Canonfire! Forums-viewtopic-A business question

Thu Dec 13, 2007 11:55 am A business question

How much would you be willing to pay for a pdf only book of quality
d20 material? Magic items, spells, monsters, adventures, etc. Each
book being about 32 pages, little to no art, and cahock full of
usable, quality stuff. Kind of a "no frills" game product. Would you
be interested, and how much would you pay?
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Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!

Wed Jul 15, 2009 2:40 am

Wow, no one ever answered this? 2 years? Personally I do not play using the D20 system. However I think something like that could easily go for somewhere between $5 and $20.

I wish I could give a smaller range. It is just that I have seen things like that priced fairly high but do not know if they sell. And I know they would sell for the lower estimate, but would probably go for more.

Personally, if the content was grand enough, and I played using the D20 system, I would be willing to part with about $8 - $12 for it depending on quality of the substance.

Now if you have something more along the lines of AD&D then we're talking.

Wed Jul 15, 2009 1:11 pm

Thank you for your response. I still have this as a "back burner" project, though most of the comments I've received elsewhere are less than encouraging. Confused

Thanks again.
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Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!

Wed Jul 15, 2009 6:02 pm

First time seeing this. Embarassed

Being "old school" I'd probably go for something along these lines. $15 to $20 sounds quite reasonable. Cool

I know that newer edition stuff goes for more than that, but I don't pay it. I'm really not that interested in the newer systems and so I won't pay those prices for them. 4e doesn't interest me at all. Neutral

Hope you keep the "burner" on simmer and let me know what happens with it. Stay encourage. Happy

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Thu Jul 16, 2009 1:08 pm

I wouldn't be willing to pay more than $3-5 or so for such a book, from an unknown publisher. From a known/trusted publisher, or from an unknown with very good preview material, I'd perhaps go $5-8, but once you get too much past $5 I'd much rather buy a book in some format, truthfully vs. a .pdf.

I find that if I have a book, I use it; if I have a .pdf, it gets downloaded and ignored (or, downloaded and printed, then either used or ignored based on how well it fares vs. the other books :D ).
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Thu Aug 27, 2009 2:48 am PDF prices

Since the OP, I think that PDFs have become way more common.

I was just looking at Paizo the other day, and their smaller-sized PDFs go for $3.99 USD, and their large 100+ page PDFs go for $9.99USD.

I think that I agree with grodog about the ranges he gives, and whether the publisher is well known to me or not ... or at least whether the writer and artists are known to me.

Icarus
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Thu Aug 27, 2009 12:02 pm

Thanks all for the feedback. I have decided to go forward with this project. I'm debating between calling the company "Gray Order Press" and "Skeleton Key Press". I plan to hit GenCon next year, and likely more as time and money affords.
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Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!

Sat Sep 12, 2009 12:15 pm

One product I'm thinking about is a series similar to the old Flying Buffalo Citybooks; sourcebooks that detail certain businesses, NPCs, goods and services, complete with stats, plot hooks and sample establishments. Each could be dropped into an existing campaign, either within an existing city or a new location, as an addition or an adaption. For instance, a book of inns and taverns could detail the types of goods and services, the patrons and the workers (NPC stats), things to do and hear, tables to generate names and rumors, and provide a sample inn. What do you think?
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Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!

Sat Sep 12, 2009 5:22 pm

I'm not sure a book on inns is the best idea since there are already so many out there. If you go that route, I would think a fully detailed inn would be your best best - provided that the NPCs are interesting and that there is something unique about the inn. Plot hooks would be very useful as well. Also, one of the first things I look for in an inn is usable maps that are more than just floorplans.

my 2cp

Sat Sep 12, 2009 11:46 pm

The inn was ust an example. The idea would be about discussing the entire range of possibilites within the group for the sourcebook. One on festivals would cover NPCs at the festival, games and other entertainment, advice on designing festivals for your game, etc. Another on city government would cover city officials, laws, crime and punishment, the kinds of govenrment offices, and so on.
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Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!

Sun Sep 13, 2009 5:08 am

Detail an entire large town or small city. Do it in such a way as it could be dropped into any setting(especially Greyhawk Wink

).
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Sun Sep 13, 2009 6:01 am

I'm thinking both. We need a "detailed" town, to be sure, but I think a detailed festival, inn, hostel or some such could be done much more quickly. Happy

Perhaps detailing individual establishments as "piecemeals" of an eventual town or city. I think it could work well, that's what I'm trying to do with Dark Gate. Wink

(Yeah, yeah, I know . . . GET A MOVE ON!!!) Evil Grin

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Mystic's web page: http://melkot.com/mysticscholar/index.html
Mystic's blog page: http://mysticscholar.blogspot.com/

Sun Sep 13, 2009 8:07 am

Yes, yes; piecemeal. After all, I'm still looking at the 32 page model. So instead of an entire large city (like Ptolus), some of these could cover neighborhoods/districts. Market square, seaside docks, temple district, etc. No maps, just NPCs, plot hooks, a sample structure and generic descriptions so they could be dropped into any setting.
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Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!

Sun Sep 13, 2009 10:22 am

That's what I'm concentrating on, but eventually, it will all become Dark Gate in my world. Wink

That's not to say that individual establishments won't be usable in any campaign city/town. I'm hoping that many here will use each establishment created for just that purpose. Happy

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Mystic's web page: http://melkot.com/mysticscholar/index.html
Mystic's blog page: http://mysticscholar.blogspot.com/

Mon Sep 14, 2009 1:59 am

I've got another question for the previously discussed sourcebooks: would you like to see "low fantasy" material or "high fantasy" material. Here's what I mean. "Low fantasy" means that while this is a fantasy game, it is still grounded in a "real" world that just happens to have fantasy elements; ie, midieval Europe with wizards and elves. "High fantasy" means most everything is magical; every shopkeep has a wizard on hand (or is a wizard), government agencies regularly employ heroic classed NPCs, etc. (think Eberron). Continuing the inn example, would you want to know a low fantasy inns or high fantasy inns? Low fantasy inns would have normal commoners, maybe an expert, while high fantasy inns could be operated by illithids or ogre magi, feature psionic construct bouncers and have drinks from the various Planes. That kind of thing.
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Greyhawk is dead; long live Greyahwk! It is not heresy; I will not recant!

Mon Sep 14, 2009 2:35 am

I should have been more specific and said to break the areas of the town/city down by quarter, similar to these:

http://www.thegamemechanics.com/products/thievesquarter.asp

http://www.thegamemechanics.com/products/templequarter.asp

http://www.thegamemechanics.com/products/arcanequarter.asp

Such a format makes things more manageable, yet still allows for decent presentation.
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Mon Sep 14, 2009 6:11 am

Tue Sep 15, 2009 4:47 am

Low to mid(at the most). Definitely not High.
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Tue Sep 15, 2009 6:34 am

Sat Nov 28, 2009 8:08 pm

First off, Skeleton Key GAMES already exists, so Skeleton Key Press might be a bit confusing.

Secondly, while I understand how you're using "high" and "low" fantasy, you're still misusing them. "High" and "low" magic is what you mean.

Third, go low-magic. Otherwise people just complain about magic-marts and how the game is going to the munchkins and Waldorf.