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What kind of Sales can you expect from PDF?
- Thread starter Pharaun
- Start date
Monte At Home
Explorer
I would hate to see the Top 30 on rpgnow go away or even be significantly changed. Personally, it would make the site a lot less useful to me as both a publisher and a consumer.
First, it shows overall a good hallmark of quality. It's unwise to think that everyone going there has been there before. To a newcomer, it gives them an idea of some of the older, established products as well as the brand new ones displayed on the front page. This clearly happens, or I still wouldn't be selling my backlist products as much as I am.
Second, it is still dynamic, just not as dynamic as it was. Bonds of Magic: Cabal just entered the list last week or so, and now it's up to #25. I certainly hope that with the release of Book of Eldritch Might III: The Nexus tomorrow, we'll get on the list with that one pretty soon as well.
I don't agree that pdf sales windows are short. In fact, I'd say that they are longer than for print products. We're still selling 3-4 copies of Book of Eldritch Might every day, for example (from both our venues). And that's after 18 months. Sure, we were selling a lot more than that when it first came out, but that 3-4 copies a day has been steady for the last 6-12 months.
As for sales being down, well, Book of Eldritch Might III will be a good test for Malhavoc Press. If it sells significantly less than BoEM II in it's first week, I'll agree. Otherwise, I'm not so sure.
(Actually, I'm sure that overall, pdf sales are way up. They might be down for individual publishers or individual products, but clearly more people in general are buying pdfs than a year ago. We measure sales on a first day, first week, first month, etc. basis. I can tell you that, for example, Requiem for a God sold as well as If Thoughts Could Kill in its first week, so I'm not sure that sales for us are actually down.)
I still think pdf is a great way to deliver a product to a consumer. The best thing about them, I think, is speed. You can be sitting at home, read about a product you like, and in 3-20 minutes (depending on your connection speed) you're reading it. That's cool. I'm also happy that it's a way for our products to reach people who live far from a game store.
First, it shows overall a good hallmark of quality. It's unwise to think that everyone going there has been there before. To a newcomer, it gives them an idea of some of the older, established products as well as the brand new ones displayed on the front page. This clearly happens, or I still wouldn't be selling my backlist products as much as I am.
Second, it is still dynamic, just not as dynamic as it was. Bonds of Magic: Cabal just entered the list last week or so, and now it's up to #25. I certainly hope that with the release of Book of Eldritch Might III: The Nexus tomorrow, we'll get on the list with that one pretty soon as well.
I don't agree that pdf sales windows are short. In fact, I'd say that they are longer than for print products. We're still selling 3-4 copies of Book of Eldritch Might every day, for example (from both our venues). And that's after 18 months. Sure, we were selling a lot more than that when it first came out, but that 3-4 copies a day has been steady for the last 6-12 months.
As for sales being down, well, Book of Eldritch Might III will be a good test for Malhavoc Press. If it sells significantly less than BoEM II in it's first week, I'll agree. Otherwise, I'm not so sure.
(Actually, I'm sure that overall, pdf sales are way up. They might be down for individual publishers or individual products, but clearly more people in general are buying pdfs than a year ago. We measure sales on a first day, first week, first month, etc. basis. I can tell you that, for example, Requiem for a God sold as well as If Thoughts Could Kill in its first week, so I'm not sure that sales for us are actually down.)
I still think pdf is a great way to deliver a product to a consumer. The best thing about them, I think, is speed. You can be sitting at home, read about a product you like, and in 3-20 minutes (depending on your connection speed) you're reading it. That's cool. I'm also happy that it's a way for our products to reach people who live far from a game store.
Changes to RPGNow Lists
With 20 "Hot" and 40 "Best" listed it's overload on the site now. What could be done to make it easier for people to tell at a glance what's hot? As it is now my eyes glaze over and a puddle of drool forms on my keyboard as I look at the page.
I propose modifying the center area as follows:
MOST RECENT RELEASES
Show thumbnails of 9 covers here.
CURRENT "HOT" PRODUCTS
Show thumbnails of 9 covers here.
CURRENT "BEST" PRODUCTS
Show thumbnails of 9 covers here.
Keep the 20 and 40 down the side. What this will do is help those who rely on graphics. It will also make the product on the front page rotate more often which will help with repeat business.
With 20 "Hot" and 40 "Best" listed it's overload on the site now. What could be done to make it easier for people to tell at a glance what's hot? As it is now my eyes glaze over and a puddle of drool forms on my keyboard as I look at the page.
I propose modifying the center area as follows:
MOST RECENT RELEASES
Show thumbnails of 9 covers here.
CURRENT "HOT" PRODUCTS
Show thumbnails of 9 covers here.
CURRENT "BEST" PRODUCTS
Show thumbnails of 9 covers here.
Keep the 20 and 40 down the side. What this will do is help those who rely on graphics. It will also make the product on the front page rotate more often which will help with repeat business.
rpghost
First Post
Re: FLGS input
Well when they mentioned FLGS all that I could think of was how they all must hate me and want nothing to do with someone who cuts them out... but this is actually a really cool idea. If there was more revenue to share I'd even do an affiliate program - but there is no revenue to share - what there is the option of is that a store could print them off and resell them. But is that what the Publishers want? Would they care? I think its a good idea. Something that can be done on their own without our direct involvement even.
Selling this idea to FLGS though is probably going to be very hard.
James
jezter6 said:
Well when they mentioned FLGS all that I could think of was how they all must hate me and want nothing to do with someone who cuts them out... but this is actually a really cool idea. If there was more revenue to share I'd even do an affiliate program - but there is no revenue to share - what there is the option of is that a store could print them off and resell them. But is that what the Publishers want? Would they care? I think its a good idea. Something that can be done on their own without our direct involvement even.
Selling this idea to FLGS though is probably going to be very hard.
James
Monte At Home said:
I can't really take your performance as an indicator of the general trend, though Monte. You are an exception - EVERYONE who buys PDFs buys your products. No other publisher can claim that. I doubt that RPGNow's layout has much effect, if any, on your sales.
You will continue to do well, I have no doubt of that. I'm more concerned about the rest of us mortals.
Yep, agreed. Someone phrased it well above - the number of publishers/products is growing faster than the number of consumers. Overall, sales are up, but individually they are down (good for James but bad for us!) I'm selling under half what I would have done a year ago.
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Krug
Newshound
Urgh.. James, frankly you're putting TOO much on the front page. Maybe tidy things up a bit, with the new products on a seperate page on their own. Add a random factor that throws up an older PDF product whenever someone goes to your front page, or even take out the new products on your front page and instead throw up five or ten older products. You have a 'customers who bought this also bought so and so' feature; use it on the front page like amazon does.
If the user wants to find out new products let them click on a link. This will increase the visibility of older products and ensure they don't sink to the bottom.
As for RPGnow comments, there are so many 5-star reviews it's hard to take them seriously.
If the user wants to find out new products let them click on a link. This will increase the visibility of older products and ensure they don't sink to the bottom.
As for RPGnow comments, there are so many 5-star reviews it's hard to take them seriously.
Agree Completely
It's always been a slow loading page but it gets slower with each week. The entire network of sites with the identical navigation bar across the top loads way too slow.
And I'm on a cable modem so I'm fairly certain it isn't my connection.
I am using Netscape which seems to be forgotten these days. Enworld's pages are impossible for me to read with Netscape.
Krug said:
It's always been a slow loading page but it gets slower with each week. The entire network of sites with the identical navigation bar across the top loads way too slow.
And I'm on a cable modem so I'm fairly certain it isn't my connection.
I am using Netscape which seems to be forgotten these days. Enworld's pages are impossible for me to read with Netscape.
Turjan
Explorer
Well, I can only comment from a buyer's view on this interesting topic.
I just had a look, how many PDF's I've bought so far from RPGnow, and that's 17 up to now.
Where did I hear of those products? That's almost exclusively EN World. I'm not browsing the online store on a regular basis, but only go there, when I read an anouncement, or even better, a review on this site.
Which products do I buy as pdf instead of print? Well, that's tricky. These are more or less three kinds of products:
1) Products I don't expect to see in print, never ever that is
.
2) Products, where the topic doesn't interest me that much that I ever wanted to buy a print copy thereof.
3) Older products, where the print copies were more expensive than I ever wanted to pay for that topic.
Would I buy more pdf's under other circumstances? Well, actually yes. But I have to admit that this is a vision for the far future. I would like to see the devolopment of a new kind of print industry, something like "Print your PDF"-service stations. Then I can buy my pdf's, and if I really like them, I'll go there and let them be printed. Nowadays there is always a risk: Do I like it *that* much that I will spend even more money on the product by buying an additional print copy afterwards?
Do I register anywhere in order to get hold of a free copy of some "cool" pdf? Actually no. Who says it's really cool? I won't sit there and fill out boring forms in order to get my hold on something I actually don't know anything about.
Why are there much more downloads of free products than of products you have to pay for? Well, I've got DSL and a flatrate. That's one click. Any more questions
? I suspect that only 5% of those downloads get actually read. The rest waits for the next harddisk crash.
When on the RPGnow website, do you look at other products? Yes, I do. Most of the time, I browse the two columns on the right, best sellers and new products. Anything else? No. Except sometimes a link to "other products of this publisher", if I like the products, that is.
But there's this handy list of all fantasy products with pics and descriptions shown with a link in one of the prior posts. Yes? Oh, really! Looks great! Where did you hide this one?
Do you look at the customer reviews on RPGnow? Well, yes, I do. I don't trust those 5 star reviews (unfortunately most reviews are 5 star, which invalidates them a bit in my eyes). I usually begin with the worst review and ask myself, whether those points the reviewer made may disturb me. Most negative reviews give a good insight into a product, but I take them as personal view, so they might actually convince me to buy a product. Usually I don't consider buying a product without a single review. Therefore, reviews help, definitely.
There was something else, but I'm afraid, I forgot it for now. Okay, next time .
I just had a look, how many PDF's I've bought so far from RPGnow, and that's 17 up to now.
Where did I hear of those products? That's almost exclusively EN World. I'm not browsing the online store on a regular basis, but only go there, when I read an anouncement, or even better, a review on this site.
Which products do I buy as pdf instead of print? Well, that's tricky. These are more or less three kinds of products:
1) Products I don't expect to see in print, never ever that is
.2) Products, where the topic doesn't interest me that much that I ever wanted to buy a print copy thereof.
3) Older products, where the print copies were more expensive than I ever wanted to pay for that topic.
Would I buy more pdf's under other circumstances? Well, actually yes. But I have to admit that this is a vision for the far future. I would like to see the devolopment of a new kind of print industry, something like "Print your PDF"-service stations. Then I can buy my pdf's, and if I really like them, I'll go there and let them be printed. Nowadays there is always a risk: Do I like it *that* much that I will spend even more money on the product by buying an additional print copy afterwards?
Do I register anywhere in order to get hold of a free copy of some "cool" pdf? Actually no. Who says it's really cool? I won't sit there and fill out boring forms in order to get my hold on something I actually don't know anything about.
Why are there much more downloads of free products than of products you have to pay for? Well, I've got DSL and a flatrate. That's one click. Any more questions
? I suspect that only 5% of those downloads get actually read. The rest waits for the next harddisk crash.When on the RPGnow website, do you look at other products? Yes, I do. Most of the time, I browse the two columns on the right, best sellers and new products. Anything else? No. Except sometimes a link to "other products of this publisher", if I like the products, that is
.But there's this handy list of all fantasy products with pics and descriptions shown with a link in one of the prior posts. Yes? Oh, really! Looks great! Where did you hide this one
?Do you look at the customer reviews on RPGnow? Well, yes, I do. I don't trust those 5 star reviews (unfortunately most reviews are 5 star, which invalidates them a bit in my eyes). I usually begin with the worst review and ask myself, whether those points the reviewer made may disturb me. Most negative reviews give a good insight into a product, but I take them as personal view, so they might actually convince me to buy a product
. Usually I don't consider buying a product without a single review. Therefore, reviews help, definitely.There was something else, but I'm afraid, I forgot it for now
. Okay, next time .
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Re: Re: FLGS input
James:
The great part about this is, you're not really cutting the FLGS out of much. In all honesty, most of the PDF products out there aren't making it to print...which means they won't be on my shelf anyways.
I don't think POD for us would be out of the realm of possibility. And it would only be a few retailers who would be willing to do it. I'm still hoping a publisher will chime in with their opinions on this....
One scary thought for publishers I would assume is trusting the FLGS. It's much like Kazaa...you don't know that a FLGS wouldn't buy one copy and print like crazy and sell them. I know from a moral standpoint I couldn't do that to the publisher, but I'm sure there are those that might.
What about something like a 'blanket' license for vendors. A certain fee for X amount of PDF's. We'd pay for (let's assume 50) and would let us print out 50 of ANY pdf from that publisher's line or something like that. That would work for the big guys (Malhavoc, Nat-20, Bastion, MEG, et al, Grinning Goblin, Green Ronin) but not so much the indies...
What do you guys think?
rpghost said:
James:
The great part about this is, you're not really cutting the FLGS out of much. In all honesty, most of the PDF products out there aren't making it to print...which means they won't be on my shelf anyways.
I don't think POD for us would be out of the realm of possibility. And it would only be a few retailers who would be willing to do it. I'm still hoping a publisher will chime in with their opinions on this....
One scary thought for publishers I would assume is trusting the FLGS. It's much like Kazaa...you don't know that a FLGS wouldn't buy one copy and print like crazy and sell them. I know from a moral standpoint I couldn't do that to the publisher, but I'm sure there are those that might.
What about something like a 'blanket' license for vendors. A certain fee for X amount of PDF's. We'd pay for (let's assume 50) and would let us print out 50 of ANY pdf from that publisher's line or something like that. That would work for the big guys (Malhavoc, Nat-20, Bastion, MEG, et al, Grinning Goblin, Green Ronin) but not so much the indies...
What do you guys think?
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Well since other folks are doing it
We only have 2 PDFs available through RPGNow and RPG.net mall (though I have a few others to add and some upcoming projects). One is free and one is $5.00
We definitely sell MANY more PDFs through RPGNow than RPG.net by about 10 to one. Then again we sell most of our copies through our own store.
The following #s are for individual sales only of our non-free PDF and don't reflect the subscriptions we have in place for this line.
Traveller's Aide #1 ($5.00)
Personal Weapons of Charted Space
253 copies (55 at RPGNow, 6 at RPGnet Mall, 192 from our own store).
The largest number of referers according to RPGNow are 'Unknown' followed by ENWorld (you da man Morrus!)
I have been very happy with how the PDF series is going, particularly when you factor in the 6 and 12 issue subscriptions we have sold. If you add those numbers in, the sales totals somewhere around 500-600.
We only have 2 PDFs available through RPGNow and RPG.net mall (though I have a few others to add and some upcoming projects). One is free and one is $5.00
We definitely sell MANY more PDFs through RPGNow than RPG.net by about 10 to one. Then again we sell most of our copies through our own store.
The following #s are for individual sales only of our non-free PDF and don't reflect the subscriptions we have in place for this line.
Traveller's Aide #1 ($5.00)
Personal Weapons of Charted Space
253 copies (55 at RPGNow, 6 at RPGnet Mall, 192 from our own store).
The largest number of referers according to RPGNow are 'Unknown' followed by ENWorld (you da man Morrus!)
I have been very happy with how the PDF series is going, particularly when you factor in the 6 and 12 issue subscriptions we have sold. If you add those numbers in, the sales totals somewhere around 500-600.
