The Death of PDF Publishing (A Rant)

[Man-thing]

Hi,

I've been doing a lot of thinking about pdf's that are published for gaming, and I've bought PDFs since late 2001. To date I have purchased 300+ products from Rpgnow and a few from DTRPG and I love them. I think I'm averaging 4 or 5 pdfs to every printed book I've bought. They are my gaming books. When I plan adventures I go to them first and then check my game shelf.

However, I'm annoyed by the term PDF. To me these are e-books. To refer to them as strickly a PDF undervalues them as material, reduces their inherent value, and ignores the benefits of the medium.

I think it also makes it easier on some people's conscious to steal material if it has an innocous name that refers to a simple file. I hear many people talk about how they would never steal music and yet they have tons of mp3 that they've gotten of others. In the same token people wouldn't shoplift a gaming book for a store but he a few pdfs that someone has scanned. Its still theft but its easier to sleep at night because it a file and not something physical to be caught with.

The PDF publishing market deserves a lot more respect than they recieve. Their material is always available to us when we have forgotten something at the last minute, it is easy to use and more often then not as attractively layed out and present as many print books, there easier to carry with you and go where you need to, and often they are underpriced for the material contained.

We need to value this portion of the RPG market more and it needs to respect itself more as well.

I believe that we should no longer have publishers of PDFs but instead have these publishers be publishers of e-Books which is what they truely are.

 

[Christopher Lambert]

They should continue to be called PDFs.

E-book is an obscure term that can mean several things. It can mean one of those e-books where you have to contact Adobe or Microsoft for permission to open the product, you can't copy text from them, and so forth. It could mean one of those punitive DRM files, too.

If someone describes a product as an e-book, now I have to do extra research to find out what the product really is.

 

[jmucchiello]

Unfortunately, Adobe defines eBook as a PDF with DRM control. Many of the current PDF publishers do not want to be associated with DRM. Thus, we don't want out products called eBooks. Or at least I don't. Thanks for sticking up for PDF publishing, but calling them eBooks is not in my interest.

Link: http://www.adobe.com/products/ebookreader/pdfs/faq.pdf

 

[philreed]

While I wouldn't say we're approaching the death of PDFs, I would say we're coming to a hurdle. As more and more people begin releasing PDF products it becomes more and more difficult for new customers to know which publishers they can trust to release quality, useful products.

I've been working at improving Ronin Arts' image. I have a few major hurdles of my own -- the biggest being the need for a website -- before Ronin Arts can continue to improve. I also need a submissions editor so that Ronin Arts can continue to grow.

The next two years should be interesting as we see more sales sites come online and quality control measures improve.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I think of most of the PDFs that I purchase as PDFs. I think of e-books as 'those things with DRM protection that I don't buy'.

So yeah, calling the PDFs 'e-books' would make a big difference to me, just not a positive one. For gaming in particular, where I cut and paste from the PDF document to the adventure I am working on, the limitations set up on the number of copies that can be made from a DRM protected document does not fill me with joy when I hear the word e-book.

And as for book publishers, Baen just calls their downloadable books 'books' and has done with it.

The Auld Grump, who doesn't pirate either PDFs or MP3s...

 

[Warden]

I would also say that making a considerable effort to change the term for these products might not make any difference whatsoever. "PDF" has been defined as an online RPG product and there are people out there, like yourself, Man-Thing, that seem to prefer it, enjoy it, or are more than willing to pick one up for whatever reason they see fit. Anyone who doesn't like PDFs/eBooks has reasons far beyond the fact that they are called a PDF.

But the reasons behind your thoughts are cool. Hopefully, with the average price of print products rising, PDFs can step in to fill the gap.

 

[wedgeski]

The PDF publishing market deserves a lot more respect than they recieve. Their material is always available to us when we have forgotten something at the last minute, it is easy to use and more often then not as attractively layed out and present as many print books, there easier to carry with you and go where you need to, and often they are underpriced for the material contained.

I agree with your general sentiment, but these are 'inherent qualities of the medium' as you say, and nothing to do with the quality, commitment, or skill of the designers, and therefore the respect deserved by their industry. (Well, except for the layout bit, but I don't agree that 'more often than not' the layout is as attractive as print books.) PDF pricing I see as reasonable for a product with next to no cost at the margin, although I'd probably be prepared to pay even more for products from publishers whose stuff I have enjoyed in the past. I consider most Malhavoc PDF's, for example, to be an absolute bargain.

It's all a matter of time. The PDF market has to grow hugely as a proportion of total RPG sales before it'll be viewed as anything except second class next to the print industry. I think you'll also find that, as PDF's become the de-facto way of supporting otherwise OOP systems and settings, then their impact will start to be more heavily felt.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I'm not sure if it makes a big difference to me what they are called. Though from a style perspective, I think PDF rolls off the tongue better.

 

[Belen]

Eh....doesn't really matter to me. I no longer buy them. I was buying PDFs for a while, but now I no longer see the point. I do not have a full version of Acrobat, so the files are not searchable.

Thus, I have to spend additional money printing the files and finding a binder for them. The binders do not really fit on a bookshelf and I never use them, so why spend the money?

The only good PDF I have is Tournaments, Fairs and Taverns.

Until PDFs can be useful (ie. searchable), then they will be second class. I do not want to spend time reading on the PC.

 

[Christopher Lambert]

Eh....doesn't really matter to me. I no longer buy them. I was buying PDFs for a while, but now I no longer see the point. I do not have a full version of Acrobat, so the files are not searchable.

Thus, I have to spend additional money printing the files and finding a binder for them. The binders do not really fit on a bookshelf and I never use them, so why spend the money?

The only good PDF I have is Tournaments, Fairs and Taverns.

Until PDFs can be useful (ie. searchable), then they will be second class. I do not want to spend time reading on the PC.

You can get a free copy of Acrobat at www.tucows.com - it's not the huge download, and it's still searchable.

I've had Acrobat Reader 4 and 5 and they're searchable, too.