Alternate PDF Sales Outlets

[HalWhitewyrm]

A question to those who sell their PDFs in places other than RPGnow.com: Has it been worth it?

For example, Ronin Arts and The Le Games sell their PDFs (at least some of them) at CreationCrash.com; Creative Mountain Games sells theirs at their own website via PayPal, and I'm sure there are others that I don't know about. Has it really been worth splitting up your sales outlet?

RPGnow.com doesn't have an exclusivity clause as draconian as DTRPG.com, requiring only that you not have links to the company website, and from comments Phil has made in other threads, Ronin Arts is so well established that he doesn't really need the links as people just know where to go, but I wonder if this would be a wortht pursuit for a lesser known publisher.

I can certainly see benefits to it, as you probably have lower fees to worry about, or even no fees at all (which I imagine is the case of CMG, where products on their page are cheaper than at RPGnow.com).

What are your thoughts on the matter? Is it really something worth pursuing, and what does it entail? What are the alternate outlets out there? And doesn't this hurt RPGnow.com, in the end, a place that has been incredibly good to our segment of the industry?

Edit: Fixed typo.

 

[FoolishFrost]

I, myself, only use RPGNow for my PDF products. I just like them, I guess. I just put direct links from my page to RPGNow for purchasing.

Print will probably go to LULU, since their option are just too good to pass up.

 

[philreed]

But I do want more sites to sell from.

 

[Mark]

It's a matter of good customer service to present multiple purchasing options.

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

Mark and Phil, I agree with both your points, which is why I am asking around about this subject.

Just yesterday I purchased something from CMG's site, the Variant Rules Pack 01 (love the banner, Mark), via PayPal, and in about 30 minutes I had my files. Not immediately as with RPGnow, but still fast, and (more importantly) cheaper and without a minimum checkout. I haven't ordered from Creation Crash (yet) but I imagine they have no minimum checkout amount, and that my products would arrive fast, perhaps like Mark's (don't know how CreationCrash.com handles deliveries). I was very satisfied with my purchase from CMG, and liked the system used.

I would like to offer different purchasing options to my customers, too. I just want to know that it is something worth pursuing.
I have a friend in Puerto Rico who owns a gaming shop and his website, when finished, will use the same software PRGnow uses, meaning he can handle PDF sales and delivery. Creation Crash seems to be limited right now to Ronin Arts, Mystic Eye Games (which is handled by RA), The Le Games and Firefly Games, so I'm assuming it's by invitation only, but it does present a different sales outlet that is not DTRPG.com. Selling on my website via PayPal is another very viable option.

Don't get me wrong, I love RPGnow.com and have had a great experience with them so far. I just want to explore further avenue for growth.

 

[TheLe]

Creation Crash

I like CreationCrash.com (CC), but I still put 99% of my focus on rpgnow.com. My core customers are there and I need to put my energies into them. I actually price my books on CC a buck lower than rpgnow.com, but sales have only grown stronger on rpgnow.com.

As much as I like CC, I find that their publishing tools are severely lacking when compared to rpgnow.com. For example, I have no way of setting the prices myself, or checking sales figures (this may have changed in the last few months, I am not sure).

In anycase, I will continue to concentrate on rpgnow.com, but will also sell future books on CreationCrash too. As a smalltime one-man shop, all exposure is good.

~Le

 

[RPGRealms]

A question to those who sell their PDFs in places other than RPGnow.com: Has it been worth it?

The more locations your material is available from the better. We sell our PDF products through RPGNow, DTRPG, as well as our own website. The vast majority of our sales come through our own store, but we still bring a respectable amount through the other two sources.

RPGnow.com doesn't have an exclusivity clause as draconian as DTRPG.com

Exclusivity is no longer a requirement at DTRPG though you will get a slightly better rate if you do go exclusive with them.

 

[drnuncheon]

As a buyer, what advantage would going to creationcrash have for me?

J

 

[Warden]

We have three outlets for our PDFs: RPGNow, DTRPG, and our own home store, the Emerald Shoppe.

RPGNow is used for obvious reasons. 90%-95% of our sales come from there. No brainer. It's the big one.

DTRPG was done as an experiment. To date, we've only done five sales with them over a three month period, but it's still something that's being worked on. It's not really a losing situation, because those are sales from people that didn't appear to use RPGNow at the time.

As for our Shoppe, the main advantage is presales to gauge interest in the product beforehand and tweek some of the marketing and what have you by the time that it's actually made available online. With the online tracking "stuff" that my web host comes with, I can find out how many hits the site receives and get a general gauge of where they came from. Once again, not much money comes from it, but it is enough to keep it available and allow us for greater options on our own terms, such as releasing it when we want and no file size limits or minimum sale requirements. And I can pay my people their %'s right away, rather than waiting for a month, if I so choose.

It's all about options. If someone likes to go to RPGNow, they'll likely stick with it. I haven't seen a drop in sales, but an increase, since we divided ourselves among three outlets.

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

OKay, so it seems that multiple sales outlets are good for exposure and don't really seem to hurt one another. So the next question is: What are the other sales outlets out there?

There's, to my knowledge:
DTRPG.com
CreationCrash.com (though I don't know if any vendor can request to join or if it's by invitation--Phil?)
Own Webshop (which I can set up via PayPal with little problem).

What else? I seem to recall that Atlas would be opening a PDF version of their Warehouse 23 store, but haven't seen anything yet. Is there anyone else?