Look I love being a computer, but paying for PDF seems wrong. Only making books in PDF seems silly.
I don't know about but I have done a little research and I can't find reason to only put things out in PDF if you are going to charge people money for them. Some people like having book,and I am one of them. I'll pay extra for the book. Like I said I don't think I will pay for PDF.
But what about the printing costs? That is a tired and lame reason to not reprint books you are still actively trying to sell. We live ina a world that you can make print runs of 1 if you want to. Sure that one print will cost more per unit than a mass print run, but it can be done. i know that some people would willing to pay the extra money for said books. Sure Fan pro may not get a bigger profit margin per unit this way, but some players would get a book and not just some crappy PDF.
Full Version: PDF bull....
What? Fanpro does not make PDF-only books.
Some of the old books that are out of print have been re-released as PDF.
What annoys me is that I pay once for the book and have to pay again for the pdf, if a pdf is available it should be free with the book or available at a reduced prise on its on, it costs the publisher nothing to give you a PDF
What annoys me is that I pay once for the book and have to pay again for the pdf, if a pdf is available it should be free with the book or available at a reduced prise on its on, it costs the publisher nothing to give you a PDF
There are many assumptions in that, pretty much all of them wrong.
~J
~J
Except for the assumption that: your paying for a product and you should be able to get the physical book and the electronic .pdf if you wish. I view it much like your right to back up other types of media that you purchase.
I will not pay more than 25% of hardcopy for a PDF of any book. I *will* pay as much as $5 extra for a PDF copy of a book WITH the hardcopy itself -- this represents the time it saves me converting it myself.
25% is the maximum value on a pdf book due to the hassles I have to go through to use it. With a book, I just take it off the shelf. With a PDF, I have to have some kind of electronic reading device available, and I have to worry about the lifetime of the media -- which given the state of computer parts today runs about 10 years at most; I can address this by doing backups, but that's a hassle and reduces the value to me. A decently constructed book typically keeps for a very, very long time. I have books that are nearly 100 years old that are still in usable condition, and require no upkeep other than to keep them in an environmentally controlled area (heating and A/C).
Anyone who expects to get hard-copy prices for a PDF book is on drugs. At least in my opinion.
As far as only releasing in PDF, all that means is that they find that it's not worth the effort to manage the hardcopy release. You have to pay for the printing, distribution, labor of dealing with the release, etc, etc. With PDF, you just stamp the broken DRM flavor of the month on it, and stick it on an e-commerce site -- it just requires much less work.
Try to keep in mind that companies often times have only a fixed amount of human resources, and that this is a way to make a release of a product with minimal human resource investment. This can be an _extremely_ automatable process -- they have softcopies of these books to start with, and it's trivial to create a button that says, "Export to PDF." That's why I suspect FanPro is doing it this way -- I have no specific information to confirm it, however.
25% is the maximum value on a pdf book due to the hassles I have to go through to use it. With a book, I just take it off the shelf. With a PDF, I have to have some kind of electronic reading device available, and I have to worry about the lifetime of the media -- which given the state of computer parts today runs about 10 years at most; I can address this by doing backups, but that's a hassle and reduces the value to me. A decently constructed book typically keeps for a very, very long time. I have books that are nearly 100 years old that are still in usable condition, and require no upkeep other than to keep them in an environmentally controlled area (heating and A/C).
Anyone who expects to get hard-copy prices for a PDF book is on drugs. At least in my opinion.
As far as only releasing in PDF, all that means is that they find that it's not worth the effort to manage the hardcopy release. You have to pay for the printing, distribution, labor of dealing with the release, etc, etc. With PDF, you just stamp the broken DRM flavor of the month on it, and stick it on an e-commerce site -- it just requires much less work.
Try to keep in mind that companies often times have only a fixed amount of human resources, and that this is a way to make a release of a product with minimal human resource investment. This can be an _extremely_ automatable process -- they have softcopies of these books to start with, and it's trivial to create a button that says, "Export to PDF." That's why I suspect FanPro is doing it this way -- I have no specific information to confirm it, however.
FanPro does not have the original layout documents for many of the FASA books [I was f'ing thrilled when I found we actually had the layout files for Bug City], so scanning on many older titles is necessary.
Additionally, we go beyond most companies and bother to add a decent set of bookmarks to each file, and the guys at BattleCorps take the time to touch up individual pages to compensate for scanning issues. All FanPro PDFs -- including the scanned ones -- are text searchable. They're not the same thing as a print book; they're the same content in a different type of product.
None of FanPro's released PDF files use DRM in any form.
Additionally, we go beyond most companies and bother to add a decent set of bookmarks to each file, and the guys at BattleCorps take the time to touch up individual pages to compensate for scanning issues. All FanPro PDFs -- including the scanned ones -- are text searchable. They're not the same thing as a print book; they're the same content in a different type of product.
None of FanPro's released PDF files use DRM in any form.
What? I've got more than 10 year old .pdf's myself. Granted, electronic media are fragile, but paper is as well.
As for making .pdf's cheaper: there's no way FanPro can sell a .pdf of, say, Loose Alliances for 25% of the price of the paper copy. Distributers agreements don't (and I dare say won't) allow that. By those same agreements, they are probably bound to sell the .pdf's for a certain price (I would guess the same as the list price of the book).
As for making .pdf's cheaper: there's no way FanPro can sell a .pdf of, say, Loose Alliances for 25% of the price of the paper copy. Distributers agreements don't (and I dare say won't) allow that. By those same agreements, they are probably bound to sell the .pdf's for a certain price (I would guess the same as the list price of the book).
| QUOTE (Adam) |
| FanPro does not have the original layout documents for many of the FASA books [I was f'ing thrilled when I found we actually had the layout files for Bug City], so scanning on many older titles is necessary. |
If that's the case, I hope you either got a deep, deep discount, or you fired whoever was in charge of due diligence on the purchase. The softcopy had to be made at some point -- at the very least on any product published in the last 7 or so years -- so there's no good reason not to have it other than a failure on somebody's part to do their job. (either at FanPro or at one of the previous owners)
| QUOTE (Adam) |
| Additionally, we go beyond most companies and bother to add a decent set of bookmarks to each file, and the guys at BattleCorps take the time to touch up individual pages to compensate for scanning issues. All FanPro PDFs -- including the scanned ones -- are text searchable. They're not the same thing as a print book; they're the same content in a different type of product. |
Fair enough. I just happen to value the hardcopy for reasons mentioned. To me, ~$5 is all it's worth to me; if I have to, I will just spend an hour or two (or three) on a free afternoon, scanning in the book and OCRing the bloody thing.
Take it for what it's worth; I am only one individual. Your sales figures may indicate that the market is there for full or near full-price PDFs, DRM'd or not.
| QUOTE (bclements) |
| What? I've got more than 10 year old .pdf's myself. Granted, electronic media are fragile, but paper is as well. |
I want to put a copy on a shelf, and not have to worry about it. Computer media lasts roughly 10 years. 5.25 floppies yield 3.5 floppies yield CDROMs yield DVDs. Optical media is only expected to last about ten years; with the exception of tapes, magnetic media (including hard drives) have an expected shelf-life of less than five.
With the exception of those books that have stupid cheap binding jobs, books last almost forever, or at the very least, for a lifetime. We still have my great-grandmother's copy of Yeat's Irish Fairy Tales from 1919. We have a copy of Kipling's Just So Stories from the 1950s, and all of my mother's childhood science books from the 1950s and early 1960s. I have all of my childhood books that I wanted to keep (~25 years old), AD&D books from the 1980s, and can count on my fingers ALL of the books I have lost to age.
On the other hand, I don't have a single functional peice of original media from the 1980s. Fully half of the media I accumulated in the 1990s has become unusable due to decay or obselecense, and of the files that came on the dead media, the ones that I have managed to keep have only been preserved through active preservation on my part. I don't like having to pay attention to backing up files. I have to do it, but it costs me time, effort and brain-space to remember to do it. That's worth a lot to me.
Hrrm, lets see if I can be a dissenting voice of reason.
Probably not, but meh. I'm bored.
"Paying for PDFs is wrong."
Easiest to address. If a book is released as a PDF, there's still the time and the effort used to create the book. The writers still have to be paid, the artists still have to be paid. Editors still do their work, layout designers do theirs, etc etc etc. The only change is that there isn't a printing cost, however, that is replaced by someone converting the book to a PDF form (and it doesn't involve just a single button). In the case of older books, such as the BT and SR books, that person usually has to scan the books, then OCR them to make them searchable. Bookmarks have to be added, in some cases, pages have to be rearranged so that color plates in the middle don't interfere, making every page after the color plates numbered wrong. So we've disproven the hypothesis that paying for PDFs is wrong.
"One shot Prints"
In a more perfect world, this would be much more feasible. It already takes 4-6 weeks for a book to ship after going to print. Now, I assume some of this is "Uh, this other company was here first, we'll get to yours later." Other aspects of this wait is the printing process itself. Now imagine having to send the printer each week 10 different books to print, ranging from 1 to 10 copies of each. Each book will cost more to print, the book would then have to be shipped from the printer, to FanPro, then to the consumer, adding cost. I don't see the return on the work involved to be worth the effort, really.
"Back to the 'It Costs nothing for the publisher to give you a PDF'"
See the first paragraph. You're wrong.
"I have the right to an electronic copy, it's my right to have a backup!"
Yup. And I firmly believe that it's your right to MAKE copies of books, music, whatever else have you, that you've bought. You don't have the right to demand that a company spends it's money to give you the backup. You want one? Make it yourself. The last two people talking about the price of the PDFs seem to think they're easy to make. Since they say so, you should have no problem making one yourself.
"Won't pay, blah blah, will pay this, blah blah"
The time spent converting a print book to a PDF is only worth $5 to you? Even if it only takes you an hour, $5 is all your time is worth?
The hassles of PDFs are there. It sucks having to have a computer infront of you. Then again, for a book like SOTA, you can print out of the rule section of the book and carry it with you, reducing the carrying load (I find it more of a hassle to carry SR3, MITS, M&M, CC, R3R, Companion, possibly the SOTAs, dice, Wanderer's Way (I like something else to read sometimes) two GM screens, Matrix, then it is to carry a single laptop). In this day and age, if doing a backup that usually takes on average 3 clicks and is most automated is a hassle for you, then I hope you store everything on hardcopy.
We'll take this moment to laugh a bit more about the 25% value. Remember, you still have to pay for all the work that went into the book up to this point. See the first paragraph. Plus have you noticed that FanPro doesn't sell their own PDFs? Neither SRRPG.com nor classicbattletech.com have an online store. They all go through distributors, or other companies, such as DTRPG and Battlecorps, who have to have the rights to distribute it. Guess what, I'm pretty sure they have to pay for that. And when you suggest that FanPro cuts out the middle man, and does the selling themselves (and you will), remember, now you have to pay for the people maintaining that webstore, updating it. Then the people that process the orders. And on. And please, PLEASE don't say that you don't have to pay a person much, that the person would just have to update the site once every blue moon. If you want an example of how this DOESN'T work, check out the Iron Wind Metals website.
"Getting Hard-copy prices for a PDF"
I'm sorry, where are you seeing this? I just checked the catalog at battlecorps and most of hte books are 40% atleast...
So, in the end, the arguments really boil down to "Electronic = Free!" Which is wrong. There is still work and a process that files must go through in order to be converted to PDF. Its still work, and people get paid for that work. If you want a free PDF to go with that spiffy new book that you just bought, make the PDF yourself. Don't think that you have the right to demand a backup that you're not willing to make yourself.
Probably not, but meh. I'm bored.
"Paying for PDFs is wrong."
Easiest to address. If a book is released as a PDF, there's still the time and the effort used to create the book. The writers still have to be paid, the artists still have to be paid. Editors still do their work, layout designers do theirs, etc etc etc. The only change is that there isn't a printing cost, however, that is replaced by someone converting the book to a PDF form (and it doesn't involve just a single button). In the case of older books, such as the BT and SR books, that person usually has to scan the books, then OCR them to make them searchable. Bookmarks have to be added, in some cases, pages have to be rearranged so that color plates in the middle don't interfere, making every page after the color plates numbered wrong. So we've disproven the hypothesis that paying for PDFs is wrong.
"One shot Prints"
In a more perfect world, this would be much more feasible. It already takes 4-6 weeks for a book to ship after going to print. Now, I assume some of this is "Uh, this other company was here first, we'll get to yours later." Other aspects of this wait is the printing process itself. Now imagine having to send the printer each week 10 different books to print, ranging from 1 to 10 copies of each. Each book will cost more to print, the book would then have to be shipped from the printer, to FanPro, then to the consumer, adding cost. I don't see the return on the work involved to be worth the effort, really.
"Back to the 'It Costs nothing for the publisher to give you a PDF'"
See the first paragraph. You're wrong.
"I have the right to an electronic copy, it's my right to have a backup!"
Yup. And I firmly believe that it's your right to MAKE copies of books, music, whatever else have you, that you've bought. You don't have the right to demand that a company spends it's money to give you the backup. You want one? Make it yourself. The last two people talking about the price of the PDFs seem to think they're easy to make. Since they say so, you should have no problem making one yourself.
"Won't pay, blah blah, will pay this, blah blah"
The time spent converting a print book to a PDF is only worth $5 to you? Even if it only takes you an hour, $5 is all your time is worth?
The hassles of PDFs are there. It sucks having to have a computer infront of you. Then again, for a book like SOTA, you can print out of the rule section of the book and carry it with you, reducing the carrying load (I find it more of a hassle to carry SR3, MITS, M&M, CC, R3R, Companion, possibly the SOTAs, dice, Wanderer's Way (I like something else to read sometimes) two GM screens, Matrix, then it is to carry a single laptop). In this day and age, if doing a backup that usually takes on average 3 clicks and is most automated is a hassle for you, then I hope you store everything on hardcopy.
We'll take this moment to laugh a bit more about the 25% value. Remember, you still have to pay for all the work that went into the book up to this point. See the first paragraph. Plus have you noticed that FanPro doesn't sell their own PDFs? Neither SRRPG.com nor classicbattletech.com have an online store. They all go through distributors, or other companies, such as DTRPG and Battlecorps, who have to have the rights to distribute it. Guess what, I'm pretty sure they have to pay for that. And when you suggest that FanPro cuts out the middle man, and does the selling themselves (and you will), remember, now you have to pay for the people maintaining that webstore, updating it. Then the people that process the orders. And on. And please, PLEASE don't say that you don't have to pay a person much, that the person would just have to update the site once every blue moon. If you want an example of how this DOESN'T work, check out the Iron Wind Metals website.
"Getting Hard-copy prices for a PDF"
I'm sorry, where are you seeing this? I just checked the catalog at battlecorps and most of hte books are 40% atleast...
So, in the end, the arguments really boil down to "Electronic = Free!" Which is wrong. There is still work and a process that files must go through in order to be converted to PDF. Its still work, and people get paid for that work. If you want a free PDF to go with that spiffy new book that you just bought, make the PDF yourself. Don't think that you have the right to demand a backup that you're not willing to make yourself.
| QUOTE (Adam) |
| FanPro does not have the original layout documents for many of the FASA books [I was f'ing thrilled when I found we actually had the layout files for Bug City], so scanning on many older titles is necessary. Additionally, we go beyond most companies and bother to add a decent set of bookmarks to each file, and the guys at BattleCorps take the time to touch up individual pages to compensate for scanning issues. All FanPro PDFs -- including the scanned ones -- are text searchable. They're not the same thing as a print book; they're the same content in a different type of product. None of FanPro's released PDF files use DRM in any form. |
If you can make into a PDF, what is to stop you from making into a book? my point is not that you can't make inot a PDf, my point is that is that if i wanted to use my computer to role pay i would play WOW. I think books are easier to read than PDF, can be taken with you with more ease, and you can loan them out.
Should I pirate my "MitS" so my friend can see if wants to buys it?Hell if I can let him borrow my PDF, he can basicly have it.
printing costs. duh. you have to pay for the printing costs up front, and then hope the books sell enough to recoup that cost. what, you think the printers let game companies run on credit?
Let me put it to you this way. If a softback hardcopy book costs $30, I would pay about an additional $5 for the pdf. Why?
To me:
IPR: $20
Paper+Printing+etc: $10
Burning+CD+etc: $5
Why is the paper+printing > burning and CD? It costs an average person more to print than for him to burn a CD.
I have already paid for the IPR to own the product. I doubt anyone actually comes up with the hardcopy of a book before the softcopy nowadays, so basically it is conversion from softcopy(in any format) to hardcopy or softcopy(any format) to pdf(with add on searchable funcions) and burning it into a CD. Now, burning into a CD is not even a cost for pdf downloads.
Unless you are saying that the company wants me to pay for the IPR twice for the hardcopy and PDF, then I think something is very wrong with the company's strategy.
To me:
IPR: $20
Paper+Printing+etc: $10
Burning+CD+etc: $5
Why is the paper+printing > burning and CD? It costs an average person more to print than for him to burn a CD.
I have already paid for the IPR to own the product. I doubt anyone actually comes up with the hardcopy of a book before the softcopy nowadays, so basically it is conversion from softcopy(in any format) to hardcopy or softcopy(any format) to pdf(with add on searchable funcions) and burning it into a CD. Now, burning into a CD is not even a cost for pdf downloads.
Unless you are saying that the company wants me to pay for the IPR twice for the hardcopy and PDF, then I think something is very wrong with the company's strategy.
Here's a serious idea. (you may think I'm joking, but I'm not)
Why don't one of you that are upset with this whole thing, and are for the reprinting concept of things, do your research, get a small capital from SBA, open talks with FanPro/Wizkids, and offer to handle the small count re-prints of older books at no cost to FanPro, but a % payment to FanPro for the rights to do so.
From there, you could do something like set-up a store (license providing) that publishes on demand printing of said books.
FanPro won't ever do it, but if you want it, and you can make it a gain for FanPro and no loss, then why the hell not do it.
You may lose some money doing it now and then, but hey...it's all about the greater good of the SR RPG community right?
Why don't one of you that are upset with this whole thing, and are for the reprinting concept of things, do your research, get a small capital from SBA, open talks with FanPro/Wizkids, and offer to handle the small count re-prints of older books at no cost to FanPro, but a % payment to FanPro for the rights to do so.
From there, you could do something like set-up a store (license providing) that publishes on demand printing of said books.
FanPro won't ever do it, but if you want it, and you can make it a gain for FanPro and no loss, then why the hell not do it.
You may lose some money doing it now and then, but hey...it's all about the greater good of the SR RPG community right?
| QUOTE (toturi) |
| I have already paid for the IPR to own the product. I doubt anyone actually comes up with the hardcopy of a book before the softcopy nowadays, so basically it is conversion from softcopy(in any format) to hardcopy or softcopy(any format) to pdf(with add on searchable funcions) and burning it into a CD. Now, burning into a CD is not even a cost for pdf downloads. Unless you are saying that the company wants me to pay for the IPR twice for the hardcopy and PDF, then I think something is very wrong with the company's strategy. |
Of course, you don't buy the IPR to the product. You never have. Just like purchasing a normal book, you buy the book to read. You don't buy the rights to the artwork inside, you can't republish the book, you can't make copies and sell them. Intellectual Property Rights are in no way transfered when you buy a book. Or anything else, unless you're actually buying the rights (which is what Wizkids did with BT and SR from FASA).
You haven't paid anything to own the product. You've paid for a book to read.
If you buy Robert Jordan's next novel in Hardback, then a year later, you want an easier to copy to carry with you on a trip, you get to buy the paperback too. At the paperback's full price, whatever they've determined it to be. Just because you bought the book in hardback doesn't mean you get the second one for free.
I don't know why people think that electronic media follows completely different rules.
Didn't we have this thread five times already? 
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
| "Won't pay, blah blah, will pay this, blah blah" The time spent converting a print book to a PDF is only worth $5 to you? Even if it only takes you an hour, $5 is all your time is worth? |
If I do it during "free time" that I have, yep, that's it. Less, actually. I'll often do several things at once in this regard; scan in pages while watching TV, or doing work that doesn't require my full attention, etc.
Worst case scenario is that I pay some kid I know $5 to do it. They're ALL too happy for an easy $5.
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
| The hassles of PDFs are there. It sucks having to have a computer infront of you. |
It hurts even more that I actively prefer books to e-books. I can scan a book visually faster than I can scroll a PDF, I kid you not.
And regarding the load, you obviously don't have a good backpack like I do -- I can carry the entire retinue of Shadowrun books that I'm responsible for (SR3,Companion,Matrix,M&M,CC,Rigger3) AND my laptop with zero effort. Other people in my group have books they're responsible for, and they bring them instead.
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
| In this day and age, if doing a backup that usually takes on average 3 clicks and is most automated is a hassle for you, then I hope you store everything on hardcopy. |
Heh. Doing those three clicks is the easy part. Storing them, checking the media periodically to make sure that they don't go bad, making sure to label them properly, to index them properly, etc, takes a lot more time than it does to stick the book on the shelf, and scan in a PDF if I need it. The book is a lot more reliable too.
You know why people lose data? Because doing backups right is NON-TRIVIAL. If doing a backup is as simple as just doing "on average 3 clicks", then why does ANYONE ever lose any data? Easy: Because it's just not that simple.
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
| We'll take this moment to laugh a bit more about the 25% value. |
Laugh at it if you want, but that's the value TO ME. I'm not saying this is the price point that FanPro should aim for, nor am I suggesting that it is feasible or infeasible. What I am saying is that this is the VALUE to me, the price at which I am willing to forego the benefits of a hardcopy for a softcopy.
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
| Remember, you still have to pay for all the work that went into the book up to this point. See the first paragraph. |
Duh. Did I say otherwise?
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
| Plus have you noticed that FanPro doesn't sell their own PDFs? Neither SRRPG.com nor classicbattletech.com have an online store. They all go through distributors, or other companies, such as DTRPG and Battlecorps, who have to have the rights to distribute it. Guess what, I'm pretty sure they have to pay for that. |
Yep. They do have to pay for that. How much, I don't know.
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
| And when you suggest that FanPro cuts out the middle man, and does the selling themselves (and you will), remember, now you have to pay for the people maintaining that webstore, updating it. Then the people that process the orders. And on. And please, PLEASE don't say that you don't have to pay a person much, that the person would just have to update the site once every blue moon. If you want an example of how this DOESN'T work, check out the Iron Wind Metals website. |
The webstore presence itself would incur trivial incremental costs over the costs already incurred by maintaining the existing website, in terms of both cash outlay and man hours. The initial setup would require, at most, 8 man hours of web dev time, and could be used across the entire product line (Shadowrun, BattleTech, etc, etc). Updating the catologue is trivial, upload a picture, insert or update a record into the database. If you wanted to take it a step further, you could integrate the web store product catologue into your master product catologue, and have it update automatically when you update the master catologue.
Processing can be done in an entirely automated fasion; processing a credit card and allowing a payer to download a file requires zero human interaction with the exception of errors. Even the vast majority of error cases can be automated by having a way of identifying buyers (ie, making them sign in). Example: How often do you buy from Amazon? How often do you have to interact with actual people at Amazon?
The hard part, really, is dealing with the payment gateway, but if you're willing to pay a premium on the processing fee (usually ~3%, for about 4-5% of payment total), it can be made easy.
All in all, it would be different if FanPro didn't already maintain a Shadowrun website, but adding a store of this scale to an existing site is really a fairly trivial thing, both in terms of initial capital and manpower outlay and ongoing costs.
My guess is that it isn't the incremental cost that caused FanPro to go to partners, it was convenience. Even if it costs more, not having to deal with it yourself has some value; my expectation is that it probably had enough value that FanPro was willing to pay the premium of having someone else deal with it.
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
"Getting Hard-copy prices for a PDF" I'm sorry, where are you seeing this? I just checked the catalog at battlecorps and most of hte books are 40% atleast... |
You are correct on many of the books. I remember that the last time I looked, they were roughly equivelent, and I dismissed them out of hand -- and haven't looked at them since. OTOH, Amazon has lower prices on some of them (Loose Alliances, Sprawl Survival Guide, for example).
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
So, in the end, the arguments really boil down to "Electronic = Free!" Which is wrong. |
Really? My argument boils down to "Hardcopy > Softcopy". I don't expect it for free, but I do require a drastic price cut on the softcopy because the value of the softcopy to me is very, VERY much less.
Also, keep in mind that (as toturi says) books are originally created as softcopies these days. From what I understand, most printers don't even accept hardcopies anymore. Going from softcopy (Word or Pagemaker or TeX format, or whatever) to softcopy (PDF) costs FanPro almost nothing, but including it on a CD with the hardcopy (as opposed to one or the other) can increase the value to the end user considerably.
While I may be wrong, I expect that at Price+$5 for the Hardcopy+Softcopy, they can turn a fairly strong profit (probably at least 50% of the $5 as profit) on each unit, AND it would strongly incentivize me to buy a new copy instead of going out and finding a used copy (it's often hard to find a book with the "included" software).
Or, if they were clever, they could do a "Shadowrun Special Edition" bundle of some kind -- instead of paperback, do a quality hardcover with CD and charge even more money. I'd have been willing to pay ~$45 retail for the SR3 in quality hardcover with PDF on CD, as opposed to the ~$30 I paid for the softcover copy I have.
While I may be wrong, I expect that at Price+$5 for the Hardcopy+Softcopy, they can turn a fairly strong profit (probably at least 50% of the $5 as profit) on each unit, AND it would strongly incentivize me to buy a new copy instead of going out and finding a used copy (it's often hard to find a book with the "included" software).
Or, if they were clever, they could do a "Shadowrun Special Edition" bundle of some kind -- instead of paperback, do a quality hardcover with CD and charge even more money. I'd have been willing to pay ~$45 retail for the SR3 in quality hardcover with PDF on CD, as opposed to the ~$30 I paid for the softcover copy I have.
yup, got a backpack. Still hate having to lug them around, make sure they're all there before I leave, etc etc.
People lose data because they're lazy. It is that simple.
As for 25%, its still laughable
While I realize you are saying that's what it's worth to you, I know others will latch onto it and demand prices at that. Of course, if FanPro put out PDFs at 25% retail, you'd never see another FanPro book in a gaming store again.
The prices for PDFs vary for FanPro. It seems they're smart enough not to completely undercut the retailers when the PDFs come out.
Your arguement is that Softcopy < Hardcopy, but if you scroll through the thread, you'll see that about 3 people have expressed the desire that the PDFs should be free.
As for a drastic price decrease because of the hassles, what do you think is a fair proce that you'd be willing to pay, or is 25% it?
People lose data because they're lazy. It is that simple.
As for 25%, its still laughable
While I realize you are saying that's what it's worth to you, I know others will latch onto it and demand prices at that. Of course, if FanPro put out PDFs at 25% retail, you'd never see another FanPro book in a gaming store again.The prices for PDFs vary for FanPro. It seems they're smart enough not to completely undercut the retailers when the PDFs come out.
Your arguement is that Softcopy < Hardcopy, but if you scroll through the thread, you'll see that about 3 people have expressed the desire that the PDFs should be free.
As for a drastic price decrease because of the hassles, what do you think is a fair proce that you'd be willing to pay, or is 25% it?
What is the actual labour + material cost of putting a book from the raw softcopy format into PDF? All I am willing to pay extra is a reasonable(perhaps at even a slightly higher % than that which they make for the hardcopy) profit for Fanpro on that part of the product if they were to add a PDF CD to a hardcopy.
But if I have to pay twice for essentially the same component of the product, then it is simply stupid. No way I'd pay twice for the same thing.
But if I have to pay twice for essentially the same component of the product, then it is simply stupid. No way I'd pay twice for the same thing.
| QUOTE (toturi) |
| What is the actual labour + material cost of putting a book from the raw softcopy format into PDF? All I am willing to pay extra is a reasonable(perhaps at even a slightly higher % than that which they make for the hardcopy) profit for Fanpro on that part of the product if they were to add a PDF CD to a hardcopy. But if I have to pay twice for essentially the same component of the product, then it is simply stupid. No way I'd pay twice for the same thing. |
Then don't pay for both?
FanPro is providing the PDF for people that want to buy the PDF instead of the print version. They create the print version for people that want the print version.
You seem to think you're entitled to the PDF just because you buy a print version
| QUOTE (Vaevictis) |
| While I may be wrong, I expect that at Price+$5 for the Hardcopy+Softcopy, they can turn a fairly strong profit (probably at least 50% of the $5 as profit) on each unit, AND it would strongly incentivize me to buy a new copy instead of going out and finding a used copy (it's often hard to find a book with the "included" software). |
Remember, with FanPro providing a CD with the book you run into other problems. FanPro can't simply buy a couple of dozen 50 packs of blank CD's and burn the PDF to them. They would have to produce the CD, which most likely requires outsourcing it, as I doubt they have an ability to produce 10,000 CDs for a print run. Unless they wanted a blank CD, which looks bad, they would have to put a design on a CD.
Packaging would also be a problem. What would be the price increase for putting a plastic sleeve inside a book? If the CD and case wasn't attached to the book, then they would have to shrinkwrap the book.
You might say that WotC did it with 3.0. I'd point out that they did it with a single book, with a sloppy, buggy program, on a book that was underpriced to sell immense amounts. They haven't done it since. You want FanPro to do it with each book.
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
| People lose data because they're lazy. It is that simple. |
Doing backups right takes a lot of work, so you're right, it is a matter of laziness. But, it all comes back to the fact that with the hardcopies of books, I don't have to deal with the various hassles associated with keeping backups because books have a much longer expected lifetime than any computer media in existance.
And as far as keeping everything in hardcopy... everything I am really concerned with keeping _is_ kept in hardcopy. Anything that I want for archival purposes (long term) is printed out somehow, with the exception of LARGE data sets (programs, movies, for example), which cannot be printed out.
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
As for 25%, its still laughable While I realize you are saying that's what it's worth to you, I know others will latch onto it and demand prices at that. Of course, if FanPro put out PDFs at 25% retail, you'd never see another FanPro book in a gaming store again. |
Supply and demand, boss. My demand for a PDF is very low. Ultimately, FanPro will know whether it's worth it or not; I can't tell you for anyone but myself, but FanPro is privy to the sales figures.
Keep in mind that demand for e-books as a whole is very low; according to the AAP, in April and May the industry as a whole sold in excess of $400 million each month, while e-books sold less than $2 million. That's about half of a percent. Demand in the market as a WHOLE is very small.
Fan Pro, as small publisher, may find that their specific situation is different, but I doubt it.
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
Your arguement is that Softcopy < Hardcopy, but if you scroll through the thread, you'll see that about 3 people have expressed the desire that the PDFs should be free. |
Yes, well, that's unreasonable. There are costs associated with the PDF -- the PDF alone is certainly not going to cost less than the IP value plus material plus profit.
But, if you bundle the PDF, the incremental cost to the publisher does NOT include the IP value, just the material (+material labor) cost. I don't think that it's unreasonable to think that it probably wouldn't cost more than $1.00 per unit to include a CD insert, all costs included, so at say, +$5 retail, that's $1.50 profit to the publisher per book. Based on a 40% gross profit attributable to the publisher, that could increase overall profits by around 10% per unit. Not too bad, really.
While I'm not going to tell FanPro how to run their business, I know that in my business, add-on services made us a lot of money. PDF as add-on service makes more sense to me; do you really know a lot of people who are going to buy BOTH hardcopy and PDF at current prices? I don't. As currently set up, it's kind of an either-or kind of thing. There's got to be a price point in the middle where you buy BOTH that makes sense to the buyer and increases Fan Pro's profits considerably.
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
As for a drastic price decrease because of the hassles, what do you think is a fair proce that you'd be willing to pay, or is 25% it? |
Well, I don't know the publishing industry well enough to tell you a truly "fair" price; the only "fair" price I can really tell you is the value to me. In my opinion, by itself, an e-book is straight up defective compared to a hardcopy.
25% alone is the value to me, as far as the e-book alone is concerned to me. I do understand that given that the publishing industry on FanPro's scale runs at about 30-50% gross profits that a 75% discount is probably not reasonable. Maaaaybe 55-65%, but that might be awful thin.
Keep in mind that the fact that I peg the value of an e-book at 25% of a hardcopy is a big part of the reason that I personally suspect that the e-book industry as constituted is dead-on-arrival. Until the perception that an e-book is inferior to a hardcopy is changed, e-books are dead without rediculous discounts.
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
| Remember, with FanPro providing a CD with the book you run into other problems. FanPro can't simply buy a couple of dozen 50 packs of blank CD's and burn the PDF to them. They would have to produce the CD, which most likely requires outsourcing it, as I doubt they have an ability to produce 10,000 CDs for a print run. Unless they wanted a blank CD, which looks bad, they would have to put a design on a CD. |
CD pressing is uber-cheap. It's so cheap, it's rediculous. You can get CDs pressed for less than $0.50 per CD (qty 1000) with printing on the face (ie, design, but few colors).
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
Packaging would also be a problem. What would be the price increase for putting a plastic sleeve inside a book? If the CD and case wasn't attached to the book, then they would have to shrinkwrap the book. |
I don't really know what the price of that would be, but I bet it's less than $0.80, worst case $1.
So, you assume $0.50/CD, $1/insert, $1.50 cost. Set bookstore profit margin at 100% (which is high, iirc), and you still gross minimum $1 per unit. That may not seem a lot until you realize that FanPro is probably only grossing around $12 per unit to begin with.
The numbers end up looking better with lower priced books (c $20, it's +$1 to probably $8 gross).
Also, there's nothing that says these have to be delivered physically. You can just include a code of some kind and deliver it electronically. Include a serial number with each book, and let people pay $5 online for a PDF; gross profit skyrockets in this scenario.
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
| Then don't pay for both? FanPro is providing the PDF for people that want to buy the PDF instead of the print version. They create the print version for people that want the print version. You seem to think you're entitled to the PDF just because you buy a print version |
No. I think I should be able to buy the pdf at a discount after I buy the print version. Essentially from the consumer standpoint, I am paying for a service to pdf my hardcopy. I am even willing to pay a premium to have the pdf made by the same publishing company as the one I buy my book from. But not so much so as to pay for the same set of information I wish to enjoy again. Fanpro could even add a "may not be sold seperately" tag to the CD like those found on disks that come with my textbooks.
You seem to think that the company should be entitled to be paid twice if someone wants both PDF and print.
Off topic a bit, Are the Battle Corps PDF's searchable?
It might just be me, but I think the PDF's pricing is more of a "metagame" thinking sort of thing.
Electronic stuff is piratable very easilly. Whether SR books are pirated widely or not is unknown, I buy hardcopies to softcopies any day of the week (Although I have a full suite of self-scanned PDF archives, I never use them for anything except the knowledge that my investment is secure). Other players might not be as hnourable.
Therefore, what would be a $5 value thing, has to be marked up to make up for the amount of PDF's not sold, and to even justify the risk of opening up your product to theft. (Someone is much less likely to sit and scan 100+ pages just to put them on pirating programs like Kazaa than they are to just put the PDF's in their sharing folder with a few clicks).
Or I could just be reading too far into it and assuming WizKids has a reason besides wanting to screw me out of my money.
Electronic stuff is piratable very easilly. Whether SR books are pirated widely or not is unknown, I buy hardcopies to softcopies any day of the week (Although I have a full suite of self-scanned PDF archives, I never use them for anything except the knowledge that my investment is secure). Other players might not be as hnourable.
Therefore, what would be a $5 value thing, has to be marked up to make up for the amount of PDF's not sold, and to even justify the risk of opening up your product to theft. (Someone is much less likely to sit and scan 100+ pages just to put them on pirating programs like Kazaa than they are to just put the PDF's in their sharing folder with a few clicks).
Or I could just be reading too far into it and assuming WizKids has a reason besides wanting to screw me out of my money.
| QUOTE (fionn) |
| Off topic a bit, Are the Battle Corps PDF's searchable? |
Yes.
~J
IMHO there are a few different issues:
a) PDF's based on old (OOP) books
If there are still readable electronic versions of the book with a useable layout (Say a LaTex file or WinWord documents or so) than doing a PDF is resonably easy and cheap unless you want a 1:1 copy of the original book. Text only might be even easier.
Given that SR is from a time when having 4MegaByte of useable memory in my Atari put the color green on a PC users face
I don't doubt that a good many books don't exist in a format that can be read anymore (even if the file can) and the same goes for the Print Matrixes
For those, a relatively high cost (say 50-75% of a similar current book) is okay for a SEARCHABLE and / or WELL INDEXED PDF since it involves a lot of work and those are more useful than the copies on can "find" on e<Animal>
b) PDF base on new books
The resonably recent once should be reproduceable as PDF. Chances are good that PostScript is involved in the printing process somewhere and that the PS files still exist. The pricing for those books depend on wether you have made your cut on the paper copies already or not
b1) Company made it's cut
The book has been out some time (say SoTA 63) and has paid for itself as well as making some money. There is still some demand so reprints are made but that is just "unplanned extra". The book is most likely on e<Animal> as a scan already
For those PDF a price of 25-50% of the book is acceptable both for new interests and for those who already own the book. DRM (Digital Rights Management) is an option IMHO but that's debateable. If the price is heigher, most people would get themselfs a printed copy, maybe second hand one. Add in that each PDF sold skips the printing costs, distributors margin etc and the margin should be the same for FanPro (Willing to be corrected here)
b2) Brand new release
The PDF is released at the same time/earlier than (grrrrrrrrr) the book. It must go for the same price otherwise more and more people will drift away from the printed copy since "Greed is hot!" (Well, the advertisement "lady" is
) and the cheaper(and earlier available) PDF has it's draw. It's okay that FanPro makes more money. Maybe they spend it on good artists
b3) CD for the book
Seems to be doable for Baen Books who added a CD to the Hardcopy of "War of Honor" filled with a lot of stuff. But printing one version with and one without CD won't work IMHO and I for one won't be willing to pay more for a CD with "the same stuff" as the book.
Question: Is it possible to go "CD on demand?" by adding something like the old "Customer reply cards". Send this and a SASE (Self adressed Stamped Envelope) to FanPro and you get the CD back. Maybe with some "Add On" (read: Stuff cut) material?
c) FanPro Bug Collection
O'Reilley has CD sets of Type b1) books for offer. They contain 3-6 books on one Theme (say: All LINUX stuff) for a good price (IIRC 1/3 - 1/2 of the books). Can we get something similar. Say
The Bug Collection: Universal Brotherhood, Queen Euphoria, Bug City
Birdy
a) PDF's based on old (OOP) books
If there are still readable electronic versions of the book with a useable layout (Say a LaTex file or WinWord documents or so) than doing a PDF is resonably easy and cheap unless you want a 1:1 copy of the original book. Text only might be even easier.
Given that SR is from a time when having 4MegaByte of useable memory in my Atari put the color green on a PC users face
I don't doubt that a good many books don't exist in a format that can be read anymore (even if the file can) and the same goes for the Print MatrixesFor those, a relatively high cost (say 50-75% of a similar current book) is okay for a SEARCHABLE and / or WELL INDEXED PDF since it involves a lot of work and those are more useful than the copies on can "find" on e<Animal>
b) PDF base on new books
The resonably recent once should be reproduceable as PDF. Chances are good that PostScript is involved in the printing process somewhere and that the PS files still exist. The pricing for those books depend on wether you have made your cut on the paper copies already or not
b1) Company made it's cut
The book has been out some time (say SoTA 63) and has paid for itself as well as making some money. There is still some demand so reprints are made but that is just "unplanned extra". The book is most likely on e<Animal> as a scan already
For those PDF a price of 25-50% of the book is acceptable both for new interests and for those who already own the book. DRM (Digital Rights Management) is an option IMHO but that's debateable. If the price is heigher, most people would get themselfs a printed copy, maybe second hand one. Add in that each PDF sold skips the printing costs, distributors margin etc and the margin should be the same for FanPro (Willing to be corrected here)
b2) Brand new release
The PDF is released at the same time/earlier than (grrrrrrrrr) the book. It must go for the same price otherwise more and more people will drift away from the printed copy since "Greed is hot!" (Well, the advertisement "lady" is
) and the cheaper(and earlier available) PDF has it's draw. It's okay that FanPro makes more money. Maybe they spend it on good artists b3) CD for the book
Seems to be doable for Baen Books who added a CD to the Hardcopy of "War of Honor" filled with a lot of stuff. But printing one version with and one without CD won't work IMHO and I for one won't be willing to pay more for a CD with "the same stuff" as the book.
Question: Is it possible to go "CD on demand?" by adding something like the old "Customer reply cards". Send this and a SASE (Self adressed Stamped Envelope) to FanPro and you get the CD back. Maybe with some "Add On" (read: Stuff cut) material?
c) FanPro Bug Collection
O'Reilley has CD sets of Type b1) books for offer. They contain 3-6 books on one Theme (say: All LINUX stuff) for a good price (IIRC 1/3 - 1/2 of the books). Can we get something similar. Say
The Bug Collection: Universal Brotherhood, Queen Euphoria, Bug City
Birdy
| QUOTE (Supercilious) |
| It might just be me, but I think the PDF's pricing is more of a "metagame" thinking sort of thing. Electronic stuff is piratable very easilly. Whether SR books are pirated widely or not is unknown, I buy hardcopies to softcopies any day of the week (Although I have a full suite of self-scanned PDF archives, I never use them for anything except the knowledge that my investment is secure). Other players might not be as hnourable. |
No honor gained or lost from using PDFs of books you already own. IANAL, but making a copy for personal use is fair use and is protected; even making copies of _portions_ of the books and giving them to your friends is often considered fair use under most circumstances.
| QUOTE (Supercilious) |
| Therefore, what would be a $5 value thing, has to be marked up to make up for the amount of PDF's not sold, and to even justify the risk of opening up your product to theft. (Someone is much less likely to sit and scan 100+ pages just to put them on pirating programs like Kazaa than they are to just put the PDF's in their sharing folder with a few clicks). |
Opening up your product has nothing to do with it. All it takes is one person out of millions to scan a copy of the book and seed it on the Internet. Shadowrun books are widely available to anyone who is able to download a P2P client.
The fact is, there is a group of people out there who will violate your copyrights and "pirate" the property and there is a group out there that will buy it from the legitimate copyright holder. Most people who would have been able to afford to buy your product in the first place would rather get it legitimately. Of the rest, there are three types -- the types who pirate due to lack of funds, those who pirate do to lack of value, and those who pirate as a... for lack of a better term, a philosophy.
Some suggest that the first two types of "pirate" actually drives adoption of a product; a portion of these people would never pay for the content at all, but the other portion simply can't afford it -- and this portion will often buy the product when they are able to afford it. Obviously, with respect to those who would never pay for the product, a pirated copy is NOT a sale lost. And with respect to those who can't pay, snagging copies of a pirated version of the game keeps them interested and using the product; these people serve as word of mouth marketers and will often graduate to buying product just as soon as they can afford it. In other words, this type of pirate is beneficial (within reason) and is a FUTURE customer. But again, in this case, a pirated copy is not a sale lost, because they simply can't afford it.
I don't think that it's entirely that simple, but there is SOME truth to that argument. As a kid, I knew many people who pirated simply because they couldn't afford it. They pirated Doom, and Doom 2, and Quake, but guess what? They graduated high school, got a job, and then went out and BOUGHT Quake 2 and Doom 3. Buying Doom/Doom 2/Quake was NEVER an option for them. id never lost any sales as a result of these kids pirating, but they did GAIN sales because the pirated works served as marketing for future games when the kids grew up and could afford it.
OTOH, there are some who will "pirate" things irrespective of affordability, and these people will "pirate" whether or not you make a PDF available. These people congregate in groups and earn prestige (and thus access to more works) within the group by making content available. These are the people who break into game companies and steal the game a year before release, these are the people who make the Shadowrun PDFs available on the P2P networks. This has and will continue to happen irrespective of whether or not FanPro makes PDFs available themselves; the way to stop these guys is via copyright enforcement. Using lawyers and law enforcement on these guys is the only way to slow them down; NOTHING ELSE WORKS.
In short, limiting availability of a copyrighted work in electronic form is pointless. Artificially trying to create scarcity by DRM, not making the electronic version in the first place, etc, will ALWAYS fail. In general, copyrighted works hold value in a captalistic society only because the force of law makes them scarce, NOT because the creator of the work makes them scarce. Using the law (law enforcement and lawyers) is the only way to keep them scarce. Nothing else works.
My preference with SR4, is that should I purchase the hard copy, I would like a coupon of some kind for the electronic one. Let the normal retail of the e-version be 40% of physical or some such, then tack on the coupon. If I just want the electronic version, I pay it's full price.
What's wrong with just letting the market decide on appropriate pricing? If it's really only worth $5 to most consumers (...or 25%, or 40%, or whatever) then supply and demand should eventually take the price to that point. Of course, if FanPro decides that it doesn't make enough money, then we won't see any new pdf releases, but isn't that what free market's all about?
Of course in the case of RPG books, the legit PDF is generally by far completely and utterly superior to the pirate product. Which most of the time tend to be scans, and thus at least 10-20 times larges, much more irritating to use, and unsearchable, and unable to be copied and pasted from.
To be honest I like the way Fanpro is doing the pdf releases of books, the prices are very cheap, definitily a fair bit lower than I would get at my local game stores, it ends up at about half the price. And considering the pdf version tends to be coming out first now (and it seems to take a while to get over to Australia), I'm happy to buy the PDF. To be honest, I agree with the person who said before, if you have the hardback of a book, and want to buy the paperback because it is smaller and you are travelling, you would have to pay for the paperback.
It's the same content, two different mediums, if you want both, you pay for both. Buying the hardcopy does not give you the right to a free softcopy, or even a cheap one. I mean if Fanpro want to set up some kind of a discount deal, then sure, that'd be cool, but I see no reason why they have to in any way whatsoever.
To be honest I like the way Fanpro is doing the pdf releases of books, the prices are very cheap, definitily a fair bit lower than I would get at my local game stores, it ends up at about half the price. And considering the pdf version tends to be coming out first now (and it seems to take a while to get over to Australia), I'm happy to buy the PDF. To be honest, I agree with the person who said before, if you have the hardback of a book, and want to buy the paperback because it is smaller and you are travelling, you would have to pay for the paperback.
It's the same content, two different mediums, if you want both, you pay for both. Buying the hardcopy does not give you the right to a free softcopy, or even a cheap one. I mean if Fanpro want to set up some kind of a discount deal, then sure, that'd be cool, but I see no reason why they have to in any way whatsoever.
| QUOTE (Ranneko) |
| It's the same content, two different mediums, if you want both, you pay for both. Buying the hardcopy does not give you the right to a free softcopy, or even a cheap one. |
Actually, at least in the United States and in most British Commonwealth and European countries, fair use laws do in fact give you the right to a free softcopy, or any number of "reasonable" copies. Check out RIAA v. Diamond (iirc) in the USA for example; the court found that space shifting is fair use. This means that any copyrighted work that I have a legitimate copy of can be "space-shifted" -- I can copy it from the original media (book) to any other media (pdf) so long as it's only for personal use.
Now, that doesn't mean Fan Pro has to do it for me. They obviously can charge whatever they want to for it, but I am not willing to pay the full price for it under any circumstances for the reason I gave, 25% is the absolute limit, and even at that price, I won't buy both (unless 25% means <=$5).
Some people might. That's ok. FanPro will take a look at their sales figures, and see if the market is profitable enough for them, and at that point, they'll continue, adjust or exit as is appropriate for them. Apathy is correct; the market will render a verdict in its own time.
They give you the right to create and own such a copy, not to receive it from any other party.
~J
~J
| QUOTE (Maelwys) |
| Yup. And I firmly believe that it's your right to MAKE copies of books, music, whatever else have you, that you've bought. You don't have the right to demand that a company spends it's money to give you the backup. You want one? Make it yourself. The last two people talking about the price of the PDFs seem to think they're easy to make. Since they say so, you should have no problem making one yourself. |
It's a pain in the ass. I made a PDF backup of FoF once I got a scanner and realized that I didn't have to put up with the taped-up monstrosity that has been floating around since like a week after I got it. That's a short book, but scanning each page takes 1 minute per page once I get the scanner set up, and adding bookmarks took me a while. The first time I made bookmarks for a longer book it took me four hours to figure out how to get them to work.
| QUOTE |
| "Getting Hard-copy prices for a PDF" I'm sorry, where are you seeing this? I just checked the catalog at battlecorps and most of hte books are 40% atleast... |
Loose Alliances is 88% of the book's cover price, for one.
I've seen some of the free PDFs on BattleCorps (GM Screen, Critters), and what bothers me is that the image resolutions always look inferior and pixelated. It's great that they are small PDFs (compared to FoF, which is gimongous comparatively) if they went from layout to OCR'ed PDFs, but just to improve the image quality a little would be really cool.
| QUOTE |
| You seem to think that the company should be entitled to be paid twice if someone wants both PDF and print. |
I see product, I want product, I pay for product.
I see same product later, now e-book, I want product, I pay for product.
How can you not understand that?
Also, making a paper-print book is different than making a PDF. Often the paperprint is patched together from several files, and send to print with specifications on how to mix it all together. Graphics, tables, text etc.
A real e-book, not just a scan, requires you to produce a collected document with references and links, which is a whole new processing of the material.
Both kinds of producing have their costs, and the actual production costs and logistics of the products are not always the price-heaviest. Hence, its uncalled for to demand cheaper electronic copies, because they assumeably are "easier" to produce. They are not.
In fact, producing a PDF has a flat price, no matter how many you end up selling. The more you sell, the more money you earn. But who, of us, knows just how many PDF's they need to sell to break even? - Who knows if they do?
Especially if they convert old and relatively outdated material, that might require massive retooling before its viable as an e-book.
The whole "I scan my own copy" thing is just ridiculous. Its non-comparable to an e-book. Now, if you OCR the text, rettol the graphics and index the whole thing and it looks nice and not like crap, then respect for that.
If FanPro markets a bundle paper+PDF product, then I might be buying it. I love the paperbooks, much easier to read, because I can see the whole page and don't have to scroll up to read the second column.
But for active gaming, PDF's are the thing. Character computerized, NCSRG as quick reference, PDF's to look up the details. Now we're running. Laptops are great!
But that as it may, many people prefer one to the other, and will only buy the product once. FanPro has to be certain to reach critical mass for each version before they produce it. And remember boys and girls, in this world "breaking even" is not acceptable. You Must produce a profit that is acceptable for a company in your business. Otherwise shares drop, financing becomes harder and you die.
| QUOTE (toturi) | ||
No. I think I should be able to buy the pdf at a discount after I buy the print version. Essentially from the consumer standpoint, I am paying for a service to pdf my hardcopy. I am even willing to pay a premium to have the pdf made by the same publishing company as the one I buy my book from. But not so much so as to pay for the same set of information I wish to enjoy again. Fanpro could even add a "may not be sold seperately" tag to the CD like those found on disks that come with my textbooks. You seem to think that the company should be entitled to be paid twice if someone wants both PDF and print. |
First of all, Vaevictis brings up interesting points, and he might be on to something, like him, unfortunately I don't have the numbers either. The only thing I can think of is that since other companies aren't doing it, there's probably some hidden cost that we're missing somewhere.
I do wonder if the reason e-books aren't as popular is due to a lack of cheap reader. I would guess they're profitable and they well well, since most of the major gaming companies are doing it now, though I suppose that could be a "Oh my god, White Wolf is doing it, now we've got to do it!"
Toturi, you don't seem to realize that they are infact two different products. Check the book example I made. Just because I own a book, doesn't mean I get to demand a second book in a different format for free. Nor is the company under any onus to provide me with one. They price their product, if I want a second one, then I would have to pay for a second one. If you wanted to buy two copies of Loose Alliances, one that you could use, beat up, not care about, and one that would sit on your shelf as a part of a mint "Collection" then you would have to pay full price for both. Just because the PDF is electronic does not mean that you are entitled to it cheap.
You are infact NOT paying for a service to PDF your hardcopy. You're paying for another book. FanPro is not in the business of converting hardcopy to PDF. They're in the business of releasing books in different formats. If you wish someone to convert your hardcopy into PDF (which is your right under fair use, depending on your country's fair use laws) then pay someone to do it, or do it yourself. The PDFs FanPro puts out are NOT archival copies. They are infact complete books, which FanPro sells as such.
And yes, if you want the PDF from FanPro and the hardcopy from FanPro, then yes, you have to pay twice. Just like if I want a (again, to use this example) Hardback version of a novel, and a paperback, I have to buy both at their normal price. Just because one is electronic doesn't change this. If you don't want to pay twice, then make your own PDF. You're allowed to. And its free other than your time.
Someone suggested that FanPro insert cards, or electronic codes into the book for either a free PDF, or a free CD. Couple of problems with that. In order to prevent theft, books would have to be shrinkwrapped. Cards could easily be ripped out, codes copied (and as an example of how bad theft can be, my brother went to the local Best Buy to buy a game card for a MMORPG. When he got home, the box the card came in had been cut open, the card removed, and the box resealed...when he went to Best Buy to complain/exchange, he and the manager found out all 10 game card boxes had been cut open and the cards removed, then put back on the shelf to look normal), so some sort of protection would have to be implemented.
Plus this would raise the price of books for an "imaginary" product. Books would have (We'll use Vaevictis' $5) a price increase, which is fine for the people that use the codes, or want the PDF/CD. For those that don't, they're forced to pay more. Unless you advocate the printing of two different types of books, which won't work for various reasons. Also add in the price of shipping for CDs, not to mention a FanPro employee packaging and shipping off the CDs. Electronic format is slightly easier, but then you run into the problem of someone just opening up the book and finding out the code. If you shrinkwrap the book, you run into other problems.
the long and short of it is that if you don't want to pay that much for a PDF, don't buy it. make your own, on your own time. if nobody buys the PDFs, FanPro (or the guys they license to sell the PDFs, not sure how that works) will lower the price. if the PDFs sell, well, obviously there's a market for the PDFs at that price. you can rail against the market all you like, but it's probably not going to change because of it.
Another way for the discount idea is that of the rebate. Buy both, download form, print said form and fill it out (my preference is fill it out then print but not everyone has caught on to the fact that PDF's can be rendered with editable fields) and send it in with the receipt or a copy of the receipt, then in a few weeks you get your check for the refund. On the upside, the money sits in a big account, earning interest so that the publisher isn't out hte entirety of the refund money, as many will forget to file, file incorrectly, or for what ever reason, fail to qualify, in addition to the interest earned.
Well except for the fact that the US office is basically just Rob and a few part time people last I heard. So this means either dumping more work on the guy or having to pay someone else to do it, and FanPro LLC isn't exactly that big of an organisation really.
It just seems too complicated and fussy for what it offers IMO. Either buy the PDF or don't, those are your choices at the end of the day.
It just seems too complicated and fussy for what it offers IMO. Either buy the PDF or don't, those are your choices at the end of the day.
And in the real world there's stuff like coordinating any such sales gimmick with the FLGSs, retailers and the actual distributors involved. Not exactly a simple equation.
I'm not sure what we're complaining about here...
Is it the fact that FanPro has been kind enough to offer another option for buying the books or that they're asking us to pay a small sum to get them?
Is it the fact that FanPro has been kind enough to offer another option for buying the books or that they're asking us to pay a small sum to get them?
You think you are entitled to a discount on similar products after you buy one of them?
So if you buy a dvd for $15 you think the whoever sold it to you is obligated to sell you the vhs for $5, or whatever. If you saw it in the theatre you should get a discount on the dvd and the vhs, oh and the PSP mini disk, and pay per view... and if you ever go see it in a theatre again... right?
If you buy a hardback book you think you are entitled to get the paperback cheaper, not to mention the ebook and the audiobook on tape, cd, and mp3.
Yea, they are entitled to sell you the same thing over and over as long as you feel like buying it over and over.
So if you buy a dvd for $15 you think the whoever sold it to you is obligated to sell you the vhs for $5, or whatever. If you saw it in the theatre you should get a discount on the dvd and the vhs, oh and the PSP mini disk, and pay per view... and if you ever go see it in a theatre again... right?
If you buy a hardback book you think you are entitled to get the paperback cheaper, not to mention the ebook and the audiobook on tape, cd, and mp3.
Yea, they are entitled to sell you the same thing over and over as long as you feel like buying it over and over.
I think the orginal complaint was releasing something in pdf only, and the re-release of older SR materiel in particular.
Underworld source book Orginal print price: $15, pdf rerelease : $8
Tir Tairngire - Print: $18, pdf rerelase $10
Tir Na Nog - print $18, pdf rerelase $10
Harelquin - print $12, pdf rerelase $12 (Dunno whats up there -other than possibly demand)
Renraku Arcology: Shutdown print $15, pdf rerelase $8
Keep in mind that these are all out of print books.
I don't see a problem with those books pricing. Some of the newer stuff might be kinda high:
$30 to $23 for the core book. You can get it print from amazon for $19.80 - and it ships within 24 hours.
Underworld source book Orginal print price: $15, pdf rerelease : $8
Tir Tairngire - Print: $18, pdf rerelase $10
Tir Na Nog - print $18, pdf rerelase $10
Harelquin - print $12, pdf rerelase $12 (Dunno whats up there -other than possibly demand)
Renraku Arcology: Shutdown print $15, pdf rerelase $8
Keep in mind that these are all out of print books.
I don't see a problem with those books pricing. Some of the newer stuff might be kinda high:
$30 to $23 for the core book. You can get it print from amazon for $19.80 - and it ships within 24 hours.
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