EN Publishing - Now In Print!

Morrus · Mar 21, 2005

EN Publishing products will now be available in print. Click here for the (currently short) list of EN Publishing PRINT products. These print versions are available exclusively from RPGNow.

The list of print products will increase over the coming days. We aim to have our entire catalogue of products available in print format. All new products from now on will be available in print.

People can buy the print version (perfect bound, colour cover, black/white interior - nice quality; comes with the PDF for free) or the PDF version only (as normal).

HellHound · Mar 21, 2005

We are VERY excited to be able to offer these products to our customers. These new print products are our way of getting the products you want to you in the format you prefer - your choice of PDF or Print.

As Russ said, if you buy the Print Edition, you also get the PDF, so you can read the product as soon as you buy it, instead of waiting and pacing in front of the mailbox waiting for the powers of the postal service to get it to you.

Smaller products (under 64 pages) are being offered in Saddle-Stitched format (B&W interior, heavy glossy colour cover, bound by staples like a magazine) and larger products are being offered in Perfect-Bound format (B&W interior, heavy glossy colour cover, bound with glue like most soft-cover releases).

The products I've prepped into print releases as of tonight include:

E.N. Spellcraft - Elements of Magic Revised (Perfect-bound)
E.N. Spellcraft - Elements of Magic: Lyceian Arcana (Saddle-Stitched)
E.N. Toolbook - Steam & Steel (Perfect-bound)
E.N. Guild - Banking Guild (Saddle-Stitched)
E.N. Critters - Ruins of the Pale Jungle (Saddle-Stitched)

Also, if you have already purchased the PDF of any of these products through our RPGnow storefront, the storefront will automatically discount the purchase price by $2 as a thank-you for buying the PDF before we launched the print editions.

Verequus · Mar 21, 2005

HellHound said:
Also, if you have already purchased the PDF of any of these products through our RPGnow storefront, the storefront will automatically discount the purchase price by $2 as a thank-you for buying the PDF before we launched the print editions.

Only two dollars? Behemoth allows the entire price of their PDFs, if you buy later the print edition. Isn't this unfair to customers? Or what is your line of reasoning?

Morrus · Mar 21, 2005

RuleMaster said:
Only two dollars? Behemoth allows the entire price of their PDFs, if you buy later the print edition. Isn't this unfair to customers? Or what is your line of reasoning?

Well, two answers to that:

1) Well, I don't know how Behemoth manage that - but $2 is pretty much our profit on a print edition. We can't actually give away more than we've got! It's small inventory stuff - not massive runs of thousands of products with enormous economies of scale.

2) I'm not too clear on how giving someone something is unfair? Am I missing something? Or, perhaps, it wasn't explained clearly by us: we're giving away $2 to people who bought a PDF if they want to buy a Print Edition too. I'm not sure I can bring myself to agree that it's unfair because we're not giving away enough!

It's a new product. May interest some people, may not -- some may like their PDFs. Some may want to pay for a nice printed version. Others may want to print their PDFs out. Basically, people now have the option to do what they want. There's a whole load of people out there who vastly prefer a regular book to a PDF, and this is for them.

Verequus · Mar 21, 2005

Consider it from the viewpoint of someone, who has bought already the EoMR version:

Cost for print product and PDF: $15.95 + $9.95 = $25.9
Comparing to a purchaser without the PDF: $17.95
Price difference: $7.95

That seems to be unfair, at least at the first look.

BTW, what is the difference between perfect bound and sattle-stitched?

Len · Mar 21, 2005

Morrus said:
I'm not sure I can bring myself to agree that it's unfair because we're not giving away enough!

Scrooge!

Basically, people who bought a PDF but would have preferred a real book, can upgrade to a real book "at cost".

Sounds like a good deal to me!

Len · Mar 21, 2005

RuleMaster said:
Consider it from the viewpoint of someone, who has bought already the EoMR version:

Cost for print product and PDF: $15.95 + $9.95 = $25.9

Comparing to a purchaser without the PDF: $17.95

Price difference: $7.95

That seems to be unfair, at least at the first look.

In other words, you pay more to buy TWO things than you do for ONE thing.

Perhaps you are from one of those countries that is new to the market economy. If so, please take my word for it, this is a fair deal.

Verequus · Mar 21, 2005

Len said:
In other words, you pay more to buy TWO things than you do for ONE thing.

Perhaps you are from one of those countries that is new to the market economy. If so, please take my word for it, this is a fair deal.

Perhaps you should read the ad more closely - you don't get only the book, but the PDF, too.

Hmm, does someone has then two copies of the PDF? If yes, then the other copy could be sold to someone else.

dekrass · Mar 21, 2005

I view this in the same way I do other companies who put out books in PDF and then print later.
If I like the PDF and want print I'll buy it.
$17.95 is about what what I'd pay for a regular print product, so I see it as a fair deal.

I for one am very glad to see E.N. Publishing in print.

HellHound · Mar 21, 2005

If we were to fully discount the purchase price of the PDF from the list price of the print edition, we would actually LOSE money on each copy of the print run sold.

Just to make sure I'm not spewing garbage, I ran the calculations myself at RPGnow, setting up the product with a full purchase-price discount for prior PDF buyers, and the system immediately changed the price of the print copy upwards, because it will not allow a vendor to cause RPGNow to lose money on a transaction.

What it comes down to is a different business model for E.N. Publishing than the business model of Behemoth3. Because of this difference, the variable costs per unit are much higher, but the fixed costs are much lower. What this results in, however, is this disparity in pricing systems when it comes to the dual-purchase of print and PDF products.

It -is- happening is that we are giving the PDF away for free to people who buy the print edition, in effect. This is an effort to promote our new print sales. This is because the variable cost of each PDF is significantly lower than the variable cost of each print product sold. Yes, we are offering a sweet deal to first-time buyers who pick up our print products by throwing in the PDF for free. But as I said, we are looking at this as a means of promoting the print sales, and to ease the buyer while they wait a week or more for the print product to arrive in the mail.

By your reasoning, would it instead be fair to offer the print ONLY edition for the listing price, the PDF ONLY edition at it's listed price, and just not bundle the two together?