The Future of PDF magazines

[EOL]

I just found this thread, but I'd be happy to contribute. Unfortunately I have a family event tommorrow right about the time of the chat, so I won't be able to contribute directly, but I'm happy to contribute here.

I think DireKobold.com is a magazine in a somewhat looser sense then most, nevertheless I certainly agree with a couple of posts which have already been made:

I believe that a quality product will sell - it will take time, I admit, but it will. Breakeven isn't very high for Almanac, and I think the readership is there.

My freelancer cost is fairly high, but I can only imagine what it would be if I had shipping and printing on top of that. So definitely breakeven is lower.

.pdf pay mags would seem to be in a brutal position because they are up against a horde of free .pdf rags, and many gamers still have a hard time paying money for an electronic product. Well, paying enough money to keep the project going.

This point does in many cases negate the first point. There are definitely a lot of free .pdf's out there and a perception that they just don't have the same value as a print product. Which is why I think it's so important to do something you can't do with a print mag. D20weekly's gimmick was that it came out every week, something that shipping would never allow you to do with a print mag (unless your Time). I guess that wasn't enough because they went under.

My "gimmick" of course is that all of the adventures are dynamically scaled and generated, something you definitely can't do with a print mag. I think that as I mentioned above that there is significant bias to overcome but it's actually looking pretty good, especially recently.

I guess the biggest point is that since any high-schooler with a collection of house rules and some cheap software can put out a PDF. Differentiating your PDF from the background noise of PDFs is a significant obstacles. But if you can stay in the game for long enough I think it's certainly possible.

 

[Methuslah]

I agree 100% about the need for a gimmick, making the pay-PDF's distinct, and I have tried to use this concept with the other magazines I will be producing. Lemurian Dreams, for example - a fantasy fiction magazine, but including notes for D&D campaigns. Royal Griffon - an adventure module, but including support information, shorter site-based adventures and articles adding extra detail. I also agree that that time is important - readerships tend to build slowly with magazines, but they are usually solid.