Sledge
First Post
the question isn't about losses with PDFs as there is no inventory lost. The question is how much will fighting piracy gain you in sales?
A little story way back in the original napster days I had just gotten the CD to S&M by Metallica. Great couple of discs. But I wanted it in mp3 format and didn't have any software to do so. So I went looking on napster. I never shared their songs, and could have legally converted the disc to mp3 had I known how. Downloading was easier. Metallica however was one of the first bands to fight napster, while others actively thought it was a good idea. So I didn't get my mp3's then, and had to learn how to rip them. I ripped them, and enjoy the music, but I've never bought a Metallica CD since. The bad taste in my mouth of getting a threatening message from Metallica has kept me from them. After napster got shut down I stopped buying new cds. We have around 200 music cds here. Of which maybe 5 are from the last 5 years. The rest are from another 5 year period. 195 cds before riaa fights sharing. 5 after fighting starts. Now I listen to digital radio and the songs I already have.
Businesses need to look at things from a goal oriented perspective, just a perspective of what they deserve. The deserve perspective is why Sony did the rootkit. The goal perspective is responsible for places you can buy mp3s online. Fighting with potential customers does not inspire them to buy from you.
Getting back to the PDF situation. I really like pdfs. I like buying them. I have some comp pdfs that I wanted to pay for because I like them so much. Instead I just have to buy other pdfs buy the same publisher. I don't share any of my commercial pdfs. If someone came to my game with a printed out copy of a book, I would ask them where they got it from. It's never happened though. I don't see piracy as a bad thing happening to pdf publishers, so much as people that need to be sold better. Customers waiting to happen.
For a pdf producer one of the things they need to do are make sure they have information on the pdf that shows it is for pay. This can be done in a nice enough way that when I open the pdf I get a "Thanks for purchasing" like in Bastion Press pdfs. This takes any accidental downloads and makes me feel good for making sure more books come out. The people that do share then are also propogating the message of how the payments for these books are for real people, thus motivating more sales.
Second I would strongly suggest that every pdf publisher install a copy of one of the safe P2P programs. Set it up to share all of your demos. Get them out there for people to see. If someone is planning to download say "Complete Minions" from bastion they should get a list of the demo files first. They open the demo files and should get a nice little message saying: please share this demo with your friends to help spread the word on Complete Minions. Then maybe they will download the full file, or just maybe they will click a link in your pdf to ENGS or RPGNow or other stores. That link there makes it easy. The one thing you don't want is to establish animosity with those people that could become customers.
The third thing I'm going to suggest is mostly irrelevant, but don't offer a pdf for cover or close to cover price. That defeats the whole point of it being on pdf.
A little story way back in the original napster days I had just gotten the CD to S&M by Metallica. Great couple of discs. But I wanted it in mp3 format and didn't have any software to do so. So I went looking on napster. I never shared their songs, and could have legally converted the disc to mp3 had I known how. Downloading was easier. Metallica however was one of the first bands to fight napster, while others actively thought it was a good idea. So I didn't get my mp3's then, and had to learn how to rip them. I ripped them, and enjoy the music, but I've never bought a Metallica CD since. The bad taste in my mouth of getting a threatening message from Metallica has kept me from them. After napster got shut down I stopped buying new cds. We have around 200 music cds here. Of which maybe 5 are from the last 5 years. The rest are from another 5 year period. 195 cds before riaa fights sharing. 5 after fighting starts. Now I listen to digital radio and the songs I already have.
Businesses need to look at things from a goal oriented perspective, just a perspective of what they deserve. The deserve perspective is why Sony did the rootkit. The goal perspective is responsible for places you can buy mp3s online. Fighting with potential customers does not inspire them to buy from you.
Getting back to the PDF situation. I really like pdfs. I like buying them. I have some comp pdfs that I wanted to pay for because I like them so much. Instead I just have to buy other pdfs buy the same publisher. I don't share any of my commercial pdfs. If someone came to my game with a printed out copy of a book, I would ask them where they got it from. It's never happened though. I don't see piracy as a bad thing happening to pdf publishers, so much as people that need to be sold better. Customers waiting to happen.
For a pdf producer one of the things they need to do are make sure they have information on the pdf that shows it is for pay. This can be done in a nice enough way that when I open the pdf I get a "Thanks for purchasing" like in Bastion Press pdfs. This takes any accidental downloads and makes me feel good for making sure more books come out. The people that do share then are also propogating the message of how the payments for these books are for real people, thus motivating more sales.
Second I would strongly suggest that every pdf publisher install a copy of one of the safe P2P programs. Set it up to share all of your demos. Get them out there for people to see. If someone is planning to download say "Complete Minions" from bastion they should get a list of the demo files first. They open the demo files and should get a nice little message saying: please share this demo with your friends to help spread the word on Complete Minions. Then maybe they will download the full file, or just maybe they will click a link in your pdf to ENGS or RPGNow or other stores. That link there makes it easy. The one thing you don't want is to establish animosity with those people that could become customers.
The third thing I'm going to suggest is mostly irrelevant, but don't offer a pdf for cover or close to cover price. That defeats the whole point of it being on pdf.