a $9.99 price point for PFRPG is a great idea. I hope all 3pp's for Pathfinder can get excited about this too!
Yes, and I also hope they (and other publishers in general, while we're at it) follow suit, by offering their own PDFs at sane, reasonable (and fair) prices.
That would be similarly refreshing, and welcome indeed. Oh, and *long* overdue. RPG PDF pricing is, for the most part, atrocious.
Anyway, kudos to Paizo. Once again, you've shown true style, wisdom, and leadership.
Well on average ad PDF sells only 50 copies, you can understand why they might be priced a bit higher then you expect.
I, and others I know who regularly buy PDFs, would be buying more. . . if they were reasonably priced. And this has been the case for *years*. So many lost sales. Ah well. . .
Are you talking about your own PDF's, 3.x PDF's, 4e PDF's or just PDF's in general?
I would say in general. There are a lot of variables to getting sales. That is the best way to look at it. 50 sales is a reasonable and very possible goal. But you just can't say, "Look I have a new product on the market, and now I will get 1,000 sale." That does not happen. For me I think it is best if you start with getting 50 sales and then increase in by 10 more sale for each new product. It keeps you motivated and excited.
I would say in general. There are a lot of variables to getting sales. That is the best way to look at it. 50 sales is a reasonable and very possible goal. But you just can't say, "Look I have a new product on the market, and now I will get 1,000 sale." That does not happen. For me I think it is best if you start with getting 50 sales and then increase in by 10 more sale for each new product. It keeps you motivated and excited.
Sounds reasonable. I was just wondering where you got the number? Now, I am not in the industry, so the only numbers I have are those from OBE, and their 11 4e products have sold on average 150 copies. So either OBE is very good (which I think they are) or perhaps the 4e PDF marked is selling really well. Or something else. I agree however that shooting for 1k sales would probably be unwise, unless you are one of the few extremely popular designers around.
__________________
360 hours played
Gnoguh, human fighter/cleric (kensei->adamantine soldier)
Carric, elf cleric/ranger (radiant servant->saint)
Torn, tiefling wizard/cleric (divine oracle->sages of ages)
Truxas, human feylock/bard (feytouched->feyliege)
Tagron, human rogue (daggermaster->deadly trickster) 22nd level Musings of an Epic Virgin
Is the product of said designers better than the product of OBE? What do you think?
Rarely. I think most of the OBE products are really good. But you can probably find people who disagree with me. But the sales of a product are not always tied to quality. We all know the power of brand name, but on a much smaller scale, I suspect that some authors sell more simply because they are "famous" and has previously made awesome stuff. Nothing wrong with that, however.
__________________
360 hours played
Gnoguh, human fighter/cleric (kensei->adamantine soldier)
Carric, elf cleric/ranger (radiant servant->saint)
Torn, tiefling wizard/cleric (divine oracle->sages of ages)
Truxas, human feylock/bard (feytouched->feyliege)
Tagron, human rogue (daggermaster->deadly trickster) 22nd level Musings of an Epic Virgin
Yes, and I also hope they (and other publishers in general, while we're at it) follow suit, by offering their own PDFs at sane, reasonable (and fair) prices.
That would be similarly refreshing, and welcome indeed. Oh, and *long* overdue. RPG PDF pricing is, for the most part, atrocious.
Anyway, kudos to Paizo. Once again, you've shown true style, wisdom, and leadership.
Don't get ahead of yourself -- James Jacobs and other folks at Paizo have been fairly clear that a reasonably priced Pathfinder Adventure Path PDF subscription (i.e. cheaper than buying a subscription to the dead tree version) is not in the works.
I'm pretty sure nobody here is implying a cheaper version of the Adventure Path subscriptions, only the PFRPG Handbook PDF itself - and only to nonsubscribers as paid subscribers who buy the hardbound get the PDF for free as it is.
Don't get ahead of yourself -- James Jacobs and other folks at Paizo have been fairly clear that a reasonably priced Pathfinder Adventure Path PDF subscription (i.e. cheaper than buying a subscription to the dead tree version) is not in the works.
Of course, if you subscribe to the print version of their adventure paths, you get a 30% discount from cover price and a FREE PDF of each issue. That's not quite the same, but it ain't nuthin' neither.
Hmmm, it was already my intent to get both the PDF and the print versions of Pathfinder. A $10 price on the PDF certainly does not change that equation.
Pathfinder is one of only two new game purchases that I have planned for this year, the other being FantasyCraft. I will likely be getting the print and PDF of that as well.
And I do not think that I am in a small minority among those who purchase the PDFs (Though I suspect that the number of folks purchasing the PDF is a small minority vs. the number of people buying just the print version.)
There may be a certain percentage of people who are convinced to buy the print copy once they peruse the PDF - spending $10 to take a nice long look is much less expensive than spending $50 and not being happy with your investment. And if you run out and buy the print copy then you will still have the PDF to lug around in your laptop.
But I suspect that most will just purchase the print version, and that most will do so either through a brick and mortar bookstore such as Borders or Barnes & Noble (if it is made widely available in the book trade) or through the internet from Amazon.
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The midship mite,
And the Bo'sun tight,
And the crew of the captain's gig...
Ok then, the better phrase would be cost per unit sold...Let's ignore pathfinder for a moment....As gameprinter mentions, you still have a cost to produce a PDF so why wouldn't you have a cost per unit sold?
The printing companies (hereafter called "the printer" or "the printers") that Paizo and Wizards work with (at least, they did when I worked at Wizards) actually have you create a high-res PDF rather than a print prototype. The printers make the book from this PDF.
So, cost to produce high-res PDF for the printer to turn into a book = $X
Cost to produce low-res PDF for sale-download: two clicks, net cost $0
So for people who make printed products, the cost to produce a downloadable PDF is effectively zero.
Even if you're just using RPGnow.com or Lulu to make POD versions of your books, you're basically giving them your high-res files, which you already had to produce to make the product in the first place. It's not really an added cost.
Now for some personal evidence. My book Curse of the Moon was published as a PDF in May 2006. It sold about 100 copies on RPGnow/DriveThruRPG in the first three months (generally the peak time for a new book), and it's generally sold anywhere from 1-5 copies per month every month since then. So, for a book that I published over three years ago, it's still generating a trickle of income... income that doesn't cost me anything in terms of time, warehousing, or printing. It's free money, and in theory five years from now it could still be selling. As this wasn't a print book, my cost is paid of purely from PDF sales (there really isn't a cost per unit because I'm not creating a specific number of physical units among which I'm distributing my cost), with the expectation I would sell Y copies in a certain period of time. That cost was paid off sometime in those first three months. And even if I made COTM available in print-on-demand from Lulu.com or whatever, my cost per unit would still be zero because all I'd have to do is send the high-res PDF to the POD company (cost = none, it's been paid off) and start generating free income there, too (because the sunk cost for the book is paid off and as long as I'm pricing my POD book above how much it costs to print it, I'm making a profit).
As someone else pointed out, the cost of making the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook is sunk into the price of the print version. PDFs of Paizo's print products can't be "loss leaders" because calling something a "loss leader" implies you're losing money selling it at that price. PDF sales of print books are just free income on top of your expected income from the print run; you can't be selling something at a loss when the cost to make it is $0. And Paizo's set the PDF price of the PFRPG Core Rulebook low in order to encourage people to try the new game, people who might otherwise balk at a $50 hardback. And if those people like it, they may buy the print version--either directly from Paizo.com, or from their FLGS.
(Disclaimer: I work for Paizo, if ya didn't know that.)
As someone else pointed out, the cost of making the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook is sunk into the price of the print version.
It might be better to say that the initial costs are for the High-Res PDF (since those costs are realistically shared by both budgets, print and PDF), some additional costs are incurred by going to print, some further expenses arise from the advertising, and more from the ongoing time to individually manage the PDF sales and the print sales. One of the primary mistakes small businesses make (I'm thinking of ePublishers, in this example) is to ignore the man-hours as an actual and ongoing part of their overhead. I'm sure Paizo has this figured into their budgets.
I'm trying to somewhat "ride on the coat-tails" of Pathfinder, by republishing my initial OGL adventure and all subsequent adventures as PFRPG compatible - in that there are currently no Asian adventure paths, as well as no "Ravenloftian" style adventure paths either (my setting is both really.) With the near simulataneous release of Paizo's system, I'm hoping for some improved launch sales based on that alone - again, I could be completely off-base on this thinking.
Sorry to continue the derailment, but: So. Want. This.
More on topic: I'm shocked that normal PDF sales are as low as 150! I really would have thought the market much larger.
More on topic: I'm shocked that normal PDF sales are as low as 150! I really would have thought the market much larger.
Depends on the product but I would be shocked if sales were as low as 150 for any PDF product. I've only sold a few hundred of the Whispering Woodwind adventure, both as a 3.0E and 3.5E, since December of 2001, but the 3.5 SRD Revised Bundle, which is actualy a dozen+ PDFs and a five star product, has sold more than 2,000 copies since July of 2003. Many of my other offerings hover just above or just below WW's 300 and freebies like the cooperative dungeons have over 10,000 downloads, of course.
I'm pretty sure every* Malhavoc PDF has sold thousands of copies (Books of Eldritch Might are probably into tens of thousands combined).
*except possibly the ones that were a bit too niche (such as Hyperconscious or When the Sky Falls); Sean, do you know what was the volume of sales on Skreyn's Register?
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