Electronic Publishing?

Thoughts and Ideas

by Allan Goodall

I'll just throw something in here. There's a roleplaying game supplement for _Call of Cthulhu_ called _Delta Green_. The _Delta Green: Countdown_ book came out at over 400 pages and at a cost of $39.95 around 4 or 5 years ago. People complained about the cost of the book even then. The book is out of print and won't be reprinted. The reason? The price barely allowed the book to break even after the entire run was printed. In order to make money the company really should have charged 2 to 3 times the cover price.

This anecdote shows how much a company with an excellent product has to charge in order to just break even. As a result, Pagan Publishing is perpetually on the edge of profitability. In the case of DG: Countdown, they don't even have the right to print PDF versions of the book due to licensing issues (they would have to pay the same licensing fee for a printed copy as a PDF copy).

I'm not saying that some pricing is smart. Obviously from this thread there are a lot of people who feel some are over priced. Still, this hobby is small. It's entirely possible that it's _impossible_ to make a living at it. Selling 10,000 copies of a rule set is considered quite good (if you aren't Games Workshop). If they expect to sell 5,000 copies of FR! over the next 3 years that's only $60,000 per year. That's not a lot if it's your flagship product, you have an office to maintain, and there's more than one person to pay.

Piracy

There's something else to consider when someone sells a PDF: piracy. How many people will buy a copy and then print out rules for their group or club? So in the past a club got by with a single copy of the rules, now they feel they aren't harming anyone by printing out multiples (except they forget that every now and again someone else buys another copy of the rules used by the club, and that sale is now lost). If you think you can sell 10,000 hardcopies, you have to figure that you'll lose maybe half that to piracy. Suddenly the profit margin on a PDF drops substantially.

That being said, there's a limit to what people will pay when they have to print it themselves. Not only do you have to pay for your own expendables (paper, ink, etc.) you end up with an inferior product. It will end up in a binder or duotang type folder, not perfect bound with a laminated cover. It simply won't look as good as other rules purchased for $30.

I wouldn't pay $30 for the 3rd Edition PDF, but I have 2nd edition and I'm not sure I'd even pay $30 for a bound version of a new edition. I paid $10 for their Samurai battle rules and I'd pay the same for a 3rd edition of FR! as a PDF.

Somewhere in the middle is probably what most people would pay for a PDF if they didn't own FR! before. I think Chipco has made a mistake in their pricing, but perhaps only because they may have made a mistake in one of their basic premises: that they can survive, and maybe even make a profit, as a company that produces miniature rules. (I personally think that those who refuse to buy any PDF style rules are condemning the hobby to marginal status, as I think PDFs are the only way that all but a very few could make a living selling rules.)

Electronic Publishing Pros and Cons

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