The Future of PDF magazines

At 2030 GMT tomorrow (Sunday 12th), the Editor of Almanac (me!) will be holding a discussion on the chat room of Transfinite Publications (which can be accessed through the Yahoo! Group - address given at the end). The theme will be .'The future of PDF magazines' .

See you there! (At: Transfinite Publications Yahoo! Group )

Wish I could be there, Richard.

However, I'm out of town all day tomorrow and for part of Monday.

I'm curious how Almanac One is doing and whether your original analysis of the d20 e-market held true for it.

As an aside, why use the Yahoo chat room? They are hard to get into and most chronic chatters prefer to use IRC chatrooms (and there is no lack of IRC servers to run such a chat on).

Could you, or anyone else, recommend a good IRC room? I confess to a lack of experience in this area - I'm using the Yahoo! one because I've used them before, but a better one would be welcome. I do have another one avaliable, but the Yahoo one is better (which indicates how useless the other one is!)

I'll confess that Almanac One isn't doing as well as I'd hoped, though I am still optimistic that the market will grow with time. The reviews we've got have been excellent, so at least the product is liked by the readers - and with a magazine that's most of the battle. (Incidentally, if anyone out there hasn't read Almanac yet, do so now!)

We use the chat.psionics.net server a lot because it is home to the official The Game Mechanics, Realms of Evil and most importantly ENWorld chat rooms.

From there, you can create a channel for your chat.

Plus there is a java aplet here (ENworld) that lets people without IRC software connect to the chat via http.

Methuslah said:

I'll confess that Almanac One isn't doing as well as I'd hoped, though I am still optimistic that the market will grow with time. The reviews we've got have been excellent, so at least the product is liked by the readers - and with a magazine that's most of the battle. (Incidentally, if anyone out there hasn't read Almanac yet, do so now!)

Click to expand...

Hello,

The wreckage of print rpg mags litters the industry. Shadis, Arcane, print-Pyramid, Challenge, Role-player, Space Gamer, print-JTAS, The Familiar, Inphobia, Autoduel Quarterly.

Evidence suggests that Dungeon/Poly is in a bad way as well.

RPG mags embody the most difficulty aspects of publishing, with their recurring, monthly costs, low profit margin, need to bring in new subscribers to fund future issues, etc.

Right now there are several print D&D rags and there is no way they will all survive. (Dragon, Dungeon, Campaign, Gaming Frontiers, EN World Players Journal, Signs and Portents). D&D is robust, but I think we'll see most of them gone within a year or two. I'm not trying to be an ass, I just think the market will only support Dragon, Dungeon (for how long?), and maybe one or two others.

.pdf pay mags would seem to be in a brutal position because they are up against a horde of free .pdf rags, and many gamers still have a hard time paying money for an electronic product. Well, paying enough money to keep the project going.

The bottom line: Print mags have a hard enough time making a go of it, so I wonder if a pay .pdf mag would fare any better, especially one that had freelance fees to cover?

I believe that a quality product will sell - it will take time, I admit, but it will. Breakeven isn't very high for Almanac, and I think the readership is there. If it sells as well as a fair PDF product it will work. What is your opinion of Almanac One, BTW?

I'm more optimistic about the other mags in the range, if only because they are something new. Lemurian Dreams with fantasy ficion (with conversion notes for campaigns), Royal Griffon, a module with added extras, should sell reasonably, and again breakeven is not that high.

I think you're on to something, then, by controlling costs. I have not seen the first issue, so I think I'll have to look for the sample you have made available. I have heard, though, that the artwork is top notch.

Hang in there!

So...we're looking at 3.30 PM EST? Correct? This could be very interesting....

Yes - 1530 EST.

Another model to consider would be Direkobold's/d20weekly's. Methusaleh you might want to consider their model. Maybe EOL can hop in and contribute as well.