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Kesh
According to this post on RPG.net, FanPro will be offering Shadowrun supplements in PDF format beginning this Friday. The files will be sold through DriveThruRPG and Battlecorps.

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Adam
K00l! I hope all the file sizes are small, and that the books have the latest corrections, and are fully text-searchable, and that they have handy bookmarks for navigation!~!~!@#

I hope they're inexpensive, too, and don't have any DRM~!~!







What?


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toturi
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Fortune
Adam: All joking aside (for now anyway), can you give us a clue about the general price range?
Adam
Stuff is still subject to change, and I actually don't have finalized prices for the Shadowrun books yet, but the general trend is that FASA titles will be half cover price, or less. FanPro titles will be roughly 60-75% of cover price, depending on whether they're still in print or not.

Those aren't absolutes, though ... while we want to offer stuff at a fair price, we don't want to leave money on the table -- and unlike a lot of publishers, we simply didn't scan the books and say "That's good enough." When possible we're building the books from the original layout files, or we're scanning and OCRing them. Then we're taking the time to add in corrections and bookmarks [it amazes me that virtually no mainsteam publishers bother to do that with their digital offerings...] So, in short, we've put work above and beyond just making the books available in digital form, and so we're not willing to shortchange ourselves.
Fortune
Sounds reasonable. More than I was hoping for with the FASA stuff, but understandable all the same. Thanks for the info.
Paul
Gee what sucker did they get to do this......Oh.... embarrassed.gif

Yup, definitely getting a drink of your choice at Gen Con.
Lycan
Hey! 70% of the cover price isnīt reasonable! We have to able to print the book if we want and still pay less than the original price, after all it will be a black and write printing in plain paper...

Anyway this is a great initiative! For guys like myself who live in Brasil - MG, the only option is buying through Amazon and pay additional $11 per shipment and $7 per book and wait 10 days. I would love to simply download a file.

Adam
For in print FanPro books, it will almost always be cheaper to buy the print book, as compared to buying the ebook, then printing out a full copy of it. The upside: You don't have to print out the entire ebook, just the material you want, and it's fully text-searchable, for quick reference.

The print books and the ebooks are two different products with two different feature-sets.

Additionally, drastically undercutting game stores on price for in-print products [especially "core" products] is frowned upon within the industry. Ebook sales supplement FanPro's print products, but FanPro's focus is still on providing new print books, and they need the support of game stores, distributors, and fans for that.
toturi
Then simply do not make the non-OOP books available online. But other company/s that are putting their e-books are doing it free (I think).

Having the book searchable and able to print out what you want is a minor convenience compared with the hefty prices we are buying the e-books for. Yes, it is a feature and a very attractive feature. But is anyone going to shell out more than half the price to buy an e-book? I know it is intellectual property and all that but are people willing to buy virtual books with hard cash?
Demosthenes
To make a reference to The Other Game: ask Monte Cook.
Adam
If you'll scout around DriveThruRPG.com for a bit, I think you'll see that compared to many publishers, our pricing scheme is quite attractive. Remember that FASA also had exceptionally low cover prices. Take Renraku Arcology: Shutdown for an example, which I just finished touching up. It has a cover price of $15, so it's probably going to be priced at $7 or $8 as an ebook.

Most companies on DriveThru temporarily [usually for a week] make a product available for free. A few companies [including Guardians Of Order, my ex-employer] make their core books available for free on a more permanent basis. Typically this is only done with "entry level" core books, or older editions, such as when Atlas Games put Ars Magica 4th Edition online as a free download, while announcing that they were working on 5th Edition at the same time.

People are willing to buy virtual books with real cash, and I think we are putting forward a superior offering in terms of quality and pricing. Obviously, make the purchasing decision that's best for you, even if that means not purchasing. This is just another avenue for people to get FanPro products.
U_Fester
I know me, I will buy both. I am a slave that way. The PDF will be great to have on disk and easy to carry, but you still can't beat a good book in hand durring game play.
Nikoli
And, given the work going into the production quality of the digital version, I can see that being worth a little extra.

Any possibility on a package deal? Say we buy the whole schebang in digital format, do we get an additional 10% off the final price. That sort of thing?

Also, what about updates and futre errta, etc. Will we be able to get updated versions as they become available (for free, provided we own a legal digital version)?
U_Fester
QUOTE (Nikoli)
Any possibility on a package deal? Say we buy the whole schebang in digital format, do we get an additional 10% off the final price. That sort of thing?

Also, what about updates and futre errta, etc. Will we be able to get updated versions as they become available (for free, provided we own a legal digital version)?

Both are good questoins.

But updating the erra is a darn good one. If you have Adobe Acrobat they can just submit you a new page and you insert it. But most don't so i am curious on how this will be done.
Jrayjoker
This sounds like a heck of a deal to me, even if I have to print the books myself. I, however, do have the ability to print 2-sided and bind books at work for a very nominal fee. (lucky me) smile.gif
Lindt
Yes, drinks for Adam in Indy this year.
I can finally have legal PDFs of the core books... now just need a faster laptop...
Kanada Ten
What about mail-in rebates for e'books inside new printed books? Such as Shadows of Latin America having a card saving x$ on an addition DriveThrough Shadowrun purchase?
Adam
Hey folks,

Some good questions. We'll try to get you answers when we can, but, uh, I'm a bit busy finishing books right now. wink.gif
nezumi
Ack!! Ferret-shock!!

Are there going to be any copy protections on these books (I'd love to burn them on CD so I can have a copy at home and a copy at work, but I don't want them popping up all over kazaa)? I'm very interested in the bundles too. OH MAN! That's going to be so awesome. And I get SOTA64 today too!! I think it must be my birthday : )

I think the idea of getting a discount for buying the e-book when you got the printed book is a great idea. As someone else said, I'm probably going to get both. The ebook is infinitely more useful to me (I don't have to cut up my own books!) but I love the feel of that paper...

How big will the files be? If we lose them, can we redownload them? EEEEE!!!
RunnerPaul
This board needs a "bow down in worship" smiley.
Cochise
You mean like this one: notworthy.gif ?
Just click on that "Show All"-Link whenever you do a post and you'll find it wink.gif
ShadowGhost
QUOTE (nezumi)
How big will the files be? If we lose them, can we redownload them? EEEEE!!!

O shuuuurree... just like when you lose a print book FanPro will replace it for free sarcastic.gif

Backing up files and data is *your* responsibility, not FanPro's.

That's why I *always* burn at least 2 copies of DVD backups, in case one goes haywire.


Purchaseable PDFs Sound Great!

A slightly cheaper way for me to get all the books I want, and have them be searchable on my laptop.

And I don't mind printing them out on doublesided paper on my cheap laser printer. and having them bound at the local Staples/Kinko's etc.

If anything happens to the books... just re-print and re-bind.

Since you can buy a box of 5,000 sheets of paper for $25 bucks, it's a pretty good savings.
Halabis
OMG, i finnaly get to own R:AS and Branscan! Woo hoo! I've been wanting those for ever!
bitrunner
unless Adam compresses them any more, they should run about 3 MB for 100 pages or about 30 K per page, depending on text/graphics etc...

you should be able to easily fit the core books and a few others (if not the whole catalog) on a CD...
Nikoli
that sounds great.

i will finally be able to reference books while at work.

Now if only someone can comile the NSRCG into a flash program that is roughly stand alone and doesn't require any changes to the registry.
mintcar
This is great. Iīm a customer guaranteed.
BitBasher
QUOTE (bitrunner)
unless Adam compresses them any more, they should run about 3 MB for 100 pages or about 30 K per page, depending on text/graphics etc...

you should be able to easily fit the core books and a few others (if not the whole catalog) on a CD...

Or my PDA. In a searchable format for posting at work. Finally!
Nikoli
Tiyr PDA has a search capacity for PDF's? Mine just peruses them as though they were an image. =-/
Tanka
If you use Acrobat it'll have a search capacity, as the PDFs they're making are search-capable.
Nikoli
That's the rub, it's not Acrobat, but that's another topic.

Anyway, here's to the not soon enough completion of this endeavor!
Paul
Mark me down as buying them all too. My biggest concern, and remember I am computer iliterate nearly, is that they be able to use a text select so that I can use quotes for various PB3 games and stories.
cracky
This is a little off topic but mainly not. I have no problem printing out ebooks but I don't really know how to go about binding them. Any advice for a cheap efficient way to do it would be cool.
Kanada Ten
Kinkos can punch and bind a booklet for around 5 to 7 dollars.
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