Speaking from my POV as an avid PDF consumer (though since I am also a PDF publisher, you may wish to take it with a grain of salt; I am trying as best I can not to bring publisher bias into the equation, but in the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you I write PDFs too - though I should also tell you that my policies as a PDF publisher are essentially governed by, "if I were buying this product, what would I want?").
rowport said:
Hey, there! I am glad that you posted about this, because I am curious of the opinion of a true pdf fan: do you think that pricing the electronic document the same as the MSRP for the hardback volume is reasonable?
In two words,
"{expletive edited for Eric's Grandma}, NO!"
Traditional (non-DRMed) PDFs have the following advantages over print products (in no particular order):
1 - They don't take up shelf space - when you have a collection of over 500 PDFs, as I do (at least, I'm pretty sure it's approaching 500) you appreciate not having to find room for 500 books.
2 - "Take only the parts you want" - As an extension of the above, you need only print small sections of the PDF that are relevant to you instead of lugging the whole thing around to your games. Alternatively, a DM can print only those portions of a PDF he wants his players to see.
3 - Cut and Paste - Again, related to "take the parts you want" but very nice for quickly pulling material from a dozen sources to create a customized "sourcebook" for your PC.
4 - Searchability - The "search" feature of a PDF lets you almost instantly find that nasty little rule to stump (or be) a rules-lawyer.
5 - Backups - PDFs are easier - and much cheaper - to "back up" in case of catastrophe than traditional print items. In some cases (such as RPGNow.com), you have the ability to send yourself re-download links of products you've already paid for in case of true catastrophe (e.g., the house burns down - at RPGNow.com, you can simply use a few clicks to regenerate your PDF collection for free).
6 - Cost - In theory, part of paying for a print product includes the cost of printing, binding, warehousing, and distributing - including the cost of materials (paper, ink, & glue); a PDF needs not include these costs (IIRC, a good rule of thumb is that publishers get around 25% of the MSRP for each book and that's BEFORE they have to account for printing costs). Of course, Economics 101 tells you that the price of a good has NOTHING to do with the cost of production and everything to do with how much people are willing to pay (soft drinks, for example, have HUGE profit margins for this very reason).
7 - Instant, Free Updates - Some PDF vendors update their products for free... again, because the cost of distribution, et al, is negligible... don't you wish you had gotten a free 3.5 PHB if you had bought the 3.0 PHB, for example?
It should be noted that DRMed PDFs often (not always) take away some of these advantages. In particular:
3 - Cut & Paste - Most Drivethrurpg PDFs limit your cut & paste ability to 10 cut/pastes in a 10-day period. This doesn't do away with the utility entirely, but does mitigate it considerably, as most people (a) don't want to be bothered rationing their cutting/pasting and (b) in my experience, want to cut lots of small sections rather than a few large ones.
5 - Backups - As has been discussed before, some of Adobe's limits (6 computers) can come into play; also, a computer without an internet connection (e.g., a laptop) can't be used at all to display things... not to mention the trouble with remembering what login info you used to activate your version of Acrobat 6 three years down the road when you get a new machine.
6 - Cost - To be kind, let's just say that the vendors who use RPGNow.com very rarely choose to pass on production cost savings they see due to smaller cuts being taken by electronic distribution channels or lack of need to spend money on printing on to the consumer. Clearly, they've studied economics 101.
Will you buy it at that price?
No. PDFs take the same "Intellectual Property" that print products offer and packages it with an entirely different set of "Added Value" options than a print product.
Some of the "Added Value" isn't obvious at first blush. As discussed above, the PDF obviously adds "portability" and "searchability" while the print product adds the value of the physical materials used to create it. But some things are more subtle; for instance, you have the "Right of First Sale" with a print product - don't like what you bought and you can slap it up on eBay and at least get some money back. There are technical ways of getting a PDF into a copy with which you can exercise the Right of First Sale (make the initial download to a CD-RW or to a Zip Disk, for instance) but with DRMed PDFs, you cannot exercise this right fully (unless, of course, you want to give out your Adobe DRM registration information along with the disk).
At the end of the day, however, I as a consumer see a very valuable commodity that
I am providing the publisher when I purchase a PDF... the elimination of some of the publisher's risk. When a publisher chooses to do a print run of 1,000 books, he is gambling with his own money that the money he spends on the print run will be made up by sales. PDF products do not require him to take that gamble. At the very least, I expect a discount equal to the cost of printing to offset the fact that I have chosen a method that
eliminates that risk for him.
Weighing the different "added value" aspect that PDFs versus print products bring to the "IP" contained therein, I happen to believe that the Right of First Sale outweighs some of the convenience considerations of portability and searchability, because RoFS is, literally, money in my pocket. When I pay for a PDF and, in essence, give up the RoFS, I expect another discount for assuming even more risk - the risk of buying something useless sight unseen and being unable to shift some of that cost to someone else through re-selling the item.
IMO, the combination of eliminating direct financial risk for the publisher and assuming direct financial risk myself when purchasing a PDF should equate to AT LEAST 50% off the "print price." The added ability of searching and portability does add some value; however, that's not direct financial value, and I'm willing to value it at about 10% of the "print price." Bottom line: any PDF priced more than 60% above print price is, quite simply,
too expensive. YMMV based on how you value these different commodities added to and subtracted from the "IP content" of the work itself.
Not to mention that on principle, I refuse to pay for ANYTHING with DRM embedded in it, as DRM serves to take my property (in the form of my computer) and turn it against me to enforce someone else's (arbitrary) view of what is considered Fair Use. MY computer, paid for with MY money, will be used in my home to view files that I OWN because I bought them with MY money in a manner of MY choosing, not someone else's.
I ask, because it makes absolutely no sense to me that a product with zero printing and minimal distribution costs would be priced the same as one with both of those embedded costs. This is not even including discounting, which is common in the industry. Perhaps I am just missing a fundamental advantage to the electronic version since I have not used pdfs extensively?
Nope. You're just being introduced to economics 101 where cost to produce has nothing to do with price. It sounds counterintuitive, but it's an unfortunate reality.
--The Sigil
