Steve Conan Trustrum
Explorer
Amazon's ebook storefront is DEFINATELY behind so far as rpg market share is concerned. I imagine it's not even a blip on a typical e-rpg customer's radar.seasong said:OBS is a monopoly? I suspect Amazon's ebook and e-doc program will be surprised to hear that. Granted, their ebook selection is pretty lame, and their publisher interaction can only be described as glacial for anyone in a niche... but OBS is not a monopoly. Not by market share, not by competitive advantage.
But you're only looking at this in one direction: how do the publishers that sell with you think e23 compares to RPGNow and Drivethru? e23 itself doesn't have to feel squeezed for the opinion of publishers such as myself to be truthful when we say e23 isn't competatively comparable to the OBS parent companies, granting OBS a far greater market advantage than e23.And while they're bigger than e23 (and some others), e23 doesn't really feel squeezed by OBS - we sell to a different audience, and so far, nothing OBS has done seems likely to take that audience from us.
But ultimately it's where the customers want to go that's going to set the pace. Customers have repeatedly stated they prefer to get all their shopping done under one account, and that account is most likely to go to the storefront that offers the biggest, most varied selection. None of the ones you've mentioned here come close to OBS.And the fact is, a decent percentage of OBS' audience isn't OBS' audience. It's direct marketing from the publishers - and the publishers decide where to send that audience. Among the many alternative places to send your portion of those sales, there is e23, Lulu's download program, Amazon, and numerous other sites.
I'd disagree on what the definition of reasonable you're using means. Shifting all of Misfit Studios' PDF business to one of the alternatives you've listed certainly wouldn't be reasonable because none of those options have comparable benefits to offer my company. Not even close. If I shifted all my business to Paizo or e23, for example, my business would drop dramatically despite shifting all my direct marketing focus to that storefront. However I'd choose to rationalize such a decision as reasonable, the realities of the market would soon prove that it wasn't a reasonable decision at all.Publishers have reasonable choices. Customers have reasonable choices. It's not a monopoly.
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