[Devil’s Workshop] D20 Shakespeare: Macbeth available at RPGNow.com

[Turanil]

Hate to say it, but compared to other products, $3.25 for 12 pages is a STEAL....

jezter6, when I made my comment, I was thinking about your excellent signature. I even considered copypasting it here, but didn't remember where to look for it.

.99 per 4 pages is becoming a fairly standard price point

40 pages for 10$, 120 pages for 30$, when for less than that you can get a printed book of 210 pages. Of course people are free to spend their money however they wish. I myself once bought two of these 3 pages PDFs for 1$. I don't intend to ever do it again though...

 

[philreed]

Hate to say it, but compared to other products, $3.25 for 12 pages is a STEAL....

I disagree. I feel I keep the prices lower than that on Ronin Arts' PDFs. Our most recent 18-page PDF is $3.

 

[lmpjr007]

I disagree. I feel I keep the prices lower than that on Ronin Arts' PDFs. Our most recent 18-page PDF is $3.

Well I do have to say, I don't think any one else in the PDF publishing world, expect for Skeleton Key and Monte Cook, have the same brand recognition as your products Phil. I think you can sell twice as many products just on your name alone, just as Devil's Workshop does when is creates and M&M Superlink product. With that kind of power you can sell your product for less because you are going to sell so many. Most of us have to counter that by have slightly higher prices.

The Pricing issue in PDFs has become a growing issue in the industry. Personally I thing people are comparing what they "think" a printed book should cost versus what they "think" a PDF should cost because it is a PDF. Since a book is tangible it is OK to sell them for the $30, $40 and $50 price tag attached to them. While PDFs are considered not to be "real books" so that should have a much cheaper price. But most customers don't know that writers for PDF still charge their regular rate (2 to 5 cents per word) and most PDF don't sell more than 100 copies. Now for guys like me and Phil who have over 100 products, in Phil's case 200+, we have enough to help generate sales of other products. But it is not perfect.

I run my business, like a business and sometime we have do thing we don't want to help the business survive. Sometime we do things to help customers too. We have had our Image Portfolio series for over a year and we have been selling art work to publishers for a price now of $6.40 for 20 pieces of art. With an industry standard of $100 per page for art, think this we have MORE then bent over backwards to help the consumers out, but I never here that from customers. All I hear is "you should be charging XYA for a particular project".

 

[philreed]

I run my business, like a business and sometime we have do thing we don't want to help the business survive.

Completely agree with this. After all, if you don't survive then you don't get to produce more products. I'm just trying to get people to understand that there are a variety of PDFs sizes and prices out there -- blanket statements don't help any of us.

 

[Vigilance]

I wasn't trying to disparage anyone's products or their pricing policy. I was just trying to point out that the price of the MacBeth book is pretty consistent with A) its size and B) the current price of PDFs.

Heck, this looks like something I've wanted to write for a long time and just plain cool.

Chuck

 

[jezter6]

Louis,

I respect your thoughts as a publisher who has published a good bit of material. But the fact that if a publisher only sell about 100 copies doesn't really arbitrarily give them the right to bend people over like is happening now. And I'm not explicity stating that this is one of those cases...

PDF publication costs are cheaper (you in fact said that your short model PDFs cost about $50 plus your own time). What I'm seeing as the mistake on the publisher part is the 'I want to make money, break even, whatever' approach to this. The short PDF model is what we as a community used to post in house rules, now everyone is trying to make a quick buck and sell it, then complaining when they don't make any money.

Publishers say "but this is how I put food on my plate." You need to rethink your business idea if this is what you're using to put food on your plate. The fact that I'm now paying close to 3 or 4 times what I used to get, which usually lower quality, and obviously less content. Who's taking food off who's plate now?

I would really like to open up and go nuts (not really on Louis, he's been a thousand times more decent in this thread than other publishers have been when people comment about how we are not enthused with pricing models). But this is not the thread, and likely EN World is not the place (thread would get closed faster than P-Kitty could plan up a TPK).

 

[jezter6]

Sometime we do things to help customers too. We have had our Image Portfolio series for over a year and we have been selling art work to publishers for a price now of $6.40 for 20 pieces of art. With an industry standard of $100 per page for art, think this we have MORE then bent over backwards to help the consumers out, but I never here that from customers. All I hear is "you should be charging XYA for a particular project".

I fail to see where this helps customers. What it does do is help publishers reduce overall costs, but not reflect that savings to the consumer. As we've seen, the price to content ratio has actually one up 3-fold instead of down, which this could have done. And now we get recycled art in our books...which most people seem to think is a high point for book quality. I would rather less spelling and editing mistakes than art, but I'm very much in the minority there.

 

[lmpjr007]

I fail to see where this helps customers. What it does do is help publishers reduce overall costs, but not reflect that savings to the consumer. As we've seen, the price to content ratio has actually one up 3-fold instead of down, which this could have done. And now we get recycled art in our books...which most people seem to think is a high point for book quality. I would rather less spelling and editing mistakes than art, but I'm very much in the minority there.

Being a graphic design in my "real life" I always like to see a good merging of text and art, but you can't always get that. If I could find a way to make a product that cost only $1 and everyone who worked on it got paid their rate and customers were happy, I would. But in reality, I can't and as publishers that is the part that really hurts.

 

[jezter6]

Well, the real question is...why must everyone get paid?

The people at modernized work for free. People submit articles to for the benefit of all. IIRC, the guys at Stygian are not paid, but I'm not sure about that.

Guys like Tim Willard (Warlord Ralts) runs The Brood, which has published a number of products, yet puts out a monster of a thread "Future Fun" found in this same forum section...all free. Enough material there to support a sourcebook for sure, but he gave it all out free.

Why are people trying to make a buck on other consumers, and then getting defensive (again, not directed at directly at Louis) when people see that they are not getting their money's worth. The whole 'customer is always right' adage is definately not taken seriously by most publishers out there. There are a bunch of good ones (you see them give away free product for game days, for chats on the psionics server, or whenever another publisher has slighted a consumer in some way), but there are a bunch of bad ones as well.

As soon as consumers mention complaints about products or pricing, suddenly 'you werent in the target demographic anyway' comes out. Obviously only people who buy product without regard to quality is their target demographic. Publishers are getting mighty defensive because the market is very crowded. Supply and demand normally dictates that when a supply is plentiful, prices go down to consumers. Supply is overstocked (if pdf's can really be overstocked) yet prices continue to rise, as quality and content per package seems to be going down.

I really didn't mean to do this in your thread, Louis, and I apologize...but you've answered back without direct retaliation which shows a bit of maturity on your part. Thanks for engaging in conversation without being petty. It's much more fun when we can all debate without freaking out.

 

[lmpjr007]

Well, the real question is...why must everyone get paid?

If I have hired them for work, then I have to pay them. Thay is why I call my company and business and not a vanity press. All of my guys are professional writers and this is how they earn their living. Asking them to do it for free is like me telling you when you go to work but don't asccept a paycheck and still pay your bills and live. I could not do that.

I really didn't mean to do this in your thread, Louis, and I apologize...but you've answered back without direct retaliation which shows a bit of maturity on your part. Thanks for engaging in conversation without being petty. It's much more fun when we can all debate without freaking out.

Not a problem. I am always up to a good debate of ideas and concepts in a peaceful forum. There is always something that I learn from doing this. When you work like many small publishers due, basically in your own "little bubble of your work" you can lose you perspective on things. Doing this on the form work as a good dose of reality to many of us.