RPGnow

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I know we've talked about this before, but I want to know if anyone around here has any hard data - has anyone sold anything through RPGnow.com? (I know for a fact Cynthia has, but I haven't seen her around lately.)

If you have, how did this compare to sales from your own webpage? You don't have to give numbers if you don't want, but did you sell a goodly amount? (I consider anything over 20 in one month an exceedingly goodly amount.)

[Michael Hopcroft]

I can;t say how it compared to my own web store because my own web store is not up yet. I've sold a few copies of HeartQuest through RPGNow.com. I don't know how many I'll sell total.

Note that this is not the only web e-tailer I will be selling through.

[Matt Gwinn]

I haven't put Kayfabe up on RPGnow, but I do know that I have sold far mmore coppies from my web site than from rpgnet mall.  It's actually confusing as people that order from my site have to wait for me to email the PDF.  Ordering from rpgnet mall allows you the convenience of immediately downloading it.  I guess I market my site better than rpgnet mall does theirs.

,Matt

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I'm pretty interested in experimenting with this to see if it works. My current plan is to sell from my website, but I might put Paladin up on RPG.net for $7 (instead of the $6 that it will be at my website.)

[Valamir]

You know Clinton, I think I'm going to temporarily boycott Paladin...I'll buy a copy as soon as I can get a copy of Donjon too...I really loved that game...
;-)

[Michael Hopcroft]

I'm pretty interested in experimenting with this to see if it works. My current plan is to sell from my website, but I might put Paladin up on RPG.net for $7 (instead of the $6 that it will be at my website.)

I don;t know for sure if they'll let you do that, or if they check those things to see that their clients aren;t offering a discount at their own sites. I've often been told by retailers that they hate it when publishers do that, even if it is to make up for the margin.

Whenever you go through an e-tailer on an e-book you can expect to lose 20% or so of your sale to the e-tailer's cut. It's something you have to live with in return for the e-tailer's supposedly wider exposure.

Now whether that exposure really is any wider -- therein hangs the tale, and we still don't know all the answers to that yet. The data simply isn;t all in.

By the way, my own online store should be up any day now according to the guy running it for me, but you can still but HeartQuest PDFs at RPGNow and at the RPGNet Mall. Not that I know how many people have actually bought copies yet, but I'll get that data soon enough.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

You know Clinton, I think I'm going to temporarily boycott Paladin...I'll buy a copy as soon as I can get a copy of Donjon too...I really loved that game...
;-)

Donjon's next, big guy. Really. In August. I promise.

Actually, there's a reason I did Paladin first. I get these game ideas, and then don't do them for a while and never get to them. Paladin came to me one night and I thought, "Damn. I better do this right now."

I'd been playing the fiz-nuck out of Donjon, and kind of needed a rest anyway. I had to decide whether I was satisfied with the dice system or not.

I finally decided yesterday: stay with the old dice system. The reason: I got the following e-mail.

I recently discovered Donjon Krawl, decided to run it for a couple of friends, and just wanted to thank you for one of the most amusingly enjoyable evenings of role-playing I've ever had.  

There's just something about the system that brought out the cheerfully diabolical GM in me and the humorously swashbuckling spirit in the players.  Between all the bad RPG cliches, the pleathora of "bunny" spells, and the demons wearing Tophats of Endless Purity, the night was pure Magic.

That warmed my little heart.

[Valamir]

I finally decided yesterday: stay with the old dice system. The reason: I got the following e-mail.

Excellent, if you dig back through the old threads on it, I think all it needed was tweaked and "balanced".  I got a little worried when you posted you'd ripped the guts out.

Sorry for hijaacking the RPGNow thread...

[Michael Hopcroft]

One question related to RPGNow that I don;t think we've addressed is whether presence on e-tailers affects traffic on a publisher's own websites?

RPGNow is in the business of selling games, but also in the business of selling advertising at rates that not every small publisher can afford. I'd like to be able to afford banners on RPGHost's network, but that poses another question -- hasn;t it been established that banner advertising simply doesn't work, especially when billed by display rather than by clickthrough?

[xiombarg]

RPGNow is in the business of selling games, but also in the business of selling advertising at rates that not every small publisher can afford. I'd like to be able to afford banners on RPGHost's network, but that poses another question -- hasn;t it been established that banner advertising simply doesn't work, especially when billed by display rather than by clickthrough?

As a quick aside, since I run the RPGHost news site, I get the impression the money for RPGhost mainly comes from sales from RPGnow and RPGshop at this point. And the news site (to toot my own horn) is cheap advertising: Just send me a news item about your game and I'll post it. Free. Perhaps with commentary, even. Zak will tell you it drives hits up. And that newsfeed is used throughout the RPGHost network and beyond.

Since I can't keep up with the sheer volume of Gaming Report, I'm trying to specialize in Indie news. But I'm only one man, so you gotta remind me you're there. ;-)

[xiombarg]

And to underline my own point, go to http://www.rpgnews.rpghost.com and notice the news item on top. I didn't put that on top; the RPG Host people set it to stay on top, it seems. And it's about looking for more affiliates for the RPGshop store. To me, that speaks volumes about what the banner ads aren't doing.

[Matt Machell]

Never had much luck with the RPGhost banner ads, when they were click for click. But I'm a big convert to RPGNews (I even posted something the other day, yay me!), theres some good stuff on there.

Moving back to the main topic here, I too would be interested in any info on RPGnow, RPGnet Mall and comparison with own site. I'm getting The Agency, ready for a commercial release, and have been considering these options for delivery.


-Matt

[Clinton R. Nixon]

So, I decided to experiment with RPGnow using my new game, Paladin. It's selling well so far, so I thought that RPGnow might be another avenue that would work for it, plus I wanted to see if/how RPGnow worked.

So far, I'm burned. Their contract, which I signed - but haven't given them any product yet - is pretty standard:
- They get a non-exclusive right to sell your game.
- They take 20% of the profits, which can change at any time. They must give you at least 30 days notice before they change the commission rate.
- Either they or you can break the contact at any time and your products will be taken down.

Now, after I signed the contract, I got an e-mail describing the next steps in the process. Two things blew my mind:

Please create a banner of your own for your product and/or our site will
also greatly help your sales at RPGNow.com - we will put this in our
rotation of our Target banner system at a reduced rate of display for a
reduced price of only $50 (savings of $145). This banner will can go to
your specific product page on RPGNow.com or to your home page.

So - I let you host my game and sell it and take 20%, but then have to pay $50 to get advertising on the site I'm selling the game on. Maybe it's me, but this strikes me as utterly fucking ridiculous.

Lastly, please note that we only link back to vendor's websites if
they sell exclusively with us. This is mainly so we don't loose
customers or spend money promoting your product and not get any
returns. You're welcome to sell you product yourself or elsewhere, but
just be aware that a customer won't find a link to your home page on
RPGNow.com if that's the case.

That's the backbreaker for me. I could deal with no banner ads on the site. Banner ads don't sell games, really. But - there won't be a link back to my homepage? This basically cuts me off from interacting with customers.

If anyone here is using RPGnow (Michael Hopcroft, Cynthia, anyone else), please let me know if they at least provide you with the e-mail addresses of those who've bought your game. I keep these in order to let customers know about new releases. If RPGnow would provide me with those, I could e-mail customers through there just to check and see how they like the game, and then let them know the game's website.

Otherwise, I can't imagine I'd deal with this sort of bizarre stricture.

[greyorm]

Anyone else notice this?

"...(I) have to pay $50 to get advertising on the site I'm selling the game on...

...we only link back to vendor's websites if they sell exclusively with us...so we don't loose customers or spend money promoting your product..."

Read that carefully.  Cost: $50 to advertise on their site.  They don't want to spend money promoting your product.

What money are they spending to promote your product considering you have to pay them to get them promote your product on their site.  Thus how could they spend money promoting your game if they (a) don't promote it and (b) are paid to promote it when they do?

Nothing comes out of their pockets for promotion.

Now I'm sure they mean to say they don't want to lose their 20% commission by sending their clients to another site with the same product, which is a reasonable business practice, but that isn't what they said.

[quozl]

...so we don't loose customers ...

Now that's funny!  Wouldn't want any loose customers, now do we?

Seriously, it sucks, but you do have a clickable URL in your pdf, don't you?

---Jon