Bad news from RPGNow

[Andy Kitkowski]

Bluntly, the appearance of sub-standard product IS a problem, and it is one that this new policy will directly address.

I wanted to jump in and comment here.  One of my first purchases at RPGNow was This Total Piece of Shit:

http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_7764.html

Timeline would never have passed any quality standards check. I felt totally burned by it. If I was Joe Average Customer, and that was my first purchase from RPGNow, it probably would have been my last.

Luckily, I'm not, and have bought a lot of great stuff from RPGNow (heck, because of that review, I had several published hop out and tell me, "We're not all like that!  Here, have a copy of my X product").

So I see absolutely nothing here to indicate that this is about weeding out the small-beans producers and indie folks who don't produce or reel in as much as the bigger houses. Or folks that only sell 1-2 products every few (say, three) months.

This policy is to stop people like the Timeline crew from uploading a pile of unfinished, shameful shit, charging money for it and making RPGNow look bad when they get bad press for these products they help distribute. Who knows, over time maybe things will change to favor heavy-volume producers.  But that's a guess for the fortune-tellers and diviners, because nothing indicated in the standards guide sets off any alarm bells here.

-Andy

ps- the folks who did Timeline? Their "next product" was a "d20 guide to Vacuum Elementals".  They planned on making a 700 page PDF file... and here's the "gimmick"... It's all BLANK PAGES!!!! HA ha ha ha. What a classy joke.  Too bad these standards weren't in place earlier so that they could have been shitcanned before seeing a single penny of profit, but oh well. Now they're in place, so I have less of a chance of getting totally burned.  Sure, I may be disappointed with a purchase, but probably not burned

[TheLe]

Rpgnow.com has already stated that the setup fee will NOt apply to existing vendors, but those big publishers keep insisting that it should.

What a bunch of crap.

You might want to read those threads again...nobody is "insisting" anything.

Allow me to rephrase. Rpgnow already said that they will not apply the $40 to existing vendors. However, there are a number of vendors who feel that the $40 SHOULD be applied to existing vendors, to see who is "serious" about publishing. Which I think is a bunch of malarky. Applying the setup fee to new vendors is one thing, but as someone who has been publishing books with them since February I would be a little insulted if they insisted on applying it to me and other Vendors.

~Le

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Folks, this forum is not the right venue for specific concerns of individual publishers with RPGnow. TheLe, whoever. You have one another's email, I'm sure, so take it there.

Overall, I suggest that a few posts so far merit starting their own threads, so anyone who wants, go ahead.

I also suggest that the only substantive point of the initial post was to bring RPGnow's new policies to public attention, and that is a pretty weeny substantive point, and it is clearly satisfied. I don't see any point for this thread to continue.

Best,
Ron

[M Jason Parent]

TheLe
but the bigger vendors WANT the fee to be applied to existing vendors.

As one of the so called 'bigger vendors', I would like to point out that this is NOT my position.

greyorm
Just keep in mind that their stance isn't about "quality", it's about competition: in that they'd like to reduce it.

Once again, someone giving me motives different from the ones I have. It isn't about reducing competition.

Here is where I'm coming from.

Yes, $40 would have slowed down my entry to market by at least a month or so for my first e-product.

And that would have been a good thing.

I released a very unprofessional-looking product when I entered the market back in the good old days of 2001. If I had been going in with a NEED to make at least $40 profit from the release, I would have held back for a month or two to get the product polished and REALLY ready for sale as a professional release instead of a glorified fan release.

This would have been a good thing, for myself AND for the PDF industry at the time, as I quickly became the best-selling PDF product on RPGnow, and the product in question was ugly and needed copy-editing. Thus, this became one of the most visible PDF d20 products on the market, and I feel it wasn't up to the job of beign a flagship product.

Fortunately, I've since learned from my ways and have upgraded the product, and my later products.

But I think I would have been better served if I had been put in a position to consider the investment the product was, instead of just releasing it untested into the market.

Thus, in my opinion, an entry fee to the market would have served ME better, and would have served the MARKET better.

That is why I stated what I did, which is support for the $40 fee, but not support for a retroactive fee.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

Your comments are relevant, Jason, but this thread is now closed.

Everyone, no posting here please. Take relevant topics to threads of their own.

Best,
Ron