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Message: <blockquote data-quote="PatrickLawinger" data-source="post: 1448544" data-attributes="member: 2735">Hmmm, I guess I am getting the wrong thing across.Publishers, especially Necromancer Games and other small companies, do listen to their "customers/consumers" because we like the feedback and want to do our best to make our customers happy. We also HAVE to listen to the people we get our money from. If the distributors don't carry our products, you won't even see them on the shelves. ie. you can complain that nobody publishes modules while ours would rot in a warehouse. There have been numerous discussions about this on the Necromancer Boards. It is easy to claim the distributors are the "bad guys" and then pass than on down to the retailers as the "bad guys" but essentially if a product doesn't make the retailer money (ie. there is no consumer demand) they won't carry it. Before people start complaining about corporations or businesses seeking out the "almighty dollar," remember that people selling things for a living, or running a business must make money. Frankly, if you have employees you have an obligation to those employees to run your business in a way that makes enough money to pay their salaries. Sales of adventure modules are very, very slow. I know one retailer that won't carry modules if he can avoid it. Right now he carries WotC modules (some), Kenzer, and things through SSS/WW (which, thankfully, includes much of the Necromancer Games' products). Anything else is special order, he doesn't want adventures "cluttering up the shelves." Now, if everyone on the boards went into their neighborhood game store manager and said, "Hey, we want 32-page adventures, start getting some in!" This would, er, not make a dent. Sorry, as large as the population is on these boards, people here are a mere fraction of game buyers that the retailers cater to. On the other hand, if you all went to the store and ordered/pre-ordered small adventures that might help <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />.Direct marketing is a "whole 'nother ball o' wax." For publishers, direct sales amount to a mere fraction of sales through distribution channels. We need to achieve enough sales to pay the artists, cartographers, etc. Right now, direct sales methods simply can't garner enough sales to support this. We have looked at various "subscription" ideas, prepayment plans, limited editions, etc. and none of these create enough revenue to pay for the quality artwork and cartography we want, let alone pay the writers (yeah! pay writers more money!-subliminal message ending ...). Do we write these off? No, we are constantly looking at a wide variety of ideas to get our products directly to the customer/final consumer.E-publishing can be direct to the consumer, but it still hasn't really "taken off." Until there are easier and better "page readers" for electronic format books, and problems in the dichotomy between ease of use and ease of theft are solved, electronic publishing is going to remain a small fraction of the potential market for a product. I think there are huge potentials for the e-publishing market in general, not just for rpgs, but they simply haven't developed yet. I believe it will be a number of years before e-publishing in general begins to meet its potential.Print products sell multiples of what e-products do. Greater sales=greater income=greater ability to purchase good art, etc. Artwork and cartography (especially good art and cartography) costs $. If you settle for lower sales you have to settle for lower quality art, less art, etcElectronic products still suffer some size limitation problems for graphic and the perception that they aren't as high quality. I have seen some very, very high quality small publisher work as e-products. Unless someone has a big name, or a huge internet following, sales are mediocre, at least when compared to print. Right now publishing, all publishing really, is a dynamic, changing field. Changes in software, display abilities, file sizes, internet speeds, printing technology, and binding capacities, are changing the face of publishing. Whatever the state of publishing and distribution might be, the major complaint I have seen in this thread about published adventures is the need to change them around for a campaign. As a writer I can say that I honestly do my best to keep a campaign "generic" enough to be easily changed, tweaked, modified, or whatever to fit into someone else's campaign. I presume that every person purchasing an adventure is going to run it slightly differently. Okay, really got to go now...Patrick</blockquote>

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