PDF sales & distro sites...

[daMoose_Neo]

I'm looking around to see what vendors deal with PDF sales & distribution.
I could go the site route and sell right through myself via Paypal, but I don't have the time to manage the sales for that.
I've been using RPGNow for the last 6 months and my membership dues have been returned and then some. The trade-off for having the site deal with the transactions has also paid off.
Right now, I'm looking to branch out, reach some new audiances I'm not already. RPGNow is okay, has its uses, but this Edge split has me scratching my head saying "hmm."
So, we have RPGNow/Edge, I have an inquiry into DriveThru RPG.com, and EnWorld just opened their own store.
Is there anyone else worth the time or effort of dealing with for PDF sales & distribution?

[davidJ]

Heya!

There's also Steve Jackson's website:

http://e23.sjgames.com/

[philreed]

In order of sales (for me):

RPGNow
DTRPG
e23
Paizo
EnWorld

The middle three are all pretty much the same each month (5-10% of what I make at RPGNow).

[smokewolf]

And...

Arima.it (an italian site which tauts the ability to pay in Euro)
Digital Book Booth

[jeremycoatney]

-Hello,
     I was wondering, how do you distribute the PDFs? If they are downloaded I'm afraid I can't add anything other than what was already posted, but if they are distributed on CD I might be able to help. While I am just starting out, I am offering the service to handle other people's web based sales on my website, for a flat fee of only $3 US a month. Other charges would only apply if I had to handle the shipping/storage of the CDs or other media involved in a sale (cost of a stamps, space, and such.) The obvious catch is that as I'm still starting out most people have never heard of me or my site, but if you are interested you can E-mail me at business@myrpgstore.com.
     The cost of space will be small unless you decide to ship me a LOT of merchandise.
-Jeremy

PS: This offer stands for anyone else who reads it too.

I'm looking around to see what vendors deal with PDF sales & distribution.
I could go the site route and sell right through myself via Paypal, but I don't have the time to manage the sales for that.
I've been using RPGNow for the last 6 months and my membership dues have been returned and then some. The trade-off for having the site deal with the transactions has also paid off.
Right now, I'm looking to branch out, reach some new audiances I'm not already. RPGNow is okay, has its uses, but this Edge split has me scratching my head saying "hmm."
So, we have RPGNow/Edge, I have an inquiry into DriveThru RPG.com, and EnWorld just opened their own store.
Is there anyone else worth the time or effort of dealing with for PDF sales & distribution?

[daMoose_Neo]

For this, I'm just looking for web distribution of downloads, no physical product involved here. Besides, Jason Valore and the crew of Key20 are handling my physical media sales quite nicely.

[Ben Lehman]

If you have your own website, you might want to consider PayPal + Forge bookshelf.

yrs--
--Ben

[Joe J Prince]

How do you apply to have a product hosted on the Forge bookshelf?

[Trevis Martin]

You'd contact Clinton Nixon, the technical admin of the Forge.  He sets all that up.  You can probably find a link to his profile in the Anvilwerks forum.

Trevis

[daMoose_Neo]

I never did see much info on the Bookshelf, and now with the newer forums I can't seem to find anything.
Not too keen on using PayPal, as I don't have much time to manually deal with orders.

[LloydBrown]

Hey, daMoose_Neo, can you send me an e-mail to lloyd at lloydwrites.com?  I'm having problems with outbound mail that Replying seems to get around. 

Sorry for the interruption, all.

[madelf]

Not too keen on using PayPal, as I don't have much time to manually deal with orders.

I've heard of a something called Linklock (if I recall correctly) that works with Paypal to automate the order process. Might be worth looking into.

[jeremycoatney]

     That's cool. I imagine it's best to go with people you know rather than the indistinct new guy anyway. :)

For this, I'm just looking for web distribution of downloads, no physical product involved here. Besides, Jason Valore and the crew of Key20 are handling my physical media sales quite nicely.

[Emmett]

Having your own website is cool and all, that's the way I went, but the problem is traffic. I've gotten more traffic out of Google Images than off any link I was able to post. I'd get a hundred here or a hundred there, but pretty much bupkis for sales. You need to really be able to advertise or generate an enormous on-line presence to get any kind of sales. I recently went to free downloads and asking for donations. Then I might set up a store and sell dice or t-shirts once there are enough eyes on the site. But I've been on my own site since 2000 and I've spent more in hosting than anything else.

[jeremycoatney]

     Yeah I noticed that myself actually, althoguh I did manage to sell my first printing of my book. I'm still waiting for the restock of the materials I did manage to sell. Unfortunately, the PDF distributions aren't selling too well. I'm thinking I might need to find some way to sweeten the deal or something. I'm pretty sure that most of my sales went out to people who I talked to locally when I was trying to presuade stores to carry my books, if that's the case, I already know that they, by and large, didn't like digital formats of books very much.
     T-shirts, Dice, and things are a good idea to boost sales, although like you said, only once you start getting enough visitors for it to be worth it. Lately I have an average of only 3 visitors a day, personally. Not much to sell to if you know what I mean.