Greg Benage wrote:
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All due respect Erik, but markets don't work like this. The consumer generally doesn't care or even know what a product cost the manufacturer. He just cares whether or not it's a good value for him, all things considered (how much he needs or wants it, cost and availability of substitute products, etc.). A gamer who decides Oathbound isn't worth $40 to him isn't irrational, he's just making an everyday, ordinary purchasing decision.
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Clearly.
The most important factor in whether or not a book will sell is whether or not a whole bunch of people are interested enough to buy it. I specifically used Oathbound and BotR as examples because of their nearly universal approval rating (albeit anecdotal) posted to this web site. If someone isn't interested in a new setting or a book featuring a complete pantheon, the books could cost a dollar and it wouldn't matter.
I'm already assuming, in my argument on the last page, that the purchaser is interested in the concept of the material in question. I apologize if I didn't make that clear.
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I find it interesting that we, as publishers, are claiming that our customers are willing to pay more for our products and complaining that our sales are slipping at the same time. This, I would suggest, does not compute.
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I agree, it doesn't compute.
I don't think the two have anything to do with each other, frankly. Put out a book that fills a niche no one has touched and that people are genuinely interested in (a book on traps, for instance), and you're likely to sell quite a lot of copies, even in this market. I think the sales slowdown has a LOT more to do with a glut of product and multiple books on the same subject from a variety of publishers than on the fact that consumers in general think their products are "too expensive." If you already own three books about naval battles and don't have any interest in a fourth, again, it's not going to matter if that fourth book is a really good value.
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Are prices too low to make good money in the RPG industry? You bet. Sadly, unless you have a really hot, high-demand product, you'll most likely just sell less books if you raise prices significantly.
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I'm not even advocating a "significant" increase in price. I hate to keep harping on Necromancer, but Clark's a good sport. Does anyone honestly believe that a book like that would suffer a siginicant, profit-affecting sales drop if priced at $32.95 rather than $30? Yet such a seemingly insigificant change to the price on the consumer's end might result in thousands of extra dollars in revenue for Clark. Even if he sells fewer copies, it's possible that he still makes more money. I'm not advocating charging $40 for the Tome of Horrors (though I suspect he could and make a tidy profit), but I am suggesting that a $30 price point is simply lower than it needs to be.
Remember, this conversation began as a discussion of how much various publishers pay their writers. Clark lamented that he had to pay less than the industry standard because he wasn't making enough money to pay more. I suggest that he could make more money, which, among other things would allow him to pay his writers better, by charging more for his products.
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Our customers have shelves full of d20 books, and shelves more to choose from every month. They *will* get pickier about what they buy. If you want to keep your sales up, you better make damn sure it's a good product that your customers actually want *and* that it's available at a competitive price.
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And, unless you're doing this as a pure hobby, you probably want to make sure that your price is fair to YOU and your employees, too. I completely agree with you that consumers are becoming more and more picky, especially as the same types of books have proliferated the store shelves over the last year or so. The age of getting rich off a crappy product is behind us.
So many publishers are turning to snazzy graphic design, better paper, better illustrations, and color to catch the attention of their would-be fans. My hope is that they price their products sensibly so as to keep themselves in business and can pay their freelance writers more than what was a common rate for cheap pulp fiction magazines in the 1920s.
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You won't likely make good money in the RPG industry because it's a weak market based on a tiny customer base that doesn't really need your products to participate in their hobby. From a business perspective, you're not making enough money because *you don't sell enough product* -- not because your prices are "too low." Small market, low demand, real hard to make money. Bummer.
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I don't think anyone writing in the industry expects to be buying a Lexus any time soon, but nor do I think it unreasonable that full-time employees at game companies should expect benefits and 401(k) programs. I don't think it's unreasonable that a hard-working freelancer ought to be able to pay a modest rent and car payment. Most publishers don't have to struggle so hard. Most artists don't, either. I _know_ most printers don't. It's scapegoating and unfair to pay the writer so poorly.
Crap rates have chased off dozens of talented designers from this business, which I think is a shame. There are plenty of good ones waiting in the wings, but there are plenty of over-enthusiastic fans who continue the cycle of crap products waiting there, too.
Mor ecrap products mean more glutted shelves and less happy retailers, which means less innovation and less money for everyone.
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Build a solid business within the constraints of the market you've chosen, publish a breakout hit, do it for love rather than money, or do something else. Publishers, editors, writers, artists -- everyone involved in this "industry" is likely to
remain underpaid with a very few and notable exceptions.
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If you and several people at your company (FFG) make a wage doing this, and if you sell thousands of copies of books that bring profit to that company, and if there are several other companies out there doing the same thing, why the cutesy quotation marks around the word industry?
I'm convinced that one of the reasons so many people are broke in this industry is that so many participants in this industry aren't actually interested in making any money.
In short, we often don't take ourselves seriously. If we don't present our products as worthwhile of the kind of investment our customers routinely dish out for other forms of entertainment, why should our customers take us seriously, either?
--Erik
