Growing PDF awareness

I've just been thinking about ways to help the PDF industry grow, and I think what would be helpful would be to develop a free book about how to get the most out of pdf's. I think all of us have a certain set perspective as to what we each personally get out of a pdf, and I think combining our ideas into a single document would be highly beneficial.

So far we have a relatively small market of consumers that see value in pdfs. I would like to have something to give to anyone curious about pdf's that would make their decision to try pdf's easier.

What I have in mind is covering printing options that would keep their costs down, focus on the quick gratification pdf's offer, different programs that are available to print and view pdf's, what pdf's offer in the form of ease and use, etc...

If anyone has any ideas on such an endeavor, or would like to heavily participate, I'll be open to all feedback and contributions. Please e-mail me at astralpwka@aol.com . Again, this would be a totally free book so everything would have to be contributory.

This is still something in the brainstorming stage, so all thoughts are welcome.

Garth

I would try to get flyers printed out with an eye-catching graphic, perhaps with Monte Cook's and Sean Reynold's endorsement or quotes. (Since they do publish PDF products). This would be distributed out at conventions or maybe at local game stores (though they might not like the competition).

Maybe when it's done up someone could set it up to be distributed via email?

I tried my hardest, Garth.

I I had an article about d20 PDFs published in Dragon/Polyhedron, the print magazine with the second largest distribution in our industry, but I don't think it has had much of an impact.

Welllllllllll.... I am really curious how much our audience is growing, or whether we really need to focus more heavily on the consumers we've already got. How many are repeat buyers... and how many bought once and disappeared. And why. If there's an issue where somebody isn't buying pdf's because they aren't cost effective to print, maybe we could explore different printing options to bring people back, or at least show those that are buying some alternative places or ideas to get the most out of the product, make their purchase go further.

Just my opinion, but I say do more with the electronic format. I have read many, many pdfs and it's very rare that I think the product is better electronic then in print. So far the only pluses seem to be bookmarks which just makes thing easier to find. Sure, having a bunch on a laptop is great for portibility, but that just doesn't seem to be enough. I think pdf's have to be able to offer something print products do not before we will really see this side of the hobby take off.

Why not get awareness out to the gamestore owners? Perhaps they can turn some money by partnering with a local print company that will duplex print a bought pdf.
Then the gamestore pays for the cost of the pdf, factors in the cost of printing it off (not POD, but still good enough) and having the print place bind it as well and add a margin. Then the customer pays the store and everyone is happy.

The only problem I see with this is that the store will keep the pdf and not pay RPGNow for anymore purchases, and still charge customers the cost of the pdf originally.

Other ways include flyers and leaflets in gamestores or more exposure in print products, eg. publishers when they put ads in their printed products have them refer to some of their pdf products or some other magazines. I know Hellhound already did Polyhedron, but why not also ENWorld Players Journal or White Wolf's magazines?

Just a couple of suggestions.

Duane

It could also be a simple issue of demand and that few of the PDFs out there are actually being snatched up in exchange for a print version. While some individual titles seem to be doing very well for themselves (with regards to PDF sales, mind you), many others could be just a dime-a-dozen. If a consumer has to choose between a PDF version and a print version, he/she may just as well pick the good ol'fashioned one that you can touch and flip through. Once again, the same discussion as before, this can all come down to professionalism in the product market and print costs required by the consumers themselves.

I agree with Crothian that PDFs have to find a way to make themselves more useful to the buyer in their own way and simply marketing them as a great tool for GMs who use laptops may not be working. On the other hand, prices are slowly rising and some who have been trying to swim this upstream battle have been pushed back down river to leave a smaller number of more dedicated professionals behind (me, the fins are still flappin') -- it could only be a matter of time before PDFs are seen as a cheaper alternative that does not require a downgrade in great material. The irony is that illegal copies might actually be one of the lowest concerns for PDFs in comparison to other online industries because our products are expected to be used by multiple people, so long as they are in the same group.

Now that an article has appeared on one of the largest selling periodicals in the market, it may just have to be a simple matter of playing the waiting game and promoting the bugger out of our products.

Crothian said:

Just my opinion, but I say do more with the electronic format. I have read many, many pdfs and it's very rare that I think the product is better electronic then in print. So far the only pluses seem to be bookmarks which just makes thing easier to find. Sure, having a bunch on a laptop is great for portibility, but that just doesn't seem to be enough. I think pdf's have to be able to offer something print products do not before we will really see this side of the hobby take off.

Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly, with one exception: there are products that do make more sense as a PDF than in print (and I'm not talking about bookmarks).
Products like Ronin Arts "Campaign Planner", or TOGC's "Complete Spell Cards"
Such products do way better in an electronic version, because you can print out what you need, over and over again if necessary.

If there'd be more products like these, in a way forcing customers to choose PDF over print (PDF being the prefered option), the market could grow.

Crothian said:

Just my opinion, but I say do more with the electronic format. I have read many, many pdfs and it's very rare that I think the product is better electronic then in print. So far the only pluses seem to be bookmarks which just makes thing easier to find. Sure, having a bunch on a laptop is great for portibility, but that just doesn't seem to be enough. I think pdf's have to be able to offer something print products do not before we will really see this side of the hobby take off.

Click to expand...

I'll second that.

One of my biggest peeves is the common lack of a professional, quality approach to "screen format" vs "print format". I dislike reading articles on screen, but print versions are usually poor cousins of the screen formats, and not just in graphics. I've downloaded products with missing tables, columns, and sidebars...but only in the print version(and in several products). It's a waste of my money.

Ditto to products that just strip out the mega-thick borders, leaving 1 1/2 inches of white space around a sea of 12-pnt text. It's a waste of my paper and my money, and it looks like crap.

Publishers SHOULD offer print versions in portrait format. They should be formatted for two-sided printing, with alternating page numbes and borders. They actually SHOULD have some art, but nothing with large solid black areas or color -- simple inked drawings probably use less ink than the equivalent area of 10 pnt text (depending on the exact drawing, of course).

Publishers should likewise offer screen versions, in landscape format.

Argh. Too incoherent.
Going to work
Nell.

I agree that all of that adds value to the product, and as publishers we need to always be looking at better ways to grow and utilize the tools available, and is important to pursue as well...

I didn't really want to focus on telling the publishers how to release their products with this though. I think the publishers that wish to continue to compete are going to continue to be more clever and original with e-publishing styles...

...but I'm looking for ways that a consumer can get more out of pdf's now. For instance, the "cost of printing" thread in the general discussion. Things like that. I can't be the only person liking pdf's over print (I'm cringing at book prices in the stores (for one, my wife rarely will let me spend $20-$30 on a gamebook) pdf's are right in my budget). PDF's are allowing us to control the spending to a certain degree.