Growing PDF awareness

[Nellisir]

Maybe e-zines? There are quite a few free amateur and semi-pro fantasy/sci-fi/modern adventure e-zines out there; offers similar to what ran in Polyhedron, but more limited, could increase awareness of pdf products in a market already familiar with the pdf/electronic format.

Offering preview articles tailored to the e-zine's interests is another possibility.

Nell.

 

[Dextra]

Maybe e-zines? There are quite a few free amateur and semi-pro fantasy/sci-fi/modern adventure e-zines out there; offers similar to what ran in Polyhedron, but more limited, could increase awareness of pdf products in a market already familiar with the pdf/electronic format.

I guess what we need to do is evaluate what we're trying to accomplish, and what barriers need to be overcome.

If we're trying to simply increase awareness of the existence and quality of PDFs, it involves tactics differing from those trying to increase sales. Being the profiteering bitch I am, I'm more concerned about increasing the sales right now. I think I've done more than my fair share in promoting awareness and quality PDFs (I have one more trick up my sleeve, but have to tread very carefully with that one- keep an eye open around Valentine's Day for more details).

It comes down to, what's the problem? And how do we solve it?

IIRC, according to James at RPGNow, overall sales numbers are up. More and more people are buying more and more PDFs. And yet, we're not seeing the big numbers we used to. This is a problem. What's the cause? Has anyone tried surveying customers online and off? Should we start a campaign at our FLGSs and stand out front with a clipboard and start asking questions (actually, that's not such a bad idea- puts a friendly face on electronic products, increases awareness, and lets us get some important answers)?

What's the problem?

1. When did the drop in sales numbers become noticeable? What happened in that time that might influence the industry?
2. Have we just been releasing crappy products for the past six-nine months?
3. Are people who used to buy them not spending their bucks anymore? Being more selective? Jaded? Getting pirated copies?
4. Of the people who are aware of PDFs and haven't tried them, what's holding them back? Price? Qualilty concerns? Portability? File size/convenience? Reluctance to try something new?
5. Finally, how do we reach those gamers who have never even HEARD of PDFs?

It seems to me that the problem is that there are too many products from which to choose. It's the same thing in the print industry. The larger, well-known companies will always tend to do well, but the horde of smaller companies will have to scramble for the consumer dollar.

I honestly believe that to increase the PDF awareness, we need to look beyond online sources for advertising/marketing/promotion.

That's it for me for now. I need to do some homework.

 

[Dimwhit]

If we're trying to simply increase awareness of the existence and quality of PDFs, it involves tactics differing from those trying to increase sales. Being the profiteering bitch I am, I'm more concerned about increasing the sales right now. I think I've done more than my fair share in promoting awareness and quality PDFs (I have one more trick up my sleeve, but have to tread very carefully with that one- keep an eye open around Valentine's Day for more details).

I certainly think it's a little more than increasing awareness of the existence of quality of PDFs. I think what will help the industry is the get people used to reading PDFs and using them as reference. One thing that hurts, IMO, is offering a product both in PDF and print form. Most people are used to things in print, so when given a choice, they'll go with it. If it's PDF or nothing, and they want the product, they'll go with PDF.

I think we need to be developing PDFs that are reader-friendly without being printed out. As people get more and more used to reading on the computer screen, they will be more apt to choose a less expensive PDF file over a print product.

This is partly what I'm doing. I offer a PDF e-zine. I don't do a special version to print, but it is certainly printable (just at the 12-pt font and such in the PDF). But I want people to get used to reading on screen. I mainly have short stories, but it's worked quite well. While some of our readers print out the e-zine, most I think just read it on their screen. And that's what I want to encourage.

It seems to me that the problem is that there are too many products from which to choose. It's the same thing in the print industry. The larger, well-known companies will always tend to do well, but the horde of smaller companies will have to scramble for the consumer dollar.

I think this is also the problem in the RPG industry. Over-saturation. There is so much out there from 3rd-party publishers, I think many gamers just say "forget it, I'm only using the core stuff." I don't really know what to do about that.

 

[jmucchiello]

I think we need to be developing PDFs that are reader-friendly without being printed out. As people get more and more used to reading on the computer screen, they will be more apt to choose a less expensive PDF file over a print product.

I don't think this will attract people to PDFs. People who like to read things at the computer are few and those few have probably already discovered PDFs. I make PDFs and I program computers (when I'm working) and even I don't like reading PDFs on screen.

The easiest way to make on screen reading more friendly is to use HTML pages instead of PDFs. This makes it impossible to print nicely, harder to control your content, and makes text search difficult for the reader.

 

[Dimwhit]

I don't think this will attract people to PDFs. People who like to read things at the computer are few and those few have probably already discovered PDFs. I make PDFs and I program computers (when I'm working) and even I don't like reading PDFs on screen.

The easiest way to make on screen reading more friendly is to use HTML pages instead of PDFs. This makes it impossible to print nicely, harder to control your content, and makes text search difficult for the reader.

That's intersting, because I much prefering reading PDFs on screen as opposed to html. I absolutely refuse to read a short story on a web page. If it's not in a PDF (or printed, of course) I won't do it. Just a matter of personal taste, I suppose.

 

[HellHound]

Maybe e-zines?

Offering preview articles tailored to the e-zine's interests is another possibility.

I do an article in each issue of The Stygian, a free e-zine from Realms of Evil, always tailored to the theme of the issue.

I'm also looking at extending that article set into the ENWorld Player's Journal (if the editor will buy my work )

 

[Nellisir]

I was going to toss out my answers to those questions I could answer, but...

What's the problem?
2. Have we just been releasing crappy products for the past six-nine months?
3. Are people who used to buy them not spending their bucks anymore? Being more selective? Jaded? Getting pirated copies?

It was my personal feeling that there are actually less products out there that are a) interesting to me, and b) have an assurance of quality. I don't care for prestige classes, adventures, or campaign "primers". I don't care for sci-fi pdfs/gaming. I don't generally buy pdfs that are less than 30-40 pages. I look for pdfs that will supplement or compliment my relatively mainstream fantasy campaigns.

HOWEVER.

I took a look at my buying history at RPG now, and found that I've been buying just as many pdfs in the past few months as I had been, if not more. I bought 3 products in 2001 from RPGNow, 21 in 2002, and 49 so far in 2003.

So I don't have any idea what I really think anymore.

Except that I'M DOING MY PART, DANGIT!


Nell.

 

[Flyspeck23]

I took a look at my buying history at RPG now, and found that I've been buying just as many pdfs in the past few months as I had been, if not more. I bought 3 products in 2001 from RPGNow, 21 in 2002, and 49 so far in 2003.

Trying to set a new world record?

 

[Nellisir]

Trying to set a new world record?

Gosh, you're right...guess I'll pass on that stuff from that, y'know, other game company....



Frankly, I thought I was slowing down. I certainly don't buy everything that goes up...49 products over 10 months is 5 a month, or slightly more than one a week. Given that I've generally been buying between 1 and 3 printed products per week, and I usually buy 2 or 3 at once, pdf purchasing seemed pretty light.


Nell.

 

[Janx]

Well, I've never bought a PDF, though I'm considering doing some publishing. Here's some thoughts that occur to me as someone who's been watching this industry.

seeing a book before buying it is preferable. It's harder to do that with a PDF. A real book, I can flip through the entire thing, a sample excerpt from a PDF I can't.

How much piracy is occurring? Since the number of sales is so small, piracy hurts more than a big company like WOTC (I've seen people handing out CDs of WoTC's product in PDF). A recent FastForwar 900 Words article makes a good point on this.

Free product seems to have high download rates (per the how are sales doing threads). Maybe people have a mentality that if it's on the internet it must be free.

For new publishers, doing improved layout work may be harder for them. Just learning to format things in a word document so it looks better than what you might make for your game group is an effort. Heck, I'd consider using a free PDF maker like PDF995, which would have limited capabilities.

A valid point was made in that ePublishing needs to take advantage of the medium. It should be easier to use on the PC, with a print version. Think how web-pages are done. print version and screen version. And people do read things online, consider this thread for instance.

The lesson from that is what web designers had to learn. Don't make the page scroll sideways. Avoid forcing a need to scroll at all (but vertical is better than horizontal). For my sites, that means trying to make the page work within the screen view space, with buttons to navigate to the next page. Basically format for a smaller sheet of paper, instead of 8 1/2 by 11"

Also consider using the medium to its full extent. Software. Why don't your tables roll themselves? At the minimum, provide support files for the popular RPG manager apps around. That's more work, but it provides something a paper version does not.

As for the dearth of "crap" PDFs, consider it may not be limited to just PDFs. When the D20 license came out, a plethora of D20 materials were released in stores. Most of it sat there. The ePublishing world is even easier to publish in than the real world, so it has the same problem.

This plethora of publishers moves into my next thought. There's no quality control going on. At WOTC, there are product managers and editors and the like figuring out what to design and who does it, and having final approval to release it. This means that if all goes well at WOTC, they will not release products that compete with each other, contradict each other or are incompatible with each other. With 50+ solo operations going on, how many "compleate book of marmoset hunting" books are there? Let alone different brands. It would have been better if these solo operators clumped together, pitched ideas and "contracted" themselves out to do certain titles. Rather than each tiny company trying to do the same things. This gets you economies of scale for consistent style and name recognition.

That's what I percieve that EN Publishing has done. They've "housed" several solo publishers and present themselves as a larger force. That's a good idea and it gives smaller publishers a fighting chance.

Now to marketing. Why did they call themselves EN Publishing. They're named after a guy (Eric Noah) who doesn't seem to work there, who ran a news site. They had a good name of "Natural 20 Press" and they changed it to name themselves after some guy. Not a marketing decision I would have made. Don't name your stuff after someone. It tends to limit the scope and makes others think it isn't that big. Joe's Book of XYZ is an example. I haven't seen it. Joe himself seems like he's really sharp and has a good product. Maybe he likes the gimick of making the product sound like it's some GM named Joe's collection of stuff. But to me, when I saw the title (which I saw before reading these forums), it sounded like it was some guy cranking out PDFs from his gaming notes. And that's the point, not to put down people's names of products but to show how the naming (and marketing) of those product can be percieved by potential customers.

It might also help not to compare too directly to Monte Cook, Phil Reed and Sean Reynolds. They were recognizable in the game industry before ePublishing got to be too big of an idea. Figure Monte has big credit for D&D3e which puts him just under the big Gygax himself. Sean's been getting larger and larger in the products his name has shown up in. I remember when he replaced Rob Repp as the online coordinator back in the USENET days. And Phil Reed seems to be the youngest of the batch (He did Frag, which is an excellent SJG product). Phil's advice of not spending more than $200 on making a product and planning to sell 80 seems the most practical. These guys have connections, and visibility. That's an advantage over say, me and my idea to ePublish.

Anyway, that's a lot of verbage. But it's what I've noticed while watching all of this from the sidelines. Study what the successful among you have done that have started the same way as you. You'll learn more and it it'll be easier to emulate. I can't emulate Monte Cook for how to get started. But I can find out which ones of you started from scratch and find the best of you to emulate the process of getting started.