[Interjection Games] Gauging Interest in Three-class Compilations


Product Discussion


Hey there, everyone! I'm looking at the next level of the game I'm playing here, which is this: using the convention scene to get my materials into the hands of evangelical nerds. As wonderful and supportive as the community I have access to here is, I need to make a living and there's a larger customer base out there. Selling at conventions is an excellent way to tap into the more vocal aspects of geekdom at large. With luck, people watching ethermancers, tinkers, and cartomancers at work will perpetuate the brand without my direct influence. And then I get to cackle like Tzeentch.

I've been mulling over the idea of putting all of my classes into a single hardcover. It worries me because a single hardcover would actually give me worse margins than selling all nine of them separately. If the gambit didn't work, I'd be set back half a year!

Here's an alternate proposal. I take three similar classes and put them together with some new content, effectively aiming for a series of 100-page hardcover books that I can print for about $9 a copy and sell for about $30 on the street or $35 in your FLGS. If there aren't three classes aligned in a specific axis, then they don't get used yet. Your thoughts - particularly on the price point?

Possible combinations are as follows

Chaos Classes

Herbalist
Brewmaster
Cartomancer

Tech Classes

Tinker
Gadgeteer
???

Alternate Magic Systems

Ethermancer
Truenamer
Maestro

Martial Classes

Edgewalker
Brewmaster
Sanguine Disciple

Oh, did I say that last one out loud? Stay tuned! ^_~

Dark Archive

I'd be wary about the cost if it were me at a con. Does your margin need to be that big? I mean, if the idea is to use the hardcover sales at a con to get your work in more hands, thus driving sales of pdfs, doesn't it make sense to sell it cheaper? I'm not saying do a loss leader and sell it for less that the $9 is costs to make, but if you solid it for under $20 you probably would see a lot more leave your table.

You might also want to consider some exclusive content in the books. I'm working with Brian Berg at TPK on his Reforged line and a great thing he did on Cleric Reforged was little text boxes talking about why he made some of the design choices he did. Little insights like that could build more of a rapport between you and the reader and make it a more memorable experience.


If I do this, there's going to be hundreds of dollars worth of art in it, mate. Go over to OneBookShelf and look at the price of the hardcovers on the site. They cost about $6.50, plus $0.02 per page to produce. The margins are fairly similar in many cases, and those sales don't have to worry about the $1000 needed to be at a big con.

On a personal note, my father was a crafter. China stole his designs and he tried to... wait for it... make his prices lower than China. We ended up losing the business and the house. Selling twice as many for half the profit each does nothing to help me out personally, and it leaves no room for sales. $25 is possible if I want to go with the high value model, which necessitates a kickstarter to pay for things ahead of time. If I have less risk, I can afford lower margins, ya dig? Still, I don't want to alienate traditional distribution, so I need to make a profit at 20/45 of the price :)

The break even point for that is $22.50 MSRP, so I'd make a dollar profit in distribution for every $2.25 above that. At that point, the only way to do what you want and do what I want is a big print drive to drive the price way down. Would you know any of those price break points offhand?


...a little bird told me Sanguine Apostle. >.>

Anyway, I'd be interested in a few of those for sure. Especially if Cartomancer came with a deck of cards printed, though not sure how the costs would work out for that...

With those I would probably consider swapping Edgewalker and Brewmaster in the packs as well. Might just be me though.


I'd pick one up if the shipping didn't hurt my wallet too much. If I liked it, and found it good vaue, I'd likely pick up the others.

I'd definitely like to see something that wasn't in the pdfs I already owned, though. New options, maybe a new page or two of art.


A printed deck costs me around $7 to produce, more if I opt for the good cardstock.

As for new content, absolutely. I'm sitting on 2,000 words of opuses; the swarmkeeper, a brand new tinker prestige class that is among the best ones I've penned; a few pages of new ethermancer manifestations; two more accessories for the gadgeteer; a supplement of greenhouse-bred herbs for herbalists caught in artificial landscapes; and two half-finished prestige classes for the ethermancer, The Herald of Creation and the Herald of the Void.


...Herald of Creation? You have my attention. Sounds vaguely good-ish aligned and we actually had a discussion not too long ago the class seemed to be lacking in those sort of options to the point one of the players thought the class's allowed alignments should be non-good. Glad to see this!


Compilations along thematic lines definitely sounds cool to me, and to be completely honest $35 USD for a 100+ page HC sounds like a bargain (especially considering the low exchange rate on the USD at the moment). And anything I can do to help support my FLGS and 3pp is a good thing in my book.

Exclusive/ expanded content is extra icing on the cake, but probably a big selling point to those who'd be 'sitting on the fence', as it were. And of course, artwork above-and-beyond stock art tends to grab people's attention. Of course, those things make everything more expensive (art is not cheap, so I've heard) and can likewise make things considerably more complicated.

Another thing I'm wondering, if you're actually selling in USD, what's your de facto profit margin if your at-home-expenses are GBP or EUR or ___ ?


... I want them aaaaaaaaaaaall.


Profit margin when dealing with european currency? Well, I'd have to offer it POD only, which would remove the discount for bulk purchase before a con and it costs a good $2-$4 more to print a book in Europe to save you on shipping. Still, I know how nasty that shipping can be on you if I make the book over here. It's worth the hit to put the buck back in your wallet in this case. Besides, there's no other way to cultivate an ideological culture over in Europe.

I'd need to look at conversion rates, but the short answer is less by a good margin.


Aleron wrote:
...Herald of Creation? You have my attention. Sounds vaguely good-ish aligned and we actually had a discussion not too long ago the class seemed to be lacking in those sort of options to the point one of the players thought the class's allowed alignments should be non-good. Glad to see this!

The heralds are a fairly interesting dichotomy.

The Herald of Creation deals with the extant universe, enhancing and adding to what is there. Consider him a true master of the genesis etherheart.

The Herald of the Void deals with the interstitial space between universes, the ether proper. He specializes in excessive use of its energy, blast etherspells, and can double up on shaping in a limited manner, much like an archmage.

The third herald, which is only a concept, is the Herald of Madness. It focuses on the alien anatomy part of the class, eventually transforming you into a bundle of hovering tentacles in a robe or somesuch. Very Lovecraftian. Of course, the actual design will be more along the lines of selecting from a list of mutations several times over the course of the PrC, then picking a capstone mutation. Lots of wiggle room.

Was your player was thinking non-good because he's conditioned to think that way when he sees the word "eldritch", or is there something I can do to help remove that stigma? I fought pretty hard to make the ethermancer amoral instead of, well, the servant of baby-stealing fae or kingdom-stomping fiends. That being said, adding that right back in for a prestige class could be all sorts of fun!

Anyway, Endzeitgeist told me he's nearly done with the truenamer a day or two back, so I suppose the alternate magic systems will be the first one he's completely reviewed. I've had a couple kickbacks regarding the maestro print run's cover. I'm thinking move ahead with the mini-compilations and forget about the singles. They have this nice branding about them and all. Your feelings?

That would make a first hardcover the biggest one, some 160 pages once I'm done with it.


Quote:
Was your player was thinking non-good because he's conditioned to think that way when he sees the word "eldritch", or is there something I can do to help remove that stigma? I fought pretty hard to make the ethermancer amoral instead of, well, the servant of baby-stealing fae or kingdom-stomping fiends. That being said, adding that right back in for a prestige class could be all sorts of fun!

The stigma wasn't from the name. It was mostly class mechanics we were looking at and discussing including the fluff of the class. The first part was the philosophies. None exactly scream 'good guy' and quite a few sound (and are) quite bad/evil sounding. Megalomaniac...Hedonist...the others I did point out are more neutral and could be good, but he wasn't all that convinced.

Next, (and this was the big one) was every ethermancer got aberrant form, basically meaning they start getting warped by the energies and end up something alien...and well aberrant. This point I had to sorta concede as while not all aberrations are evil they do tend to have a bad, bad reputation.

Lastly, I think some of it is a carry over from warlock which is just them being stubborn and thinking it's connected mostly with demons/aberrations/evil fey things. That said, doesn't mean I wouldn't love a more good-aligned philosophy and maybe something alternate to turning yourself into an aberration.

Dark Archive

Interjection Games wrote:

If I do this, there's going to be hundreds of dollars worth of art in it, mate. Go over to OneBookShelf and look at the price of the hardcovers on the site. They cost about $6.50, plus $0.02 per page to produce. The margins are fairly similar in many cases, and those sales don't have to worry about the $1000 needed to be at a big con.

On a personal note, my father was a crafter. China stole his designs and he tried to... wait for it... make his prices lower than China. We ended up losing the business and the house. Selling twice as many for half the profit each does nothing to help me out personally, and it leaves no room for sales. $25 is possible if I want to go with the high value model, which necessitates a kickstarter to pay for things ahead of time. If I have less risk, I can afford lower margins, ya dig? Still, I don't want to alienate traditional distribution, so I need to make a profit at 20/45 of the price :)

The break even point for that is $22.50 MSRP, so I'd make a dollar profit in distribution for every $2.25 above that. At that point, the only way to do what you want and do what I want is a big print drive to drive the price way down. Would you know any of those price break points offhand?

I'm confused. Does the book cost $9 to make or not? The hundreds of dollars on art is money you already spent, right? And hopefully recovered when the pdf first went on sale.

I'm just saying if I can go on the web and get them all for $22 why wouldn't I? It's just the same thing with a binding on it. If the point is to build trust and interest in your brand you need out to put it an a pricepoint that's exciting.


Let's calculate this another way, then. The alternate magic content is as follows for PDFs.

Truenamer - $11.99 - 70
Ethermancer - $6.49 - 40
Greater Manifestations - $2.00 - 10
Maestro - $4.99 - 25
Compositions - $1.25 - 4
---
$26.72 - 149 pages

The book would be about $10.50 to produce on good paper before bonus content. Expect maybe 25 pages of that, so $12 per copy to produce. To have the same margin as my PDFs, ignoring the hundreds put into art, the book would have to cost $38.99. If I bought in bulk, I can drop that to maybe $36.99. If I financed hundreds of copies at once, I could drop it to $31.99 or so. Economy of scale is not my friend.

If you're not willing to pay another $10 to have a physical copy, that's your choice, my good man. Consider my pricing "buy the PDF, get the hardcover at cost".

Dark Archive

Why are you so concerned with having the same margin? Remember your goal here:

Quote:
I'm looking at the next level of the game I'm playing here, which is this: using the convention scene to get my materials into the hands of evangelical nerds. As wonderful and supportive as the community I have access to here is, I need to make a living and there's a larger customer base out there. Selling at conventions is an excellent way to tap into the more vocal aspects of geekdom at large.

If the point of the books is to get people to buy the books at cons so they talk about them and whatever, price them to move.

Your story about your father's work is touching and all too true around America, but you're not in the same business. You make something once and then sell copies infinitely without having to make the same chair over and over and over again. Your margin on these books isn't important, your margin on all future pdf sales is.

Now if I've misunderstood your goal and you just want to sell a few hardcovers to be a seller of printed products then this advice is silly. But if you're trying to expand your audience, the margins from your pdfs are not important. The current prices of your pdfs are unimportant. Because the people you're trying to reach were never going to buy those in the first place. So if it costs less to buy the print copy at a con then it would to buy the pdfs it doesn't matter as long as you still make some money because you're building your brand and can count on the wider margins for other products down the road.

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