Minimum reasonable price for a suppliment

[Kichwas]

This the right place for this?


What would be the minimum price you could put on a d20 rulebook published in PDF format and still get people to 'take it serious'.

In other words; if the goal is in no way profit, but just to get it out to as many people as possible.

I've noticed a lot of people don't take free stuff seriously. But slap $x on the same book and it gets recognition.

So what's the lowest possible value of x for a book to still keep it's 'respect' and get bought without turning away people who think the low price means it's shoddy work.

 

[RangerWickett]

$3

 

[2WS-Steve]

I figure charge about half what you would for a print product. $4.95 seems to work well for something in the 32-48 page range. Though if you're paying for part of the product (for instance, the art) you'd likely be justified in adding a bit to the price so that you at least don't come out losing money on the product.

I'd shy away from releasing large pdf products. When I buy them I find 50 pages or less convenient to look at and will print it out if I like it. If the product gets to 80 pages or more I'm unlikely to print it, and I'm unlikely to spend all that time in front of the screen reading it, which means I'll probably just read bits and pieces of it spread out over time.

 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

3-5 dollars, although i love free stuff and rarely discount it as low quality.

 

[HellHound]

The biggest blow AGAINST publishing PDFs below the $5 line is that the primary D20 electronic storefront won't let people make purchases under $5. (So if you publish for $3, your buyer will also have to buy at least $2 of other product to be able to check out).

But if you don't have your product there, your exposure will suffer a significant blow - many sales of PDF products are now from people who wander into said storefront because of the top-selling product there and who pick up some other books that have good reviews or seem really up their alley.

(of course, our free product, Portable Hole Full of Beer (this product contains no alcohol), doesn't help make people take free products seriously!)

 

[Ranger REG]

Would $3 per product cover the cost of printing and shipping the products to retailers, even though you intend not to make a profit?

 

[Napftor]

Um, sorry Ranger REG. The topic starter message indicated the question is for .pdf products. But thanks for stopping by!

 

[BadMojo]

I've noticed a lot of people don't take free stuff seriously. But slap $x on the same book and it gets recognition.

So what's the lowest possible value of x for a book to still keep it's 'respect' and get bought without turning away people who think the low price means it's shoddy work.

Here are my thoughts on this, as a gamer and a consumer.

I've never subscribed to the theory that Free = Low Quality, and I’m not convinced that this attitude is at all a common one. In this age of broadband internet connections, it really isn't a big deal to download an average-sized PDF; I download free PDF's all the time. The trick will be getting people to actually read more than a few paragraphs of what they download. If your product can grab the reader in the first few pages, I don't think you will have a problem getting it out to the community at large. If you've got a good product, people *will* talk about it. We have a pretty tight-knit community here and Buzz travels fast.

If you really want to make sure that your product is available to the widest audience possible, then I would go with a free product. Some people are still wary of the whole "e-commerce" thing. Folks don't want to pay for something without taking a quick look at it first (these are the people who get their greasy fingerprints all over books at your FLGS). Some gamers are still wary of buying things over the internet for security reasons. Also, some people just don’t have a credit card and don't want to use Paypal (for a variety of reasons).

I also think you could save yourself some hassle by going with a free product. I have no experience in online publishing and sales, but it certainly seems like introducing $$$ to the equation will only complicate things. To sum up: If you want to release a high quality free product, then just do it!

 

[Kichwas]

The problem with free is you get tossed into that 'Oh... this is another of those unplaytested Netbook thingies'. Which tosses you out the door with almost all of the DMs I've known over the years.

If I brought such a book to my DM and said "Can I use this?" chances are I'd get a no before they even looked at it.

But if it's been paid for; it suddenly seems 'professional', and more people are willing to read it; then dismiss it. Except that once they read it if it actually is good they might not dismiss it.

It looks like the market is locked into a $5 minimum simply because of the way RPGnow has set up it's software.

This give me an idea for a poll though.

 

[tensen]

I would much prefer to see more of the .pdf products at a slightly lower level. $3-$4 for a 32 page .pdf product is what I'd like to see. Of course looking at sales on rpgnow, any adventures would have to be priced considerably more than that to recoup their costs.