New from MEG at RPGnow

[Mystic Eye]

Hi all,

We are releasing three products at RPGNow this week. These are the e-version of:
Siege on Ebonring Keep for Monte Cook's Arcana Unearthed
Guilds and Adventurers: d20 sourcebook.
Giant Monster Rampage 2

These will be up by around the 21st or perhaps sooner. Check them out and don't forget we have teamed up with Ronin Arts in regards to our products at RPGNow so look for them there.

 

[Crothian]

That's really cool Doug. Are you guys planning to eventually release everything as e-books once it's been out in print for a while?

 

[MEG Hal]

That's really cool Doug. Are you guys planning to eventually release everything as e-books once it's been out in print for a while?

Not Doug but here is our theory:
In most cases yes, some of the earlier stuff is on a format we cannot get to pdf I am afraid but if it can becaome a pdf we will eventually get all of our books in that medium as well.

We also have some crossover news on a pdf that is usable with a certain city....details coming soon.

 

[Mystic Eye]

That's really cool Doug. Are you guys planning to eventually release everything as e-books once it's been out in print for a while?

Thanks Crothian,

To add to Hal's post about this we are going to get a lot of our books to PDF eventually. Some of the early ones such s Of Places Most Foul, Mystic Warriors, N&D and N&D2 would need to be completely redone before release so they may never make it but we will try.
We primarily want to release our books in this format so those that do not have access to the print products can still enjoy our stuff.

 

[rpghost]

Not to hijack your thread... well ok, I am... But we recently surveyed our vendors and out of over 20 vendors that also do print products, 95% of them all said that releasing their products in PDF had no ill effects on their print sales. 35% of them in fact said that they either pre-released or co-released PDF with print. On top of that several vendors even said their print products had increased sales with the buzz generated by the PDF releases.

In sort, I'm wondering why so many companies only want to release PDF's after the print run is dead? What does that help? Who does that serve? The Retailers? I donno, I'm a Retailer and it certainly doesn't bother me that PDFs are out there. Most poeple who want print buy print. Most gamers want print. That's just life. People buying the PDFs are usually people who didn't want to spend the extra on the print book anyway, or didn't have access to a local shop who stocked your book, or overseas customers.

Well, I've said enough. Sorry to rant a bit.
James
RPGNow.com

 

[Brother Shatterstone]

People buying the PDFs are usually people who didn't want to spend the extra on the print book anyway, or didn't have access to a local shop who stocked your book, or overseas customers.

I can honestly say that the above is simply not true... I have no local shop, of any type so this doesn't just apply to Meg books, and I still manage to by print and I buy allot of it. In fact its simpler, and cheaper, to buy off the Internet. Of course I don't get to preview the book before I buy but that's what ENworld is for anyhow.

Now that you know where I'm coming from I applauded MEG for making there out of print books available for sale via pdf.

On top of that several vendors even said their print products had increased sales with the buzz generated by the PDF releases.

James, is it possible to see an actually number other than "several?" I'm just curious nothing more and I'm not connected in anyway to the producing of RPG products I'm just a curious shopper.

 

[MEG Hal]

First thanks Brother S...

James, some of the releases we have set up for you are not "dead", we just felt the time was right, we put out Dry Lands within weeks of the release, so we are experimenting with what happens to the market etc... I like Brother S would love for you to share stats and examples of the increase of sales with a pre and co-release etc....

Thanks
No Rant here, Hal is tired

 

[Cergorach]

Not Doug but here is our theory:
In most cases yes, some of the earlier stuff is on a format we cannot get to pdf I am afraid but if it can becaome a pdf we will eventually get all of our books in that medium as well.

In what kind of format was that 'stuff' maybe we can find a way around the problem (i'm good at that ;-)

 

[MEG Hal]

In what kind of format was that 'stuff' maybe we can find a way around the problem (i'm good at that ;-)

If Doug does not post I will e-mail him and have him tell me what format the files are in, thanks for the offer!

 

[Mystic Eye]

In what kind of format was that 'stuff' maybe we can find a way around the problem (i'm good at that ;-)

They were done in an old version of Publisher and they are terrible to try and work with. PDFs do not compress well at all. Any ideas?