A PDF store without a publisher fee or royalty cost?

[lmpjr007]

Imploded how? I can't envisage a method of preventing something when I don't understand how it could happen. The model I'm looking into holds no additional costs for the store; the very worst it can possibly do is sell no advertising, in which case it breaks even.

The store wouldn't hold any money. It can't go into a negative situation by definition. When someone buys a product, they pay you directly, not the store (think eBay, but a little less complex, and no seller fees).

So basically you are looking to drive traffic to the site with the products there, and people will be exposed to the advertising while they are shopping? You (EN World) make money on the ads, and we (the publishers) made the money from the sale? Correct?

 

[Morrus]

OK, I'm confused. In this post you say that publishers would pay CC and paypal fees, which is obviously reasonable, but also implies that monies would be handled directly by the store. But in another post you say customers would pay publishers directly, which implies something completely different.

No, they're not contradictory. It would require a PayPal account on the publisher side. When the customer clicks "pay", they're paying the pubisher directly. So if there are any CC or PayPal fees, it's between the publisher and PayPal. The store doesn't see any money.

In other words, the store wouldn't charge CC and PayPal fees, because the stre wouldn't be handling the transactions directly. PayPal will charge them as normal.

 

[Morrus]

So basically you are looking to drive traffic to the site with the products there, and people will be exposed to the advertising while they are shopping? You (EN World) make money on the ads, and we (the publishers) made the money from the sale? Correct?

Yup. Exactly. Plus I can add in some EN World-wide advertising at a discount, things like that. I'm not directly involved in the sales - I just facilitate them.

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

Sounds interesting.

 

[rick_hershey]

Just for clarification. The Wowio model was an experiment where publisher's offered free products and were compensated by investors through advertisement. This is NOT what Russ is suggesting.

What Russ is suggesting, is a store that is financed by it's sale of advertisement space. The site content is provided by publishers selling their PDF products. The store does not handle any of the publisher or customer's money, that is entirely handled by paypal (along with any associated fees from those transactions charged by paypal).

It would be interesting, and Empty Room Studios Publishing would be interested and consider such a site if one was presented and more details were available. But I think it is a very interesting idea.

 

[lmpjr007]

Yup. Exactly. Plus I can add in some EN World-wide advertising at a discount, things like that. I'm not directly involved in the sales - I just facilitate them.

OK. That makes me feel a lot better on this and sounds like a great idea. Sorry abouty that initial panic, just wanted to make sure.

 

[jgbrowning]

Russ, how would you handle purchases composed of more than a single publisher? Would you run the order multiple times for each publisher resulting in multiple transaction fees or would there be a different procedure?

Interesting idea, Russ.

joe b.

 

[Morrus]

Russ, how would you handle purchases composed of more than a single publisher? Would you run the order multiple times for each publisher resulting in multiple transaction fees or would there be a different procedure?

You've hit on the one obstacle I'm trying to work around.

 

[Napftor]

Consider me interested.

 

[jmucchiello]

The model I'm looking into holds no additional costs for the store; the very worst it can possibly do is sell no advertising, in which case it breaks even.

The bandwidth and colocation costs then would piggyback on ENWorld? A website that traditionally has required aperiodic fan donations to stay afloat?

I don't know if I'd be comfortable as a publisher knowing my virtual storefront was being supported by random donations. And as a ENWorld user (whose community support lapsed apparently when I wasn't looking) I don't like the idea that my future donations might be supporting a virtual store. All those folks who just a few months ago donated to help with the server issue -- you didn't inform them that part of that upgraded server would go toward opening a store, did you?