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[UPDATED] Pie For Everyone, Just Sliced Very Thinly: The Economics of RPG Book Production
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<blockquote data-quote="CardinalXimenes" data-source="post: 7660933" data-attributes="member: 58259"><p>In my experience, OBS <em>is </em>the market. Evil Hat's public quarterly sales reports pretty well mirror my experience- take away conventional distribution, and OBS is the lion's share of everything left. Since I'm strictly POD, I can't do print runs of a size that'd make conventional distribution economically feasible, so having my games up on OBS sites is pretty much mandatory for getting exposure to their audience, and that audience is gold. Every last one of them is a potential RPG buyer.</p><p></p><p>OBS doesn't do a lot of direct marketing on behalf of individual products. They can't, really, without drastically cranking up their marketing personnel- they've just got too many products to give an appreciable number some specific love. Even so, their weekly sales emails have caused drastic bumps in my own sales when one of my products has been included, and they do make substantial efforts to facilitate Kickstarters and handle the back-office work of getting products out. The secret sauce, however, is in their mailing lists.</p><p></p><p>Every time a mail-accepting customer downloads a free product of yours, they go on your mailing list. When they included my Scarlet Heroes Quickstart in a bundle of freebies last year, I got about 30,000 downloads on it, and every one of those people who accept emails went onto my mailing list. Then, when I launched my Silent Legions kickstarter later that year, I was able to use the list to pitch the campaign to them. So long as I'm careful not to abuse their patience, every freebie download is a fresh name onto the list. Once you've got a list like that, well, it's not really OBS' job to do the marketing. Their 35% on your gross profit is selling you market access, print and PDF fulfillment, POD through a company that is notoriously hard to deal with for independents, and that mailing list- and it's been a great deal for me.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="CardinalXimenes, post: 7660933, member: 58259"] In my experience, OBS [I]is [/I]the market. Evil Hat's public quarterly sales reports pretty well mirror my experience- take away conventional distribution, and OBS is the lion's share of everything left. Since I'm strictly POD, I can't do print runs of a size that'd make conventional distribution economically feasible, so having my games up on OBS sites is pretty much mandatory for getting exposure to their audience, and that audience is gold. Every last one of them is a potential RPG buyer. OBS doesn't do a lot of direct marketing on behalf of individual products. They can't, really, without drastically cranking up their marketing personnel- they've just got too many products to give an appreciable number some specific love. Even so, their weekly sales emails have caused drastic bumps in my own sales when one of my products has been included, and they do make substantial efforts to facilitate Kickstarters and handle the back-office work of getting products out. The secret sauce, however, is in their mailing lists. Every time a mail-accepting customer downloads a free product of yours, they go on your mailing list. When they included my Scarlet Heroes Quickstart in a bundle of freebies last year, I got about 30,000 downloads on it, and every one of those people who accept emails went onto my mailing list. Then, when I launched my Silent Legions kickstarter later that year, I was able to use the list to pitch the campaign to them. So long as I'm careful not to abuse their patience, every freebie download is a fresh name onto the list. Once you've got a list like that, well, it's not really OBS' job to do the marketing. Their 35% on your gross profit is selling you market access, print and PDF fulfillment, POD through a company that is notoriously hard to deal with for independents, and that mailing list- and it's been a great deal for me. [/QUOTE]
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