What is your view of EN Publishing?

[Jan van Leyden]

I bought the WotBS subscription back in the day. I didn't buy other items then as I still was a print guy and most of the PDFs didn't interest me (as in: wouldn't be suitable in my games).

Since last year I'm a copper subscriber in order to help pay for the site and community and to get the WotBS 4e version.

ENWorld and the Publishing part are essentially the same for me. So I don't see you as a publisher, but as a site with additional perks. This may change when Zeitgeist is offered as a printed book. This might entice me to buy it and to elevate ENWorld to the status of RPG publisher.

 

[Morrus]

EN Publishing seemed to have much more of a presence back in the 3.x days. I know the APs are available and I am glad to see support for the Pathfinder system. Definitely more publicity would help though. I think the key is you want *other* people talking about EN Publishing. Granted that can be tricky, but product reviews, encouraging players of the campaign to post to their blogs and such are all good ways. More folks on twitter mentioning it can help, but again, getting folks to do that is the hard part.

It's a tricky one. There's a permanent sidebar on every page of EN World, and there are frequent art and map previews, along with excerpts and the like, and trailers, and news items; plus I send out hundreds of dollars of product for reviews (but the reviewers just don't review them). I wish I could ask Neuroglyph to do one here, because at least I know he'd do it, but there's an obvious conflict of interest there.

It's hard to think of how to talk about it more without being completely obnoxious and spammy; I definitely feel like I never stop going on about it. I guess maybe having a lot of the talk in the ENP forum might be an issue - that's done specifically so as not to spam people, since there is quite a lot of talk in there - but maybe it's worth considering moving all that talk into the main forums instead.

Bear in mind we're not struggling to sell the stuff - sales are just peachy - it's just that we'd like some feedback from time to time.

I also wouldn't mind seeing some supplements released to support Pathfinder like was done in the 3.x days. Even possibly updating a few of the old best sellers to Pathfinder would be cool.

The two biggies (Tournaments, Fairs & Taverns; Elements of Magic) are definitely two I'd like to see updated. The former is quite easy; the latter probably much harder.

The big thing for Pathfinder is going to be the Myths of the Far Future stuff. We've ended up, quite literally, designing Pathfinder: Future. The current plan is to release Myths of the Far Future as a free Pathfinder rulebook aimed at far future campaigns (and including its own default setting, but with lots of advice on making your own), and have SANTIAGO be an adventure path which uses it.

 

[Morrus]

ENWorld and the Publishing part are essentially the same for me. So I don't see you as a publisher, but as a site with additional perks. This may change when Zeitgeist is offered as a printed book. This might entice me to buy it and to elevate ENWorld to the status of RPG publisher.

Well, we don't really care too much what you choose to call us (as long as it isn't rude names!) as long as you access the products in whatever manner works for you. You can buy 'em, subscribe to 'em, or whatever works. You can get them as printed books, if you wish.

We did produce the largest adventure path hardback book ever created though. It's a thing of beauty, though I say so myself! Unfortunately, it's also astonishingly expensive.

 

[Morrus]

My thoughts would be a more transparent transaction system. Which CC's do you accept, what forms of payment, and how secure is the entire thing. Is there a way to get Hardcopy beyond the user printing it out, which credit companies do you use, how long is information stored, contact information for troubleshooting problems...and such.

We don't store credit card information at all, or have access to it at any time. We sell in third party stores (RPGNow, DTRPG, Paizo.com; or subscriptions here by PayPal, which accepts pretty much any form of payment).

And yep, it's all available in softcover or hardcover format - and they're gorgeous. We make sure to announce when a softcover version of a recent adventure becomes available.

 

[Morrus]

For those looking for ZEITGEIST in print, head on over here for the print versions. The Player's Guide, Campaign Guide, Island at the Axis of the World, and The Dying Skyseer are all available in softcover format.

The softcovers come out a week or two after the PDFs. You can't subscribe to the softcovers, though (we don't have any kind of mechanism for that, unfortunately); only to the PDFs.

 

[Dark Mistress]

Yeah I know you are looking for feedback and not sales per say, but I am sure you wouldn't mind new sales. My main point in my ramble was exposure. I will use Pathfinder as a example. Paizo keeps the hype going by blog posts, forum posts etc about their current AP. So people stay excited about them and post about them. Which gives Paizo feedback. Not to mention they have both a product page forum thread for each product but a subforum for each AP.

Once the AP has run it's course the talk about it slows down and eventually goes to a very slow trickle. Mostly cause of the new AP coming out but also cause by then there is nothing new about it. I mean another example is Jade Regent is skipping a month. I noticed the posting dropped. Not a lot but it did drop some.

So i guess the point I am trying to make is. You need to keep the exposure for your products up. Keep the hype going, make people want to talk about and discuss your products. Also make sure you and preferable as many writers as possible become regular posters as well about it. Make sure people know why they should buy it. There is a lot of stuff to spend money on. But the more people interested in it and asking questions about it the more talk their will be. The more talk the more feedback you get.

I think a big hurdle is just getting people into the habit of posting and talking about things. We are all to a point creatures of habit. Not to mention most people when happy tend to say less than those unhappy. So if you want feedback give them a reason to talk about it, most people will be happy to help hype a product to others thinking about buying it. Just few will start such trends themselves.

Hopefully my rambling make sense. I know what I am trying to say just not sure I am getting my point across as well as I want to.

 

[jonesy]

We sell in third party stores (RPGNow, DTRPG, Paizo.com...

You do? I didn't know that. I don't see any indication at your shop that there are other distributors. If someone preferred buying from RPG Now (for example) maybe a simple link pointing there might help increase sales?

 

[Morrus]

You do? I didn't know that. I don't see any indication at your shop that there are other distributors. If someone preferred buying from RPG Now (for example) maybe a simple link pointing there might help increase sales?

Well, I'd rather not give rpgnow half of my gross revenue if I can avoid it!

 

[jonesy]

Well, I'd rather not give rpgnow half of my gross revenue if I can avoid it!

Umm.. good point.

 

[Morrus]

Yeah I know you are looking for feedback and not sales per say, but I am sure you wouldn't mind new sales. My main point in my ramble was exposure. I will use Pathfinder as a example. Paizo keeps the hype going by blog posts, forum posts etc about their current AP. So people stay excited about them and post about them. Which gives Paizo feedback. Not to mention they have both a product page forum thread for each product but a subforum for each AP.

We've considered a blog before, and it is a good idea. If we can find the manpower and the time from somewhere, we'll definitely look into doing this in 2012.