NDA Early access to 3.5 rules for d20 Print Publishers

[tensen]

The point that PDFs can be upgraded "on the fly" works in defense of the policy. You can upgrade basically for free, while a print product cannot be upgraded until the next printing.

The actual PDF can be upgraded on the fly.... but the actual rule changes need the same playtesting time as in a print product.

It doesn't bother the products that are released and change, as much as it does all the future releases that need to be sidelined until such time as the playtesters can all accomodate getting the new rules and understanding them.

 

[Frilf]

It doesn't bother the products that are released and change, as much as it does all the future releases that need to be sidelined until such time as the playtesters can all accomodate getting the new rules and understanding them.

Ditto that. Tensen, Ben, and The Sigil have all made valid points here. Perhaps WotC could restrict sending the new rules based on whether or not a company has published a product and/or whether or not that company has "registered" with WotC via the little postcard they want you to send in when a new company agrees to the d20 license.

I don't think there's anything overtly biased or sinister going on, I just think they haven't thought through what they're doing well enough. It will have a big impact on what gets released this year, for the reasons quoted above. Still, I'm sending my NDA anyway. Who knows? I could get lucky in SRD roulette

Cheers!
Ian

 

[PatrickLawinger]

While it doesn't seem terribly fair, it sounds to me simply like Wizards is trying to reduce some of their own expenditures doing something that, quite frankly, they don't have to do at all.

With the hacking, pirating, etc. that goes on they pretty much have to restrict the pre-release info to print, this means a large cost for them to print it out in small numbers and then send it off to the people they "accept."

While all d20 publishers contribute to and support DnD in some way, print publishers make huge risks on investment. It can take months between the final edit of a product, and that product hitting the shelves.

Instead of complaining I think people should be excited. This shows an ongoing dedication to the d20 system, and publishers, that many people said would disappear after Ryan D. left. Despite any limitations they might put on it, they are making a statement about their support for d20 and I think it is fantastic.

 

[sigfried]

Why not try anyway

I don't like that they have bent over backwards to restrict their list to print only publishers. I'm only a little offended, but if I were them I'd probably do the same thing. Those guys have financial incentive to stick to the NDA, as opposed to the usual yahoos, who aren't likely to be afraid of breaking the agreement. So I think its more a question of who they trust more than who they like.

I'll try to get in there anyway by begging and brown-nosing. These tactics have been pretty effective for me so far, but this one is an up-hill battle.

Over in Netbook of Feats land I've got to deal with two layers of discrimination. The first is were not in print. The second is we don't charge any money for our product. I always try to get us listed as publishers instead of fan work, but usually with little luck.

I'll have to say that it is easier for us to update than printed products. If we make a mistake we just fix it in the next pass. Our HTML version takes about 10 seconds to generate, and the PDF takes a few hours to reprint.

Still I'd like to think that if there is anyone who needs to know what the rules are going to look like it's us.

 

[jmucchiello]

Re: Why not try anyway

I don't like that they have bent over backwards to restrict their list to print only publishers. I'm only a little offended, but if I were them I'd probably do the same thing. Those guys have financial incentive to stick to the NDA, as opposed to the usual yahoos, who aren't likely to be afraid of breaking the agreement. So I think its more a question of who they trust more than who they like.

Careful how you refer to yahoos. Do you mean me? Sigil? Tensen? Phil?

Personally, they would have been better off not mentioning the criteria at all. I understand they have to pay to ship the rules. I just don't understand why they would willingly show both negative and positive bias: PDFers negative, former employees possitive.

That reminds me, I need to send in that little card.

 

[The Sigil]

While all d20 publishers contribute to and support DnD in some way, print publishers make huge risks on investment. It can take months between the final edit of a product, and that product hitting the shelves.

This, along with the "well, PDF publishers can just update their products with an e-mail" are NOT compelling arguments.

Think about the product development process... where is the most time - and money spent? As far as "time" goes, it's certainly NOT in the printing.

How much lead time do publishers give themselves? AFAIK, it's usually 6 months to a year. I am not in the print business, but as far as I can tell, once a product passes through Final Edit, it usually takes between one and two months to get back from the printers. That means that the vast majority of the time expenditure on a product is - gasp - in the writing and revising and illustrating and editing and laying out and playtesting. The time to get it to the printers is almost negligible compared to the rest of it.

Where does most of the money in a typical print product go? IIRC, writers, artists, and editors wind up with as much - if not more - profit as the publisher - which implies that the work involved drawing together your content costs about as much as the printing process itself (I may be wrong here).

What's the point I'm trying to make here?

1.) PDF publishers - who put in about the same amount of writing, playtesting, editing, and layout time (or close to it) as print publishers do to see their product released - see about the same amount of "labor cost" - which is a risk - even if they are doing the labor themselves (they could easily be doing something else). IOW, the "risk" associated with the actual writing process is almost the same as that for a print publisher.

2.) PDF publishers need almost as much time to get their products prepped as print publishers - the only difference between prep time (in theory) is the month or two the print publishers have to "wait" to get their product to market after final edit. But notice that once final edit is done, the print publishers aren't doing any more work on that product anyway, so that time really doesn't add to the cost of the print publisher.

3.) The financial risk undertaken by print publishers is worth considering - however, assuming that a print publisher is writing and laying out his own material (rather than paying freelancers), I would suggest that the "cost" of printing and obtaining art is about equal to the "cost" of the writing and laying out. In other words, f you account for "labor cost," print publishers are not, as may be believed, risking an order of magnitude or two more resources than the PDF publisher. Rather, they are risking only two to three times as much... with a much greater potential payoff.

In other words, print publishers put up capital in the form of money. PDF publishers put up capital in the form of time. To be perfectly honest, I think if PDF publishers "charged" minimum wage for the time they use on creating their products, they'd be deep in the hole. If they charged $1/hour, they might be breaking even - barely. Just because my capital isn't green, don't diminish its value. In terms of potential payoff, I take as much risk - probably more, percentagewise - putting out PDF products in the form of "opportunity cost" as a print publisher does in the form of "green."

I'm probably not coming across very clearly any more here, but I hope the point is made.

*PDF publishers risk as much "capital" (in terms of "opportunity cost" of the time they spent) - if not more - than print publishers based on expected returns.
*Print publishers' "prep time" is not really that much more than PDF publishers - and on a "time spent from start to end of work on project by sending final copy to printers" basis (rather than a "time from start to product hitting shelves" basis), the time is THE SAME (or ought to be).

PDF does enjoy some advantages (e.g., upgrades) over print, but print enjoys some significant advantages (e.g., profit) over PDF. A print publisher does NOT have to have all of his products bought by consumers - merely by stores that put the products on the shelves (I may be wrong if stores can "chargeback"). But a PDF publisher has to get his product into the hands of a consumer to turn a profit. That means the PDF publisher has to do a better job convincing his customers to buy - a really hard job considering they can't exactly "leaf through" the book in the first place.

I would have had no problem had WotC tried to keep every D&D player and his brother from publishing a 5-page PDF in order to get into the race. Had they said, "any publisher who has published at least X products prior to Y date," that would have been fair - IOW, "you must have some minimum level of a track record - no jumping in with something crappy just to jump in."

But to say, "no" to PDF publishers - who put in as much work on their products (at least, I think the good ones do) as print publishers - while specifically making an exception to allow some of the WotC employees in *is* a slap in the face. They may not have meant it that way, but that is what it is. The exception for WotC employees is what makes the PDF exclusion harder to stomach. I could even live with "no PDF publishers," and I understand "quality control," but make exceptions for your "friends" is classic bad politics.

PDF publishers have to work just as hard to get out a product as print publishers - they might not have to lay out quite as much money up front, but OTOH, they don't get an awful lot on the back end, either. Heck, the EoMM - in the top 30 products of all time on RPGNow.com - has currently made just enough profit to "pay for itself" in software (MS Word and Adobe Acrobat) - and STILL hasn't paid for the time I put into it, even if I charged $1/hour.

So, no, I don't think "PDF publishers can adjust more quickly" (writing/editing/et al takes as much time whether you're PDF or print).

And no, just because PDF publishers can update their products more quickly doesn't "level the playing field" either. A print publisher gets a copy of D&D3.5 and if he completes final edits in July (as the 3.5 rulebooks are released), his book hits stores in August or September. The PDF publisher has to wait until the core books are released in July, spend a couple of months digesting the changes, then playtest revisions to his stuff (a couple more months), then do the rewrites and editing (another month or so) - meaning that the PDF publisher's first 3.5 products hit in December. That gives print publishers a 3 month jump on the PDF guys - even though PDF guys can "update instantly." It's not as simple as you'd like to think.

I'm repeating myself. End of rant.

--The Sigil

 

[PatrickLawinger]

Sigil,
It does seem like you are on a rant there. I never said anything about the time and effort of pdf publishing vs. print. There IS a longer lag time with print and a print product is virtually impossible to update, not so with pdf. There is also a larger up-front expenditure when going to print. Believe me, paying for 2,000 copies of something in print is NOT cheap. Oh, yes, stores can (in most cases) return products resulting in chargebacks. Print lag times include time at the printer, shipping from the printer to you, shipping to the distributor, etc. Sure, I suppose you could use FedEx for everything but then you would need a $100 list price to hope to break even. Distribution itself is a whole 'nother can of worms.

If someone puts out a new book of magic items that doesn't fit with the revised rules one month before the new books come out, they are screwed if it is in print, they have the opportunity to update it if it is a pdf. Is it a ton of work? Yes. The key is that it is possible with a pdf, you can't deny that.

As far as playtesting, I don't think the rules changes are going to be that extensive. As far as certain limited items, they might be. Monster books, magic item creation, etc. If I was planning a pdf book about such items I would specifically write someone at WotC (probably Anthony Valterra) stating exactly what I was planning (possibly providing an outline and sample), asking for access to whatever information I might need to be compatable with the revision, and promising not to release until AFTER the rulebooks come out. Of course, I would do this after submitting my application so I could state that the application was filed.

In WotC's place what would you do? With an established print publisher you have someone you know has made major capital expenditures for their business. Such people are generally not going to violate a NDA as it could (and probably would) destroy them. A .pdf publisher they don't know anything about with one or two minor items out? I would be hesitant too.

Frankly, I don't expect the print publishers to have the revised rules incredibly early. People like SSS with the revised Creature Collection should be able to manage a fast turn around. They'll probably need to update a bunch of stat blocks. They have the art ready, most of the layout ready, etc. Worst case, they'll have to adjust kerning on a few pages to make sure things fit. I expect they can have that book printed and ready for GenCon. A company that has a manuscript (and artwork etc.) essentially done is going to have few problems making the "conversion." If you are going from scratch it will take a while longer, but then you weren't waiting on the new rules anyway.

Let's face facts, Wizards doesn't have to let anyone have the new rules until the new SRD comes out. They are making an active effort to get the information to people THEY feel need (deserve, or whatever you want to put here) it. You don't have to agree with their decision making process, I would probably use a different method (or at least different wording) myself, but you do have to admit that they ARE supporting d20 by making the effort and by promising to put everything in the SRD.

When Ryan Dancey left WotC people in THIS forum were proclaiming d20 dead and claiming that WotC wasn't going to support it anymore. Now they are complaining about the decision process for who gets an early look at the rules. It would appear that some people are just going to hate WotC no matter what.

 

[HyrumOWC]

3.) The financial risk undertaken by print publishers is worth considering - however, assuming that a print publisher is writing and laying out his own material (rather than paying freelancers), I would suggest that the "cost" of printing and obtaining art is about equal to the "cost" of the writing and laying out.

While I don't really feel like weighing in on the Print vs. PDF debate, I do want to say that the above is completely wrong. Printing tends to be the single largest cost in producing print products, by a very large margin.

To illustrate, I'll share some of the quotes I solicited for Mercenaries: Born of Blood, a 192 page book printed in B&W:

To print 1500 copies, softcover, I received the following:

$4600
$5500
$6300

To print 2000 copies, softcover, I received these quotes:

$5400
$6500
$7200

To print 2000 copies, hardcover, I received these:

$8900
$11,500

To print 5000 copies, softcover:

$9200
$11900

And finally, to print 5000 copies, hardcover:

$13,000
$15,500

These print quotes (except for the 1500 copies) are more than we pay for writing, layout and art. And from most of the other publishers I've spoken with, these quotes would be higher than what they budget as well, for a book of about the same size. (110,000 words)

Are you honestly saying that you, as a PDF publisher, are paying more than $5400 for layout, writing, and art?

Hyrum.

 

[d20Dwarf]

In other words, print publishers put up capital in the form of money. PDF publishers put up capital in the form of time. To be perfectly honest, I think if PDF publishers "charged" minimum wage for the time they use on creating their products, they'd be deep in the hole. If they charged $1/hour, they might be breaking even - barely. Just because my capital isn't green, don't diminish its value. In terms of potential payoff, I take as much risk - probably more, percentagewise - putting out PDF products in the form of "opportunity cost" as a print publisher does in the form of "green."

This is wrong. You are saying that print publishers do not invest time...by your analysis, it should be PDF publishers invest time while print publishers invest time AND money (and a lot of money at that).

I had some other quotes, but frankly I would be quoting the whole thing, since it was almost entirely false due to bad reasoning and/or knowledge (depending on which issue).

Print publishers don't just send a product to the printers and voila! it magically gets to customers. They have to warehouse it, ship it, pay employees, deal with distributors, give a much larger discount than PDF publishers.....none of these things a PDF publisher has to worry about in any significant capacity.

I wasn't going to weigh in on this again, but The Sigil's rant was just so full of falsehoods and faulty logic that I thought it needed to be called out.

I got my start in this industry by being a part of a PDF project, but I never thought it was as good as a professionally produced book. And frankly, only the best PDF publications (that I've seen) can compare to mediocre or poor print products. The bar for entry and risk are both just too low to worry about getting it right.

I'm not disparaging PDF products for WHAT THEY ARE, but to try to defend them as something they ARE NOT, comes across as a little addle-brained to me.

 

[jmucchiello]

I'm sure he can defend himself but I think this is the crux of what Spencer is saying.

In other words, f you account for "labor cost," print publishers are not, as may be believed, risking an order of magnitude or two (Emphasis added) more resources than the PDF publisher. Rather, they are risking only two to three times as much... with a much greater potential payoff.

So you have a quote for a 110,000 word book and the print cost is around (I'll call it) $6,000. 110,000 words at a rock bottom $0.03 per word costs you $3,300 to write and another (lowball) $1,000 to edit and layout. How many illustrations are in it? 192 pages with 10% coverage is around $80x19 full page B&W illos for interior art. ($1,520) How much is the color cover? $600+? That's $6,420 for the creation of the book. So print vs PDF is an outlay of about twice as much capital. Not an order of magnitude or two. And that assumes the cheapest artists and writers. It assumes a non-monster book which would explode the art budget.

So a print publisher is risking almost twice as much as a serious PDF publisher. And somehow that makes them seem more worthy. I think that's all Sigil wants you to see.

That's what I got from his rant. Thanks Sig.