Money, Meet Mouth

Back in April, I posted the following:

I’ve spent 6 years now in the electronic publishing field. I’ve learned a lot. Most of what I’ve learned, I’ve put into practice. Some things, however, I’m still too much of a coward to try full-time. For example: twice per year, in November and March, I hold one-week sales on the products that I release through Adamant Entertainment. I drop the prices of every PDF in our entire catalog to $1.00…. and here’s the thing: I make more in those two week-long sales than I do in 4 months of regular sales.

It’s something I’ve considered doing full-time — but it scares me. One, I’m worried that the phenomenal results of those sales are because of the narrow window, and that making it a constant would negate those results. Two (and this is the big one): If I’m wrong, I could end up not only killing my own income, but also devaluing the entire PDF segment of the RPG industry, killing other folks’ incomes as well. So I shy away from it….

Taking a look at what’s been going on in the latter half of 2010 — especially with the successes of self-published authors releasing their works for Kindle at impulse-purchase pricing — I decided to take the plunge. I’ve seen enough data, both from Adamant’s sales since 2004, and the data made public by other pioneers in the digital field, that I feel that it’s time to put theory into practice. You can read the announcement at Adamant’s website, but the upshot is that I’m moving the company to a flat pricing model — what I’m referring to as “app-pricing”. Everything we produce in PDF for the gaming field will be $1.00.

I’ve long held the opinion that the only positive response to unauthorized filesharing is cost and convenience — to make “piracy” redundant by making purchases painless and easy.

Either I’m right, and this will work, or I’m horribly, horribly wrong, in which case I’ll crash and burn.

Honestly, though?

I’m pretty sure I’m right.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to see if Crazy Eddie is available for promos….

Self-Publishing

A lot of thoughts being bandied about in various places on the topic of self-publishing. I’ve been involved in a bunch of discussions about it on blogs, on Twitter, via Facebook and in person over the past week, so I figured a blog post was probably worth doing.

It’s not really a surprise that self-publishing is starting to achieve an audible zeitgeistean rumble. The proliferation of platforms like the Kindle and the iPad, and the distribution tools that are now in the hands of everybody via the Internet, have made it pretty much inevitable. It’s just now getting to the point where it’s on the cusp of breaking into the mainstream, so people are noticing.
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Boxing Day Has Nothing To Do With Pugilism

It’s Boxing Day, which in the Skarka household means that we are up early to enjoy a Feast of Football (of the English Premier League variety). Currently sitting, scruffy and unshaven, watching the match between Manchester United and Sunderland, drinking an inordinately large thermal mug of tea (PG Tips, my preferred brand, acquired via an import shop here in town in ALARMING quantities by our family).

But rather than regale you with my Anglophilia and love of the Beautiful Game, I figured that I’d engage in the American Geek tradition of the Post-Christmas Loot Summary.

It was (as it is every year) a very bookish Christmas for your humble narrator. The haul included:

So what about you folks? What sorta loot did you score? What was the absolute bestest ever?