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.
Originally posted by Arnix 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...
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, 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...)
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...
"I am he who rules the world, don't you know? One little piece at a time. I am the stuff of Riordan Parnell's most outrageous songs, and I am a confused memory for those whose lives I've entered and departed." -- Jarlaxle, Road of the Patriarch
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.
Originally posted by philreed
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.
Last edited by Turjan; 16th November 2002 at 05:03 PM..
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.
Originally posted by Sir Whiskers 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.
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...
Originally posted by James Heard 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.
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.
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.
Originally posted by James Heard ... 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?
Originally posted by rpghost
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?
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.
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?
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