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.
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!)
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.
Last edited by Alzrius; 11th November 2002 at 09:07 AM..
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
Originally posted by Pharaun 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 many 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.
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.
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.
Originally posted by Bagpuss 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.
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.
Originally posted by Bagpuss I doubt the friends factor actually effects sales that much.
Two words: Kazaa, and Morpheus.
__________________ "Conversely, I'm amazed at the number of people queueing up to tell people that don't like 4e that they are wrong. Why can't people just agree to disagree, and get on with actually playing the game?" --Delericho
If there's one dragon, it's a solo monster.
If there's five dragons, they're standard monsters.
If there's a dozen dragons, either most of them are minions or your DM is tired of the campaign.
--Lizard
Originally posted by Henry 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.)
* 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.
Originally posted by jmucchiello 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.
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.
__________________ "Conversely, I'm amazed at the number of people queueing up to tell people that don't like 4e that they are wrong. Why can't people just agree to disagree, and get on with actually playing the game?" --Delericho
If there's one dragon, it's a solo monster.
If there's five dragons, they're standard monsters.
If there's a dozen dragons, either most of them are minions or your DM is tired of the campaign.
--Lizard
Originally posted by Henry 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?
Originally posted by jmucchiello
[* 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.
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.
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.)
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