Buying PDFs

[Herobizkit]

A couple of questions regarding PDFs.

1) If I don't own a printer, is there any reason I should even consider buying a PDF?
2) If I burn a PDF to a CD, could I take it to a local printer (example: Staples Business Depot) and pay to have it printed there?
3) Does anyone ELSE find it strange to pay money for PDFs, given that they're almost impossible to preview? It's not like you can return it for a refund, or re-sell it on eBay. Or can you?

 

[frankthedm]

People pay for PDFs?

 

[philreed]

A couple of questions regarding PDFs.

1) If I don't own a printer, is there any reason I should even consider buying a PDF?
2) If I burn a PDF to a CD, could I take it to a local printer (example: Staples Business Depot) and pay to have it printed there?
3) Does anyone ELSE find it strange to pay money for PDFs, given that they're almost impossible to preview? It's not like you can return it for a refund, or re-sell it on eBay. Or can you?

Yes, you can burn it to CD and print it elsewhere.

Kinkos also has a service so you can load PDFs, have the printed, then pick them up.

 

[arwink]

1) It depends on what you're looking for. A good 60% of the PDF's I own never get printed - they're the kinds of resources I tend to keep on my computer to reference while I'm writing notes for a game, but don't really need to have a hard-copy of during the game itself. Of the remainder, I'll normally print maybe two or three pages when I need them rather than the PDF as a whole

2) I can't imagine to many PDF producers taking issue to that, and I've done it myself on two or three occasions (Mostly for PDF's I would have picked up as print books, but weren't available as such at the time - I'm looking at you, Motocaust)

3) Nope, I don't find it strange at all. What I'm paying for isn't the medium, it's the message. Of course, a lot of my gaming purchases used to come through mail order anyway, so I'm used to not being able to browse before I purchase something

Edit: Since you're interested in the idea of PDF's, but unsure of how it'll work for you, how about I offer you a CGW PDF as a test run. Just swing by the Clockwork Golem Workshop storefront at the Enworld Game Store (the My Storefront link to the left of this post), pick something that appeals to you, and drop me an e-mail at peter@clockworkgolem.com letting me know what you'd like.

 

[Thomas Percy]

I prefer to read from computer screen then from paper book.

 

[Bardsandsages]

People pay for PDFs?

Unless you have no respect for the people who spend their time and money creating them and just steal them, yes, people pay for them.

 

[GrumpyOldMan]

People pay for PDFs?

If they aren't available for free download, if you do anything other than buy them, you are stealing.

 

[Pseudonym]

Ack, please let's not let this turn into yet another pdf piracy thread.

I have bought many pdfs. Some I prefer as a resource for my computer only use, others I prefer to have printed. For example, I recently bought the True 20 pdf, which I printed out at home. I like to read in places where having a laptop could be awkward or outright dangerous.

As to the review angle, many products offer demo downloads, and I also rely on reviews here at EN World and word of mouth locally. There are few pdf files I've bought sight unseen and regretted.

 

[RangerWickett]

Due to the problem of not being able to preview pdfs easily, one of the things the EN GameStore has tried hard to promote is for publishers to put up sample pages from their books, so people can at least see a bit of what they're getting. And for all of the large releases we put out (pretty much anything over 60 pages), we make sure to put out a teaser pdf first.

Sure, it's not as good as flipping through a book at a store, but it's the best we can currently do while still maintaining a level of security. Hell, I won't lie. I use the internet, and I've pirated things in the past. I just try to use my own interests to figure out how to present new products to customers. I don't buy many game books either (though I'm not sure if that's because I feel I can design things myself, or if it's just because I don't have the money to spare), so I try to make sure people have access to the information I wish I would have access to when I'm looking at a potential purchase.

By the way, take Arwink up on his offer. He's a good writer. Oh, and don't forget that, for at least some products (like my own Mythic Earth - check the reviews, it's good) are available in print through the same stores that sell them in pdf.

 

[Crothian]

A couple of questions regarding PDFs.

1) If I don't own a printer, is there any reason I should even consider buying a PDF?
2) If I burn a PDF to a CD, could I take it to a local printer (example: Staples Business Depot) and pay to have it printed there?
3) Does anyone ELSE find it strange to pay money for PDFs, given that they're almost impossible to preview? It's not like you can return it for a refund, or re-sell it on eBay. Or can you?

1) Ya, you can eaily look up infor in a PDF on the computer. I print out very very few of the PDFs I have and I have over a thousand.

2) Ya, you can do that.

3) No, not strange at all. In this day and age I find I don't get previews of most RPG books least not good ones. I order books on line and that doesn't give me a preview. Even buying in astore sure I can flip through it but unless I'm willing to sit down with the book for a bit I won't get a good preview. Even then it matters what I'm looking at and all.