On PDF Downloads & e23

[jeriendhal]

I've got to wonder what Steve Jackson is going to say about e23, SJGame's online pdf store, when he does his annual "Report to the Stakeholders" at the beginning of the year. Because, while I'm no expert at the online retail game, I'm not sure if the profits they're making can justify it.

Forex: Let's take GURPS Casey and Andy, a supplement for GURPS 3ed that has had moderately successful sales, keeping it firmly in the mid-range of e23's "Top Ten Downloads, All Time". It's a 34 page pdf file, which e23 charges US$8.95 to download. Like most GURPS products it's mostly text, though there are more than the usual number of illustrations for an e23 product, given it's based on popular webcomic, with the only original art needed coming from a set of exclusive comic pages done by Andy Weir. Total sales have amounted to 118 downloads, with e23 earning a little over $1000.

Sounds like pretty sweet sales for a book that has no "real" printing costs except for the ink and paper that the buyer uses, doesn't it? Except of course that while printing costs are avoided, other costs have remained. David Morgan-Mar, the book's creator, has to be paid either a flat fee or a royalty (I don't e23's policy on this). Andy Weir gets some sort of chunk (he's not going to let his intellectual property by used by SJGames for free after all, unless he's as stupid as his comic conterpart). And if the product is to measure up to SJGame's usual high editorial standards, that editor has to be paid as well, either as a flat one time fee, or out of his staff salary. And that won't be pittance, since SJGames has a good rep in the RPG industry for paying fair rates and paying them on time. Add in the overhead costs of maintaining e23's server and pipe, and I'm forced to wonder if Steve Jackson is willing to maintain e23 as essentially almost a hobby sideline compared to SJGame's print sales (which mostly revolve around GURPS 4ed and Munchkin nowadays).

There are brighter spots. GURPS Mysteries has racked up almost six hundred sales since it was released, at $12.95 a sale. But it's an exception rather than the rule. The nearest comparable product in terms of page count, Temple of the Lost Gods, costs a dollar less, and has less than one hundred sales.

I'm just wondering how long they can keep this up.

Comments

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the numbers on the original e23 products don't look that good. But I don't think that has much to do with the total profitability. There's ~520 products on e23 now. 145 are from SJ Games. 15 of those are e23 Originals. So the overwhelming majority is stuff where e23 just gets a cut for providing somebody else's pdf a storefront, and most of the rest only took scanning in a book or converting html to pdf.

The e23 writer guidelines say payment goes as low as $0.015/word and no royalties unless it's book-sized. That probably still makes them just break-even. The real purpose of the originals IMHO is advertising. A nifty product brings people to the site and when they're there they'll probably toss anothe PDF or two into the cart. Scott Haring is on salary IIRC so scanning old stuff or editing submissions can go into his lulls as zero marginal cost.

E23 may also be insurance against a major shift in the industry from paper to electronic formats. If people want that, SJ can give it to them, if not, hopefully e23 breaks even.

This may all reflect some bias from my contemplation of putting in a proposal to them. I'm working on something that would draw in people who aren't already SJG customers, so that could make it attractive to them if my originals-as-advertising theory is correct.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

$0.015 a word?! Ow. That's just half of Pyramid's flat rate. And as you said, that's probably break-even (which makes my wonder about Pyramid's finances, but that's another discussion.) Also, good point about e23 being a hosting service primarily. I hadn't realized that the number of non-SJGames products being sold there was quite so many. Whatever percentage e23 charges to host them is practically pure profit, I suppose.

As you say, e23 is probably advertising, as you say. Not to mention a ince service for SJGames fans looking for an obscure OOP GURPS book that they otherwise would have to bid for on ebay.

[glenbarnett.livejournal.com]

I think you meant to say that the author of GURPS Casey and Andy is David Morgan-Mar, rather than Andy Vetromile.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Ah, ture. Fixed.