Update on life as a PDF publisher . . .

[philreed]

A little over six months ago I shared some of the reasons for taking the plunge into PDF publishing as my full-time job. I thought some of you might like a brief update on how it's working out.

Financially, I've managed to double Ronin Arts' sales from where they were on the day I first quit my day job. This places me at about 50-55% of where I want to be by June, 2005.

Creatively, I've done a lot less than I wanted to. Part of the success of Ronin Arts has been the increase in publication of the work of others. That takes time from my own creative work and, at times, I spend entire weeks marketing/administrating. I never expected I would end up spending so much time away from writing.

What I have learned, so far, is that products between 5-20 pages are the most profitable for me. Anything that I can price between $1-$3 will sell between 2 to 3 times what a $5-$10 PDF will sell. And since less work goes into the shorter PDFs (some of them can be written in an afternoon) they're easier to complete and release. Compilations, either zipped compilations or completely new layouts with extra material, have also proven successful.

For me, D20 PDFs still have the greatest number of sales. Luckily, I enjoy writing for the D20 System but there are days when I desire to create games from scratch. I'm going to try and complete at least one new, original RPG in 2005.

Anyway, I just figured that some of you may find this interesting/useful. Feel free to ask any questions.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Phil,

Anything that I can price between $1-$3 will sell between 2 to 3 times what a $5-$10 PDF will sell.

Is that 2 to 3 times the number of units sold? Or are you saying 2 to 3 times more in total revenue (so something like 6 or 10 times as many units)?

Paul

[philreed]

Is that 2 to 3 times the number of units sold? Or are you saying 2 to 3 times more in total revenue (so something like 6 or 10 times as many units)?

Units sold. But take into account that a typical short PDF for me is 2,000-2,500 words priced at around $1.50 or so while a typical larger PDF is 20,000-25,000 words priced at $6-$8.

[Vaxalon]

Basically what's happening is that people are assembling their own $6 magazine out of 4-5 parts that they choose from Phil's stuff.

[xenopulse]

Would you mind giving a ballpark number for sales? I know that finances are a sensitive matter, but it would really interest me, as someone who has contemplated publishing some things as well.

Thanks.

[philreed]

Well, since starting PDF publishing in 2002 I've had close to $60,000 in sales. Does that help any?

[Andy Kitkowski]

Sweet, glad it's working out!

Doubling your production by June... will you be able to handle that all by yourself, or won't you have to hire more folks to take care of bankrolling, marketing, organization, etc? Just wondering where the "Profit!" vs "Burnout" ratio is falling.

Good luck!

-Andy

[Lxndr]

Well, since starting PDF publishing in 2002 I've had close to $60,000 in sales. Does that help any?

Is that gross sales, or "net" sales?

[philreed]

Doubling your production by June... will you be able to handle that all by yourself, or won't you have to hire more folks to take care of bankrolling, marketing, organization, etc? Just wondering where the "Profit!" vs "Burnout" ratio is falling.

Possibly. What I seriously need is a submissions editor -- someone willing to read over and work with submissions from those outside of my usual circle of trusted authors. The person would prepare outside manuscripts and send them to me edited and in the format I need. If I had a submissions editor, working for a % of sales, I could easily double or even triple Ronin Arts' output. So far I haven't found a single person with the necessary D20 experience, editorial skills, time, and desire to handle such a roll. Now, to be honest, that's probably a position I could divide over multiple people (with each submissions editor handling a specific genre/game).

[philreed]

Well, since starting PDF publishing in 2002 I've had close to $60,000 in sales. Does that help any?

Is that gross sales, or "net" sales?

Gross. Net is around the $48,000 mark.

[Vaxalon]

Possibly. What I seriously need is a submissions editor ... The person would prepare outside manuscripts and send them to me edited and in the format I need.

Editing I can see... but format?  Everything I've ever written has had to conform to a submission format, or it wasn't a submission.  If you've got more work than you can handle, why are you accepting manuscripts that aren't in your format?

[philreed]

Editing I can see... but format?  Everything I've ever written has had to conform to a submission format, or it wasn't a submission.  If you've got more work than you can handle, why are you accepting manuscripts that aren't in your format?

I'm not. But it's my experience that most people don't know how to use style sheets properly -- even experienced authors. To properly expand would require an editor with the ability to correct style sheet errors and, slowly, train the better authors to properly use style sheets.

[Paul Czege]

Hey Phil,

To properly expand would require an editor with the ability to correct style sheet errors and, slowly, train the better authors to properly use style sheets.

What percentage of your editing work is actual editing, and what percentage is fixing style sheet problems?

Paul

[philreed]

Hey Phil,

To properly expand would require an editor with the ability to correct style sheet errors and, slowly, train the better authors to properly use style sheets.

What percentage of your editing work is actual editing, and what percentage is fixing style sheet problems?

Paul

Currently probably just 10-20% is style sheet problems. But I've worked with enough people to know that opening myself up to a lot of submissions would bump this to 50/50.

EDIT: I hope this thread is proving useful to people.

[xenopulse]

Thanks for the information--it's really helpful. I can see why the smaller PDFs are working out well. For me (someone on a narrow budget), it's just so much easier to pick up a $3 PDF and enjoy it than pay $20 for a collection. And you can control the specific information you're getting, rather than having a big package with some things that are good (or useful for me specifically) and some that aren't. It's like iTunes, really. I never buy whole CDs anymore, but spend money on individual songs, even if the album costs less than all costs combined. After all, I won't like some of the songs enough to really want them.

What style sheets are you working with? Do you use MS Word to create the PDF files?