little pretty, but is printer friendly. The other is snazzy artwork and tables and stuff that can be printed out separately.

Remember, that we buy MOST books and pdf's for the text and tables and such, not for the ornate borders on each page. I think it's all the extra decorative stuff, which is nice sometimes...that causes file size and printing time/cost to be so high. I would honestly like to see PDF's without these ornate borders for something with better quality fluffy and crunchy bits.

Again, just the opinion of someone who has too many opinions.


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## ced1106 (Nov 14, 2002)

James Heard said:
			
		

> *In regards to cds, has anyone thought about banding together many pdf products onto a single title cd and trying to release it as an "almost print" form? *




I've read a few threads about selling game-material CDs in stores, and the results could be summarized in one word: Painful. Customers don't want to buy a product they can't pick up and browse. Retailers don't want to do more with a product than put it on the shelf. Despite how common it is for a gamer to own a computer and play both computer and non-computer games, you rarely see computer games in a game store.

Of course, no one suggested that what you could do with a PDF CD is to supply each retailer with a demo hardcopy to put next to the CDs. The customer has something to pick up and flip through (not to mention realize how many pages of content they'll receive for the low price of the CD). The retailer has something that looks like a book and can be treated like a book. The manufacturer has something **large** to compete for shelf space that a CD wouldn't get.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^


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## jezter6 (Nov 14, 2002)

Well, it's not much different than buying the PDF's online sight unseen. Aside from the free PDF intros that some companies put out, you're still relying on reviews and such for CD compilations.

I don't think it's as bad as you think though. Of course, hard copies lying around wouldn't be bad, but cumbersom for store space.


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## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

jezter6 said:
			
		

> *If something could be arranged to sell POD of certain higher need products that might not make it to print, I'm all ears.
> 
> What about the smaller ones that aren't worth it for me to keep 10 on the shelves? Any thoughts on a deal made between you and FLGS to get discounts on PoD from you...
> *




My point was we make the VENDOR/PUBLISHER pre-pay for 10 at a time. Since we are warehousing many vendor products, it doesn't bother me if you then come to us and order 2 of each product we have in POD and at a bit of a discount. Sure wouldn't be as much as a normal distribtor - that's for sure, but it would let you get the product in physical format on the shelf and beat out your competition who doesn't have this product at all to offer.

Again, the margins I work with for RPGNow are extreamly small. I'm lucky if I walk away with 10% myself when all is said and done. So for something like this to work, the publishers have to give the ok and the retailers may have to mark up more. A subscription service would definatly not work because of the fact that there are so many vendors involved and so little margin. Not to mention that most of the publishers feel their product is the best and will loose out on any such deals.

As for selling CD bundles that someone mentioned. I cetainly could provide that- but when we did GENCON I found that most people were only interested in the bundles as a promotional thing. One time offer thing. Same reasoning as above. So I'm not sure that would work out. Also, a major problem with bundles is that most of the people interested in this stuff have bought several things that would be on any bundle - thus they'd be looking at buying it again for no reason, so they wouldn't save much in the end. Thus I'm not sure the bundles would be of much interest to anyone except new customers.

Still, that may be enough... but an additional problem that crops up is that the reason we can work on such a low margin at RPGNow is cause we don't physically get involved in the sale. In other words, we're not paying a staff member to pack it up or burn it or ship it or deal with postal pricing, etc. If we go to bundles on CD then we have to deal with a person doing distribution- that's an added cost. 

This is ok with POD as the books themselves will be a higher cost and leave room for more a larger margin to cover the costs.

James
http://www.RPGNow.com

P.S. I posted a thread in the wrong forum about using RPGNow to sell ADS for popular website. I asked for it to get moved, but maybe some of you can reply there till it is:

http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=30612


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## jezter6 (Nov 14, 2002)

Where are you hosting and paying for warehouseing/shipping of the POD stuff, or is that through your POD providor?

I'd be happy to set something up with you if possible, and if the publishers are up for some small markup. I mean, how much choice did they get on the PoD prices? It helps them out, but they didn't get much to say on the price of the process.

So a product is $5, and PoD is an additional $4? That makes a paper printout (and I assume they also get the PDF file too) about $9 USD.

If I could get them for $8, or maybe even $9, but sell them for...like $11, I'd still get to make a little money on it for being the 'idiot in the middle' for my local customers.

And of course, keeping some on the shelf is an ok idea, but I'm also thinking of using it for 'special orders' from customers who can't purchase directly through you. That is also a question about just the PDF's as well. I'd like to get PDF's for them if they don't have a credit card, but again I'd have to make something out of it.

It sucks the margin is so small, but it's what happens when you're selling products for $5, and the quantity isn't all that high (not in the thousands).

James, if you have an IM program or something, feel free to email me with some info that you and I could chat it up a little. Or feel free to catch me here at EN World's chat room.


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## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

jezter6 said:
			
		

> *I wouldn't mind CD's in stock of certain products, but it's like buying music CDs...many people waste money buying a full CD only to get one or two pieces they want to have. I think after a while (in such a small market like d20) that people would give up on buying CD's full of stuff they never wanted.
> *




That will never happen. No way could I get the vendors to agree to me sending you our archive of products. Hell I wouldn't trust my best friend with that! Putting source files in the hands of FLGS probably isn't going to work...



			
				jezter6 said:
			
		

> *I like the customized burn-on-demand. James, have you ever thought about that yourself? Again, saving me having to keep inventory of certain things in the store...but I'd have to wait for shipping which would suck.
> *




Umm.. we have been offering this service for almost a year now  Just pick out whatever you want to buy, then add this item to your cart and you'll get both the download links and a CD in the mail sent via Priority Mail!

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=112

James


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## James Heard (Nov 14, 2002)

The demo hardcopy idea is a great one, and yet another reason for such a product to ally itself with a larger print publisher - who might want to arrange in addition to single sales adding such a cd into a backsleeve of another product as an "enhanced limited edition" copy or something.


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## jezter6 (Nov 14, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> 
> That will never happen. No way could I get the vendors to agree to me sending you our archive of products. Hell I wouldn't trust my best friend with that! Putting source files in the hands of FLGS probably isn't going to work...
> 
> ...




Well, it's not much different than me going and ordering them for one of my customers without a credit card. I would have that file somewhere on my system. Of course, I wasn't talking about the whole stock of inventory...that's just crazy. And honestly, I wouldn't have the space for such a venture. 

I was speaking more of CD's for my shelves that are for sale, like a malhavoc CD that would have all 3 boem's and banewarrens on it. That way they could get it all in one quick place. Something that would cost like $15.95 or something for the bundle. Not a bunch of CD's on my personal shelf with 50 cd's of PDF's for me to print/burn on demand.


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## tensen (Nov 14, 2002)

Twin Rose said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Bastion Press usually has a print and a pretty version, one with borders and oner without... Their free "Norse Gods" PDF for example has both.  I believe others rae going towards this model. *




Dark Quest has done that for our last two releases... which means Natural 20 Press has done that for a few more <grin>
There are others.
Although it does increase the download size considerably.  I think people are willing to accept the added size for the extra option.


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## tensen (Nov 14, 2002)

jezter6 said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Well, it's not much different than me going and ordering them for one of my customers without a credit card. I would have that file somewhere on my system. Of course, I wasn't talking about the whole stock of inventory...that's just crazy. And honestly, I wouldn't have the space for such a venture.
> 
> I was speaking more of CD's for my shelves that are for sale, like a malhavoc CD that would have all 3 boem's and banewarrens on it. That way they could get it all in one quick place. *




Pretty much what I believe James had at Gen Con.
CDs from certain of the publishers and "fantasy assortment" type CDs from multiple publishers.


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## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

jezter6 said:
			
		

> *Well, it's not much different than me going and ordering them for one of my customers without a credit card. I would have that file somewhere on my system. *




Way to many legal issues to deal with here... so I'm going going to touch that. There is a difference between giving permsion to do something and someone just doing it. There is also the fact that I don't own any rights to this material I sell - you'd have to have contracts with each publisher unless I do for the express purpose...

Oh, I forgot to mention, if you want to check out the quality of the POD service we're testing, you can do so here:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=328

James


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## jezter6 (Nov 14, 2002)

At no point was I saying that I would or wanted to host the PDF's locally, just to clear that up. That's your job. 

As for contacting them, hopefully some can venture into this post and see what they think of the bundles. I'm just not sure how well they would go, and not sure I would want to keep CD's like that on the shelf.

I do like the BoD/PoD option, and would rather work with you on something like that. That way we both make our share of the money, and the publisher gets their share too.


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## Ghostwind (Nov 14, 2002)

One of the biggest drawbacks to pdf sales is the direction of its marketing. It is almost entirely Internet driven sales. While I do not have the available data I would venture to say that a significant percentage of consumers do not use the Net to influence their buying decisions. To exceed the "usual and declining" sales trend, marketing techniques need to move beyond the box thinking. Pdf publishers have to be willing to try new ideas to make their products more visible and to reach a wider audience. I think some of the suggestions posted in this thread are good starts but the elusive "Eureka! That's it!" idea has yet to be found. The pdf publisher that figures that one out will be the envy of the gaming industry. 

PDF files have been something of a "strange beast" in the regards that they do have a certain conception among the general public of being not good enough for print. The variety in quality (with many being not so good) doesn't help with perception either. 

The average consumer does not understand nor does he care about the investment required for a publisher to manufacture a product for print only to see the lion's share of his margins eaten up in operational and overhead expenses. The average consumer only looks at it in terms of his cost and his use. To him, a $5.00 pdf is a great deal until he has to print it out. Depending on the amount of color, borders, and excessive graphics present in the pdf, the customer may find that printing that pdf may very well drain a print cartridge. If this happens, suddenly the $5.00 pdf winds up costing $35.00 because he now has to buy a new printer cartridge. Many publishers (like Bastion Press) have started to take steps to get around some of these issues but it has not completely resolved them.

If a retail operation was to print and sell pdfs, they would quickly find themselves in the same boat regarding cartridge use. If the retailer sells the pdf and then offers to print it for a nominal fee (say $5.00) then the consumer has already invested at least half the cost of the average printed product (going with an average of $19.99 here). So from the consumer stand point, he's back at the view of "why am I paying so much for this product that was supposed to be so cheap? If I am paying this much then I want a more professionally printed and bound product."

Until pdf publishers can package their pdf products in such a way where all art can be turned off with the click of a mouse, I believe there will be an uphill battle for acceptance among the general public. It could very well be that working deals with FLGS can help turn that corner, but you have still have to consider the backlash that may come from them when they see what costs are involved in printing those products for the consumer. I could quickly see a situation where a dealer charges the cost of the pdf plus $15-$20 to print the full pdf (color and illustrations included). See the potential for abuse and consumer backlash here? Granted, this is strictly a hypothetical speculation but it should be a concern.


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## jezter6 (Nov 14, 2002)

I totally agree. I was definately mis-understating the costs of PoD service on this. I'm glad that there are print companies willing to take this cost on and offer it so cheap to guys like james.

I will definately not want to do PoD in my store after seeing these threads, but will look at ordering from RPGnow. Of course, the only problem here is the wait (1-2 weeks) for delivery.

I'm still at a loss as to how to offer PDF's to my customers locally who don't want to wait for a PoD or CD to be mailed to them, but also don't have a decent internet connection or credit card to do it at home.

I'm just trolling for ideas.


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## JohnNephew (Nov 14, 2002)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> No legitimate print publisher I'm aware of feels "lucky" to sell 1000 copies. In fact, I strongly doubt that a product that sells 1000 copies is even profitable.
> 
> I think it's safer to say that smaller publishers would feel "lucky" to sell 2000-3000 copies, and mid-tier d20 companies regularly sell 3000 or more copies, and would view 1000 copies sold a failure.
> [/B]




Well...it all depends.

If you keep costs down (go with the cheapest printing options, pay half the typical pro rates for writing and art, do a lot of the work yourself without pay) and charge enough, you may be able scrape by around 1000 copies in initial sales on an RPG book.

I'm working on an article for d20Weekly that provides a spreadsheet for a printed D20 product.  Folks (assuming d20Weekly likes it) will be able to download it, change the inputs (what if the price is $2 more? what if we pay 2 cents per word instead of 4? what if we use larger type so we average 500 words per page instead of 650 or 750?), and see the bottom-line impact on the break-even point and maximum potential profit from the printing.


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## Ghostwind (Nov 14, 2002)

> *The demo hardcopy idea is a great one, and yet another reason for such a product to ally itself with a larger print publisher - who might want to arrange in addition to single sales adding such a cd into a backsleeve of another product as an "enhanced limited edition" copy or something. *




This is the very thing I have spoken to one of the bigger publishers about. What if you were to bundle a CD with every printed product? On this CD would be a complete pdf file of the same product along with a couple of freebies or intros to other products. Perhaps it would contain files to use the product with Campaign Suite or PCGen. Is this costly? Probably initially. Would the long term benefits in added sales outweigh the cost? That's anyone's guess. Yes, I know Auran does this, but it's not the same as I am proposing. Personally, I know I would be willing to pay more for such a product.


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## Twin Rose (Nov 14, 2002)

Ghostwind said:
			
		

> *
> 
> This is the very thing I have spoken to one of the bigger publishers about. What if you were to bundle a CD with every printed product? On this CD would be a complete pdf file of the same product along with a couple of freebies or intros to other products. Perhaps it would contain files to use the product with Campaign Suite or PCGen. Is this costly? Probably initially. Would the long term benefits in added sales outweigh the cost? That's anyone's guess. Yes, I know Auran does this, but it's not the same as I am proposing. Personally, I know I would be willing to pay more for such a product. *




I've been working on some deals to get free trials of CS on CDs with hardcover print products.  Would include the needed information for CS as well.  To pay for it, I'll be selling advertising space on the CDs.


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## jmucchiello (Nov 14, 2002)

jezter6 said:
			
		

> *At no point was I saying that I would or wanted to host the PDF's locally, just to clear that up. That's your job.
> 
> As for contacting them, hopefully some can venture into this post and see what they think of the bundles. I'm just not sure how well they would go, and not sure I would want to keep CD's like that on the shelf.
> 
> I do like the BoD/PoD option, and would rather work with you on something like that. That way we both make our share of the money, and the publisher gets their share too. *



I don't think any of these options are viable in the current model. Other than your own integrity, what forces you to delete the PDF after the BOD/POD? How do you know one of your employees isn't keeping them for himself? When I speculated on this a ways back I suggested someone would have to create a Point of Sales machine that connected to the internet, had a printer and/or cd burner. With secure transactions it would download the PDF, do the print or burn and delete it after a day. The operator would not be able to access the hard drive.

As for CDs on display in the store, why would we want these to look cheap? You can get CDs with 4 color booklets and screened CD in lots of 100s to 1000s for practically no money per copy. If this were going into more than one FLGS, I hope they would be real CDs, not CD-Rs. Make up some kind of display with an 8 page manual containing the advertising of the product. This way, the reason the store owner is honest is because he wants to move the CDs.

The other problem here is duplication: would Call of Duty and Forgotten Heroes: Paladin show up on the same CD?


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## Joshua Randall (Nov 14, 2002)

Ghostwind said:
			
		

> *The average consumer only looks at it in terms of his cost and his use. To him, a $5.00 pdf is a great deal until he has to print it out. Depending on the amount of color, borders, and excessive graphics present in the pdf, the customer may find that printing that pdf may very well drain a print cartridge. If this happens, suddenly the $5.00 pdf winds up costing $35.00 because he now has to buy a new printer cartridge.*




Indeed, the distribution of PDFs instead of printed products (books) inverts the typical economics. Typically, a publishing house uses its economies of scale to drive printing costs down to a level at which it can make a profit selling books in the (say) $20 range.

Small publishers cannot afford to have products printed, nor can they generate economies of scale. So, they distribute electronically (PDFs) and pass the cost of printing along to their customers. Of course, the customer can just read the PDF on a screen, but that is not optimal for many products - especially gaming products that often have handouts or maps. Even a purely crunchy product will often need to be shown to the DM for approval, something that is expressly forbidden by the PDF's terms of sale! i.e., you're not supposed to be sharing PDFs electronically, just like other software.

PDFs are only a bargain until you try to use them, it seems.

Side note - I wonder how many people print PDFs at their place of work? We know a lot of people surf the web at work when they should be, um, working. Do people also abuse their workplace printers? (I picture the office manager saying, "Aargh! That's the third time this week the color printer has run out of toner.")


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## Cergorach (Nov 14, 2002)

Pretty interesting thread!

Morrus, why not offer a service like RPGnow on your own site? You have the exposure, why not explore those possibilities? I'm sure a lot of PDF publishers would love to have their PDFs available through your site...

As for the technical aspects, you'll need someone that knows how to utilize php (i'm not it, i'm currently developing three sites at the same time) and more importantly, knows how to effectively use the free resources that sites such as Sourceforge offer. Php isn't difficult, i'm still a novice and certainly not a genius and i'm already seeing very intresting possibilities that could be incorporated into such a site...

As for Printing On Demand, you have A3 printers from HP for as low as $2000 retail, you add a duplex unit and buy a big stapler and your set for POD. Anything else you add is pure luxury. You could use a good inkjet for color covers, but a color laser is prefered for the covers, one is available for as low as $1000.


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## Cergorach (Nov 14, 2002)

JERandall said:
			
		

> *Side note - I wonder how many people print PDFs at their place of work? We know a lot of people surf the web at work when they should be, um, working. Do people also abuse their workplace printers? (I picture the office manager saying, "Aargh! That's the third time this week the color printer has run out of toner.") *




*chuckles* That's why those printers are there, to print you know ;-)

I work at a bank at the ICT department, i don't really mind if people print some things for private use. I do mind people that print each and every email they get just to read it and throw it away, it's not called Electronic Mail for nothing! [/rant]


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## Turjan (Nov 14, 2002)

As far as printed pdf's go, I'm very pleased with simple black&white prints off a laser printer. I've done this with Bastion's "Minions: Rebirth". I printed the version without borders in this way, and actually, I think it's looking better than the original .


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## ced1106 (Nov 14, 2002)

Ghostwind said:
			
		

> *This is the very thing I have spoken to one of the bigger publishers about. What if you were to bundle a CD with every printed product? On this CD would be a complete pdf file of the same product along with a couple of freebies or intros to other products. Perhaps it would contain files to use the product with Campaign Suite or PCGen*




Now, **that's** a smart idea. Hardcopy publishers already provide web support of their material, including material that couldn't make it (ie. were cost-prohibitive) into the book. This would go on the CD. And this would also prompt the purchaser to actually put the CD into his drive and open it. Then he'd also browse the freebies and intro product -- of not only your PDF material, but upcoming releases by the same publisher. Much cheaper to put a full-page color ad into a CD than in the hardcopy or a magazine. **And** the purchaser wouldn't mind see it, since said ad doesn't take up precious space in the hardcopy.


Okay, here's how everyone benefits 

* Original PDF publishers & PDF sales site: Greater exposure of products.

* Hardcopy publisher: Customers do not need to go to site for a download. Publisher can put in material that would be cost-prohibitive for the hardcopy. Customers **know** websites are more current than CDs, so would still go to the publisher's site.

* Retailers & distributors: No shelving, no stocking, no orders, no risks. Taken out of the loop. 

* Customers: Probably wouldn't notice any slight price change (to cover costs of cutting a CD), since game prices don't make sense, anyway!

Good luck,


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^


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## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

jezter6 said:
			
		

> *I will definately not want to do PoD in my store after seeing these threads, but will look at ordering from RPGnow. Of course, the only problem here is the wait (1-2 weeks) for delivery.*




When we're up and running with our POD service, no product would be offered up for POD unless it's pre-paid for and thus probably on our shelf already. So in most cases delivery would be no worse then your namel distributor (2-4 days).

James


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## rpghost (Nov 14, 2002)

Ghostwind said:
			
		

> *What if you were to bundle a CD with every printed product? On this CD would be a complete pdf file of the same product along with a couple of freebies or intros to other products. Perhaps it would contain files to use the product with Campaign Suite or PCGen.*




We have something like this already which is burned along with any CD order from RPGNow.com - a lot of good demo software plus copies of OPENRPG and such (I suppose I should talk with PCGen too)... anyway, RPGShop.com sends out over 100 packages a week and could use these CD's as stuffers if there was a way to get the publishers from RPGNow to contribute to the manufacturing costs of the CD. I think last I checked it was about $1 per cd to get a thousand together - Chris from Twin Rose might know more current numbers.

It would certainly help get the CD's into the hands of print book purchasers... but regretfully, most of MY customers are already on the internet. So ideally we should consider promotion on Aldo's Game Play CD ( http://www.impressionsadv.net/gameplay.html ), but that's costly and no guarentee that shop owners are even passing it out... humm.

I guess it comes down to the fact that we could use a sponsor to create the CD's. Like maybe WOTC doing a d20 Modern promo on them and the rest being used by PDF promotions for products at RPGNow.com and then either RPGShop.com absorbing the price of packing and shipping them or get a deal with distributors (like the Gaming Herald did. http://www.gamingherald.com ).

James


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## ced1106 (Nov 14, 2002)

Ghostwind said:
			
		

> *Until pdf publishers can package their pdf products in such a way where all art can be turned off with the click of a mouse, I believe there will be an uphill battle for acceptance among the general public. *




Washu's First Law of Technology: The first use of a technology will be to duplicate an already existing one.

Washu's Second Law of Technology: The first mistake of a technology will be to duplicate an already existing one.

I'd like to separate PDF products into two ends of a spectrum: Those that attempt to emulate existing books, and those which take advantage of electronic technology. Us consumers  had a discussion about PDFs, and the consensus was that a) we don't like printing out books (surprise), but b) we **would** like reference sheets, worksheets, and terrain we can use -- multipel times -- to prepare games. 

For example, I'm currently reviewing some GM game aids, which are pregenerated NPCs. In preparing for an adventure, I would rather have the one or two NPCs I selected, rather than bringing the entire book. It would have been much better had the book been in electronic format, with one page per character. I could then print out only the NPCs I wanted and bring them to the game. Likewise, battlemaps are great PDF game aids. Instead of storing a stack of different-shaped cardstock, I can just print out what battlemaps I'll be using for the adventure, mark them up during play, and have the option of throwing them away later.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^


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## Sammael99 (Nov 15, 2002)

JERandall said:
			
		

> *
> 
> PDFs are only a bargain until you try to use them, it seems.
> 
> Side note - I wonder how many people print PDFs at their place of work? We know a lot of people surf the web at work when they should be, um, working. Do people also abuse their workplace printers? (I picture the office manager saying, "Aargh! That's the third time this week the color printer has run out of toner.") *




I can contribute my own experience here : I print PDFs only at my place of work. My home printer is so lame I wouldn't even think about printing it at home.

First I used to print them straight out, one page per page if you see what I mean. I ended up with bucket loads of paper that couldn't be cleanly stapled, so I dropped that. Now I print them in a both-sides / 2-page per page option which cuts the paper by 4 and makes them a lot easier to handle. 

However, large PDF files tend to clog the printer with this option and I then have to print 4 pages at a time which is a pain (and not very discreet either...)

Something tells me the number of people printing at work is significant...

Tomorrow, I print Death and FCTF. Yay ! More reading in the train !


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## jezter6 (Nov 15, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> 
> When we're up and running with our POD service, no product would be offered up for POD unless it's pre-paid for and thus probably on our shelf already. So in most cases delivery would be no worse then your namel distributor (2-4 days).
> 
> James *





Once it's up and running like that James, you and I are going to have to make a deal. 

Also, I can talk to some of the other FLGS guys that are friendly with me and see what they have to say...we'll have to look at commission based sales, heheheheh.


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## rpghost (Nov 15, 2002)

On the subject of providing a catalog, what do you people think about a download of the what's new webpages as a ZIP?

For example:

http://www.rpgnow.com/fantasycat.zip

That's 1.7 mb for just 100 fantasy products though. Yikes. Is that really going to help anyone? Sounds more trouble then going to the site. Maybe it would work to include on a CD.

James


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## Twin Rose (Nov 15, 2002)

Some rough CD duplication information:

CD  INCLUDES:
        -CD Replication Process 
        -5 Color Silk Screen Print to Disk
        -Standdard Jewel Case w/ 
          black or clear tray
        -Product Assembly
        -Shrinkwrap (if applicable) 
        -Two Panel with Tray Card 4/1 

  1 - 200 Cd's: $4.93 per 
300 Cd's: $4.09 per CD  
500 Cd's: $2.61 per CD  
1,000 Cd's $1.19 per CD  
1,500 Cd's: $1.17 per CD  
2,000 Cd's: $1.12 per CD  
3,000 Cd's: $1.09 per CD  
5,000 Cd's: $.99 per CD  
10,000 Cd's: .91¢ per CD  
50,000 Cd's: .89¢ per CD  
100,000: .72¢ per CD  


And without cases:
INCLUDES:
        -Duplication/Replication Process 
        -5 Color Silk Screen Print to Disk 
         (in Bulk) 
        -$150 Setup fee for 1-500 CD's 

1 to 200 Cd's: $2.50 per CD
300 Cd's: $2.00 per CD  
500 Cd's: $1.50 per CD  
1,000 Cd's $.92¢ per CD  
1,500 Cd's: $.90¢ per CD  
2,000 Cd's: $.82¢ per CD  
3,000 Cd's: $.81¢ per CD  
5,000 Cd's: .79¢ per CD  
10,000 Cd's: .56¢ per CD  
50,000 Cd's: .47¢ per CD  
100,000: .39¢ per CD  

Source:
www.c-mpc.com


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## James Heard (Nov 15, 2002)

So the right idea would be to bundle publishers together so no one has to take the big hit on starting up the disk, beg and deal a place on a larger publisher's vehicle, and then spread out the profits to everyone involved, right? The larger publishers could bundle everything up with a brightly ready-recognized logo on front and include some of their own material maybe? The only issue can immediately see is the quality control issue, though with Paizo running Polyhedron now so I can see them having a lot of reasons to include a hodgepodge of poducts with a lot of different ideas on their brand label  perhaps? Maybe something worked out with a Polyhedron Annual??? Polyhedron Bi-Yearly CD Enhancements?


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## Fast Learner (Nov 15, 2002)

Ooh, I like the idea of something worked out in an annual. Good for Dragon or Dungeon and good for the publishers, *if* it includes lots of good free stuff.


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## James Heard (Nov 15, 2002)

Well, the idea wouldn't be that there would be "free stuff" in it, just that the cost of material would be all bundled in a way that would make more sense to your average game store consumer. If Polyhedron dished out even a 15-20 dollar "annual with cd enhancement" I imagine that it would sell enough to justify it's cost increase just on the merits of "whoa..something different from Poly!"


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## ashockney (Nov 15, 2002)

*Cool...*

This is all very cool.  Here's some perspective from a prospective buyer.  

Monte's stuff...bought it all.  Why?  Because of it's excellent quality.  This stuff is automatic.  I also bought it because I got to reaffirm that quality on Monte's website before I bought it.  Finally, I got it because I'm a gaming GEEK, and I'm more than willing to pay the extra money just to get it early (before the book).  I can't WAIT to get new, good gaming stuff!  

Haven't looked seriously at the other pdf's for the same reasons:
1) Fear of poor quality (no reputation).
2) Lack of an ability to review/test the material.
3) Not sure it makes a difference if I get it early.  

I think RPGNow would significantly increase it's buyers, if you could download snippets of the pdfs for free.  Just like in the book market, there's so much crap out there and TONS of it is not very good quality.  Then you find little diamonds in the rough (thank you Bad Axe Games) that are awesome.  Something I'd never purchase if I didn't get a chance to read through it, and test it out.

I also LOVE the idea of 30 - 50 pdf's on a CD, all of reasonable to excellent quality, sold in stores for $35 - $50.  That would ROCK!  Obviously, don't do it, until your pdf has "run it's course" in sales.

Good luck to all the publishers, and keep up the good work.  The rest of us 10,000 potential customers will eventually come around!


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## rpghost (Nov 15, 2002)

*Re: Cool...*



			
				ashockney said:
			
		

> *I think RPGNow would significantly increase it's buyers, if you could download snippets of the pdfs for free.  Just like in the book market, there's so much crap out there and TONS of it is not very good quality. *




Most publishers do provide you with a link right in the product description to examples/demos.

Is that hard to find? Should we make it a more standard button that is easliy seen and in a standard location at the top and try to require it for all products?

James


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## James Heard (Nov 15, 2002)

I think $35-50 might be putting a little too much faith in the buying power of the consumer who'd have to make a choice between a bundle of pdf products and a "real" dead tree print product. I don't think the average gaming consumer spends more than $50-100 each month on game products and forcing them to choose between the latest product from WOTC and your own product seems pretty futile. On the other hand, if you can get your hands on the rest of that $50...


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## jezter6 (Nov 15, 2002)

*Re: Re: Cool...*



			
				rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Most publishers do provide you with a link right in the product description to examples/demos.
> 
> ...




I do think that a nice colored button somewhere near the top of the page would definately go a long way to help promote those products.


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## Fast Learner (Nov 15, 2002)

James Heard said:
			
		

> *Well, the idea wouldn't be that there would be "free stuff" in it, just that the cost of material would be all bundled in a way that would make more sense to your average game store consumer. If Polyhedron dished out even a 15-20 dollar "annual with cd enhancement" I imagine that it would sell enough to justify it's cost increase just on the merits of "whoa..something different from Poly!" *



That's certainly a valid idea, but I was tying it back to some of the earlier threads.

If you provided a nice sample of the free PDFs out there (thus directly benefitting Dragon/Dungeon readers) and in addition provided nice full-color covers, descriptions, tables of contents, maybe even sample pages, and possibly reviews from PDFs for sale then you'd potentially be opening up the market considerably. The free stuff, of course, would be stuff from publishers in exchange for the ad space, and could be things they're already giving away for free or, if they don't have such, perhaps a few pages from a pay PDF (a couple of PrCs or such).

Good for everyone, as I see it.


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## jezter6 (Nov 15, 2002)

/me screams "Add portable hole to ALL cd's ever created"

hehehe


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## rpghost (Nov 15, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Cool...*



			
				jezter6 said:
			
		

> *I do think that a nice colored button somewhere near the top of the page would definately go a long way to help promote those products. *




Ok, consider it done. I added it and all publishers will have to update thier products to include a url to their demos, but eventually it'll look like this one:

http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=10&

A button at the top and one next to the BUY button at the bottom clearly link to a demo.

James


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## jezter6 (Nov 15, 2002)

Looks good, and if people comlain about not having free material after that...then they need to be shot.

Good job james.


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## rpghost (Nov 15, 2002)

Fast Learner said:
			
		

> *If you provided a nice sample of the free PDFs out there (thus directly benefitting Dragon/Dungeon readers) and in addition provided nice full-color covers, descriptions, tables of contents, maybe even sample pages, and possibly reviews from PDFs for sale then you'd potentially be opening up the market considerably.*




Go idea in general... but to do a blow in for Dragon or Dungeon you have to do so for all issues printed. That's 50,000 issues for Dragon. Even at that quantity it's going to cost at least $15,000 to make the CDs and that's if Dragon agrees to blow it in for free. Just not doable.

Now if there was some sponsor (WOTC d20 Modern) or something like that out there that would join in to produce a CD then we'd be willing to try something like that. But we certainly can't afford the lion share of that price tag.

James


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## Twin Rose (Nov 15, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Re: Cool...*



			
				rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Ok, consider it done. I added it and all publishers will have to update thier products to include a url to their demos, but eventually it'll look like this one:
> 
> ...




Quick work - I was already able to add the 'demo' link for Campaign Suite's free trial.

I emailed you off the board about an idea I had concerning the demo, or demo software in general


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## jezter6 (Nov 15, 2002)

Well, I would think that it would be up to the publishers to foot the bill on that pricetag james. Even then, if divided in appropriate manner, most of the larger companies would probably willing to put in a grand or so to do this. With you guys putting in a little to be a sponsor (that way everyone who gets the CD knows to go to RPGNow to purchase PDF's) I think would be a great exposure...

Just depends on how much they want to do it, and how many publishers are willing to put in.


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## jmucchiello (Nov 15, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Re: Cool...*



			
				rpghost said:
			
		

> *A button at the top and one next to the BUY button at the bottom clearly link to a demo.*



Great. Now I have to go make a demo.  

Joe


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## Pharaun (Nov 15, 2002)

WOW!!!  This is very insightful.  I would never have guessed I would have gotten this kind of response from everyone in the industry.  I graciously thank all of you for you input.  And who would have thought that such a simple question could even provoke RPGNow to rearrange their website.  

Now to provoke even more input along the same lines.  Is there some sort of guideline that people should follow when pricing their PDF's?  Let's say you have a 120 page PDF, with some amazing artwork.  For the example, you also intend on packaging a second book with it for the non-graphic lovers and for those who would like to print without all the color use.  Now what would be a good pricing point for this book.  Also, what if you include A4 sizing for the Europeans - or more accurately, everyone smart enought to get over the damn American measurement system  .  Now what are we looking at in price?  Actually, I suppose one would have to package the two separately so that the file size didn't exceed a gig  .  Ok, so maybe it isn't quite a gig.  

I would really like to know what kind of pricing people are looking for.

Kent Cramer
Co-Founder of Khan's Press
a soon to be d20 Publisher at large


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## Alzrius (Nov 15, 2002)

I'll take a stab at an answer to that last question, strictly on the view of a consumer.

The first PDF product I bought was Monte Cook's Book of Eldritch Might. I don't recall the exact number of pages, but subsequent products were, iirc, around a hundred pages or so, and the price was a flat five dollars. This seemed about right to me. Using that as a standard, products with less pages should cost less, like two or three dollars for a 64-page product or so. I can deal with the new standard of $6.95 products being sold for what would have been $5 a year or so ago, but anything more and I become leery. Ive seen some products from virtually unknown companies that costed $10, and that price was enough to make me back away from going out on a limb.

Again, these are just average opinions from your average consumer of PDFs.


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## HellHound (Nov 15, 2002)

Kent:

So far, it doesn't appear that providing multiple copies of the same document in the .zip file of a book increases the price at all - whether someone is buying a 120 page PDF, or four 120 page PDFs (one with & without graphics, one A4 sized each with & without graphics), they are still getting the same product in their mind and thus the price remains the same.

The multiple copies is a price we as the publishers have to swallow when making the PDF in exchange for better sales. Mutliple copies made in this manner are NOT a lot of extra work (after all, each one just involves changing the master page template before running it through distiller in my case), so the price really doesn't go up with each one included.

Also remember that the average reader doesn't want a 100+ page PDF product as it is VERY difficult to print at that size (print spools for graphical PDFs on the average printer for a large PDF can be insane) and hard to flip through once printed if it isn't bound also, which is an additional cost to the buyer.

For an Ambient Inc product, I would price that package you described near $6.95, but that also depends on the amount of money spent on artwork.


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## HellHound (Nov 15, 2002)

> I don't recall the exact number of pages, but subsequent products were, iirc, around a hundred pages or so, and the price was a flat five dollars.




Actually, Malhavoc increased the price of supplements at the beginning of 2002... If Thoughts Could Kill lists at $7, Book of Eldritch Might II also (and that's on special), and Book of Eldritch Might III lists at $9. The flat $5 supplement was only for Monte's initial PDF release of The Book of Eldritch Might I as far as I know.


----------



## Arnix (Nov 15, 2002)

Nah, I got ITCK for $5.  But that was right around its initial release date.


Arnix (tm)


----------



## tensen (Nov 15, 2002)

HellHound said:
			
		

> *The multiple copies is a price we as the publishers have to swallow when making the PDF in exchange for better sales. Mutliple copies made in this manner are NOT a lot of extra work (after all, each one just involves changing the master page template before running it through distiller in my case), so the price really doesn't go up with each one included.
> *





It depends on how things are done.  True if it is just a single master template it is effecting it probably changes little.  Although there are other cases, such as changes to artwork on the page and the like that can eat into time.  Of course that only matters if the layout person is getting money based on time.


----------



## Bagpuss (Nov 15, 2002)

Pharaun said:
			
		

> *Also, what if you include A4 sizing for the Europeans - or more accurately, everyone smart enought to get over the damn American measurement system  .
> 
> Kent Cramer
> Co-Founder of Khan's Press
> a soon to be d20 Publisher at large  *




I doubt anyone would pay extra for that or really be that fussed. Acrobat lets you rescale stuff to fit the printer so it isn't too much of a problem. Be nice but not the greatest of selling points.


----------



## philreed (Nov 15, 2002)

*A4 vs. letter*



			
				Bagpuss said:
			
		

> *
> 
> I doubt anyone would pay extra for that or really be that fussed. Acrobat lets you rescale stuff to fit the printer so it isn't too much of a problem. Be nice but not the greatest of selling points. *




One of my PDFs was released in both versions. I've heard no response on this.


----------



## Gargoyle (Nov 15, 2002)

Pharaun said:
			
		

> *WOW!!!  This is very insightful.  I would never have guessed I would have gotten this kind of response from everyone in the industry.  I graciously thank all of you for you input.  And who would have thought that such a simple question could even provoke RPGNow to rearrange their website.
> 
> Now to provoke even more input along the same lines.  Is there some sort of guideline that people should follow when pricing their PDF's?  Let's say you have a 120 page PDF, with some amazing artwork.  For the example, you also intend on packaging a second book with it for the non-graphic lovers and for those who would like to print without all the color use.  Now what would be a good pricing point for this book.  Also, what if you include A4 sizing for the Europeans - or more accurately, everyone smart enought to get over the damn American measurement system  .  Now what are we looking at in price?  Actually, I suppose one would have to package the two separately so that the file size didn't exceed a gig  .  Ok, so maybe it isn't quite a gig.
> 
> ...





I would use Malhavoc's products (specifically Monte's Books of Eldritch Might) as a guide, since they are consistently bestsellers and have a range of sizes and prices. 

Book of Eldritch Might ($5.00 for 36 pages)
Book of Eldritch Might II ($7.00 for 64 pages)
Book of Eldritch Might III ($9.00 for 96 pages)

And yes they are on "special" but it seems they've always been at those prices, so I don't really consider it a sale.  And somehow I doubt they will go back up.  Maybe Monte can confirm or deny that.  In any case, Monte's stuff is the standard du jour.  (And I highly recommend it all.  The only thing that hurts his sales are the customers like myself who prefer to wait for the printed version)

Page count isn't the only thing, but it's the main thing, since it usually correlates with your costs and will certainly be considered by the consumer when evaluating the price, just like that's one of the main things you look when buying printed books.  

I don't know much about your product, but I'd use $11 as a baseline and adjust it as you see fit.  Price it too much less and you won't make money, price it too much more and you'll receive less than stunning reviews, and will probably make less money than you could have.  (But you will probably still make a profit if your product is good, price doesn't seem to be the primary reason people buy a PDF, it's the perception of quality and usefulness, IMO)

Of course, if this is your premier product, pricing low might be a good idea to generate some buzz.  Even if it doesn't make money, the heightened sales and better reviews could be worth the loss of revenue, if you've got some extra capital to pay for the next book.  

Edit: Jason has a lot of good points as well.  120 page PDFs are a tough sell.  And there is a psychological barrier when pricing things at $10 or above.  You may want to split it up into two books, if the subject matter allows it.

Good luck.


----------



## Gargoyle (Nov 15, 2002)

Bagpuss said:
			
		

> *
> 
> I doubt anyone would pay extra for that or really be that fussed. Acrobat lets you rescale stuff to fit the printer so it isn't too much of a problem. Be nice but not the greatest of selling points. *




I agree on this point.  People are much more concerned about whether they can actually use the product in their game without too much revision than such features.   Usefulness is the main factor.  That's why companies like Natural 20 Press, Ambient, and Malhavoc rock.  They create stuff that is instantly useful and solid, ruleswise.


----------



## tensen (Nov 15, 2002)

*Re: A4 vs. letter*



			
				philreed said:
			
		

> *
> 
> One of my PDFs was released in both versions. I've heard no response on this. *




Considering what the "official" stats of American buyers to European buys has been on print products, I imagine a similar stat would be on the PDF material... possibly even hampered more by paypal issues with overseas, and rpgnows credit card steps for overseas.  I'm willing to guess that out of a any 200 sales, you probably saw less than 20 european buyers.  With a usual vocal rate of less than 5% on any topic... you might hear from 1....  and that 1 is usually there to give negative feedback if any.  So...  not hearing anything is actually expected on postive things.


----------



## philreed (Nov 15, 2002)

*Re: Re: A4 vs. letter*



			
				tensen said:
			
		

> *Considering what the "official" stats of American buyers to European buys has been on print products, I imagine a similar stat would be on the PDF material... possibly even hampered more by paypal issues with overseas, and rpgnows credit card steps for overseas.  I'm willing to guess that out of a any 200 sales, you probably saw less than 20 european buyers.  With a usual vocal rate of less than 5% on any topic... you might hear from 1....  and that 1 is usually there to give negative feedback if any.  So...  not hearing anything is actually expected on postive things. *




Good point. The next "pay" PDF I do I'll try this again. It wasn't a huge amount of work.


----------



## Turjan (Nov 15, 2002)

*Re: Re: A4 vs. letter*



			
				tensen said:
			
		

> I'm willing to guess that out of a any 200 sales, you probably saw less than 20 european buyers.  With a usual vocal rate of less than 5% on any topic... you might hear from 1....  and that 1 is usually there to give negative feedback if any.  So...  not hearing anything is actually expected on postive things.



I think that is just some sort of cultural difference between Europeans and Americans. We usually say what we think and don't hesitate to use harsh words. We'd never say something like "Oh, I really like that!" without really meaning it. I suppose, most Americans will perceive us as being unbelievably rude .

As far as letter vs. A4 format goes, I don't mind letter format myself. I usually use the "center" option while printing the stuff. This will be only a problem in case the illustrations have low resolution, because then you may see some glitches due to the slight change in image size. But most or the time it's okay as it is.


----------



## rpghost (Nov 15, 2002)

*Re: Re: A4 vs. letter*



			
				tensen said:
			
		

> *... and rpgnows credit card steps for overseas.*




This is a misconception... RPGShop.com requires proof of card ownership, but RPGNow.com does not. Mainly cause if it's fraud we are only out processing charges and we can cancel the order and not pay the publisher. With RPGShop.com we sell physical product - with that comes an up front cost to us, a shipping cost, an the desire for fraud as you can re-sell physical products. No one is going to commit credit card fraud to buy an electronic product oversees - just no point in it. So we waive the requirements for overseas credit cards when just dealing with RPGNow.com 

In fact, if you're a long time (6month+) customer of RPGNow.com we'll even waive these conditions for your EN World Shop orders.

James


----------



## tensen (Nov 15, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: A4 vs. letter*



			
				rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> 
> This is a misconception... RPGShop.com requires proof of card ownership, but RPGNow.com does not. Mainly cause if it's fraud we are only out processing charges and we can cancel the order and not pay the publisher. With RPGShop.com we sell physical product - with that comes an up front cost to us, a shipping cost, an the desire for fraud as you can re-sell physical products. No one is going to commit credit card fraud to buy an electronic product oversees - just no point in it. So we waive the requirements for overseas credit cards when just dealing with RPGNow.com
> 
> *




James,

I'll apologize now.  I am American so I don't see the effects..  I only had a few possible customers complain about it, which is why it got brought to my attention. 

Aka...  negative effects get heard more often then postive....

how often do you hear, "Wow, that was so easy..."  other than followed with..  "not like such and such place..  they...."


----------



## Joshua Randall (Nov 15, 2002)

Gargoyle said:
			
		

> *I would use Malhavoc's products (specifically Monte's Books of Eldritch Might) as a guide, since they are consistently bestsellers and have a range of sizes and prices.
> 
> Book of Eldritch Might ($5.00 for 36 pages)
> Book of Eldritch Might II ($7.00 for 64 pages)
> Book of Eldritch Might III ($9.00 for 96 pages)*




For lazy, curious people, this works out to be

BoEM 1: $0.14 per page
BoEM 2: $0.11 per page
BoEM 3: $0.09 per page

I think comparing page counts between printed books and PDFs is kind of goofy. The whole point of a PDF is that the electronic format makes per page printing costs irrelevant. But, if you must compare, here are the numbers, using the WotC suggested retail prices.

core
PH: 288 pages, $29.95, $0.10 per page
DMG: 224 pages, $29.95, $0.13 per page
MM: 224 pages, $29.95, $0.13 per page

hardcover
PsiH: 160 pages, $26.95, $0.17 per page
FRCS: 320 pages, $39.95, $0.12 per page
MotP: 224 pages, $29.95, $0.13 per page

paperbacks
Sword & Fist, etc.: 96 pages, $19.95, $0.21 per page

It looks like about $0.13 per page is the standard price for a WotC hardcover. I assume the PH is deliberately underpriced or is cheaper per page because it's larger. However, FRCS is not much cheaper despite greater length.

The PsiH is more expensive per page because it's much shorter. And the paperbacks are much more expensive per page; higher costs per page to produce the shorter books, or WotC making up money on the supplements, or a little of both.


----------



## Turjan (Nov 15, 2002)

Well, the PH can be cheaper because of the vast sales figures, thereby making production cheap. A campaign setting is much more limited as far as expected sales go, and the splatbooks were considered to appeal to even less customers.


----------



## Cergorach (Nov 15, 2002)

tensen said:
			
		

> *It depends on how things are done.  True if it is just a single master template it is effecting it probably changes little.  Although there are other cases, such as changes to artwork on the page and the like that can eat into time.  Of course that only matters if the layout person is getting money based on time. *




There are tools that let you edit whole pdfs at a time, you can decrease the dpi count for all images (a cool trick to remove all images is to set it at 0dpi). Or make color images into grey or even B&W images. One of the must have tools for Acrobat is _Enfocus Pitstop Profesional 5.0_, it has lots of useful features...


----------



## MThibault (Nov 15, 2002)

"The whole point of a PDF is that the electronic format makes per page printing costs irrelevant."

True.  But the trade off is the very small number of sales compared to a print product.  What you gain on the hobby-horse (low capitol expenditure) you lose on the swings (low gross sales).  Then there are artist and author fees (both based on volume) that splits a very small pie even more.  Even before the vendor's commission gets taken off, most products are looking at gross profit numbers that make panhandling look attractive.

I might be mistaken, but I am under the impression that the vendor's fee for PDF products is static.  It doesn't decrease with large runs.  So even if you can't finesse the economies of scale if you think that you have a (relative) hit on your hands.

Also, there is an upper limit of what can be considered a reasonable download, so you can't decrease your price/page ratio by adding another 34 pages to a 100 page PDF without losing sales.

All in all I don't think that it is fair to compare the costs of print vs. pdf as if they were on a level playing field.  Nor do I think that price/page is a fair comparison between the two products.

Mike


PS I think that Price per page is a scam in reviews as well.  Value per page is more important, IMO.  But that's a seperate issue.

Cheers.


I think that with the extremely small volume of sales for PDF products (Monte, as always excepted) author and artist fees become the bulk of the capitol expense and the rest of the investment is time.  If


----------



## Arnix (Nov 15, 2002)

I'm curious as to the costs of selling your pdf's through RPGnow.  Is it a flat fee per pdf, a monthly fee, a data transfer fee, startup plus one of the previous items, etc?  I went looking on the site and didn't see anything while I was there (may not have looked int he right place).


----------



## Turjan (Nov 15, 2002)

@Arnix: The answer is somewhere in this thread. Sorry, but I'm too lazy to look for it now.


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## Gargoyle (Nov 15, 2002)

JERandall said:
			
		

> *
> 
> 
> I think comparing page counts between printed books and PDFs is kind of goofy. The whole point of a PDF is that the electronic format makes per page printing costs irrelevant. But, if you must compare, here are the numbers, using the WotC suggested retail prices.
> *




True, but if you pay writers so much a word, or write the product yourself (therefore spending an approximate amount of time per page) then page counts for PDF's do matter.  Producing a 120 page PDF is much more expensive than producing a 64 page PDF, especially if you pay authors or artists.  But I agree that comparing PDF page counts directly to print page counts is not quite right, so I didn't.


----------



## HellHound (Nov 15, 2002)

Flat percentage of the cost per product sold.

Gold Vendors pay a higher percentage in exchange for special vendor tools.


----------



## Gargoyle (Nov 15, 2002)

Arnix said:
			
		

> *I'm curious as to the costs of selling your pdf's through RPGnow.  Is it a flat fee per pdf, a monthly fee, a data transfer fee, startup plus one of the previous items, etc?  I went looking on the site and didn't see anything while I was there (may not have looked int he right place). *




RPGNow charges 20% on every sale for non-Gold vendors, 25% for Gold vendors who have more functionality.  They pay via PayPal on the 15th of the month for the previous month's sales.   I'm not a gold vendor (yet), so if I choose to charge $7.00 for a PDF, I get $5.60 for each sale, and RPG Now gets $1.40 before their costs.

Your best bet is to send them an e-mail asking for more information, though, I don't want to give you wrong or incomplete info.   Or perhaps they can post the vendor information here.

It's a good deal, and much less trouble than setting up your own site.  Even if you have a secure server and a merchant account, getting people to come to your site probably isn't worth the extra cost and time.  This lets me spend more time writing new products, which is the most valuable service they can give me...


----------



## Arnix (Nov 15, 2002)

Thanks for the info.  Thats about the percentage I was expecting.  Would take over a hundred pdf sales to just offset the cost of a secure certificate at that rate.  So sound slike the RPGnow route is definately the way to go (at least early on).


Arnix (tm)


----------



## Terra_Ferax_Mark (Nov 16, 2002)

*RPGNow category pages and reviews*

Arnix, here are a few thoughts that might help you if you decide to produce PDFs. 

Posterboy wrote about RPGNow that "Many of the books in the top 10 are there from the earlier day's of rpgnow.com" and while that's more true of the main pages, in the category pages you can also see how well like products are against like products (i.e. what's doing well in d20 sourcebooks, etc.). For example, I have a monopoly on Accessories: Name Tables so people can rank how well the sales are one PDF vs. the others.

If you do go the RPGNow route, it might help if you include links directly to your products as well as to the category pages you appear on. For example, "Role Playing: Fantasy d20: Low Level Adventure" is at  http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?cPath=1_260_269&, "Role Playing: Fantasy d20: d20 Campaign Books" is at  http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?cPath=1_260_279&, "Role Playing: Fantasy d20: d20 Sourcebook" is at http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?cPath=1_260_270&, etc. While these are readily available on the left (and very useful), I've wondered how many people use them (Turjan, for example, wrote "I browse the two columns on the right, best sellers and new products. Anything else? No."). Maybe directing people to these pages would help sales.

This can be helpful when you're first getting started, as you're not likely to start with reviewed products. If your products are selling well, it isn't a testimony to your product's quality, but it might help sales if onlookers see that you are selling well and positioning high without (or with few) negative comments.  No news is good news. Just a thought.

On the review topic, when submitting material for reviews, expect some turnaround time. This glut of roleplaying products you hear mentioned so frequently also backlogs many reviewers (picture them as sailors on a sinking ship trying to bail, but armed with spoons and no buckets...)

Good luck!


----------



## Ghostwind (Nov 16, 2002)

*Re: RPGNow category pages and reviews*



> *On the review topic, when submitting material for reviews, expect some turnaround time. This glut of roleplaying products you hear mentioned so frequently also backlogs many reviewers (picture them as sailors on a sinking ship trying to bail, but armed with spoons and no buckets...)*




Ain't this the truth!!! We reviewers try our best to turn a product around as fast as we can, but sometimes a product may get buried and forgotten. If you've sent something out for review, be patient but don't be afraid to drop a polite letter of inquiry after a reasonable amount of time (30 days or so). We are human, after all...


----------



## Twin Rose (Nov 16, 2002)

*Re: Re: RPGNow category pages and reviews*



			
				Ghostwind said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Ain't this the truth!!! We reviewers try our best to turn a product around as fast as we can, but sometimes a product may get buried and forgotten. If you've sent something out for review, be patient but don't be afraid to drop a polite letter of inquiry after a reasonable amount of time (30 days or so). We are human, after all...   *




For this reason, you should try to get a review copy sent out 2, 3 or even 4 months before your final release date.  If you don't, then you might find your product has gone through it's 'cycle' before you have even gone through the review process.


----------



## philreed (Nov 16, 2002)

*Updated RPGNOw Numbers*

For those of you trying to keep some idea of how PDF products sell:

101 Spellbooks: 173 -- 2 months old
101 Treasures: 148 -- 1 month old
101 Components: 84 -- 1 month old

I suspect this thread greatly assisted sales for the week.


----------



## Turjan (Nov 16, 2002)

philreed said:
			
		

> I suspect this thread greatly assisted sales for the week.



I suppose that you're right. But don't forget that this week's sale has been prominently announced on EN World's main page.

However, the mentioning of some products that have escaped my view so far in this thread brought me to buy things I wouldn't have bought without this highlighting.


----------



## Sir Whiskers (Nov 17, 2002)

James,

I downloaded your zip file (what's new webpage) and I think you're initial response to the catalog idea is accurate - it's not much easier than shopping online. Now that I know how to get to the new products page on your website, I can do much of my shopping there. A couple suggestions:

1) If it's no extra work, including a zip file like the one you posted of your top 100 products on every cd can't hurt. I ordered several items on cd a while back (I don't have a cd-burner, so it is my backup) and was pleasantly surprised at the number of freebies and demos you included. Having this file on there is just another chance for your customers to decide on another purchase. If it entails considerable cost in time or money, though, I'm not convinced it would make a significant difference in overall sales.

2) Any chance of adding the links to publisher homepage/demo/etc. to the "what's new" page? It would be convenient to find an item on this page and pop straight to the publisher if I need more info to make my decision.

BTW, thanks for all your work in integrating what others have suggested in this thread. I'm truly impressed.


----------



## rpghost (Nov 17, 2002)

Sir Whiskers said:
			
		

> *1) If it's no extra work, including a zip file like the one you posted of your top 100 products on every cd can't hurt.
> *




I'm working on a full HTML version of the website that can run off a CD. Basically a complete catalog with active links to allow you to buy or view demos. Not sure if I can get search to work. The concept is that I can include this on other DEMO cd's or on Campaign Suite or things like that.

Problem is, I need to figure out a way to get the database drive HTML pages to actually store as HTML that is locally navigated. If I use a program to spider the whole site I'm afraid it may spider a lot of places I don't want... anyone know a tool to do this sort of thing? I want the output in HTML not PDF.

As for teh publisher info on the NEW PRODUCTS page, I'll look into that... might not be that simple though.

Oh, I also just implmented a button exchange for the vendors of the site to use to help draw attention to their products while you surf. I hope it's not too intrusive or annoying.

James


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## James Heard (Nov 17, 2002)

Just curious...Why the aversion to doing it as pdf? Pdf files are just as linkable and versatile as html if you're not concerned with the rather large load-in time for the reader, right? And since you're selling pdf's you can be reasonable certain that everyone interested has Acrobat Reader...


----------



## rpghost (Nov 17, 2002)

James Heard said:
			
		

> *Just curious...Why the aversion to doing it as pdf? Pdf files are just as linkable and versatile as html if you're not concerned with the rather large load-in time for the reader, right? And since you're selling pdf's you can be reasonable certain that everyone interested has Acrobat Reader... *




Because large Acrobat files are slow to page around in. Plus I don't want to have to REQUIRE someone to install Acrobat just to see a catalog - even though it's simple and most probably have it. Also, I don't think it's going to be that simple to covert the site into a cross-linking index set of files in PDF as it would be to just get a program to spider it into HTML.

I could be wrong. I'm open for suggestions as usual.

James


----------



## Alzrius (Nov 17, 2002)

RP Ghost is right. If the catalogue were only available as a PDF, it would be prohibitively slow to page through, enough to the point where I know I wouldn't give it the full run-through I would do a faster-moving HTML file. My suggestion is to go with the HTML idea, it sounds like the best one.


----------



## James Heard (Nov 17, 2002)

Large for-print and print capable pdf files page slow, but I've just never seen much of a difference with properly designed "screen" pdfs I suppose unless you're imbedding movies or sounds. If it helps any, setting up your pdf files for smaller pages makes a big difference too - squarish formats that don't require scrolling to move on the same page for instance IME move really fast except for load-up unless you set them up to try to show more than one page at a time.  Load-up is an issue with any pdf, adobe programs just start slow. Of course, if you suspect that everyone will fuss about having to install acrobat then the whole issue is moot. I wonder what folks expect to read their pdf's with though.


----------



## rpghost (Nov 17, 2002)

James Heard said:
			
		

> *... IME move really fast except for load-up unless you set them up to try to show more than one page at a time.  Load-up is an issue with any pdf, adobe programs just start slow. Of course, if you suspect that everyone will fuss about having to install acrobat then the whole issue is moot. I wonder what folks expect to read their pdf's with though. *




Well when you have a PDF that's over 5mb is size try paging around in it. Try one at 10mb. Ok, if it's 100 little ones is that any better? Now think about it on a slower computer with less memory then yours?

As for the Acrobat comment... when it comes to advertising - the road to least resistance is always best. The goal of our new marketing is going to be to draw in the regular book readers- people that might not even know what the hell a PDF or acrobat is. If you're promoting a product to them - why would you create it in a media they are not sure about?

James


----------



## tensen (Nov 17, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> Plus I don't want to have to REQUIRE someone to install Acrobat just to see a catalog - even though it's simple and most probably have it. *





Um, if they aren't bothering to have Acrobat Reader on their PC.  Why would they have it to be able to read most of the downloads from rpgnow?


----------



## DanMcAllister (Nov 17, 2002)

*Sales Figures*

As a person working on my first product for sale, I think it would be useful to me and others here if we could have the top 20/40/whatever lists for both units sold and cash generated .

It would be informative to see what difference if any it made to the list.  It should show if the product cost does indeed impact sales and help me (and other "newcomers") set the best guess at a price.

Would it be possible to do this for us?

Thanks,

Dan


----------



## James Heard (Nov 17, 2002)

I run a 700 Mhz PC with 128 RAM at home and I never had any troubles with paging around in my 120-ish meg CD-case size pages pdf files that I've made. I admit that most rpg product pdfs seem inordinately slow, but they also have awful bookmarking and linking in common too. That's something that most of the for-print and from-print pdfs seem to have though. Maybe if I have time after I get everything done for the holiday season I'll see if I can take apart one and see if I could get it to page faster without killing myself in the formatting. It makes no sense why rpg pdfs are slower than some of the ones I've put together with the same or larger file sizes except as a relation to my working in different page sizes? Maybe someone should start thinking about producing pdfs in the old Traveller black book format?


----------



## rpghost (Nov 17, 2002)

*Re: Sales Figures*



			
				DanMcAllister said:
			
		

> *As a person working on my first product for sale, I think it would be useful to me and others here if we could have the top 20/40/whatever lists for both units sold and cash generated .
> 
> It would be informative to see what difference if any it made to the list.  It should show if the product cost does indeed impact sales and help me (and other "newcomers") set the best guess at a price.
> 
> ...




While I agree it's what people "want" to know, it's definatly not something I can or would make public. These numbers are private.

But if you look above in this thread Morrus already as a lot of it assembled from guess work.

James


----------



## jmucchiello (Nov 17, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *Problem is, I need to figure out a way to get the database drive HTML pages to actually store as HTML that is locally navigated. If I use a program to spider the whole site I'm afraid it may spider a lot of places I don't want... anyone know a tool to do this sort of thing? I want the output in HTML not PDF.*



Have you tried QuadSucker or UltraSucker from http://www.quadsucker.com? It's a spider that can relativize the URLs in the links. Quadsucker is also an image viewer (designed for porn sites: from which all internet innovation flows) so you'd probably use UltraSucker. I ran it for a few seconds on the website and there's a glitch in the More Comments... link in the left sidebar that might be caused by my having an old version or a bug in your webpage. You'd have to check that out. Also, hopefully the newer version supports cookies since all the URLs end up with that &PHPSESSION=blahblahblah.

The good thing about it is it can grab offsite image but ignore offsite pages. You can also exclude URLs with a search string such as exclude "/private/" any anchor tag with /private/ in it is removed.

Hope that helps,
  Joe


----------



## DanMcAllister (Nov 17, 2002)

*Re: Re: Sales Figures*



			
				rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> 
> While I agree it's what people "want" to know, it's definatly not something I can or would make public. These numbers are private.
> 
> ...




I can definately see RPGNow being unable to do this.  However if some of the publishers would give these figures of their own products it sure would be appreciated...  I'll go back through the ist and do this work for myself, but thought if anyone was willing to share this info it wouldn't hurt to ask...

I have been very happy with everything I have bought from RPGNow, by the way guys, except one product which was setting specific and was my own falt for not catchjing the fact...

I'll try to match your guys' standards when I do have my own product ready....

Dan


----------



## DanMcAllister (Nov 17, 2002)

*Does this seem reasonable?*

The product I amn working on will be useful to at least 5 of the major D20 settings (D&D, CoC, Star Wars, Traveller, and Modern) but the versions would have to be slightly different to fit each setting's unique qualities...

I was thinking of selling each setting-specific version seperately and also selling a "Bundled" version with all 5 for the price of 3.

Does this seem to be a good idea? (It does to me, but then again I thought of it, so OF COURSE it seems to be a good idea to me...)

Guidance appreciated,

Dan


----------



## rpghost (Nov 17, 2002)

*Re: Does this seem reasonable?*



			
				DanMcAllister said:
			
		

> *The product I amn working on will be useful to at least 5 of the major D20 settings (D&D, CoC, Star Wars, Traveller, and Modern) but the versions would have to be slightly different to fit each setting's unique qualities...*




If there are only a small or definable changes for each setting, I'd suggest adopting a formating at that would indicate which genre a particular rule or note applies to and make one book. I'm all for splitting up large books into smaller ones as people don't like to read (print) huge PDFs... but this seems like a case where just some careful presentation should make the book only a few pages longer and serve all needs.

But, this isn't really a topic for this thread. Start another if you want more feedback.

This topic was about the "potential" sales of PDF products.  How to increase the PDF buyer base, etc... I hope we can continue on along those lines. I for one would like to know how to attact more non-d20 users and more non-EN World users. To that end I expect to spend some advertising money in the near future. The fact that most of our customers come from the 2 most popular producers of PDF's means that many of our customers are coming straight from product announcemnt links and fan support sites. I'd like to try to tap into the regular book-reading crowd as well as some more non-d20 people. Thoughts?

James

James


----------



## Temprus (Nov 17, 2002)

James,

When do you expect to start offering the PoD services mentioned earlier in the thread?

Also, will any pdf vendor on your site be allowed access to it or only top sellers?


----------



## rpghost (Nov 17, 2002)

Temprus said:
			
		

> *When do you expect to start offering the PoD services mentioned earlier in the thread?
> 
> Also, will any pdf vendor on your site be allowed access to it or only top sellers? *




Soon, not postive when I'll have final details. But hopefully this year yet. Waiting on a sample to arrive and to make final arrangments.

All vendors who are willing to pre-pay for 10 copies of their product will be able to participate. We'll of course want a higher resolution PDF, but most specs shouldn't change.

James


----------



## 2WS-Steve (Nov 17, 2002)

*Re: Re: Does this seem reasonable?*



			
				rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> 
> ...
> 
> ...




Do you mean fiction PDFs, like putting novels on sale via RPGNow?

This would be a hard sell to me and I already like PDF products. Most printed fiction books sell for about $8. That's a small enough amount of money that I wouldn't give up paper to catch a price break. Frankly, I'm more than willing to spend $8 for a printed version of an excellent book that I could download for free (Guttenberg project for instance).

If I had one of those e-book readers then I'd give a downloadable book a try but I have a feeling that the e-Book market is pretty miserable.

I think to make something like this fly we need to offer something besides a cost break. The current advantages of e-products are speed of delivery and vast selection but we need something extra for the end user. The Darkfuries maps worked really well as an e-Product because having them in HTML format made using them easier than using a printed map book (at least in certain ways). I suspect that whatever is going to add appeal to e-products will occur on the software end and that means you'll need programmers as well as a writers for the books.


----------



## DanMcAllister (Nov 17, 2002)

*Re: Re: Does this seem reasonable?*



			
				rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> 
> If there are only a small or definable changes for each setting, I'd suggest adopting a formating at that would indicate which genre a particular rule or note applies to and make one book. I'm all for splitting up large books into smaller ones as people don't like to read (print) huge PDFs... but this seems like a case where just some careful presentation should make the book only a few pages longer and serve all needs.
> 
> ...




Agreed on being off-topic.  Have started new thread.  (Excuse a newbie to the boards....) And thanks for the thoughts you gave.


Dan


----------



## James Heard (Nov 17, 2002)

Has anyone tried to ask regular computer game publishers about piggy-backing pdf products or catalogs onto the blank spaces on their cds? I mean, they already put all of those useless demos and EULAs... Aren't folks that play computer games already a higher percentage of the folks that might have played D&D at some point?


----------



## tensen (Nov 17, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Does this seem reasonable?*



			
				2WS-Steve said:
			
		

> *
> This would be a hard sell to me and I already like PDF products. Most printed fiction books sell for about $8. That's a small enough amount of money that I wouldn't give up paper to catch a price break. Frankly, I'm more than willing to spend $8 for a printed version of an excellent book that I could download for free (Guttenberg project for instance).
> *




If I was looking for online books I'd go to Baen books website.  They apparently have made quite a name in the book industry by this.  They sell web subscriptions to their books for rather cheap.  They expect people to read it online.  And it has majorly increased their sales on Hard Covers.


----------



## Terra_Ferax_Mark (Nov 17, 2002)

Originally posted by rpghost 
--------------------------------------
Problem is, I need to figure out a way to get the database drive HTML pages to actually store as HTML that is locally navigated. If I use a program to spider the whole site I'm afraid it may spider a lot of places I don't want... anyone know a tool to do this sort of thing? I want the output in HTML not PDF.
-----------------------------------------------------

HTTrack is a free (open source) and easy-to-use offline browser utility. 
http://www.httrack.com/index.php
*When you set up the job, you'll get to a -Mirroring Mode- page (you enter the URL to scan on this page). Enter the Url. Click the "Set Options" button on this page. In the dialog box, choose the Scan Rules tab and remove the line in the box that reads*
+*.png +*.gif +*.jpg +*.css +*.js -ad.doubleclick.net/*
*and replace that line with *
+http://www.rpgnow.com/*.html
+http://www.rpgnow.com/*.htm
+http://www.rpgnow.com/*.gif
+http://www.rpgnow.com/*.jpg
+http://www.rpgnow.com/*.jpeg

*These can be on multiple lines. Once you have entered this, you'll click the OK button to dismiss the dialog box. Go up to the preferences menu and select "save options as..." *
Now whenever you want to scan, you can load those options (The program eliminates the job when it successfully performs the task, so saving it will save you from a typing mantra...)

I used this to scan my stormpages.com message board and it stayed on that site, even though I have links back to my website, d20 magazine rack and some other websites (normally other websites appear in separate folders). Your mileage with it may vary, but it works for me.


----------



## rpghost (Nov 17, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Does this seem reasonable?*



			
				2WS-Steve said:
			
		

> *Do you mean fiction PDFs, like putting novels on sale via RPGNow?*




No I meant the people out there buy all the print RPG books but don't know who the heck we are. We have a lot to offer them - from early editions of books to books they'll never see in their FLGS. So how do we get the people who frequent the FLGS to come to RPGNow?

James


----------



## Morrus (Nov 17, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Re: Does this seem reasonable?*



			
				rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> 
> No I meant the people out there buy all the print RPG books but don't know who the heck we are. We have a lot to offer them - from early editions of books to books they'll never see in their FLGS. So how do we get the people who frequent the FLGS to come to RPGNow?
> 
> James *




That's not a problem unique to you.  For example, how do I get people who frequent the FLGS to come to EN World?  Well, actually I have some plans in that regard, but I know where you're coming from.


----------



## Arnix (Nov 17, 2002)

*Re: RPGNow category pages and reviews*

Thanks Terra.  I'll see if I can make sure that I have at least a review or two posted for the stuff that we release, might take some work to get a reviewer to do it but... hopefully it will be worth the extra effort.

Arnix (tm)


----------



## Rifter (Nov 21, 2002)

*Is there a way to get this in stores?*

The biggest advantage that print books have, is they have people pushing them at a store, because they turn a profit.  .PDFs do not have that same luxury.  Is there a way to move the .pdf business to the store?  I know some stores have PCs hooked up already.  Throw on a decent black and white laser printer, and you have the perfect set up.  Another idea, that would be far cheaper for a store, is having a CD-ROM burner.  

So, a store would have a setup, where they have the books online.  They make a sale, and that gets wired back to RPG Host that a purchase has been made... or maybe, it is done once a night, or what not.  The store charages probably double what the RPG Host price is... and that person gets either an electronic or printed format.  I can see a lot of problems with this, right now, but others may be able to take this concept and make it better.  There are a few tradeoffs though.  

If you go printing route, you have all the products, and don't have to pay to keep a physical inventory, which is a good thing.  Though, you have paper costs and toner costs, which really are not all that much.  Though, the time to print could be an issue, and printer maintenence.

If you go the CD-ROM route, you still have the advantage of no inventory, plus, CDs are very cheap, and reliable, as well as extremely fast.  I think the CD version is the way to go.  Any other ideas/comments?  

I know the store owner of the store I work at kind of frowns on me trying to sell the .pdfs I find in his store, since he doesn't make a dime off of them.


----------



## Asathas (Nov 21, 2002)

*Perhaps a catalog in the stores?*

I'm neither a PDF publisher nor a distributor like RPGNow but I'll toss this thought into the ring...  What if you had a catalog in the FLGS and a postcard/bookmark/whatever that had a store code on it?  Customer finds something interesting in the catalog, takes the printed item (shape/size up to you more knowledgeable folks) home and enters the URL in their computer.  The URL could even include the store code so that information is passed automatically.  

Then when the consumer buys something from RPGNow, the FLGS gets a cut (I know there ain't much left but perhaps the publishers would be willing to pay RPGNow a tad more for sales that originated in an FLGS).

With the FLGS getting a cut on the deal, there's incentive there for them to push the product.  Your catalog printing costs are dependent wholly on how much you put into the catalog.  For that matter, you can offer the publishers the opportunity to "upsize" their entry/entries in the catalog for a small fee.

The main issues I see with this are:

1 - Making sure that the additional FLGS-driven revenue is sufficient to overcome the cost of the catalog and still allow profit.

2 - The catalog has to provide sufficient information to encourage the consumer to take the time/trouble to get the printed item with the URL on it home and go to the site.

3 - The catalog has to be sufficiently eye-catching to encourage a consumer to peruse it.

I'm not sure that the idea is entirely there but perhaps between the publishers here, RPGNow, and the folks in this thread who run FLGS, you could find something in this idea that might work.


----------



## Asathas (Nov 21, 2002)

*Further thoughts...*

As an alternative to the catalog, you could just do something like the bookmark/postcard idea with a bit of a twist.

If the RPGNow data/UI could be made exportable (i.e. something I could access by putting a CGI or equivalent script on my site) and preferably easily brandable, you could offer the FLGS something truly unique.  I can probably better describe this with an example:

Let's say I run FLGS Gaming Store and  I've got a web site set up at www.flgs.com.  I make a deal with RPGNow to become an associate site.  As an associate, I get to put a small CGI script or it may just be a link to RPGNow.com with my having given them my store name, address, main URL, and a logo graphic.  Where the data/UI is hosted is kinda up to you folks.

Now when a customer comes in and wants something new/different, I can tell him to go to our store web site, www.flgs.com, and from there he can browse/purchase/download PDF's.  I can explain that from there he can get D20/other RPG material that he can't find in any store.  I can do promotions.  I could even (with the appropriate enhancements to the RPGNow software) take cash payments in store to give credit on the FLGS/RPGNow site so that my customers who don't have a credit card can buy stuff.

Now to make it truly worthwhile for the FLGS, the FLGS can set up a pricing table... for example, items purchased through the FLGS site under $3 get a $1 fee tacked on, items from $3.01 to $5 get a $1.50 fee, and so on.  These are numbers made up off the top of my head so please don't put much stock in them... just the idea.

Basically, this gives RPGNow the opportunity to have the FLGS pushing RPGNow.  The FLGS gets a minimal or even no investment revenue opportunity.  The publishers get a wider audience and the benefit of the FLGS hawking their products.

The main downside on this is that RPGNow would then be competing against the FLGS which use their product library because RPGNow would be migrating its role from that of a retailer to that of a wholesaler (more or less).  But again, that's a strategic decision for you guys to make.


----------



## jezter6 (Nov 22, 2002)

Well, like james said, the margins on PDF sales aren't that high for RPGNow, and it just wouldn't be profitable to have an affiliate program like that.

But, as someone who's in the process, I'd LOVE to see RPGnow publish some sort of monthly or i'd even take quarterly...just to have something on the shop floor to let our people know they can get stuff that I don't have on the shelf.

Charge the publishers if they want to be in the catalog. Send the catalog free to FLGS with no mention of the other online stuff you do at RPGshop or whatever. That way our customers could get what they need, regardless if the FLGS makes a dime on it (and i'd be willing to bet that it's the MAX the FLGS would make on an affiliate program...and think of how many sales monthly an FLGS is going to make in pdf's...probably not more than 100 or so...so you're only making $10...not really enough to scream "I want profits")

Anywho, done with my rant.


----------



## rpghost (Nov 22, 2002)

jezter6 said:
			
		

> *But, as someone who's in the process, I'd LOVE to see RPGnow publish some sort of monthly or i'd even take quarterly...just to have something on the shop floor to let our people know they can get stuff that I don't have on the shelf.
> *




Maybe not exactly what you're saying here, but what about a monthly E-Zine that has publisher features and highlights of new products and such. More then a newsletter or mailing, but something that requires an editor and maybe some unique content.

Seems like an offical RPGNow PDF Magazine wuld fit in well with the site. A free download for customers. Something that's going to help promote products on the site. But also even some helpful tips/hints/training for people wanting to get into the PDF publishing business... Then I suppose FLGS could print it out and leave it on the counters... but again, I doubt they'd bother as we're sort of a competitor and there's no money in it for them.

Anyway, need to find an editor and staff and a reason for them wanting to help (discounts, frebies, fame) -   Anyone out there been iching to do an e-zine?


James
http://www.RPGNow.com


----------



## Ghostwind (Nov 22, 2002)

James-

Drop me an email about this so we can talk.


----------



## jezter6 (Nov 22, 2002)

James,

I see where your coming from about FLGS not wanting to do anything with you because you're a competitor, but if you're willing to look at your 2 sites separately....the PDF site is not really competition for an FLGS that can't get those products anyways. I'd be HAPPY to send my customers over to get PDFs as long as they buy their PHB's from me. 

An any help I could give you on the e-zine thing, please let me know. I'm always willing to help out...not sure exactly what I can offer you, because I'm not sure what you need...but I'm offering what I have.


----------



## rpghost (Nov 23, 2002)

Ok all you number crunch'n geeks... check this out:

http://www.rpgnow.com/toplists.php

James


----------



## Morrus (Nov 23, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *Ok all you number crunch'n geeks... check this out:
> 
> http://www.rpgnow.com/toplists.php
> 
> James *




Goodness me!

Cool page.  Some of those non-D20 RPG items are D20, though.


----------



## RangerWickett (Nov 23, 2002)

For instance, Four-Color to Fantasy is a d20 supers product.

And you have the name a little off.  It's not Four Colors, it's Four-Color.  But yes, cool page.  What exactly do the arrows mean?


----------



## HellHound (Nov 23, 2002)

I just saw those lists this morning when I logged on, and came over here to tell y'all how cool they are.

Nice work, James.


----------



## MEG Hal (Nov 23, 2002)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> *What exactly do the arrows mean? *




I am assuming sales are up, down or flat (same) for the month.


----------



## HellHound (Nov 23, 2002)

I believe they are "trend bullets". If that is the case, it just tells you whether the product is moving up or down the list.

But then again, that doesn't make sense, since Eldritch Might III is "going up" and Everyone Else is "going down" even though we just moved back up to the number 2 slot (we lost it to Complete Guide to Drow for a day or two).


----------



## Gargoyle (Nov 23, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *Ok all you number crunch'n geeks... check this out:
> 
> http://www.rpgnow.com/toplists.php
> 
> James *




This page is cool for me as a consumer.  I can look at the top products at a glance and go back and buy cool stuff that may be further down the list that I missed the first time around.


----------



## rpghost (Nov 23, 2002)

RangerWickett said:
			
		

> *For instance, Four-Color to Fantasy is a d20 supers product.
> 
> And you have the name a little off.  It's not Four Colors, it's Four-Color.  But yes, cool page.  What exactly do the arrows mean? *




The reason being as that it's in a generic category and I can't really tell that it's a d20 system game with the query I use to generate that data. I'd have to create a Super Hero d20 category to get it to move. But I'll think on it.

As for the name, you can change it yourself. Each vendor has power over their own listings now.

James


----------



## rpghost (Nov 23, 2002)

HellHound said:
			
		

> *I believe they are "trend bullets". If that is the case, it just tells you whether the product is moving up or down the list.
> 
> But then again, that doesn't make sense, since Eldritch Might III is "going up" and Everyone Else is "going down" even though we just moved back up to the number 2 slot (we lost it to Complete Guide to Drow for a day or two). *




Actually, due to the data I have to work with, it's just an indicator as to wether it sold more this month over last month. Not a true position change indicator. So Hal is right in his statement of what they are. 

For a true position velocity change indicator you'll have to look to the new RPGNow monthly magazine we'll be putting out.

James


----------



## jmucchiello (Nov 23, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *The reason being as that it's in a generic category and I can't really tell that it's a d20 system game with the query I use to generate that data. I'd have to create a Super Hero d20 category to get it to move. But I'll think on it.*



You will probably need a generic "Other d20" category soon as d20 modern books start being made.


----------



## malladin (Nov 26, 2002)

I don't suppose that I'm adding much to this thread.  Forgotten Heroes: Paladin has sold 125 at the point of writing this.  I think we're at the same kind of level as Death: Guardian at the Gate and Joe's.

An interesting point, however, is that we recently dropped the price down to $3 for a limited period and it has picked up its sales a bit.  We had one fantastic week of sales in which we made nearly half of our overall sales.  Then it stayed steady at about 10 copies a week until it had been out for 2 months. After that, sales were very slow.  We've had the sale going for about a week now and we've sold 8 this week, as opposed to just 1 the week before.  Trouble is, I'm not sure how clever an idea this is as not only are we getting less money in per book, but it might also lead people to think about holding off from buying our next product until it goes down in price. So we're going to have to be careful how we play it, I suppose...

I concur that the PDF market is only going to get you pocket money.  Even moreso in our case; we're a team and so all earnings get split three ways.  However this will theoretically mean that we can get more books out at a steady rate.  We're hoping that this will work out to our benefit.

For me there are a few reasons I do it: wanting to test out my ideas after rejections from bigger publishers, wanting to contribute something to the community whilst covering my costs, practicing writing style, editing and page layouts.  However I suppose the biggest motivation is the (perhaps foolhardy) hope that the exposure may bring imprint offers from someone with the money to publish it.  Which brings me to a question: Is there anyone else out there who has got an imprint and can shed any light onto how it occurred, and whether we (and probably others like us) are toiling under foolish presumptions and hopes...?


----------



## HellHound (Nov 26, 2002)

The honest truth?

We were most likely imprinted because we hit the scene DAMN early in the PDF days. Our first release was product #96 at RPGnow. It's easy to stand out when you are one of 100 (and the other 100 aren't even mostly d20 releases yet). But our latest release is product #531. Standing in a field of 500 is a LOT harder than standing in a field of 100. Plus the bar has been raised significantly. The bigger PDF publishers are producing top-notch layout, well-illustrated products now, and a break-in publisher is effectively releasing a "no frills" product (as our own Librum Equitis volume 1 was called by RPGnow's front page a few months after release).


----------



## Dextra (Nov 26, 2002)

*gotta love those referrals*



			
				Morrus said:
			
		

> *Here's another factor, with RPGNow's new "Customer Sources" option -- where do people hear about PDFs from?  I'll show mine here -- as expected, the majority of my sales come from my own site.  Is that fairly common (do most of your customers hear about your product from your own sites?) or from news sources like myself?
> 
> This will, at the very least, show new publishers where to send their new product info if they want to get it seen.
> 
> *




Just had to interject here, we look at those sources quite often, and really the majority of referrals are from ENWorld.
HOWEVER, the origins of some of our referrals are quite interesting.  For example, "talking with a dwarf in the belly of a kraken late one evening", "XXX gay bestiality portal", "Hellhound, Master of Prestige", "Orc & Pie", and what really impresses us, one each from every possible misspelling of Malhavoc Press and Dread Gazebo.


----------



## rpghost (Nov 26, 2002)

*Re: gotta love those referrals*



			
				Dextra said:
			
		

> *For example, "talking with a dwarf in the belly of a kraken late one evening", "XXX gay bestiality portal", "Hellhound, Master of Prestige", "Orc & Pie", and what really impresses us, one each from every possible misspelling of Malhavoc Press and Dread Gazebo. *




Every once in a while we consolidate the funny spellings or obvious "heard from a friend" phrases into like spellings and short words. This make the counts work out a bit better. We don't get them all but it's good enough I guess.

On of the issues of most people being from ENWorld is because most vendors use EnWorld to promote/announce their products. So obviously the people from around here are the people who come to RPGNow and buy it.  It is a burden on both us and the vendors out there NOT to be so dependent on ENWorld for all their promotion. If ENWorld crashed for a few weeks, where would you get your sales? Everyone should be making efforts to reach non-ENWorld customers as well as non-online customers for that matter! We are planning some more ads in DUNGEON magazine next year and have some imprints going on to some CD demos... so that should help - but we can't do it all.

James


----------



## Twin Rose (Nov 26, 2002)

*Re: Re: gotta love those referrals*



			
				rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> It is a burden on both us and the vendors out there NOT to be so dependent on ENWorld for all their promotion. If ENWorld crashed for a few weeks, where would you get your sales? James *




I've been thinking that perhaps an "Opt In" mailing system on RPGNow might be the way to go.  Make it so that vendors can have a box on their sites where people can opt in on their sites as well.  I've seen this work to good effect with Yahoo Groups, where there'd be a box people just popped their email address into.  Then, perhaps, vendors could have a way of saying, "We have new product XXX or new expansion or new update" or whatever to a group of people wanting/willing to listen for new products.   Is this viable?


----------



## Twin Rose (Nov 26, 2002)

I've decided that an opt-in email system really is a good idea using YahooGroups, and I've decided to create one.  Here's a link for anyone interested:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RPGAnnouncements

I've set it as moderated, so that I can approve the messages to ensure that only publishers and non-spam are sent.  If this seems responsible enough, I'll go ahead and open it up to let people post thanks and questions.

This is really an experiment, so let's see how it goes!


----------



## rpghost (Nov 26, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: gotta love those referrals*



			
				Twin Rose said:
			
		

> *I've been thinking that perhaps an "Opt In" mailing system on RPGNow might be the way to go.... Then, perhaps, vendors could have a way of saying, "We have new product XXX or new expansion or new update" or whatever to a group of people wanting/willing to listen for new products.   Is this viable? *




Maybe you live in a hole... but the new vendor options include mailing list support for an opt in group. The main site home page has a link to allow opt in for RPGNow mailings.

http://www.rpgnow.com/mailing_list.php

It categorizes the people who join. So if you're a reviewer you can add yourself to the list as such and vendors can mail you when products are available to you. Or if you're a news site you can signup and get fast news releases. Etc.

Oh, I think i know why you may not know... it's for Gold Vendor use only. Customers can signup all the want but mailings can only come from Gold Vendors. Maybe I should change that... then again I don't like my mail servers getting overloaded all the time. So maybe a yahoo group run by the public is better.

At the very least though, if you're a regular RPGNow customer you should signup on that list.

James
P.S. RPGSHop.com has one too.


----------



## Twin Rose (Nov 26, 2002)

*Re: Re: Re: Re: gotta love those referrals*



			
				rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Maybe you live in a hole... but the new vendor options include mailing list support for an opt in group. The main site home page has a link to allow opt in for RPGNow mailings.
> 
> ...




I had thought that those lists were specific to any one given product, such as CS customers or Ambient customers.  That is good to hear.  Of course, we're talking about spreading the word outside of current customers as well, and if a number of publishers have sign-up boxes on their sites, and new customers buy a book and then visit their site, they might find out about RPGNow or PDF publishers, and thus we're creating a new base.


----------



## Frilf (Nov 26, 2002)

A bigger base is better, methinks.

Ian


----------



## mroberon1972 (Dec 5, 2002)

*Well....*

Seeing as how I'm getting ready to design and publish a product, I find this thread more interesting than most I've seen.  

It is very kind and helpful of you guys to post this amount of info for those of us who have never attempted this before.  

RPGhost:  For your print on demand service...  How does that work out in terms of profit/shipping/usefulness?  What are this limits of such a service?


Mr. Oberon
"Well, what have we here?"


----------



## DDK (Dec 5, 2002)

ced1106 said:
			
		

> *Random comments:
> 
> * Provide a product that's not in print. The FLGS shelves are clogged with settings, adventures, and prestige classes. Create, say, game aids so lazy GMs can do their work. (Plugs for NPC Essentials and Ambient's Everyone Else.)
> 
> ...




This is the best advice I've read so far in this thread. It's the kind of advice that, after reading it, you think, 'Pfft, that's just common sense,' but if you hadn't of read it, you never would've thought of it 

I would like to add to the above list with the following:

* Take advantage of the electronic format (part 5). Scrolling through a PDF is part of every persons nightmare who has a computer more than a few years old which I suspect is the majority of us. Stop imitating print techniques and develop PDF techniques like NOT having two columns for text that span an A4 size sheet of paper and thus force the user to scroll back and forth repeatedly to read something.

I hate that...


----------



## Fast Learner (Dec 6, 2002)

Fourecks said:
			
		

> ** Take advantage of the electronic format (part 5). Scrolling through a PDF is part of every persons nightmare who has a computer more than a few years old which I suspect is the majority of us. Stop imitating print techniques and develop PDF techniques like NOT having two columns for text that span an A4 size sheet of paper and thus force the user to scroll back and forth repeatedly to read something.
> 
> I hate that... *



Or simply utilize the Article tool in Acrobat, designed _specifically_ for easy on-screen reading of multi-column and jumped text. I can't understand why no one uses this tool (except for those who only have a "print to PDF" option and don't actually own Acrobat). It makes it _super_-easy to read multi-column text on-screen and all versions of Acrobat Reader support it.

Weird, really.


----------



## rpghost (Dec 7, 2002)

*Re: Well....*



			
				mroberon1972 said:
			
		

> *RPGhost:  For your print on demand service...  How does that work out in terms of profit/shipping/usefulness?  What are this limits of such a service?*




Our new POD service is now available but only to people who already use RPGNow.com as a delivery service. Here is the basic info though:


RPGNow Print On Demand (POD) Service

Through a volume discount at a quality instant printer we are able to offer to you (our RPGNow.com PDF vendors) a low quantity and low cost print on demand solution. We will warehouse the product and manage all fulfillment aspects for you. This is how it works...

- Participation in the POD service is completely optional on a product by product basis.

- You control the price of your POD product.

- The worksheet below will help you choose the options and quantity of books you want to order. You must order at least 10 books at a time. All orders must be pre-paid and will NOT be deducted from earnings. 

- We will ONLY sell POD product if you have already purchased the initial 10 copies for our warehouse. We will allow you to buy a limited number of your own books at cost.

- We store these POD products in the RPGShop.com warehouse and will therefore be able to offer these on the RPGShop.com web site as well.

- RPGNow will continue to charge you your standard percentage off the TOTAL list price of your POD product. Sure that includes the costs of production, but we are offering that to you at near cost.

- Our customers will pay a flat $3.95 charge for shipping Priority Mail to them.

- We need a high resolution (600dpi or greater) copy of your book sent to us on the FTP or a CDROM. The cover should be in a separate PDF with the front and back cover as well as the spine if you choose to use the Perfect Bound option.


FOR EXAMPLE:

Say you have a 64 page PDF that you are selling with us for $5 which we typically take $1 for our service charge. For $2.80 you can get it produced with color cover and perfect bound. It'll cost $0.40 more for shipping to our warehouse. So your basic cost is $3.20 for the POD version. You can choose to sell this for say $9.95 - that means we will now be taking $1.99 for service charges (keep in mind we're warehousing your products at not additional cost) and $3.20 for printing costs which leaves you with $4.76 profit instead of $4. Charge 10.95 if you want and make $5.56 on each POD copy you sell.

SPECS:
  - 600 dpi minimum
  - Separate PDF for cover (and spine)
  - full bleed on cover
  - 4 page increments required for Saddle Stitch (staple) Binding
  - 2 page increments required for Perfect Bound (glue) Binding
  - 1/4" margin on interior (full bleed extra)
  - spine size = 1" per 425 pages of 50lb stock
  - saddle stitch cover is 11x17 with a small trim

We are prepared to begin selling POD product right away. It takes about a week to get the initial stock in the warehouse.

If you have any questions please ask.

RPGNow Sales Manager


----------



## mroberon1972 (Dec 8, 2002)

*Re: Re: Well....*



			
				rpghost said:
			
		

> *
> 
> Our new POD service is now available but only to people who already use RPGNow.com as a delivery service. Here is the basic info though:
> 
> ...




You know of course, you just made self publishing (so to speak) profitable using POD...

I thought that would be impossible. I know who I want to work with now...

Do you have any info on page count vs cost? I figure also that this is for BW interior art with color covers.

It just comes back to the fact I cannot believe you can offer a pricing level like you just described... Even with the shipping cost...


Mr. Oberon
"I'll buy THAT for a dollar!"


----------



## rpghost (Dec 8, 2002)

Well remember, we're taking 20% commission on the actual sale of the book as well. So we're giving you great (almost cost) pricing on the creation of the books, but we do not just provide them to anyone in bulk to sell on their own. We warehouse them at RPGShop.com's warehouse and mail them when someone buys them from RPGNow.com

If there is enough demand for a non-RPGNow centric POD solution, I could work up new pricing to handle that. Cause I can't just turn over a case of product at cost 

Anyway, the pricing worksheet is here:
http://www.rpgnow.com/POD_Worksheet.zip

James
RPGNow.com, RPGShop.com, RPGHost.com, RPGSheets.com, RPGGallery.com, RPGStrategy.com, RPGKitchenSink.com ...


----------



## mroberon1972 (Dec 8, 2002)

That is the most amazing pricing I have ever seen.

Can they do novel format too?  I was hoping for some setting related novels, and it might be possible at that rate.  Course, I can just publish them magazine fashion instead if not...


Mr. Oberon
"Sold, American!"


----------



## rpghost (Dec 8, 2002)

mroberon1972 said:
			
		

> *Can they do novel format too?  I was hoping for some setting related novels, and it might be possible at that rate.  Course, I can just publish them magazine fashion instead if not...
> *




I'm rather sure they can do novel format and a slight bit cheaper per page. 1.8 cents I think it was. Not sure. We can get a quote if you email me specifics. But are you planning to release it as an e-book too?

James
webmaster@rpgnow.com


----------



## Horacio (Dec 9, 2002)

Wow, that are really cool news...
WONDERFUL...


----------



## jmucchiello (Dec 9, 2002)

rpghost said:
			
		

> *Anyway, the pricing worksheet is here:
> http://www.rpgnow.com/POD_Worksheet.zip*



James,
I think there's a bug in your worksheet. Shouldn't cell D39's (Grand Total) formula be SUM(D35:37) instead of SUM(D15:37)? Same question for cell C37. Should the formula SUM(D16:37) or 
just (D35:36)?

edit: missing cell letter


----------



## rpghost (Dec 9, 2002)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> *James,
> I think there's a bug in your worksheet. Shouldn't cell D39's (Grand Total) formula be SUM(D35:37) instead of SUM(D15:37)? Same question for cell C37. Should the formula SUM(D16:37) or
> just (D35:36)?
> 
> edit: missing cell letter *




Doh! You're totally right... so I fixed it and you can get a new one if you like. Basically made the total a buck or two more then it should have.

Thanks for pointing that out.

James


----------



## Krug (Dec 17, 2002)

Morrus said:
			
		

> *Updated list:
> 
> 2: 730 (TF&T)
> 4: 578 (Wild Spellcraft)
> ...




So has this changed since? Have the new bestseller lists helped?


----------



## philreed (Dec 17, 2002)

*My D20 RPGNow Sales Figures*

These are RPGNow and do not count sales on my site.

101 Spellbooks (3 months old today!) 221
101 Mundane Treasures 211
101 Arcane Spell Components 111
In the Depths of BlackWater 12
Construct Mechanus 10

What I'm noticing is my PDFs in the "hot sellers" list continue to get steady sales while the others are spotty at best.

I think the "hot sellers" needs some work but RPGNow should weigh the comments of others before doing anything.


----------



## MEG Hal (Dec 17, 2002)

Ok, updates from us:
Interludes: 274
Noses: 231
These are RPGNow stats only!
I:BEtB is at #25 now so it dropped a bit, no worries.


----------



## Krug (Dec 17, 2002)

*Re: My D20 RPGNow Sales Figures*



			
				philreed said:
			
		

> *These are RPGNow and do not count sales on my site.
> 
> 101 Spellbooks (3 months old today!) 221
> 101 Mundane Treasures 211
> ...




Just curious; How have sales on your site been? 
5 products in 3 months. Are you aiming to be the Mongoose of PDF publishers Phil?


----------



## philreed (Dec 17, 2002)

*Re: Re: My D20 RPGNow Sales Figures*



			
				Krug said:
			
		

> *Just curious; How have sales on your site been?
> 5 products in 3 months. Are you aiming to be the Mongoose of PDF publishers Phil?  *




The 101 are all hovering around the 30 mark for sales. 5 of BlackWater and 10 of Construct Mechanus.

5 in 3 months is a lot? I didn't think so. And they're all about 13,000-15,000 words so it really isn't that much.


----------



## Heathen Oracle (Dec 19, 2002)

Hey don't feel bad, mine have less words than that. I think the count in mine are around 120 words  


Shane


----------



## V_Shane (Dec 29, 2002)

Well it seems Christmas hasn't changed sales much. So for those that were in a hurry to get on the Christmas "rush" I don't think there was one, at least not for me  

Anyone do well with the holiday?

 Maybe I'll make a $1 special and get some attention, but then I wouldn't want to inadvertantly push people off the front page that worked really hard on thier PDFs, just wouldn't be fair I think.

Any other opinions on marketing strategies?

V Shane


----------



## rpghost (Dec 29, 2002)

V_Shane said:
			
		

> *Well it seems Christmas hasn't changed sales much. So for those that were in a hurry to get on the Christmas "rush" I don't think there was one, at least not for me
> 
> Anyone do well with the holiday?
> *




I don't understand this and why people are thinking there would be a Xmas rush. Quite the opposite is what I expect. People are with famaly and not online much. Sales are down on all our sites. Then RPGNow only sells electronic products - who's going to buy one to "give" as a gift? No one. It's a personal purchase. So you're not going to see any rush in sales for gifts- sure people might spend their Xmas money online - but cash that people usually get at holidays goes to rash purchases at the game store in town, not a charge online.



			
				V_Shane said:
			
		

> *Maybe I'll make a $1 special and get some attention, but then I wouldn't want to inadvertantly push people off the front page that worked really hard on thier PDFs, just wouldn't be fair I think.
> 
> Any other opinions on marketing strategies?
> *




Don't under value your work or products ... if you do so will other people. Rash special prices or products ALWAYS on special do not help in the long run. We at RPGNow prefer products be $5 or more for a number of reasons - one big one is that no customer can checkout without having an order over $5 in their cart.

James


----------



## Twin Rose (Dec 29, 2002)

Campaign Suite sales were a little above average on our main web site, but below average on RPGNow.  This was also our first month on SVGames, and we have a lot of customers ordering CDs in anticipation of the coming CD release in February.  I'm not sure what - if anything - it all means.


----------



## Krug (Jan 4, 2003)

BTW, RPGhost, you might wanna set a minimum price difference for your specials, as well as a time limit. There's a publisher that has a *3 cent* discount on one of their products.

Pretty annoying, especially if it crowds out those publishers who are having real discounts on their products.


----------



## rpghost (Jan 4, 2003)

Thanks for the notice. I'll look into that. I agree, that's unfair.

James


----------



## BMF (Jan 5, 2003)

> I don't understand this and why people are thinking there would be a Xmas rush. Quite the opposite is what I expect. People are with famaly and not online much. Sales are down on all our sites. Then RPGNow only sells electronic products - who's going to buy one to "give" as a gift? No one. It's a personal purchase. So you're not going to see any rush in sales for gifts- sure people might spend their Xmas money online - but cash that people usually get at holidays goes to rash purchases at the game store in town, not a charge online.




 I noticed this last year. I agree that it is pretty common sense that sales of PDF books will go down around Christmass time. 

 However, I just thought that gift certificates might be a way to combat the "christmas slump." Amazon provides a service like this, with electronic gift certificates. It could incent role players to send their friends and family to RPGnow to buy them gift certificates for the holidays. I don't know anything about how to impliment such as thing, its just a thought.


----------



## rpghost (Jan 5, 2003)

BMF said:
			
		

> *However, I just thought that gift certificates might be a way to combat the "christmas slump." *




It's on my TO DO list for both RPGShop.com and RPGNow.com but it's a lot of programming headaches.

James


----------



## rpghost (Jan 7, 2003)

Couple people nagged me about some features, so I finally implemented them on RPGNow and RPGShop:

- Added an Advanced Search link. You can now search and exclude certain things from your browsing. I did what I can, there are "issues" to getting the d20 fiters right.

- Impletmented a continue shopping link  I've wanted to do that
for a year now but you finally figured it out. No longer do you have to start back at the top after you put something into your shopping cart.

- Sub-Category displays. You can now see sub-categories off the main menu. I did this for RPGShop too, but it was just too much of a resource hog so I took it back off - it's only on RPGNow right now. We're looking at getting a another server soon so maybe it'll be on rpgshop then.

- The order completion screen (currently credit card only customers) now displays the links to your product downloads right away. No need to wait for the email to wonder through the internet ether.

Let me know what you think. As always, if you can think of a way to make things easier or better or just have a problem, let us know or we can't address it!

James


----------



## Monte At Home (Jan 7, 2003)

James, 

Regarding the subcategories, what's the difference between d20 rule books and d20 sourcebooks?


----------



## rpghost (Jan 7, 2003)

Monte At Home said:
			
		

> *Regarding the subcategories, what's the difference between d20 rule books and d20 sourcebooks? *




I think the original idea was that RULE books are those that have new game design/style of play (like changing the way magic works). Sourcebooks were for addons to the typical way to play (like a bunch of monsters or items).

I'm not sure now that you mention it if that's really helpful or not... maybe they should be combined. The reason we split them into many sub-groups was that people were complaining their products where not geting any exposure in a list of 50 d20 fantasy products.

As allways, I'm certainly open to suggestions.

James


----------



## frobnic8 (Jun 14, 2005)

rpghost said:
			
		

> So if I can get that to 3 items per order average that would be great news for everyone. But how?




I don't  know how out of date this issue is for you, but if it would save you X% on average if there were three items in each order instead of two, then why not offer a X/2% discount for orders of three items or more.

You might have to tweak the numbers to work for you, but offering a discount (that still leaves you with a net profit) to encourage the desired behavior seems like a good place to start.


----------



## HellHound (Jun 14, 2005)

However, the numbers in the PDF industry have changed a LOT since 2003 - now with the plethora of low-price products, you can no longer calculate how profitable it will be for James based on number of products in a sale, instead it woud have to be measured by dollar value. In the case of $5 products (the old baseline), 3 products meant $15 sales, so that would be the measure now.


----------



## lmpjr007 (Jun 14, 2005)

HellHound said:
			
		

> However, the numbers in the PDF industry have changed a LOT since 2003 - now with the plethora of low-price products, you can no longer calculate how profitable it will be for James based on number of products in a sale, instead it woud have to be measured by dollar value. In the case of $5 products (the old baseline), 3 products meant $15 sales, so that would be the measure now.




Well I think it is more of "how much money you make a day" over "how much you sell".  I am hoping to get to the "higher money amounts" by the end of the year so I can quit my "real" job and do my "fun" job.  Now if we can find a way to do health care in this industry, then we will be set.


----------



## Cathix (Jun 14, 2005)

BMF said:
			
		

> I noticed this last year. I agree that it is pretty common sense that sales of PDF books will go down around Christmass time.
> 
> However, I just thought that gift certificates might be a way to combat the "christmas slump." Amazon provides a service like this, with electronic gift certificates. It could incent role players to send their friends and family to RPGnow to buy them gift certificates for the holidays. I don't know anything about how to impliment such as thing, its just a thought.




How do you all feel about the coming holiday season now that RPGnow is providing Print On Demand? Do you anticipate having an improved season? I know my company is planning larger releases between September and November with pod options, in hopes people will buy books as gifts.


----------



## HellHound (Jun 14, 2005)

Our experience has been that PoD sales are minimal. We are fighting an uphill battle to re-educate the market about PoD products, just like we had to for PDF products.


----------



## GMSkarka (Jun 14, 2005)

A poster with a single post bumps a thread that's 2 and a half years old?

Odd.


----------



## Cathix (Jun 15, 2005)

I even wanted to experiment with product-inspired t shirts for this holiday season. To see if I could either expand awareness of some of the books Dog Soul's going to put out, or just get (future) fans of our products to buy more stuff. I had looked at cafepress.com - their rates are very good for t shirts, mousepads and mugs.

I think come September I'm going to run banner ads that push the 'visual' aspect of whatever we put out in pod: the art, the glossy covers, etc. Humans like _stuff_!


----------



## BiggusGeekus (Jun 15, 2005)

GMSkarka said:
			
		

> A poster with a single post bumps a thread that's 2 and a half years old?
> 
> Odd.





I blame the aliens.   The thread probably just turned up on google or whatever.

Anyway folks, listen to Hellhound.  I know I should have.


----------



## Arnix (Jul 21, 2005)

Yeah, PoD sales are real slow, but the ones through RPGNow are really nice.  At least our's turned out nice.

Most people just don't buy PoD.


----------



## Krug (Aug 11, 2005)

Man look at the cobwebs on this one!


----------



## Cathix (Aug 11, 2005)

Krug said:
			
		

> Man look at the cobwebs on this one!




Yep, that would make us newbies either bullheaded or....unconcerned/savvy? Best not to think about.


----------



## Eternal Knot Games (Aug 11, 2005)

*Or...*



			
				Cathix said:
			
		

> Yep, that would make us newbies either bullheaded or....unconcerned/savvy? Best not to think about.




Either that or we are just plain eager for help and advice!


----------



## HellHound (Aug 11, 2005)

If there was ever a thread worth resurrecting every now and then, this is it.

Individual title sales -have- significantly slowed for us since this thread was launched. There are more and more PDF titles out there, and because this part of the industry isn't entirely front-list heavy, a new product is not just competing against other new releases, but is also competing against everything already out in PDF.

The good news is that PDF sales continue to climb month-to-month if you are lookig at total sales at RPGnow. What makes this particularly impressive is this is happening even with successful competition in the market.


----------



## Vascant (Aug 11, 2005)

I know from my own view point being very new to this side of the industry, it has become very interesting on a day by day basis.  Watching where information will get posted about your product and then seeing the effects of that.  I can say this, I was shocked over the entire initial experience, what I expected to sell in the first month or two months ended up being accomplished in the first week.  
  Though things are very young at RPGAttitude, there are some interesting trends already starting to form; being on ENworld news is worth a few sales everytime thus far.  From talking with people it would seem money is not even an issue, my real goal is how to not just effectively but quickly get person to understand that NPC Designer is not JB's NPC Generator (Don't laugh because I am quite serious).  The 3 main sources of NPC Generation have tainted the market to a point where people have become blinded that there can be another way to do this.
  One of the key things my users state about buying habits, they are not worried about something that they can do themselves but the end results is does it save them time and is it of a quality they can trust.  PDF or Software does not matter, gaining that trust takes time and effort.  Hellhound made a good comment which lends to this, people learn to trust a product line and therefore buy it.
  Teaming up has helped RPGAttitude, we cannot say if it has helped UKG Publishing yet because we are not that far along in our combined efforts.  They have d20 rules and we have a way for GM's to quickly insert them into their game.  I think over time we will be able to gain some ground on marketting but also lend to the trust factor.  For UKG Publishing, NPC Designer becomes more then a tool for their products it becomes a marketting engine not to mention their own designers now have a tool they can use to develop new material in shorter time with consistant solid results.


----------



## Cathix (Aug 11, 2005)

HellHound said:
			
		

> The good news is that PDF sales continue to climb month-to-month if you are lookig at total sales at RPGnow. What makes this particularly impressive is this is happening even with successful competition in the market.




And at this point, has anyone seen an increase in POD sales? I can't judge yet because I have only one POD product, that's 5 weeks old. (out of 3 products total) We've sold twice as many pdf versions than POD, but I'm not complaining yet.

As an aside, we ordered a proof copy of the POD and holy cheez-whiz! Very nice print quality.


----------



## HellHound (Aug 11, 2005)

Twice as many PDF as PoD?

Crazy!

Our peak products would sell 10% of the initial offering in PoD format for large releases. Smaller releases result in less PoD sales, in my experience.

On final count, well under 3% of our sales are PoD. Some months this is skewed by an interesting release or two, but typically, PDF is becoming more accepted and thus print seems to be a lot less important than it was two years ago.


----------



## Cathix (Aug 11, 2005)

HellHound said:
			
		

> typically, PDF is becoming more accepted and thus print seems to be a lot less important than it was two years ago.




That may be true, but I still believe people enjoy a printed book that they can add to their collection. It just takes a higher standard of pdf-turned-printed book to get them to buy our offerings in POD form. I also believe that standard is being reached now more often.

Don't get me wrong - I'm thankful for the pdf market, and I believe the convenience and flexibility of pdf will keep that market going for a long time. If it weren't for the pdf rpg market there's no way I could have started a company on as little seed money as I did.


----------



## HalWhitewyrm (Aug 11, 2005)

> If it weren't for the pdf rpg market there's no way I could have started a company on as little seed money as I did.



Amen!


----------



## frobnic8 (Aug 14, 2005)

GMSkarka said:
			
		

> A poster with a single post bumps a thread that's 2 and a half years old?
> 
> Odd.




Well, I've been accused of worse, but the topic seemed important to me. Though, if it makes you feel better, I've been working dilligently to get my post count up above 5.


----------



## nittanytbone (Sep 28, 2008)

I wanted to resurrect this thread and inquire about sales now that 4E is out.

1)  How are sales for OGL/D20 products these days?

2)  Has anyone published anything for 4E under the GSL yet?  How are sales?

Thanks!!


----------



## Morrus (Sep 28, 2008)

nittanytbone said:


> 2)  Has anyone published anything for 4E under the GSL yet?




No.  It's not October 1st yet.


----------



## dmccoy1693 (Sep 30, 2008)

nittanytbone said:


> 1) How are sales for OGL/D20 products these days?




Last I heard, the few companies that were still putting out 3.5 material were doing reasonably well, but not excellent. Companies that stopped putting out 3.5 material altogether saw there sales plummet. 

But that information is a little old.


----------



## LuminariesRPG (Apr 8, 2009)

*thanks for all the info*

Well, I guess I'll add my info to the pool.  I've sold 21  copies of The Deft Fighter, and 9 copies of The Coward .

Deft Fighter is a rules expansion for fighters, and the Coward is a single page class (you can see the whole thing before you buy).  Both are OGL 3.5.

Both were put out after 4th edition, from me (a complete unknown). 

The hardest part I had was getting reviews.  I sent emails offering comp copies of Deft Fighter to websites that do reviews and even "smaller" review sites didn't bother responding back.  I've got several personal emails and they were all good, so that was nice.

My next project is a bit more ambitious (and a LOT more tedious to work on ).  I'll keep you posted, but I'm hoping to hit 100 copies with it .


----------



## Jraynack (Apr 12, 2009)

Our 4th Edition stuff, hitting the virtual shelves out of the gate, continue to do well.  Our 3.5 slumped off, but I see a little perk here and there.  Our paper tiles/figs do better since the release of 4th.  So, I really don't know - but 4E seems the way to go for us.


----------



## zeist (Apr 13, 2009)

Thank you to everyone for posting to this thread. I read the whole thing today. I've bought a handfull of things at RPGnow, but nothing since the release of 4E. I've not been in a RPG since 4/2007.


----------



## crazzycat (Aug 10, 2009)

I agree with u why they should buy if the can juat take it for a while


----------



## Morrus (Aug 10, 2009)

Good point.  We should stop publishing.


----------



## Morrus (Aug 10, 2009)

LuminariesRPG said:


> The hardest part I had was getting reviews. I sent emails offering comp copies of Deft Fighter to websites that do reviews and even "smaller" review sites didn't bother responding back. I've got several personal emails and they were all good, so that was nice.




I'll agree with that! I even went so far as to ask folks publically to let me know if they wanted copies of PDFs to review. A flood of people replied, and I sent out roughly $5000 worth of products (or nearly 1000 PDFs); in exchance I got _three_ reviews. Lesson learned: don't send out review copies! 

In addition, as far as I can make out at least, the "send copies to reviewers" button on RPGNow basically means "give free copies for no reason to these people you don't know".  It's certainly never resulted in any reviews!


----------



## gamerprinter (Aug 10, 2009)

*Hoping Pathfinder improves 3.5+ PDF sales*

Well despite the mentioned slow down of 3.5 PDF products, I'm really hoping Pathfinder will cause a change in this trend. With the apparent sell out of Pathfinder RPG Handbook, I really think that's a good sign.

My product line for Kaidan: a Japanese Ghost Story setting is depending on it. Currently the adventure is being rewritten once again, so it may be published a few days later then August 13, our last goal for getting it out, but I want the best possible product before it hits the "PDF shelves."

From the limited views by various people outside the publisher, I've been told my products have a very high production value, aside from having great base material for the setting and adventure line.

I am hopeful. As soon as sales begin and I start getting return numbers on sales, I will post here my results.

GP


----------



## Angellis_ater (Aug 16, 2009)

If it is a 4E product, I'm sure that Jack99 will give you a short review if you send him a PDF, just make sure to ask him first.


----------



## Herobizkit (Aug 29, 2009)

My question to the floor would be, "How does one become a RECOGNIZED reviewer for EnWorld?"  I would assume that one would have to demonstrate that they can churn out a quality review in a reasonable amount of time, each and every "period" (a week, 10 days, whatever).  I would think that one might almost have to submit a successful application to be "recognized"... and I recommend that Morrus et al consider this.  Imagine... having the thumbs-up as an official reviewer for a website, backed by the website's owner, with a slew of loyal readers as your critics, for free (or maybe for credit towards other pdf's from the EnWorld Store or RPGNow).  I know that it isn't a "feel-good" voluntary basis, but I do read the reviews (if any) of any products I plan on purchasing on EnWorld before any other sites, and I note when I see names cropping up over and over.

Thoughts?


----------



## EP (Aug 31, 2009)

Herobizkit said:


> My question to the floor would be, "How does one become a RECOGNIZED reviewer for EnWorld?"  I would assume that one would have to demonstrate that they can churn out a quality review in a reasonable amount of time, each and every "period" (a week, 10 days, whatever).  I would think that one might almost have to submit a successful application to be "recognized"... and I recommend that Morrus et al consider this.  Imagine... having the thumbs-up as an official reviewer for a website, backed by the website's owner, with a slew of loyal readers as your critics, for free (or maybe for credit towards other pdf's from the EnWorld Store or RPGNow).  I know that it isn't a "feel-good" voluntary basis, but I do read the reviews (if any) of any products I plan on purchasing on EnWorld before any other sites, and I note when I see names cropping up over and over.
> 
> Thoughts?




It should be someone who steps up and simply starts putting out those kind of reviews WITHOUT being hired, promoted, or anything. Any film reviewer worth their salt got to that point by actually doing the work and establishing their reviews as timely, reliable, and fair. I'm not talking about the guy from the Hartford Gazette-Recorder or whatever, but those critics whose name we know. Chris Gath became known not because he was given the label of "official reviewer," but because he simply put out a lot of reviews in a professional manner. Jack99 seems to be headed in the same direction.

I'd rather see someone rise through the ranks and become a reviewer than just having someone placed up there. You can give someone the official title, but they don't earn it until they've proven it.

There are a couple of reviewers for OBS who are fairly reliable, just not timely (and that's not to rant, just that they have their hands full). Megan Robertson is one (and she sends emails to let you know they are posted) plus one other name which escapes me right now.


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## surfarcher (Nov 25, 2009)

It's sad but true.  Many people will take "review" copies and you'll never ever hear back from them 

Personally I enjoy reviewing game material and am willingly to publically commit to providing an honest and impartial review in an agreed upon timeframe.  But be aware I do it because I enjoy it and that I'm a hobbyist, not a professional.

Perhaps we could get a pool of similar folks togethor so that folks can help folks out?


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## pawsplay (Jan 2, 2010)

I am pleased to say that Adventuring Classes: A Fistful of Denarii has been selling pretty well. The Pathfinder-compatible PDF market seems to have some life in it.


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## surfarcher (Jan 3, 2010)

Good to hear!


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## EP (Jan 4, 2010)

Shouldn't be a surprise, seeing as Pathfinder/d20 were the prime market for independent publishing during it's time as D&D. I'm curious as to how much of a difference there is between Pathfinder and 3E/3.5 sales of bygone years.


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## Qwillion (Jan 21, 2010)

Feats 101 (PFRPG) which is our best selling retail product and has been on sale since November of 2009 has sold in total 196 copies as of todays date compiled from One Bookshelf, the Paizo.com store, and Lulu.com


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## pawsplay (Feb 3, 2010)

Adventuring Classes: A Fistful of Denarii has sold 143 copies since December and is still generating several sales a week. I think the 3pp situation will only get better as customers gain more confidence that Pathfinder is being supported and is here to stay.


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## Ydars (Mar 24, 2010)

It is interesting reading the numbers in the beginning of this thread and looking at the rankings at DTRPG now. There are several products in the top 20 that have only made Copper but not Silver Seller. Am I right in thinking that means between 50 (Copper) and 100 (Silver) sales? If so then things really have changed since 2002, when this thread started. Is that because of the market or because of the way the list is now compiled?


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