Are my PDF priced too low?

philreed · 17th December 2002, 01:38 PM

I've been pricing my D20 PDFs at $3.00. Private e-mail informed me that the price was too low since people have to buy more than just one of my PDFs from RPGNow.

They've been in the low- to mid-20s in terms of page count and all of the text is OGC. Is $3.00 too low or am I getting the price right?

tensen · 17th December 2002, 01:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by philreed
I've been pricing my D20 PDFs at $3.00. Private e-mail informed me that the price was too low since people have to buy more than just one of my PDFs from RPGNow.

They've been in the low- to mid-20s in terms of page count and all of the text is OGC. Is $3.00 too low or am I getting the price right?

Personally I'd rather you bring the page count up to 32 pages and charge $5. I don't know if that is cost effective for you with the extra page count, but I know I love what you are writing, but want a little more, and am willing to pay more for it.

philreed · 17th December 2002, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by tensen
Personally I'd rather you bring the page count up to 32 pages and charge $5. I don't know if that is cost effective for you with the extra page count, but I know I love what you are writing, but want a little more, and am willing to pay more for it.

"Always leave them wanting more."

I may try and do around 32 pages and priced at $5.00. 101 Clockwork and Magical Prosthetics is certainly growing larger than I had planned.

davewoodrum · 17th December 2002, 02:48 PM

I agree with tensen... and personally, this 101 Clockwork and magical prosthetics is something that I'm really, really wanting to see... especially if it's still low-tech based... which, judging by the name it looks to be that way.
I'll be willing to offer forth my $5 for 32 pages worth...

jmucchiello · 17th December 2002, 03:02 PM

I also agree with tensen. The $3.00 price tag is perfect for the books in their current form. It's just that this is an inconvenient price at RPGNow. They require a minimum order of $5. I think, however, that 35-40 pages is a minimum for $5. But that's just me. I also undervalued my book but there's not much I can do about it now.

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

Krug · 17th December 2002, 11:20 PM

Yes, I tried to buy the book for $5 at rpgnow.com but went to your site instead. After flipping through the book, I felt I wanted more. 32 pages for $5 sounds fair to me.

philreed · 17th December 2002, 11:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Krug
Yes, I tried to buy the book for $5 at rpgnow.com but went to your site instead. After flipping through the book, I felt I wanted more. 32 pages for $5 sounds fair to me.

It sounds like 32 page products is what people want me to be doing. I'll see what I can do about making the next one closer to this size (it's already demanding more space than the others).

I guess I'm about to enter the next phase of the experiment.

Phase Two, in which we learn if my sales are decent because of content or if earlier products were selling well because they were cheap.

Rifter · 18th December 2002, 01:19 AM

I would not have complained had your other items been $4.00, but it is a bit annoying that RPG now has that minimum. Of course, I don't think I have had to wait more than 2 minutes for you to get back with a book I paid for.

philreed · 18th December 2002, 01:21 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Rifter
I would not have complained had your other items been $4.00, but it is a bit annoying that RPG now has that minimum. Of course, I don't think I have had to wait more than 2 minutes for you to get back with a book I paid for.

My day job has me working from home so I'm rarely not at the computer. But I do like to leave on occasion which is why I say 24 hours on my site.

HellHound · 18th December 2002, 02:25 AM

The $5 minimum makes sense (as was posted on another thread on these forums) as the initial cost for a credit card transaction is 35cents at minimum (and thus, on a $5 transaction, RPGnow makes a whole 65 cents off the product, which is not very much considering the cost of bandwidth, staffing and promotions).

I think your prices have been right on the mark, Phil. Any more and the book would have seemed too frail for the cost, and if anything it buoys the value of the PDF market if a 25 page book is a $3 value, then larger books are worth proportionally MORE than they are being sold for. (We now use a $1 / 10 pages above the first 10 pages sliding scale for our new releases, generally speaking, but that price is too high for the market when it comes to larger works like Crimson Contracts which we have discounted at $7.50 for a 128 page product.)