Sell me on creating new d20 fantasy PDFs . . .

[philreed]

That said, as a gamer i really feel there is a glut of material. I don't want all these options. It's overwhelming, and difficult and time consuming to separate the good from the bad. High quality demos can help a lot in that respect.

I completely understand. I'm glad to hear that you enjoyed the Mundane Treasures PDFs.

 

[Man-thing]

I love the 101 Mudane Items list and bought both of them.

You would probably enjoy the DM's Idea Pipeline collections as well. They were written in the same vein by Phil and Michael, trying to provide a wide range of ideas as well as cool stuff.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I'm not sure if reviews would help. From what I can tell reviews rarely have a measurable impact on sales. In fact, there's only one reviewer that I saw a definite spike in sales when his review posted. Additionally, the few other times I've seen a slight increase were from reviews posted at RPG.net.

Interesting. I've always assumed that with the Gamestore here now selling PDF's that having an option to buy right off the review would potentially increase the numbers.

And for RPG.net, as much as I love that place, they are sticklers for vocalizing their distast of mainstream (i.e. WoTC d20) material so I'm surprised. Unless of course we're talking vs. Monsters then the indie nature of it might cause people to leap up and go , "Ah, the cool!".

But I'm grossly generalizing there.

 

[jgbrowning]

So "sell me" (convince me) on writing new releases . . . even though I cannot make enough money selling them to cover my writing time.

Don't do something silly Phil. It's a business first. I don't want to ever see Ronin Arts on that long list of defunct RPG companies.


joe b.

 

[Psychic Warrior]

Honestly while I have bought a few pdfs in the past (well more than a few including about a dozen of philreed's Dozen...) I haven't bought any in about 8 or 9 months. Not because I have anything against them but mainly I wanted to fill out my hardback collection (that and the books that have been coming in print have been very good value for the money). It doesn't really surprise me the smaller pdf publishers are being squeezed. I think it will eventually turn around though (in my case I am starting to regularly search RPGNow for good pdfs for my D&D games again) and it might be a case of scaling back your production of new material for a short while and see if the market improves in 6 months or so. I wouldn't quit completely though - keep your company's name out there.

 

[2WS-Steve]

Is there a chance that your material's primary competitor right now is your own material?

Especially in the fantasy area since you've built up a big library of that, but don't yet have as large a library of future, pulp, and modern books.

If you could collate all the sales for just all the fantasy material, have they declined as a group? If so, that'd be a surer indication that fantasy as a category is having problems. Which certainly might be the case -- I've got five years worth of fantasy backlog to fit into my game somehow.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Here is an easy idea: ask your fellow gamers in the d20 market want, have a thread here for discussion purposes. Whatever topic gets the most love, write about and publish.

 

[SteveC]

Here's my $.02. I am someone who likes to support the industry and help the good people in it, and you are one of the good people.

My problem is that the D20 Fantasy stuff you've put out lately just isn't that interesting to me. Now your Superline stuff and the stuff you've talked about for Spycraft? I'm sold. I guess I'm just of the opinion that there isn't that much left to do in conventional terms with D20 Fantasy.

However, if you would ever decide to write something about, say, taking campaign qualities from Spycraft and porting them over to D20 Fantasy, that's a whole series of products I would buy in a second. I guess I'd suggest trying something different for a fantasy product. I know that the market is still there, I just think it's changing.

 

[Henry]

So "sell me" (convince me) on writing new releases . . . even though I cannot make enough money selling them to cover my writing time.

Phil, I love ya, and I wish I could, but I can't either. I hardly get to use all the stuff I have right now...

 

[GMSkarka]

I think the issue can be summed up in Fruthaka's "What are the top 10/25 d20 Fantasy Must-Haves" thread

Check it out. Tons of products listed, not a huge amount of repeat listings, and all of it is non-PDF. There is simply so much good stuff out there, that new good stuff, especially in PDF, just doesn't have a niche to fill. The average GM has plenty of choices already, several of which are already "killer Aps" for their category.

Adamant still dabbles in d20 fantasy, but for the most part, we're happier with the sales we get from focusing on d20 Modern-based niche genres.