OK, I will pipe in here as a customer.
Admittedly, I only have 24 products or so that I have purchased, so maybe my "insight" isn't too insightful.
Pre-First off: This is a long post, so I thought I would summarize up here at the beginning.
- I tried PDF's bacause I was interested in a product and figured I could afford the risk that the PDF would suck.
- I like PDF's, but you are competing with normal books for my money.
- I put next to no faith in the Top Lists.
- I have trouble quickly and easily finding products.
- Some people are doing a poor job marketing themselves and that might reflect poorly on all PDf's.
- I like RPGNow's Wishlist feature.
First off, I just logged in and realized that I haven't done reviews on anything. For that, I do apologize to some of you guys. It is a matter of procrastination. I don't want to do a review until I have really looked over a product and by the time I get that done, I have forgotten about doing a review.
OK, I became interested in PDF's because that is how the Book of Eldritch Might was made available. I wasn't sure it could be done, but then again, Monte Cook was the one doing it. I took a chance because it wouldn't be the worst money I've wasted if the PDF sucked. There are probably a lot of people that go through the same process and pick out the least expensive PDF they can find. Alas, that might not be the best PDF to showcase the rest of the market.
As far as my buying habits go, it will be no shock to you to hear that your competing with traditional books for my money. I choose to budget myself monthly on gaming materials. Because of that, I tend to look for the flashy products that include things I will probably drop into my games. PDF's are one of those products I use to fill-in-the-gaps for my budget. If I end up spending $30-$40 on books, I might try to pad my budget with a PDF or two. If I spend more than that, I probably won't. Sometimes, I will spend less than that and I might look for several PDF's to buy at once.
Regarding the top lists. I find them to be less than helpful. Access to one top list might be interesting, but if I am going to look at them, I wish there were a way I could choose a page with multiple top lists. Maybe a selection page so I could say I wanted to see the top sellers, Top D20 Fantasy and Top non-D20. I don't actually put a lot of faith in the top lists because there is not an easy way to cross-reference them for relevance. It would be interesting to see a top list of rated products, especially if you could cross-reference it against the all-time best sellers. Of course, there is the issue of insufficient reviews, and a new product might not hit the all time list. As a customer, I recognize this and that is why I don't put much value in them.
Finding products: RPGNow is a nice site. But, it isn't easy for me to find produt. If I am at home, the pages load slowly on my modem. The Text Only option does help, but it really isn't text only, more like "Graphics lite". It is also a pain to have to remember that some products, while useful for a D20 game, are not a D20 product. Don't get me wrong, the categories all make sense. But, I am talking about "browsing the shelves". What would be kind of cool would be a way to put together a listing of product that you might be looking for. Good grief, that sounds vague. OK, something like this. Instead of just a keyword search, have a search page that would have a bunch of radio boxes that you could select. Maybe stuff like "Maps", "Adventures", "Prestige Classes", "Cities", "Dungeons", "Spaceships", "NPCs", "Rules", "Churches", Bars", etc. I could then check a few boxes and submit a search to see what pulls up. This might allow me to notice dungeon tiles and floorplans that aren't in Fantasy D20, but would be related to what I am looking for. However, this is probably difficult to retrofit onto the site and may be expensive in terms of clock cycles for such a search. I do know that I spend a lot of time looking around for that one product I was almost sure was released as a PDF a few months ago. Now, if I could just remember it's name, I could search for it.
Evaluating Products based on their descriptions is not the easiest thing in the world. Many of you do a good job. Many others do not. Obviously, this is a case of good vs bad marketing. But, when there are so many vague descriptions of a PDF out there, it starts to make you kind of question everyone. I like to think of myself as an educated consumer so I am not easily convinced that all PDF's are bad just because one person is having trouble explaining why you should buy his or her specific product. However, I can see where other people might be put off PDF's in general because of that.
All of that being said, RPGNow is doing some things well. I don't want anyone to lose faith in RPGNow based on a few things I have said. The big thing I like: The Wishlist! Actually, I don't use this for other people to purchase stuff for me. I use it to tag stuff for myself. Every time I see an item I like, but am not quite ready to buy, I try to drop it into my wishlist. This fits my spending habits since I can just hit my wishlist and pad out some orders for the month. It also circumvents the searching I cite above. Once I find something cool, I can drop it into my wishlist until I have a need for the product in my game. I also like the fact that I don't have to use PayPal. I have long been wary of PayPal. They seem fine lately, but you know how hard it is to shake one bad impression.
I guess the question is: How do you market to somebody like me? I look like a whimsical customer. Obviously, I read these boards, so product announcement here is a good thing. Plugging your own product by starting a thread to answer questions is also nice. There are a lot of people here that I recognize because you already do this. James, for those PDF publishers that are not active on the internet boards, maybe you should encourage them to be a little more active. To tell the truth, I *like* buying products from people I see are active in the community. Maybe I ignored the option at some point in the past and just haven't seen it on the site, but is there an email newsletter that could go out monthly with a 1-2 line listing of new products? Maybe make it an option of a publisher putting a new item up for sale: Give them an input box to summarize the product.
I don't know if I have been any help at all here. But, I do want to say that almost all the folks I have seen posting here put out some good produts. It sometimes annoys me that PDF sales in general aren't higher, but I have a hard enough time convincing everyone else in my group to purchase PDF's. Then again, most of them make do with a PHB and a splatbook or two.
I am purchasing 9 EN Publishing PDF's that I just haven't had a burning need for in my game. This is also a slow month for me as far as traditional books go. So, I will be picking up a few more things. In my case, the sale is a mater of convenience. I would have been buying PDF's, but I will be picking up more from EN Publishing at one time.
