RPGNow and the competition . . .

[philreed]

Phil,
As a consumer, I appreciate your stance. I have read the RPGHost thread, and through this one. The only thing I find truly concerning on my buying habits is that DTRPG requires that you sell a product at the same price on their site as you do on any other site.

Thank you for reviewing the discussion. I hope I've made it clear to everyone that all I am looking for is DTRPG to drop their percentages to match RPGNow OR demonstrate what they are doing to earn the extra money.

DRM, whether we like it or not, is a part of DTRPG for the near-future. I am not sure why someone would opt to purchase a DRM product when a plain PDF is available but, in the end, it is their choice to make. And I will argue that it's their choice just as strongly as I will argue it's my choice to sell or not sell on a site.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

[font=verdana, arial, helvetica]DriveThruRPG.com has standard royalty rates that all publishing partners use, the rates do not vary by publisher.

We offer publishers a 70% royalty if they are exclusive and a 65% royalty if they are non-exclusive. That rate is for titles where the publisher supplies the pdf file.

All electronic books offered on DriveThruRPG.com are now and will be for the foreseeable future in the secure format.

We do require publishers to sell products on DriveThru for the same "best" price as on their own or any other website. It's business suicide for us to spend money marketing the advantages of electronic rpgs and converting new customers on behalf of a publisher partner only to have that customer begin to buy all of their products direct from the publisher's own site (where they are cheaper) after we've paid the cost of attracting and converting the customer for the publisher.

We are accepting publisher inquiries and extending some publisher invitations. Any pdf publisher who is interested can e-mail me at stevewNOXXSPAM@DriveThruRPG.com (remove the NoXXSpam part of course).

I believe DriveThru offers existing electronic publishers immediate access to an additional customer base that is being introduced to electronic rpg e-books via DriveThru and its relations to the well- known print rpg publishers who are offering e-books for the first time through DriveThru and attracting their readers to the electronic format. I think publishers will find they get additive sales, not cannibalized sales by offering their products on DriveThru. I think that you have to look at DriveThru or any other e-Book sales partner and decide if they can add to your business's profits or not and make your decision from there.

Steve Wieck
www.DriveThruRPG.com[/font]

Wow. Are they insane? They require the publisher to take the hit of increased cost? Thats utterly insane. When the cost of bringing a product to the consumer rises, a buisness usually passes on that cost to the consumer. If not in whole then in part.

What I see possibly happening here is non exlusive publishers considering to raise their price on Rpgnow (and other vendors) to match their DTRPG price so they satisfy DTRPG's requirements. If they cant pass the fee onto the consumer at one site, they'll make a blanket increase in their product across the board to cover that revanue gap.

This is not good.

 

[rpghost]

I am not sure why someone would opt to purchase a DRM product when a plain PDF is available but, in the end, it is their choice to make.

Couple answers:

1) don't know about RPGNow.com
2) don't realize that PDFs come without DRM
3) lazy and was already buying something else there

In short it comes down to consumer education. Thus, most current customers of current RPGNow products will probably still shop there. So, the question is, who will be buying these products at DTRPG? The hope is new customers brought to them by their marketing and exclusive partners. The grander hope is of course that they eventually find RPGNow.com

Hopefully we can make that happen.
James

 

[Crothian]

From my conversations with Steve, it would appear that the complimentary mailing software isn't coded in yet for DTRPG, but I'm not certain of this.

That's interesting to note. But it just leads to any problem within the industry and that is lack of communication. That would have been a simple answer to give and yet all I recieve is nothing, no responses at all.

 

[Bagpuss]

Wow. Are they insane? They require the publisher to take the hit of increased cost? Thats utterly insane. When the cost of bringing a product to the consumer rises, a buisness usually passes on that cost to the consumer. If not in whole then in part.

That's not really true, most publishers don't sell from their own sites at less than RRP, except for odd special offers. Selling through a shop introduces additional cost but you don't see a difference in store price compared to buying direct. Its because companies generally don't want to put FLGS out of business as then they would lose all high street sales, and many impluse purchases and product awareness.

 

[jmucchiello]

From my conversations with Steve, it would appear that the complimentary mailing software isn't coded in yet for DTRPG, but I'm not certain of this.

How does that stop the publisher from sending out review copies from his own email?

 

[GreyShadow]

I'm presuming that the publisher isn't doing that because the files wouldn't be locked.

 

[D_Sinclair]

One thing that I find odd but might be interesting to some people is I have yet to recieve a review copy of anything on DTRPG even after making it known to publishers there that I review pdfs of the d20 variety. The publishers at RPGNow though have always made sure I have had plenty to review.

I don't know if it means anything but its just odd that from one site I get nothing and from the other site I get plenty of stuff to review.

As the new press manager for Alternate Realities Publications, I'd like to know what hoops I need to go through in order to put PDF comp copies in your hands... Well, on your computer at least.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

As the new press manager for Alternate Realities Publications, I'd like to know what hoops I need to go through in order to put PDF comp copies in your hands... Well, on your computer at least.

Oh oh, I can answer that... I think..

All ya gotta do is simply email Crothian with your product and make note that its a review copy. Be it an attachment from you, or a comp copy from rpgnow, etc etc etc.

(If i'm wrong someone correct me)

 

[Crothian]

As the new press manager for Alternate Realities Publications, I'd like to know what hoops I need to go through in order to put PDF comp copies in your hands... Well, on your computer at least.

My e-mail is cgath@insight.rr.com

People usually send a link that I can download from, but attaching it to the e-mail works as well. And as always if you or anyone has any questions or comments please send me an e-mail with them. I want the lines of communication to be as open as possible.