Speaking strictly as a consumer, I hate PDF's anyway. Call me old fashioned, call me stupid, call me the Inane Pika of DOOM!!!! but I just can't read the damn things unless I print the fucker out first.  That gets pretty damned expensive in some cases.

Unless the PDF is incredibly small and cheap I don't want to touch it.  At best I use them to preview stuff I'd like to buy in hardback.

That said, I've bought a few bigger products as PDF, mostly when I was far from LGS's and other places to buy books, but even that tends to wane in the face of Amazon and other mail order resources.  But to me a PDF needs to be cheap in order for me to consider it at all. If it's full book price you can kiss my ass, I ain't buying no more.

As for DTRPG, I've used it to browse and windowshop quite a bit.  The browsability and windowshoppiness is still there, no mistake. Impulse buying as well.  Don't dismiss that.  I can't browse for a game I've never heard of from teh publisher's site.

It sounds like a lot of people are pissed off about this. Some of the better small press publishers are not happy.

all sorts of stuff going on in the rpg.net thread.

an interesting pint made by one the posters was that he already had products posted on both sites. He asked how exactly will he be seeing increased traffic with the merger? Then Phil Reed pointed out that with the increased costs he could lose $5k  or more over the next year unless he raises prices.

Quote from: McrowIt sounds like a lot of people are pissed off about this. Some of the better small press publishers are not happy.

all sorts of stuff going on in the rpg.net thread.

an interesting pint made by one the posters was that he already had products posted on both sites. He asked how exactly will he be seeing increased traffic with the merger? Then Phil Reed pointed out that with the increased costs he could lose $5k  or more over the next year unless he raises prices.

The ones this hurts are the larger small press. The big guys price their pdfs the same as their print books - plenty of margin there! The little guys wind up five bucks short each month. No biggie - anything they get is extra money. For us guys in the middle, it hurts.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceThe ones this hurts are the larger small press. The big guys price their pdfs the same as their print books - plenty of margin there! The little guys wind up five bucks short each month. No biggie - anything they get is extra money. For us guys in the middle, it hurts.

-clash

and personally thats that part that pisses me off about this. Its the companies that make their money purely (or nearly) off of PDFs. Like BMTG, PIG, Ronin Arts, and others. Guys like Bill it won't hurt quite so bad because he has a strong print division, but still he would stand to lose some on this to.

Makes you wonder why they haven't thought about what would happen if Ronin Arts, Better Mouse Trap, Hinterwelt, and some of the other upper end small press guys left the site. They could stand to loose some mony if that were to happen.

Quote from: NicephorusFor buyers like me, a pdf vendor adds zero sales.

Maybe a few of the small publishers should try doing a few polls on their website about initial sales/how the buyer first heard of them to see how typical of a buyer I am, to gauge how feasible a small collective is likely to be.

Yeah, this is how I feel, and also what Pundit and Mearls think.

Do those PDF vendors provide you with any kind of analytical tools to tell you where your sales come from? E.g., couldn't they tell you what page the purchaser came from by logging http referrer?

Quote from: Mcrowand personally thats that part that pisses me off about this. Its the companies that make their money purely (or nearly) off of PDFs. Like BMTG, PIG, Ronin Arts, and others. Guys like Bill it won't hurt quite so bad because he has a strong print division, but still he would stand to lose some on this to.

Makes you wonder why they haven't thought about what would happen if Ronin Arts, Better Mouse Trap, Hinterwelt, and some of the other upper end small press guys left the site. They could stand to loose some mony if that were to happen.

You know, I think they have thought of it. I honestly doubt RA is going anywhere. If they even suggested it I am confident a Platinum Program would be invented and you would see their rate drop to 25% or lower.

As for BMT, they consistently rank much higher than HinterWelt. Still, I think James and Steve would be more worried about GR or Hero or WW leaving than all of the small press combined.They have said as much that the bottom 80% of vendors only make up 20% of their sales (yeah, the old 80/20 rule), and that bottom 80% were seriously being considered for cut-ville before the idea of the Edge came up.

Now, it may sound like I hate these guys but honestly I do not. I understand that they are taking an opportunity to raise rates at a logical time. Last time your electricity went up, did you freeze/have the lights go out? Go bankrupt? Bithc a hell of a lot? Bingo! That is what the small publishers are doing now. The smart ones are looking for alternatives. But let me tell you why...

More than the rate, you now have several sites that will be combined to one server (eventually). This from a guy who decided to upgrade his DB during a crash and another who had his forums hacked and personal data absconded with. I appreciate that this is bad luck in some ways and could happen to me, but now you have taken the redundancy out of the system. If OBS goes down you can;t skip over to RPGNow. On top of it, if you haven't taken a look at the OBS site you should, it looks like a lot of the same code is going to be reused.

So, HinterWelt at least will be seriously looking for backups. The problem being, LULU the most likely candidate, is competition. This means we are forced into the non-exclusive rate of 35%. Alternatively, our own site would be exempt and I could go exclusive with OBS and get the 30% rate. Meh. Not an easy decision.

Bill

Quote from: Elliot WilenYeah, this is how I feel, and also what Pundit and Mearls think.

Do those PDF vendors provide you with any kind of analytical tools to tell you where your sales come from? E.g., couldn't they tell you what page the purchaser came from by logging http referrer?

They do and it varies. A lot of sales (in most cases about 1/2) come from front page exposure. The rest mostly come from direct advertising (your site, referral from a press release, etc). Mind, this is my experience and the experience of other vendors I have talked to.

Clash?

Bill

Quote from: HinterWeltOn top of it, if you haven't taken a look at the OBS site you should, it looks like a lot of the same code is going to be reused.

Bill

do you have a link?

Quote from: HinterWeltThey do and it varies. A lot of sales (in most cases about 1/2) come from front page exposure. The rest mostly come from direct advertising (your site, referral from a press release, etc). Mind, this is my experience and the experience of other vendors I have talked to.

Clash?

Bill

About the same. It doesn't really vary much.

-clash

Quote from: flyingmiceAs it looks like they are already avidly courting e23...

Our Official Statement:)

e23 Remains Independent
    We were ALMOST as surprised as the rest of you by the OneBookShelf ad page (it's been taken down now, but was e23.rpgnow.com). We hadn't seen it. We HAD been asked if we would listen to a buyout offer. This is a business; we have a very good relationship with PSI, which is part of the same family of companies, so we said "sure, we'll listen."
    We have not seen an actual offer. Given the news that OneBookShelf will be reducing the amount it pays to publishers, and given the unhappiness we have seen from some of those publishers today, we suspect it makes better business sense to stay independent.
    This is not pique at the leak. These things happen, and we wish the new combined OneBookShelf, which is certainly many times our size, lots of luck. This is just "Now that we have more information, we think we will be more successful, and serve both the players and the other publishers better, by remaining independent."
    Since we are not hiking our commission prices up from our usual 20%, Ronin Arts and other publishers will not be increasing the prices on products sold via e23.
--
Hope that answers most, if not all, of your e23 questions. If not, feel free to drop myself or Thomas (thomas@sjgames.com; the e23 Manager) a note.

Quote from: Mcrowdo you have a link?

nevermind I found it. Well the way the site looks now it does look as if the same guy is behind the design. :eek:

Jesus, they wanted to buy out e23 too?

Good on you, Paul! Good for e23! I think you will come out winning through all this, thanks to DTRPG/WW's usually boneheadness.

RPGPundit

DTRPG's long been a fifth column for the various parasitical special interests that keep the dead-tree RPG inustry wheezing along.  E23's not much better though with it's policy of never selling a PDF of a book that's still in stock.

The only PDF site that actually serviced the RPG PDF industry was RPGNow and it's gone.

While E23 remaining independent is a good thing, it's a black day for RPG PDFs.

anyone else think it is a little underhanded of them to use the same endorsments list on both RPGnow and Drivethru for OBS?

see the link for examples:
http://www.onebookshelf.com/aboutus.html

It seems to me that they are transfering these peoples endorsments from the other sites to OBS. They even changed the peoples quoted line by inserting OBS where rpgnow or drivethru was.

I think I might be upset If I were this people. Just because the endorse rpgnow does not mean they will like OBS.