What is more important author or company and would you pay more????

[seasong]

Certain companies have established themselves as managing high quality all the time. I'm willing to take new/unknown authors from them on faith. So company is pretty important.

Certain authors just do it right, and I'm willing to acquire their work even when they publish with a new/unknown company. So author is pretty important.

And the converse is true. There are some companies and authors who are so incredibly hit-or-miss (or all miss) that I'm just not willing to risk my dollars on the vague possibility of satisfaction in their book.

As far as paying more, I'm generally willing to pay a bit more for something premium. I'd pay more for a paperback by P.C. Hodgell than I would on an unknown fantasy author, and I'd pay more for a source book by Monte Cook than I would for an unknown RPG writer.

All of this comes to nil, however, if the product doesn't interest me in the first place.

 

[Tuerny]

Re: Re: Re: What is more important author or company and would you pay more????

Out of curiosity what two authors?

My guess would be Mike Mearls and Monte Cook

 

[Psion]

Originally posted by Crothian
Out of curiosity what two authors?

Monte Cook and Mike Mearls. I guess I should throw Bruce Cordell in there too... he usually has some pretty wicked ideas and knows the system.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

To me, this was a failure. The store owner failed to know about a game company that is not only relatively local (greater Chicagoland) but is easy to find mention of on the largest D20 community on the 'net (um, here!). He's not informed.

Sorry about your experience... Just out of curiosity, does this store (Be A Gamer?) carry any other products distributed by Osseum-- Green Ronin, Thunderhead, Mystic Eye, Bastion?

Honestly, though I love my fellow Chicagoland gamers-- scattered to the four winds as we are-- it's not really feasible for me to visit every store within 50 miles (as much as I might like to do so). Exposure to the retailers locally and indeed throughout the country is one of the things that I count on Osseum for-- and they are very good at it. A hate to see a breakdown in the system like that, but the chain of command is customer > retailer > distributor > Osseum > Bad Axe Games. Which is not to say I'm not personally responsive to customers, I just can't afford to "think locally" as it were. At any rate I hope you find the book before too long; if you happen to catch me at Games Plus in Mt. Prospect (a store I am happy to frequent as a regular Joe, and happy to recommend on the basis of their mind-boggling acreage of miniatures for every genre) I will be happy to slap my worthless scrawl on it for you.

-- Sorry for the hijack! --

In answer to the poll, I wouldn't pay more for any particular author or company. However, I am very loyal to particular authors and/or companies once they've got me hooked, and I will go out of my way to pick up a new release from one of my favorites.

First off, my purchasing habits tend towards crunchy bits and adventures-- I don't pick up a lot of campaign/setting stuff.

I buy everything from Monte Cook (heck, usually twice each!); I buy nearly everything from FFG and Fiery Dragon ('nearly everything' meaning, as much as I can, as soon as I can afford it).

I would buy anything from Kevin Kulp, too, if only he'd finish up his Of Sound Mind trilogy...


Wulf

 

[N Hammer]

I don't buy based on publisher or author. But I will give books a first or second look based on these things. In the end though, it's always the quality of the product and the book topic that makes me decide on to buy or not.

DITTO

 

[Davelozzi]

I agree with the general consensus here. I didn't vote because none of the options represented my opinion very well. I generally consider both author and company to some extent but both are pretty secondary to percieved value, actual campaign need, interest in the subject material, and reviews and opinions from others here and elsewhere.

As for paying an extra $5 based on the author, no, not really. If the book was something that I was interested in anyway, and was written by an author I respected, I would definately buy itit in a normal price range and may or may not but it seemed excessively expensive. If the book was something that I had only casual interest in, the extra $5 would prevent me from buying it even if the author's name might have otherwise swayed me.

 

[CTD]

Sorry about your experience... Just out of curiosity, does this store (Be A Gamer?) carry any other products distributed by Osseum-- Green Ronin, Thunderhead, Mystic Eye, Bastion?

I know I have seen some Green Ronin there for sure. I'll check the o ther Osseum titles at my next visit

I will give them credit for depth of stock. They had darn near every WOTC 3E product, a healthy dose of Scarred Lands and Kalamar, and then an equal amount of lesser known products. I'd guess that the total is well over 100 gaming products. Not incredible when compared to the internet, but good for a store that has to risk something NOT selling and costing more than the profit.

I was more or less let down that the guy didn't even know about your company Wulf. If he would have said "Bad Axe? I know of them, but didn't see anyone expressing interest and didn't want to risk stocking it. I'll special order it if you like, and grab an extra one to put on the shelf. If it sells quickly, I'll consider more of their product as it comes out."

While the guy did offer to special order it, he also seemed equally interested in me getting it elsewhere if I needed a quick fix (said he could have it in a week or so, but I could go elsewhere if I needed it NOW). Maybe he was just too busy on a Saturday night in a busy store; but it was the wrong answer. I've worked retail, he should not have even mentioned me heading to another store.

Don't take what I said as a jab at Bad Axe though. I know it's hard to establish a personal relationship with every retailer in the area, but getting your product visible on the shelves of regional stores is a big step toward getting the average gamers who don't read websites like this (which is about 75% of the people I game with), so I give it great importance.

 

[2WS-Steve]

My guess is that the way the current industry works very few authors actually sell a book. This is largely because publishers either don't give cover credit to the author or publish books compiled by more than one writer. Some caveats of course, Green Ronin and Atlas have always been great at giving cover credit and I'd bet that the readers of these boards are more author aware than much of the customer base.

However, even those who don't pay attention to the author do notice the quality of writing and ideas and I think if they looked back through their single-author books they'd notice a strong correlation between who the writer was and whether or not they thought the book was good. This even applies for compilation products where they'd notice that some of their favorite sections of books were written by just a few authors.

The Mongoose product line (cyclopean beast that it is) is a great example. Mongoose has done a good job getting good writers like Sam Witt, Mike Mearls, Alejandro Melchor, and now Patrick Younts to do its writing and the books those guys have written have always received at least solid reviews if not great reviews. The books without those writers have been more of a mixed bag.

Currently you can put Monte's name on a book and that will sell it. I don't think you can sell it for more but the customer-base isn't used to paying more for a book by Stephen King either. The advantage of using a good author is selling copies. I think Matt Forbeck and Robin Laws will also help sell books but less so in the d20 market since much of their fame comes from non-D&Dish books.

I think the industry would be a better place if we moved to a greater focus on the game writers. Publisher starts out giving an author cover credit in fairly large lettering below the title. The inside back cover then has an author photo and bio and perhaps something extra (a little open content from the author's home campaign perhaps). There's a reason they put photos in fiction books; it probably helps the reader to identify with the person and start thinking of the author as a person they can trust to write well. Then the writers who do consistently well eventually get their name moved above the title of the book and perhaps in an even larger font so we end up with Mike Mearls' "Guide to Aerial Adventuring".

This will make the good writers more expensive to hire, but it will also mean that we might not see such horrid attrition. We've already lost Aaron Allston and John Tynes and who knows how many other great game writers to fiction and computer games.

 

[Garmorn]

I voted company because most companies tend to support a certain style or approach the game and rules. It is also easier for me to recoganize a companies logo then remember several authors names.

That does not mean I will pick up all there products, only the ones that I think are worth my limited cash.

As for authors there is only one that will influence my purchasing and that is Monte Cook. I don't like his style of gaming while I do admint he is a good writer.

 

[ced1106]

I buy nearly everything from FFG

Does this include their boardgames and CCGs? If so, email me at ced1106(at)aol(dot)com.

Returning back to the thread Robin Laws will definitely get me to pick up a book I'd otherwise not look at. Chaosium and Guardians of Order stand out as a companies with consistent good product. James Earnest's Cheapass Games and Steve Jackson Games are game designers who've become synonymous with their games, as is Necromancer Games (substantial improvement from Crucible of Freya with Tomb of Abysthor).


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^