Printing or reprinting books

[Steve Long]

I don't think that would necessarily work well, kaze, for a couple reasons. First, I'm not sure the Online Store could be configured to take pre-orders that way. IIRC when we sold the Champions 25th Anniversary book, we took the pre-orders "manually," via e-mail and such.

Second, not everyone who gets to a Kickstarter does so through this site. According to the BotE KS stats to date, only 48% of the pledges have come straight from here. Now, it's possible that people heard of it here and got to the KS page through some other website; I have no way of knowing. But there's a strong possibility that some significant chunk of the overall pledges are coming from people who don't visit this site regularly (or at all), so a poll just run here wouldn't necessarily be a valid indicator of the interest in a book. It would be if the response was very strong, but wouldn't necessarily be if the response were weak.

[Kaze9999]

I don't think that would necessarily work well, kaze, for a couple reasons. First, I'm not sure the Online Store could be configured to take pre-orders that way. IIRC when we sold the Champions 25th Anniversary book, we took the pre-orders "manually," via e-mail and such.

Second, not everyone who gets to a Kickstarter does so through this site. According to the BotE KS stats to date, only 48% of the pledges have come straight from here. Now, it's possible that people heard of it here and got to the KS page through some other website; I have no way of knowing. But there's a strong possibility that some significant chunk of the overall pledges are coming from people who don't visit this site regularly (or at all), so a poll just run here wouldn't necessarily be a valid indicator of the interest in a book. It would be if the response was very strong, but wouldn't necessarily be if the response were weak.

Wow, okay let me try to harness all the Great Brains on this site, how can we put our money where our fan-base-mouths are and 'bid up' projects that we want to give money to Hero Games to see done, but that aren't necessarily 'sexy' or interesting for the person doing them and thus would have to show a really good 'making money-to-time and effort' ratio?

I mean projects that fans ask for but that don't sound like big money makers, like converting older books to PDF or creating HD Packs for sale for books already published; how can we actually put some money up front for these projects rather than just blab in text about how we are sure it would pay off?

Prime examples, I would kick in $25 for sure or maybe $50 to a kick starter project to get Valdorian Age done in PDF or to get an HD pack for the 6th edition Grimoire, but maybe that's just me, how can we verify the financial support up front?

Oh, and Steve, thank you very much for your response! The stat on the BotE KS traffic is very interesting! Where did the other 52% of the pledges come from? Facebook?

[Derek Hiemforth]

Well, keep in mind that one potentially large problem with Hero Games making older products available (even if only in PDF) is the possible secondary cost in lost sales. Because it isn't just (or isn't necessarily just) the cost of making, say, a 5th Ed. book available. There's also a potential secondary cost in that providing/maintaining support for previous editions of the game may make it easier for folks to not move to the current edition of the game (and the current edition of the game is probably where they make more money, and where they would prefer to concentrate their resources)...

[ngross]

Hmmm.... Derek, you bought up a very valid point that took me in a direction that basically is a complete 180 from where Hero seems to be going (core stuff only). I am not commenting on the version wars, licenses, and such... Just offering up a crazy thought/idea.

Not sure how many more are out there, but the Valdorian Age is part of a small 'unique' group of 5E products that did not make it to PDF. To get around the license issue, the powers, spells, and such could even be upgraded to 6E and sold just as PDF (just as Hero System Skills was - which I still need to buy). Since I do not have Valdorian Age in PDF, and am such a fan of Fantasy Hero, I would easily pay $25 to $30 for a PDF with Hero Designer file. I would even go up to about $40 if it included some hi-res graphics of the neighborhoods as a bonus. Maybe even $50 if a book was included. Not even sure if something like that is possible as it was written by Allen Thomas.

But what can I say, I was one of the (maybe) few people that bought Mutant Madness! (6E conversions of powers for Post Apoc Hero). Granted it was only $2.

Norm.

[Steve Long]

Wow, okay let me try to harness all the Great Brains on this site, how can we put our money where our fan-base-mouths are and 'bid up' projects that we want to give money to Hero Games to see done, but that aren't necessarily 'sexy' or interesting for the person doing them and thus would have to show a really good 'making money-to-time and effort' ratio?

I mean projects that fans ask for but that don't sound like big money makers, like converting older books to PDF or creating HD Packs for sale for books already published; how can we actually put some money up front for these projects rather than just blab in text about how we are sure it would pay off?

Prime examples, I would kick in $25 for sure or maybe $50 to a kick starter project to get Valdorian Age done in PDF or to get an HD pack for the 6th edition Grimoire, but maybe that's just me, how can we verify the financial support up front?

Well, there's certainly nothing wrong with starting an "enthusiasm drive" here on the site. In fact, that strikes me as a very good first step. I just wanted to caution against that sort of thing being seen as a universally reliable indicator.

Oh, and Steve, thank you very much for your response! The stat on the BotE KS traffic is very interesting! Where did the other 52% of the pledges come from? Facebook?

Various places, including Facebook and Kickstarter itself (i.e., in the latter case, people just happen to be searching around and come across BotE, or they go there directly instead of linking there from here or elsewhere). There's even one whole pledge that came through the widget on my personal website, on which basis I'm claiming credit for the success of the entire venture.

[Balabanto]

Wow, okay let me try to harness all the Great Brains on this site, how can we put our money where our fan-base-mouths are and 'bid up' projects that we want to give money to Hero Games to see done, but that aren't necessarily 'sexy' or interesting for the person doing them and thus would have to show a really good 'making money-to-time and effort' ratio?

I mean projects that fans ask for but that don't sound like big money makers, like converting older books to PDF or creating HD Packs for sale for books already published; how can we actually put some money up front for these projects rather than just blab in text about how we are sure it would pay off?

Prime examples, I would kick in $25 for sure or maybe $50 to a kick starter project to get Valdorian Age done in PDF or to get an HD pack for the 6th edition Grimoire, but maybe that's just me, how can we verify the financial support up front?

Oh, and Steve, thank you very much for your response! The stat on the BotE KS traffic is very interesting! Where did the other 52% of the pledges come from? Facebook?

The rational answer is actually to support all of them if you want the company to survive. Keep in mind, I pay for my players rulebooks up front and give them out to my players when they join. They get to keep them. Hero is the best. I like to spread the love. Every time a new edition comes out, I buy everyone what they need. I buy a copy of books I will never, ever use. Fantasy Hero? Really, I have Pathfinder/D+D 3.5 for that. Multidimensional Madness? I have Rifts for that. But nothing does pulp or superheroes better than Hero.

So even if you don't like Book of the Empress (And I'm not it's biggest fan), I will drop enough money to make sure it gets made so that I, a humble freelancer, have a system to get his superhero world published in.

[Kaze9999]

The rational answer is actually to support all of them if you want the company to survive. Keep in mind, I pay for my players rulebooks up front and give them out to my players when they join. They get to keep them. Hero is the best. I like to spread the love. Every time a new edition comes out, I buy everyone what they need. I buy a copy of books I will never, ever use. Fantasy Hero? Really, I have Pathfinder/D+D 3.5 for that. Multidimensional Madness? I have Rifts for that. But nothing does pulp or superheroes better than Hero.

So even if you don't like Book of the Empress (And I'm not it's biggest fan), I will drop enough money to make sure it gets made so that I, a humble freelancer, have a system to get his superhero world published in.

Oh no doubt! I am not saying not to support whatever is published; I am trying to figure out how to pile up enough money to 'make an offer you can't refuse' to get some little, boring projects done that I suspect wouldn't ever get done, like reprinting or creating PDF's of or HD Packs for older books that have already had their initial 'new thing' thrill!

I suppose I'll settle for a poll topic...until or unless there comes a better way.