Re: #65: Retailers and Publishers and PDFs (Oh My!)
Its a mixed bag honestly. I like PDFs. They allow me to grab text/pictures and other things while preparing for games. They also allow me to preview hard copy games. There have been many times where I'll check out a PDF and then decide the game isn't for me, and not buy it hard copy.
On the other hand, nothing beats a hard copy for actually reading. Its easier to flip through and browse a physical book. Its available in more places for reading (try lugging the desktop into the bathroom for "meditation". More often than not, I find that if I like the book, I'll end up with the hard copy of it as well as the PDF.
That being said, I've also found that my FLGS does not necissarily carry all the books I want or need, or they do not get them in when I want them. So I'll turn around and purchase the book from an online retailer like Amazon. That tactic alone has probably cost my store owner more money than PDF's (at least from me).
Re: #65: Retailers and Publishers and PDFs (Oh My!)
Quote:
The pdf seller pays for the work AS IT SELLS, the retailer does so before it sells.
That's bollocks, Marcus, and you know it. By the time a book reaches the market, whether as PDF or print product, any RPG publisher worth its salt will already have paid the invoices of the writer, artists, editor and designer. If it's a print product, the printer and warehouse will be breathing down their necks for their invoices as well.
An RPG publisher's typical investment on a new book is thousands of dollars, tens of thousands on a new rulebook or core supplement with decent production values, and that's not counting any cash we put into advertising and promoting it.
And does your distributor really demand cash on the nail? You don't get 30-day terms? Really?
Re: #65: Retailers and Publishers and PDFs (Oh My!)
It's a shame no one has figured out an economically viable way for FLGSes to do in-house print and bind of pdfs. It seems like a hybrid approach that could benefit both publishers and retailers.
Personally, I tend to buy things that are on the shelf at the FLGSes. If it isn't there, I don't bother; I'll go online. Buying a pdf ( which I end up printing out anyway) gives me instant gratification in a way that ordering a hard-copy (Amazon or special ordered at the FLGS) can't.
Has anyone experimented with anything like that? Has it ever been discussed at length? ny FLGS owneres looked into the costs of having a decent color-printer on premises for that sort of thing?
Re: #65: Retailers and Publishers and PDFs (Oh My!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by komradebob
It's a shame no one has figured out an economically viable way for FLGSes to do in-house print and bind of pdfs. It seems like a hybrid approach that could benefit both publishers and retailers.
The closest piece of hardware to what you're describing is the Espresso Book Machine v2.0, which I watched being demoed at the London Book Fair earlier in the week. It occupies around 15 square feet of space and produces a bound, trimmed 300-page book (4-colour cover, b/w interiors) in four minutes. I don't think there are many games-stores that could justify the cost of it, plus that amount of space, for the profit-margin on an RPG book, even if the machine was operating non-stop without breakdowns (which seem quite frequent).
Re: #65: Retailers and Publishers and PDFs (Oh My!)
I agree with komradebob. I have thought for some time that there must be some way to build a kiosk or something that a FLGS could put in a store that would print PDFs or burn them to CDs, and somehow give everyone involved a fair slice of the pie. It could be a partnership with the store, where you choose what you want and pick up the CD and pay at the front desk, or it could be like a vending machine where the store gets a flat rate per month. There must be some sort of model that would work. (it works for soda and gum balls, why not PDFs?)
According to the ePublisher guide from RPGNow from a few years ago the best selling and most profitable PDFs are short and very specific. So I would expect less overlap between the big core books that you really want from a store and little things that work better as PDFs. I can't argue with first hand evidence, though.
To James_Wallis: Please note that he was talking about the PDF *seller*, not the PDF Publisher.
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Re: #65: Retailers and Publishers and PDFs (Oh My!)
Distributors should get into the game of selling pdfs and allowing buyers to credit a FLGS with the purchase. That should be a relatively simple thing to do.
Thus the store gets credit for the sale to a loyal customer and the customer has the option of print or ebook.
Everyone is happy.
Local store should be supported. As they go, so goes the hobby.
Re: #65: Retailers and Publishers and PDFs (Oh My!)
James:
I think I heard about that. wasn't that the model that Mongoose was experimenting with?
I was actually thinking about something even more basic, to be honest.
Just as a quick example, I tend to use minis in my gaming, so things like dungeon tiles or World Works style paper models have a great appeal ( I don't have anything like an unlimited budget!).
Anyway, there is lots of nice stuff in pdf for those needs, but going through ther rigamarole of saving to disk and hitting Kinkos, and figuring out the right paper weight and yadda yadda yadda- well, it would definitely be more convenient to me to do that all as one stop at a place geared to it. No big reason it couldn't be the FLGS.
As for other binding styles? well, I could get away with simple. Like I said, I tend to print my pdfs out and just three-ring them. Probably not to everyone's taste, but I could see that being a viable option, or even stuff like saddle-stitched binding with a heavier cover, much like old-skool adventure modules. Much simpler printer-copiers are certainly capable of all that stuff.
I wonder about the business agreement end, however. What would it require on each end of something involving a pdf seller like Drivethru, and an FLGS looking to do something like what I'm suggesting? how would the money-flow work between all involved parties? Would there be any advantage for publishers who sell both pdfs and hard-copies of their products? Would it be different for a bigger publisher, versus a cottage industry one or two man operation? l
Re: #65: Retailers and Publishers and PDFs (Oh My!)
maybe people in michigan are different but i doubt it (i know plenty of them being from illinois). i've never heard of anyone in my circle of friends/acquantences buying a PDF instead of a hard copy. i HAVE known people to buy a PDF after buying the book to have a more portable copy of their collection. i've known people to buy a PDF because the book is OOP and they don't want to brave ebay for it. I've known people who have pirated a PDF to check it out and then not bought a copy because they didn't like what they saw but that's a thieving digital equivalent to hanging out in the FLGS leafing through a book for 2 hours only to find you don't like it; no actual sale lost there.
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