I will pipe back up with a few more thoughts. Remember that I have no attachment to publishing right now so these are completely outsider perceptions.
The prohibition on posting links to sites makes good business sense for the ENGS. But it does put additional pressures on publishers. It changes marketing strategies somewhat and forces publishers to choose between yet another store.
Say you have a $5.00 product that has sold 200 copies. You have a sequel that you anticipate will sell a comparative amount. But now you can't provide a direct link to your RPGNow page. You can, however, choose to make it easier for some customers by joining the ENGS.
Assuming you pay RPGNow a 30% cut of your sales, you could get $700 from just using them.
At the ENGS, you pay 20% so if you completely replace all of your sales from RPGNow with ENGS, you would make $800, but you also have the $99 setup fee. So you actually make $701.
But what if half your sales remain at RPGNow? You get $350 from RPGNow and $400 at ENGS. That is $750, but then you take out the $99 entry fee and you are at $651 profit. You just made less money!
From what I hear, 200 sales on a single product is a significant sale. It could be less and you risk cannibalizing a greater percentage of your sales to the entry fee. What if you have a 25% cut with RPGNow instead of 30%? Is it worthwhile to pay the setup fee to make it easier for some of your existing customers to buy from a new source?
Contrast that to a new publisher, just starting out. RPGNow has a lower entry fee, but a greater cut into your per-sale profits. However, your entry fee includes guides to help you be successful. By contrast, EN World has a higher entry fee, but a lower royalty percentage. You gain the benefits of leveraging the EN World community easier.
But which choice will be a better business decision for you?
These are the decisions that publishers are having to make right now. They not only have had a new option opened to them, they have to change their marketing techniques specifically because of this new option.
The question is whether EN World can bring enough new sales for existing publishers to overcome the temporary setback with the signup fee? For smaller publishers, it might be quite a long time to make up that fee. But for publishers that have a deep backstock already, and have a solid, consistent release strategy, this won't be as difficult a cost to absorb.
It may look a little like grumbling, and it is to some extent. But there are legitimate business decisions that are having to be made right now. I do think it can be successful in the long haul if ENGS is able to do two things.
1) Bring in a reasonable number of new customers. As an example, (And I will 'pick on' Ronin Arts because I often have in the past and I don't think Phil has minded yet) if ENGS can improve the customer base for Ronin Arts by 10%, I suspect this is a great expansion. Additionally, once Ronin Arts has made up the $99 entry fee, it becomes preferrable for some customers to be buying through ENGS with a lower royalty fee.
2) Bring additional value for new publishers that are getting ready to enter the PDF market. The lower entry fee at RPGNow includes value added guides to try to run a successful PDF business. Those benefits might mean more sales and the difference between success and failure in the long term.
As it stands, the target publisher for ENGS currently appears to be the established publishers. That might even be a conscious decision by Morrus. It is better to launch a new storefront with the companies that already have the best track record. This might also change in the long term as ENGS becomes established.
As I said, these are mostly just observations from the perspective of an outsider. I think ENGS can be a good thing, but I understand where the changes cause some concern among publishers. I acknowledge where they are legitimate concerns as well. Ultimately, only time will tell how successful this will be.
). But there is no way the entire population of the united states (every man, woman and child cicra 1990AD) clicks a link to ENWorld every single month.
