What kind of Sales can you expect from PDF?

[Xeriar]

Originally posted by rpghost

This is something that was suggested before and why I put together this page:

http://www.rpgnow.com/new_products.php

Holy cow, man, even browsing the fantasy page has a hundred entries!

Though it takes a lot of maintenance, people have a serious aversion to dealing with more than ~30 items. ~7 is a real nice number.

I look at that list and just have to go 'wha?'

Products come in genres (fantasy d20, fantasy, horror, modern, sci-fi, superhero, and other, or some other short list)

And categories (Settings, supplements, GM Aids, adventures, characters, maps, other, as before)

No category of a genre should have more than 30 items, even people seriously looking through everything will begin to forget or just skip over items otherwise. It's nice if this can cut it down to less than 18 items.

As it stands, it really does scream 'glut' to me. I mean, some of the products there are uh, a little uninspired.

And though I'm not exactly a terribly prudent person, a picture of exposed breasts on the front page is going to annoy a couple of people.

 

[Krug]

Anyway James, thanks for listening to us. It's rare that you get direct interaction with a Internet commerce site, or one that actually tries to pay attention. (Anyone tried to talk to Jeff Bezos lately? )

 

[Spywez]

Exposure = Sales

Well, I am a not a hardcore D&D'er by any means however I found this thread to be very interesting.

I purchased two e-books as a result of reading this thread. My only bit of advice for creators and RPGnow is to maximize exposure.

Top 30 lists are nice but not the answer. And with that snide comment said I am off to read my purchases.

 

[tensen]

Holy cow, man, even browsing the fantasy page has a hundred entries!

Though it takes a lot of maintenance, people have a serious aversion to dealing with more than ~30 items. ~7 is a real nice number.

Look back at the left side. d20 Fantasy once you go into the whole list, has a lot more category breakdowns.

 

[2WS-Steve]

I'll give you their response right now. Since the bigger companys (Malhavoc, Nat-20, RPGObjects) go to print with their stuff anyway, you already have access to giving out their products. So there is no NEED for what you're asking and they won't be interested. It's the small vendors that might be interested in this grass roots support you offer- but they are also going to be the ones most concerned about you just burning a bunch of CDs.
....

James

I'm not so sure print publishers would be all that reticent about this. Many print publishers are starting to shift their OOP stock to e-books and having a new way of selling those would be very appealing.

LSI's print-on-demand service has some pretty reasonable print costs. A small setup fee, then under $4 per book for a 108 page 8.5x11 book with 4-color cover and B/W interior. You do lose full bleeds and both the cover and interior stock are fairly light but I'd much rather have a bound, double-sided print book than the ugly stuff that comes out of my printer.

If an independent gaming store could afford whatever machine they use, has the space for it, and can keep the paper and ink costs reasonable it'd be a pretty convenient way to have a wide inventory base, a large selection of OOP books, and minimal inventory risk.

I'm confident that the technology for such an operation is either already here or shortly on its way. The only outstanding issue then is going to be accountability. When Ryan Dancey talked about something similar to this, but regarding in-store "spincasters" and miniatures, he suggested having special keys ship with the templates and each use of the key racks up a charge. Regardless, the accountability problem can't be that difficult to solve.

On a side note, from what I understand the PoD service even has an added feature in that it uses digital printing, which can make for crisper images in the printout. There's no reason it couldn't also offer 600 dpi prints as compared to the typical 300 lpi you get from a conventional print house.

 

[MEG Hal]

I still think some of the big guys would have some interest, eg - Nat 20's TFT...It's a great book,

T, F and T will be available in print in Jan/Feb 2003
from Mystic Eye Games .
No worries Jezter6 you will have this expanded beauty at your store .

 

[philreed]

POD Machines

If an independent gaming store could afford whatever machine they use, has the space for it, and can keep the paper and ink costs reasonable it'd be a pretty convenient way to have a wide inventory base, a large selection of OOP books, and minimal inventory risk.

One of my (many) current projects for SJG is researching and testing these machines. The quality is not yet there . . . even on the $96,000.00 machine I'm testing right now.

I don't know of many stores that could afford this much just for the machine.

 

[ToddSchumacher]

On a side note, from what I understand the PoD service even has an added feature in that it uses digital printing, which can make for crisper images in the printout. There's no reason it couldn't also offer 600 dpi prints as compared to the typical 300 lpi you get from a conventional print house.

Just a technical note...Dpi and Lpi are two completely different things...The films that are produced to make plates for printer (at least the small press place where I worked) were calibrated for 2400dpi. Printing is MUCH better. And that was with 5 year old equipment.

Digital is cheaper, faster, and for many things a 'better' decision. But for Quality you are not going to beat conventional printing.

 

[2WS-Steve]

Just a technical note...Dpi and Lpi are two completely different things...The films that are produced to make plates for printer (at least the small press place where I worked) were calibrated for 2400dpi. Printing is MUCH better. And that was with 5 year old equipment.

That's interesting; the printers I've been working with request 300 dpi images for grayscale and color and say that their half-tones are typically done at 300 lpi (I think). Is it two different resolutions, one for the text and one for the images?

 

[ghoti69]

Personally, I love PDF products. I generally scan my gaming materials in to have them in electronic form, anyway. They're a great timesaver, and for the price on one print book, I can usually get 3-4 PDFs. I've purchased about 50, so far. True, some have sucked, and some have been awesome. But, they're generally cheap, so who cares.