JohnNephew
First Post
In the constructive ideas department...
What I wish was that publishers set a wholesale price for their PDFs, and the PDF outlets who sold their products gave them that price per sale. Then the outlets could include whatever markup they thought the market would bear, either to compete with other sites on the basis of price or by justifying a higher price through offering convenience, superior services and features, etc. Just like the regular retail world. This would encourage competition and benefit the end consumer, unlike the current situation which both puts the squeeze on the publisher, and then turn and blames the publisher for being responsible for the price the consumer pays.
As a variation, publishers could set wholesale price tiers based on volume or other factors, just as they do in the offline world. For example, a publisher could offer all their PDF vendors a 5% discount any month that gross revenue due to the publisher exceeds $1000 (or some other number, based on typical volume). Or a publisher could offer different wholesale rates based on the frequency of accounting and payments (i.e., a PDF vendor with the systems and willingness to process payments weekly might get a better price than the PDF vendor who only did it monthly or quarterly -- similar to the "rapid payment discounts" that many publishers offer print distributors who pay faster than the standard net 30 terms).
In these ways a large and successful PDF vendor could still get a bigger slice of the pie, but it would be based on concrete performance measures that actually benefit the publisher, rather than ambiguous and unenforceable promises to grow the market. And other PDF vendors could be given specific targets to reach in order to get the same terms as the biggest.
-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games
What I wish was that publishers set a wholesale price for their PDFs, and the PDF outlets who sold their products gave them that price per sale. Then the outlets could include whatever markup they thought the market would bear, either to compete with other sites on the basis of price or by justifying a higher price through offering convenience, superior services and features, etc. Just like the regular retail world. This would encourage competition and benefit the end consumer, unlike the current situation which both puts the squeeze on the publisher, and then turn and blames the publisher for being responsible for the price the consumer pays.
As a variation, publishers could set wholesale price tiers based on volume or other factors, just as they do in the offline world. For example, a publisher could offer all their PDF vendors a 5% discount any month that gross revenue due to the publisher exceeds $1000 (or some other number, based on typical volume). Or a publisher could offer different wholesale rates based on the frequency of accounting and payments (i.e., a PDF vendor with the systems and willingness to process payments weekly might get a better price than the PDF vendor who only did it monthly or quarterly -- similar to the "rapid payment discounts" that many publishers offer print distributors who pay faster than the standard net 30 terms).
In these ways a large and successful PDF vendor could still get a bigger slice of the pie, but it would be based on concrete performance measures that actually benefit the publisher, rather than ambiguous and unenforceable promises to grow the market. And other PDF vendors could be given specific targets to reach in order to get the same terms as the biggest.
-John Nephew
President, Atlas Games