where do you get your RPG books?

[Desdichado]

Do you not realize that the FLGS add lots of value that amazon & overstock don't (enabling browsing, hosting games, providing a find-other-local-gamers bulletin board, knowledgable employees, &c.)?

Browsing is a biggy. Hosting games isn't so much; with the exception of recent gamesdays I've done, I've never played in a store. Finding local gamers via ENWorld has been a much better experience for me than finding them through a board at a game store. And I apparently know more about RPGs than any employee of any game store around here, which is a pet peeve of mine.

I think those value-adds you're listing can very easily be overstated.

 

[Psion]

well someone is either making alot of money or losing money. not sure which.

Alternative 3: Someone doesn't really understand the market.

 

[thol]

No offense, but that's not really very insightful.

well it seems people are concerned that their is a big "markup". and people seem to think that publishers don't make much on books. well, there is a discrepancy there.

for example:

amazon sells a book with a retail price of $50 for $50.
buy.com sells the same book for $33.
the difference is $17.

why can buy.com sells for so little? well, there is no way buy.com is taking a loss, so either they buy the books for less money, or they make a smaller profit and make up for it in volume sold or by balancing it out with other products.

of course, i'm assuming there is no middleman with amazon and buy.com, but i don't know that for a fact. i'm also assuming buy.com doesn't get a drastically better price than amazon.

now, if the publisher is unloading the book for barely more than what it cost them to print, and buy is only making a small profit, then amazon is making a killing. which means amazon sells less to make the same money as buy.com.

basically there are these factors:

buying power (buying more inventory means less of a price from the publisher)
volume of sales (how many books they sell)
profit margin (how much they make on each book)

these things are what makes the prices vary from place to place.

but what it comes down to for the gamer, is how much they pay for a book. money is what drives us, and the extras (like good customer service, or the LGS atmosphere) is what keeps us.

 

[Treebore]

Go to seanreynolds website. He give you a breakdown of how much it costs to make a book and why. His numbers are not accurate, but are close approximations.
The one who makes the most money in the publishing business? The distributor, especially in the comics/gaming industry, since Diamond has a virtual monopoly on supplying gaming stores.

Amazon is a strange monster, they do not have a distributor in the classic sense, and in a lot of ways they are a distributor. Same deal with WalMart. I do not know about the other stores mentioned.

Typical break up of book cost/profit on a book: Publisher 15 to 20%, Distributor 30 to 40%, retailer the rest. These percentages can be altered by how many distributors (middlemen) are in the "chain". Retailers (LGS) usually have a 30 to 40% profit margin. Remember that number is not actually profit. That is the amount they use to buy new stock, pay their employee's, pay their lease, and pay their personal bills (their house mortgage, electric bills, credit cards, car payments, insurance, etc..)

Realize their monthly lease for their business property probably runs them $5,000/month (more or less depending on property values of the area), plus 1 to 2 thousand dollars for electricity/water. Then there is their business tax, which eats up 5 ot 8% of their profit, again depending on where in the US they are located. Plus numerous other costs/expenses i haven't mentioned yet.

So LGS's are not ripping you off. They are charging you a fair price, and may give discounts if the volume of sales will make up for it. Otherwise they must charge you full retail just to make it worth running the business.

However, I still buy on-line because I buy so much gaming material. I cannot let a hobby cripple my families financial resources. So either I buy as cheap as I can, and buy lots more. Or I buy at my LGS and buy a lot less.

Buying a lot more keeps the various publishers in business. Buying less might keep the LGS in business. So I buy more, get more, and keep more publisher's in business. I do not need, or even like, my local LGS's. So I buy on-line.

 

[Unseelie]

i see threads on here from time to time about where people get their print RPG books from, and i'm curious to know where most of the enWorlders get their fix.

I won't actually answer the poll because of the bias present in some of the options. Amazon = I'm lazy?! Give me a break.

Besides, I buy from a mix of places. FLGS, Amazon, PDF, friends. It all depends, really.

 

[Gnarlo]

It's becoming something of a issue for me as well; I like my FLGS and it's run by very nice people, but my wife and are are building a new house, my son is in college, and budgets are getting a bit tight. I'm running into the same problem: do I buy a book a month at the LGS or buy 2 or 3 a month online. Frustrating choice.

 

[Desdichado]

Ah, I see. That does make more sense than "either someone's making money or they're losing money". That seemed pretty obviousl

I think the unknown here, though, is the cost incurred by running the various types of businesses. And, for that matter, has Amazon turned a profit yet? I really haven't looked at them since the big bust five years or so ago of e-businesses.

 

[thol]

I won't actually answer the poll because of the bias present in some of the options. Amazon = I'm lazy?! Give me a break.

that choice implies that there are other online places that are cheaper. most people use amazon because they know it, and would rather use what they know than search elsewhere for a better price, or better service, or both.

that's true of most business. people go with what they know most of the time, rather than spending the energy to search for an alternative, be it good or bad.

and i'm not knocking amazon, as i used to use it frequently, but now i happen to use priceowl to find whatever site is best for me for a purchase. sometimes that's amazon. most of the time it isn't.

Besides, I buy from a mix of places. FLGS, Amazon, PDF, friends. It all depends, really.

most people do. i wanted to know where the majority of that goes. i'm not interested in people who split their purchases 20-20-20-20-20. it's a voluntary poll, which means you are free to not answer.

 

[tburdett]

If it is a book that I know that I want, sight unseen, I will probably buy it online. All of my online purchases are made through RPG Shop or RPG Mall, unless I find an incredible deal somewhere else.

If I have my doubts about a product, I will look at it at the LGS and buy it there if I like it. If the LGS was able to stock the new stuff when it was released, instead of 1 to 2 weeks after release, I would probably buy more stuff from them. They snooze, they lose.

 

[null_boundry]

I buy mine from my local book shop. The FLGS around here is truely dire and sums up everything I have ever heard about how to not run a store. Add to that I'm banned because I used to game with the guy who owns it and the DM killed his favourite charecter, yes the guy is that petty.

Online shopping isn't exactly convieniant for me either. The post doesn't get delivered until midmorning when I'm at work so I have to go to the postoffice to collect it. But I can only get there on a Saturday morning which is usually a bad time for me. I suppose I could get it delivered to work but then it would enter the mystery of the mail room never to be seen again.