Who ELSE buys PDFs?

[Tav_Behemoth]

The only thing I regularly use straight from my laptop is my hyperlinked HTML SRD.

Reddist, would you buy an electronic download of new gaming goodness if it were in hyperlinked HTML format? The text of the PDFs of our Masters and Minions books is massively hyperlinked to our online SRD - see here - but presenting it in HTML instead (or as well) would have some advantages for active on-screen use.

For other folks: are you more likely to buy a book if you know the publisher is offering the PDF version for free to owners of the print edition? Have you ever been interested in something and decided to try it out as a PDF first, and then upgrade to the print edition (at a discount equal to what you paid for the PDF)? A list of companies that have offers like this is here.

 

[Klaus]

I have a few PDFs. But you know what I'd buy in PDF format? Comic Books! I love reading them, but then I'm stuck with tons of paper that take up space (always at a premium at my house), gather dust and serve little purpose afterwards.

Hear that, DC? Comic Book PDFs!

 

[philreed]

I have a few PDFs. But you know what I'd buy in PDF format? Comic Books! I love reading them, but then I'm stuck with tons of paper that take up space (always at a premium at my house), gather dust and serve little purpose afterwards.

Hear that, DC? Comic Book PDFs!

Is Unbound Comics no longer online? They were _the_ site for comics in PDF just a few years ago.

 

[Rasyr]

I don't buy pdfs at the kind of prices that are charged. A pdf is just some electronic text with zero marginal cost to the seller, I'm not paying more than about 10% what I'd pay for a proper printed & bound book. I think .pdf sellers expectation that they can get 50% or more of the price of a real book severely crimps the pdf market.

zero marginal costs? The only costs involved with a print book that are not involved with a PDF is the printing. The publisher still has to pay the author, and the artists, and the pagemaker, not to mention the overhead costs of running an office.

As for printing costs, in many cases, these are only a small portion of the overall costs of a book.

 

[Buttercup]

I buy PDFs.

I won't buy PDFs for printed price, though.

Word. Nor will I buy PDFs with DRM.

But to respond to the question that started this thread, I do actually know one person who isn't an EN Worlder who has purchased PDFs. And he didn't hear about them from me.

I think the key is that PDF purchasers must be both gamers and into net culture. That, I suspect, is a pretty small group.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I'm one of those lurker types I rarely post. For the most part I just come here to find out information on upcoming releases. I found out about RPG's in PDF form from here starting with Malhavoc's stuff. Right now I'm making it my buisness to ONLY buy PDF's as opposed to hardcopies. I've posted my reasons on another thread, but I'll sum it up here as well.

1. I actually USE the stuff in the books that I buy. It's easier for me to cut, paste and modify from a PDF than it is for me to hand copy the same crap from a book.

2. I have a Laserprinter at home that allows meto print duplex (double sidede). So I can print out only the portions that I'm intersted in an make notes on those copies as opposed to marking up a hard copy that I paid anywhere from $20 - $50 for.

3. I have shelves of hardcopy game books and I've pretty much run out of space for new stuff. Last year I must have donated at least $500 in game books and suppliments to my local library. My PDF's all fit on my G4 PowerBook, My G4 imac, my two homebuilt PC's (one running XP and the other running RH Linux) as well as being backed up on CD-RW's.

Those are some of the reasons but ther eare a few more, including me wanting to give the middle finger to my LGS. I will not however by a PDF same price that I get it for in the store or ordering a hardcopy on-line. At that point I just do without the book. Green Ronin and HERO games putting out PDF's and DrivethruRPG having watermarking as an option were the two deciding factors in my decison to go PDF only. If it's a scanned PDF then the book is for the most part useless to me, pretty much any thing that interferes with me cutting and pasting from a PDF is something that, unless I REALLY want it, I will not buy.

I've dropped a fair to midding amount on PDF's over the past feew years, as soon as DTRPG is done watermarking all of their stuff there's gonna be a PDF buying rampage...

 

[Razuur]

I have bought a couple of dozen PDFs and in general been more than happy with the products.

But none of the gamers in my group have. I am the DM, and that is pretty typical.

Razuur

 

[Krieg]

I definitely prefer print over .pdfs but do buy .pdfs of products that are generally unavailable elsewhere. There are quite a few small time companies out there that are putting out good product but don't have the wherewithall to get them printed.

Nope. If the price is too low, the customers will assume that it hasn't any worth, and dismiss it out of hand. While the price of a PDF shouldn't be too high so it doesn't scare away the customers, it shouldn't be too low either.

I can attest to that. I managed a pawn shop for a couple of years and was told by the owner that if there is something that is just sitting on the shelves forever...to raise the price.

It works like a charm. The "too good to be true" maxim sticks with a lot of folks and they are suspicious of anything that seems to be "too" good of a deal.

 

[pdkoning]

I buy a few PDF's a year (form rpgnow). I like them. I recently bought The Taverner's Trusty Tome and Steam and Steel. I do not use these books every game session, but I use them to inspire me with (new) ideas.

 

[edbonny]

I buy PDFs from rpgnow.

When Wizards sells their new releases on PDF without that copy protection, I will purchase them. I am more than fine with the idea of imprinting my name as a watermark.

- Ed