? For PDF Publishers

[jgbrowning]

Okay, that's obviously hard evidence. Do you see a spike in sales when a review goes up?

I know I have gotten some additional sales due reviews at ENworld, but I wouldn't call it a spike. However, I think continued exposure on ENworld is a key part of maintaining/increasing sales—especialy in the few two months of a PDFs life. I know that things released without ENworld front page announcements sell less well initially than things with front page announcements.

The only spike I've ever gotten in sales from a review came from Monte Cook's 10 review of A Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe. That caused a spike, alright.

joe b.

 

[smokewolf]

What are you doing to sell your product?

Answering forum posts like these.

Truthfully though. I have tried tons of things. Haven't found that really great something yet but I am still looking.

I have...
Spread the word from forum to forum.
Teamed up with other publishers.
Have a Yahoo Group.
Gone to cons (played and sold at them).
Helped other publishers sell their stuff (good kharma).
Spoke with bigger fish and listened to what they have to say.
Freelanced for bigger fish (Thanks Joe, Phil and White Wolf).
Send free copies to people who I think can help me out.
Revising my work to make it better.
Right now I am trying a contest even to help sell copies.

Hope I didn't forget something.

 

[DaveStebbins]

Hate to say this, but the day of the short PDF are done.

Do you have any data to support this? Because since they started coming out, the short, niche, PDFs are pretty much all I buy anymore. Until I went to GenCon this year, the short PDFs constituted the majority of my RPG spending. I'm not saying you're wrong, and I know I'm only a single data point, but I will definitely continue to buy short PDFs, as I find them a much better value for my gaming dollar than more expensive source books.

-Dave

 

[mythusmage]

Do you have any data to support this? Because since they started coming out, the short, niche, PDFs are pretty much all I buy anymore. Until I went to GenCon this year, the short PDFs constituted the majority of my RPG spending. I'm not saying you're wrong, and I know I'm only a single data point, but I will definitely continue to buy short PDFs, as I find them a much better value for my gaming dollar than more expensive source books.

-Dave

Trouble is, between the two of us (just started buying short PDFs) we don't have the money to keep the niche afloat. And an OGC wiki is on the way. Maybe not by Mike Mearls and friends, but it is on the way. Once OGC from 100% products gets posted it will adversely impact sales. That means value has to be added. That means content. IP content. Publishers will have to give people a reason to by their PDFs, and that means additional content. Content you won't be able to find in any OGC wiki.

That means content people are willing to pay good money for. Well written, evocative content. Those publishers that can't or won't improve the quality of writing and editing for their PDFs will fail. Improvements in graphics and art will help, but in the long run it will be the writing that determines success or failure.

Then you get into the matter of selling. How good are you at composing ad copy? How good are you at composing ads?

Shill: It shambles on myriad decaying feet towards a sleeping coast. Atlantis Revenant.

 

[Nellisir]

And an OGC wiki is on the way. ... Once OGC from 100% products gets posted it will adversely impact sales.

OK, I never totally understood this scenario. Do you know alot of people that are planning an overnight turnaround on all OGC after it's released? Most recommendations I hear are for a 6 - 12 month moratorium on 100% OGC products. And looking through a wiki, while moderately decent if I'm looking for 1 thing, is not going to work for me when I want a whole slew of stuff related to dwarves (for example).

Part of what I pay for in a product is convenience. I like a nice, focused, ready-to-print product in my inbox, and I'll pay something for that.

Cheers
Nell.

 

[D_Sinclair]

Now that ARP has a fairly substantial catalog of available product (we crossed the 70 product mark just last month), what we are now doing is giving away freebies. I'm not talking "here's this cheesy little thing we made for anyone to download for free", but rather "pick a book from our catalog and we'll send you a free copy". This policy went into effect just last month.

Has it been effective? I'm not going to say for certain just yet, but it looks like it works quite well. For August, we had a 208% increase in our averages sales for the month, and more importantly, for the first two days of September 2005, we've already done 45% of the total business for all of September 2004, and 78% of the business conducted for September 2003.

 

[Mark CMG]

And an OGC wiki is on the way. Maybe not by Mike Mearls and friends, but it is on the way. Once OGC from 100% products gets posted it will . . .

I wouldn't count on it. It's a huge amount of work for no real potential return. It's a huge potential legal nightmare with a huge legal downside. It's been floated as an ideal for the past five years and has never gotten close to being realized, unless you count the Free SRD sites but those hold the easiest to collect material and they don't represent even a drop in the actual OGC bucket. No offense but I'm afraid that this is one of those boogeymen that gets trotted out periodically and well meaning people like yourself latch on to it only to be left with nothing when the dust settles.

 

[tensen]

I wouldn't count on it. It's a huge amount of work for no real potential return. It's a huge potential legal nightmare with a huge legal downside. It's been floated as an ideal for the past five years and has never gotten close to being realized, unless you count the Free SRD sites but those hold the easiest to collect material and they don't represent even a drop in the actual OGC bucket. No offense but I'm afraid that this is one of those boogeymen that gets trotted out periodically and well meaning people like yourself latch on to it only to be left with nothing when the dust settles.

I still want to know if they'll be adding an OGL to every page. Otherwise if they only have one for the site, it will make the whole project completely unusable to publishers... I mean can you imagine the section 15 block? Even if you only use 1 item, you'll end up with a 400 page book just listing every other product

The day of the short .pdf isn't dead. Neither is the day of the d20. I don't accept the sky is falling theory.

Heck... the .pdf market hasn't even yet grown to make a sufficient impact on print products yet.

 

[Warden]

While not exactly a fan of short PDFs myself (give me something with lots of material anyday), they have made an impact in our sales as well. Our top two products are short PDFs (my version of short PDFs are 20 pages, but sold at $2 a pop, it counts) versus the 3rd place seller that has been at the top for over a year. They're like magazines next to the cash register - a little something extra for the drive home.

As for ways to sell our products, Emerald Press just started our 1-in-20 program, meaning every 20th sale we make is free. A full refund to the customer for buying it at the right time. We've already seen a difference as many of our wish lists are being cleaned out. Free stuff does get noticed, particulary when it's supposed to be paid for.

 

[mythusmage]

OK, I never totally understood this scenario. Do you know alot of people that are planning an overnight turnaround on all OGC after it's released? Most recommendations I hear are for a 6 - 12 month moratorium on 100% OGC products. And looking through a wiki, while moderately decent if I'm looking for 1 thing, is not going to work for me when I want a whole slew of stuff related to dwarves (for example).

Part of what I pay for in a product is convenience. I like a nice, focused, ready-to-print product in my inbox, and I'll pay something for that.

Cheers
Nell.

Mike Mearls is the guy you want to talk with.

I expect a lot of things are being worked out, but I'm not in on the talks.