How to for PDFs

Inzae · 2nd January 2003, 03:56 PM

Hooollllalaaaa

We here at troll lord games are trying to decide if a PDF thingy is worth the effort we will put into it. Now, we like the product so are going ahead with it but I am supposed to decide whether the PDF thing is worth the trouble.

What I need to know is how to do a PDF as a saleable item. How do I set up the website to do this, what length should the document be etc. realy I am concerned with the technical issues and not the nature of the document nor the possibility of sales.

Any sites to go to or help would be much appreciated.

Davis

The Sigil · 2nd January 2003, 04:20 PM

I would strongly suggest nipping on over to RPGNow.com and starting there. If you use them as your distributor, there are really no technical issues on your end as far as "how do we sell these" - once you've created the PDF, you hand it off to them and let them do all the heavy lifting.

It also is a good place to go to check out page counts, price ratios, and other such things.

--The Sigil

HellHound · 2nd January 2003, 04:59 PM

Hey Davis, email me ( for_emergency_use_only@yahoo.com ) and I'll send you my current observations on the PDF market.

Frilf · 3rd January 2003, 12:42 AM

Hey, Jason,

Can I get your views on the PDF market emailed to me, as well, or is it classified information?

Hope the wife is doing better, too...

Cheers!
Ian

rpghost · 3rd January 2003, 12:52 AM

I donno if you want my input/opinion or help

But we'll be releasing a few ePublisher guides in a few months. In the meantime I do have a lot of knowledge on the subject.

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking though. If you're wondering how to deliver a product when purchased, well that takes some fancy programming or a manual effort of emailing them a link or just use http://www.RPGNow.com

As for preparing the document. There are tips for compressing the document. Stick with 150dpi at the most.

As for pricing, I've heard "$1 / 10 pages above the first 10 pages" tossed around. Don't under price your product. Transaction fees will eat up all your profit if you're < $5.

John Nephew will be providing a PDF worksheet like his print worksheet for out books.

James

HellHound · 3rd January 2003, 06:07 AM

Hey James.

The $1 / 10 pages after the first 10 was tossed around by myself, as it is our pricing guide for base price at Ambient. But unfortunately, the PDF market doesn't support this pricing yet.

Thus we put our material on special...

And by the way to anyone else, including you crazy good ol' boys at Troll Lord, no matter how much I may gripe about the PDF market on occasion, I love it. And hand in hand with that comes my loyalty to RPGnow. James has done wonders for thePDF market, IMO. (now if only he'd feature my works on the featured product header more often... or for longer

)

astralpwka · 3rd January 2003, 07:47 AM

Hey Jason!

Maybe we could talk you into posting your observations here. I'm really interested in another publisher's point of view also. Actually, maybe more publishers could jump on board and post too? Especially since this is more of a hobby for we littler guys...

Inzae · 3rd January 2003, 08:09 AM

Thanks for the responces and advice. (THX Jason for the email).

Its the technical side I am somewhat concerned about. I figure the cost on a PDF is fairly low so am willing to invest a little time and effort into getting it set up and giving this end of the market a whirl on the dance floor. Take it to the Shindig so to speak. I will post haste make my way over to RPGnow and check out some stuff.

"The quickest way to end a war is to lose it."
Davis

Tyrant · 3rd January 2003, 01:39 PM

(With apologies for the run-on sentences. Its early)

Actually, I have it on pretty good authority that the echocart or oscommerce carts are pretty simple to install and support downloadable product. Combined with an echo account (which I CANT say anything about since I dont use them (yet)) You can get a low-cost internet e-commerce server. The only problem with the software is that in its current state it doesn't support BOTH soft downloads and physical shipped products in the same store AT THE SAME TIME (or so they say, and why would they lie?). Im pretty sure this is the software that rpgshop and rpgnow use (which accounts for the 2 different store sites). Obviously, James has done a lot more work to customize his to support us, and I think most everyone would agree hes done a great job.

For an indy publisher though it may be hard to get enough pdf sales to justify having even a free site like OSCommerce (after all, transaction fees and monthly statement charges, as well as internet gateway charges in some cases not to mention you have to have the savvy to install it or find someone cheap who will do it for you) really eat into your profits. I think its for that reason that even the more popular publishing houses have opted to let people go to rpgnow.

Of course, rpgnow is a monopoly of sorts and well entrenched as the first on the scene. Since James takes a small cut (and I think all the publishers know what that cut is) of each transaction and leaves the rest to the publishers, it becomes difficult for an emerging store to compete with rpgnow because he cant use traditional pricing techniques to penetrate the market without shaving seriously into whats already a pretty thin profit margin.

If you'd like to talk more about ecommerce just drop me a line. Im well versed in the subject now. lol

Eric Price

rpghost · 3rd January 2003, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by HellHound
(now if only he'd feature my works on the featured product header more often... or for longer )

Hee... that's what the Gold Vendor program is for

You get featured there during times when there is no high profile product to display.

And yes, I use an old version of http://www.oscommerce.com but back then they didn't support electronic downloads at all. We wrote all that from scratch.

I fully agree, the amount of work, hassle, tech support, and fees involved in running your own store is usually not worth it. Plus everyone already comes to RPGNow when looking for the latest products on PDF. It would be foolish not to at least be listed there as well.

There are other stores (I'm not a monopoly - well ok, maybe I am since we do 90% of the industry non-TSR sales [which I hope to add this year]):

mall.rpg.net (charges the same 20% but people who have had sales on both sites state they get less then 1/10th of them from there). Their vendor reporting is not up to par either.

SVGames.com (they charge 50% but have a huge userbase. So far reports indicate that they still don't sell nearly as much as we can). You get only offline quarterly reports here.

svreg.org ( thes guys are cheap, but you have to do it all yourself. You have no "store front" working for you. They just provide the technical means. Monte and Bastion Press used to use them and now don't anymore). Lack in many "services" you might want.

RPGNow has features and advertising geared to the RPG PDF market. We are running ads in Dungeon again. We allow for complementry copies to be mailed out. We have mailing list. Discounts advertising banners. 11,000 customers and more

Anyway, most of this will be covered in our ePublisher book to be released in about 2 months.

James

P.S. Anyone wanting to contribute thier input to the book, send me an email: james@rpgnow.com

tensen · 3rd January 2003, 04:55 PM