PDF Industry - How do we help it grow?
- Thread starter rpghost
- Start date
Blacksad
Explorer
Perhaps you could expand the burn on CD feature.
RPGnow could become some kind of publisher of RPG CD for LGS.
I think the cap price for CD would be around $30-$40
You would need to find publisher willing to make bundle, or perhaps to do theme CD.
Another thing to ensure that first buyer do not go away: remove really crappy products (like terra ferax wilderness encounter).
My FLGS do not present crappy product on their shelves, and they took back the first slayer guide they sold, because they weren't aware of its crappyness.
I think that quite a lot of LGS offer this kind of service.
P.S. yes I provide exemples, and I'm not even a bit ashamed of that.
RPGnow could become some kind of publisher of RPG CD for LGS.
I think the cap price for CD would be around $30-$40
You would need to find publisher willing to make bundle, or perhaps to do theme CD.
Another thing to ensure that first buyer do not go away: remove really crappy products (like terra ferax wilderness encounter).
My FLGS do not present crappy product on their shelves, and they took back the first slayer guide they sold, because they weren't aware of its crappyness.
I think that quite a lot of LGS offer this kind of service.
P.S. yes I provide exemples, and I'm not even a bit ashamed of that.
Bloodstone Press
Explorer
My own plan is to target those people who already buy PDFs online, but are unfamiliar with d20 gaming. There is a fairly large group of people who buy PDF books from places like bookzone.com, and Amazon (although I think Amazon doesn't do a whole lot of PDF sales).
About 1.5 years ago, I did some market research on the online publishing industry in general (non-gaming, fiction publishing). At the time, most of those publishers could expect to sell about 500 copies of a title in one year.
I think these consumers are a good target market because:
A) The behavior of purchasing PDFs is already familiar to them.
B) They already have an interest in literature and fiction.
C) In the long run, this marketing effort will expand the total number of people playing d20, rather than cannibalizing sales from other publishers and products.
Unfortunately, I am too busy with my day job, school, and my current d20 products to even start thinking about creating a promotional product to work this angle.
If I had the time, I'd write a collection of short stories and market it on bookzone, and other storefronts that sell PDF literature. This collection of short stories would include several quality pieces of art done by some of d20s best artists, sidebars and notes detailing some important items, spells and characters from the stories in game statistic format, and an appendix that introduces d20 gaming in general, complete with hyperlinks to EN World, RPGNow, Wizards, and several other main sites.
If done right, this PDF book would look a lot like a d20 supplement (it would even have the OGL and the d20 logo on it, since it has d20 game material in it). It would have eye-catching art, and would provide a unique (to the uninitiated reader) behind-the-scenes look at the characters, spells, and items discussed in the stories.
Remember though, if anybody tries this, the results will not be profound. Typically, it will result in about 10 new d20 gamers in a year (a guess, based on 500 annual sales).
Don't get disheartened though either... a few customers here, a few customers there....
About 1.5 years ago, I did some market research on the online publishing industry in general (non-gaming, fiction publishing). At the time, most of those publishers could expect to sell about 500 copies of a title in one year.
I think these consumers are a good target market because:
A) The behavior of purchasing PDFs is already familiar to them.
B) They already have an interest in literature and fiction.
C) In the long run, this marketing effort will expand the total number of people playing d20, rather than cannibalizing sales from other publishers and products.
Unfortunately, I am too busy with my day job, school, and my current d20 products to even start thinking about creating a promotional product to work this angle.
If I had the time, I'd write a collection of short stories and market it on bookzone, and other storefronts that sell PDF literature. This collection of short stories would include several quality pieces of art done by some of d20s best artists, sidebars and notes detailing some important items, spells and characters from the stories in game statistic format, and an appendix that introduces d20 gaming in general, complete with hyperlinks to EN World, RPGNow, Wizards, and several other main sites.
If done right, this PDF book would look a lot like a d20 supplement (it would even have the OGL and the d20 logo on it, since it has d20 game material in it). It would have eye-catching art, and would provide a unique (to the uninitiated reader) behind-the-scenes look at the characters, spells, and items discussed in the stories.
Remember though, if anybody tries this, the results will not be profound. Typically, it will result in about 10 new d20 gamers in a year (a guess, based on 500 annual sales).
Don't get disheartened though either... a few customers here, a few customers there....
Last edited:
Mark
CreativeMountainGames.com
I would find it hard to believe that most (not all, but most) gamers who buy print products don't have an internet connection in this day in age. Working from that assumption, it would seem to be a matter of reaching them in a receptive environment. Perhaps you can trade advertising on your network to print publishers who also do PDFs through your site in exchange for ad space in the back of their print books.
There seems to be a large number of play-by-post and play-by-email web sites in existence. Maybe as a group PDF publishers could round up as many urls as possible on those and a banner exchange program with more of them could be institued. Maybe even offering some product or contests from PDF publishers to their specific traffic as a further incentive.
That's it from me for now...
There seems to be a large number of play-by-post and play-by-email web sites in existence. Maybe as a group PDF publishers could round up as many urls as possible on those and a banner exchange program with more of them could be institued. Maybe even offering some product or contests from PDF publishers to their specific traffic as a further incentive.
That's it from me for now...
thormagni
Explorer
Well, from a new consumer's perspective, I can say that two things really drew me to RPGNow: the free Tri-stat DX game and Monte Cook's Unearthed Arcana excerpts. By no means am I new to PDF gaming products in general. In fact, I have a rather large collection of them, starting with Hero Games' various books that I bought, to the things I have found online, here there and yon.
Someone suggested that you should go to publishers with a list of PDFs you found on Grokster/Kazaa/the binary newsgroups and encourage the publishers to let you sell their product. I would like to suggest the opposite -- finding a way to reach out to the people who are downloading the books from those sites. Because I can tell you from personal experience that a vast majority of the material that is available through the pirate channels is very poorly scanned. And they rarely have been rendered in OCR, so the inherent benefit of searching a computerized document is eliminated. I think a case could be made that people get what they pay for and for high-quality, OCR books, your site is the way to go.
So, maybe intentionally floating a PDF catalog on some of these sites/newsgroups would be a good first step.
One obstacle to PDF sales that I haven't seen discussed so far, and I think it is a big one, is the relative usefulness of a PDF gaming book. Frankly, it is not always convenient to have only a PDF copy of a book. And once you print it out (unless you are using a work printer, or something of the sort, where there is no cost to the user) the cost is now comparable to an actual printed book. For example, if I buy a 200-page PDF for $5-$10, then print it out for 10 cents a page, then put it in a $2-$3 binder, or pay the same to have it wire-bound, that is nearly a $30 investment. And if it is a color book, well there is no way that it can be printed at home with the quality and cost-effectiveness of buying the hardbound version at the game store.
And here is my final PDF thought, assuming that most people are choosing NOT to print their PDF out and incur that expense, instead choosing to read it on the computer screen, why are PDF documents invariably formatted in the portrait style? This requires the reader to scan down one column on the screen, then backtrack up the screen again to read the next column, then page down for the next page. If PDFs were formatted for the computer screen, i.e., landscape, the person reading at the computer would have an easier time reading them, while the person printing them out could simply turn the printout sideways for reading.
Just my thoughts.
Someone suggested that you should go to publishers with a list of PDFs you found on Grokster/Kazaa/the binary newsgroups and encourage the publishers to let you sell their product. I would like to suggest the opposite -- finding a way to reach out to the people who are downloading the books from those sites. Because I can tell you from personal experience that a vast majority of the material that is available through the pirate channels is very poorly scanned. And they rarely have been rendered in OCR, so the inherent benefit of searching a computerized document is eliminated. I think a case could be made that people get what they pay for and for high-quality, OCR books, your site is the way to go.
So, maybe intentionally floating a PDF catalog on some of these sites/newsgroups would be a good first step.
One obstacle to PDF sales that I haven't seen discussed so far, and I think it is a big one, is the relative usefulness of a PDF gaming book. Frankly, it is not always convenient to have only a PDF copy of a book. And once you print it out (unless you are using a work printer, or something of the sort, where there is no cost to the user) the cost is now comparable to an actual printed book. For example, if I buy a 200-page PDF for $5-$10, then print it out for 10 cents a page, then put it in a $2-$3 binder, or pay the same to have it wire-bound, that is nearly a $30 investment. And if it is a color book, well there is no way that it can be printed at home with the quality and cost-effectiveness of buying the hardbound version at the game store.
And here is my final PDF thought, assuming that most people are choosing NOT to print their PDF out and incur that expense, instead choosing to read it on the computer screen, why are PDF documents invariably formatted in the portrait style? This requires the reader to scan down one column on the screen, then backtrack up the screen again to read the next column, then page down for the next page. If PDFs were formatted for the computer screen, i.e., landscape, the person reading at the computer would have an easier time reading them, while the person printing them out could simply turn the printout sideways for reading.
Just my thoughts.
rpghost
First Post
thormagni said:
That's an awesome idea... or even our 300mb free sampler CD could be distributed. It's got some value to it.
But I'm not big on the priate channels/methods. I'd need some people to help me spread such things. Any takers?
Anyway, all your comments were excellent. Thanks!
James
rpghost
First Post
Ashy said:Now THAT is the best idea I think I've heard so far - advertising on places like Macray's Keep and such - that should hit just the folks we're looking for!Great idea, Mark!
We actually run Macray's Keep's RPG Store front... so there is some cross connection there- but probably not enough. We don't see much sales from that channel though
James
Mark
CreativeMountainGames.com
The guy who runs www.roleplayinggames.net is named Donboy (IIRC, try webmaster @) and has good traffic, too. He might go for an exchange. They generally run old and new D&D plus some SW so you might want to mention the TSR stuff along with the third party sections you have if you contact him.
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