This is something I don't do very often - talk rpg business in public. I normally don't do this because those who are not in the business really don't *know* the business and sadly, I've found that those who know the least tend to be the ones that want to talk the most, certain that they know what's what. Now this may not be the best way to begin a post where I'm effectively asking to speak to people about the business who are not in the business, but I'm interested in your opinions as customers.* And customer opinions are important regardless the knowledge behind the creation and manufacture of a product.
What I've been thinking about is Lulu and how we at Expeditious Retreat Press view the site. We have all the Advanced Adventures PDFs, the two hardbacked Advanced Adventure Compendiums, and Malevolent & Benign: A First Edition Bestiary for sale at Lulu. This means we've been treating Lulu as a source of mainly digital sales and sales of hardbacked material that isn't cost-efficient for us to print in sort runs. I'm certain I could do profitable short runs of the hardbacks, but I would have a lot of sunk cost and would need to spend considerable time before those costs are repaid and turned into profit. I prefer faster turning material - less capital risk, quicker return - because this industry can be *brutal* to those who make a single mistake regarding a sunk cost. Capital, once spent, is gone until recouped and the faster that turnaround the better, IMO.
However, the big sale at Lulu has made me think that perhaps I should be viewing Lulu as a secondary source of *physical* product. There is obviously a demand for our hardbacked-stuff, but I'm now wondering were I put all the Advanced Adventures (as well as a significant part of back catalog) for sale as physical products at Lulu if we would grow physical sales significantly. Sales of physical product is Lulu's purpose, after all, but I have been hesitant to do such because we also sell physical copy direct from the Expeditious Retreat website.
My concern is would we split that revenue stream, and if we did, would it result in increased profitability regardless? I make more per unit selling direct than in any other way, and were I to end up splitting the stream by customers choosing Lulu over our website, I could end up making less even while selling more. Additionally, there will be a considerable time cost in making the material available at Lulu. What I want to happen would be to reach customers who do not shop at our website, but who would gladly shop at Lulu.
So the question to you if you would be so kind to respond is "Would you be more likely, equally likely, or less likely to purchase a product at Lulu rather than at the Expeditious Retreat website?" I've made it a poll, for easy answering.
*We are customers, not consumers. I find the term "consumer" derogatory. We are not senseless gaping maws - we are people first, sources of cash second.
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I would always rather buy direct from the publisher than from somewhere like Lulu. I've never had problems with anything I've purchased from there, but I have generally had much better service dealing with publishers than distributors in other cases. Also, I like to see publishers get as much as possible for their products, provided the price is reasonable overall, so that they will produce more in the future.
We are *highly* attentive to customer service at our website because we may only have one shot at making a good impression, and every customer may turn into a recurring customer. Recurring customers are the "gems & jewelry" in the treasure horde of the small-publisher rpg business. :)
I would always be more likely to buy from the writer/artist/game publisher than through other websites. I would rather the w/a/gp get the money than the others sites.
That said, I would generally buy them from my FLGS to support them also.
Joe, like the others have said, I tend to like to buy direct. However, it would seem that putting stuff up on Lulu might open your revenue stream to others who *gasp* might not be familiar with your product but buy stuff from Lulu. I'm not sure as I'm not in the publishing side of things, but it might be worth a shot if for no other reason than to pick up a few stray sales.
@John: I tend to think that's what's going to happen, but as I need to make 3 sales at Lulu to equal 2 direct sales, I'd need to be careful to not cannibalize by direct sales to a less-profitable revenue stream. Thinking about this for the past few days, I know I'm going to put up our out-of-print material (d20 material) up at Lulu as there is no potential downside there, but I'm still on the fence about the more current material. So far the poll has been strongly in favor of one side over the other, but I figure after a month, I'll have better information.
I distrust lulu because the quality is so spotty. Whereas if I have confidence in the individuals behind the website that are packaging my order, I know that they will screen out any flawed product.
I've ordered stuff from Lulu and never had a problem... but have heard a lot of complaints about print quality from Lulu by other users in the online community. I guess that if you place a Lulu order, Lulu will send your order to the nearest or most logical subcontractor print shop in their network... and I guess quality varies across the network.
Joe:
I'd rather buy product (especially hardbacks) directly from you if they were available.
Being an international customer it would depend on the postal rates. If they were close but the publisher was a bit more expensive I would shop through the publisher site, but if Lulu was a good deal cheaper then I would shop there.
i'm a one stop shopper. i like that i can go to Lulu and find an assortment of OSR goodness. i've purchased quite a bit through Lulu without a hitch and i'm not as inclined to make a bunch of smaller orders from each individual publisher, incurring shipping and handling with each order. in fact, i just made an order on monday when Lulu had a 30% off deal. I would have purchased "Malevolent & Benign" if it was offered as a paperback.
I would rather purchase a product direct from the publisher. I'm happier knowing that all the profit from my purchase is going to the games company itself, rather than having a huge chunk go to a middleman.
However, that being said, I do make a lot of purchases through the likes of Drive Thru RPG and lulu but only when one of the two following conditions are met
1 The publisher is a small company that can't afford the initial outlay of printing their own product or the time/effort to maintaing their own digital shop for pdfs.
2. The publisher is one of the larger companies that can more easilt absorb the loss of revenue from going through a middle-man.
Thanks for all the comments, guys!
I buy Fight On! and other stuff from Lulu. Thus, it's easy for me to add stuff to the Lulu cart, specially if there's a sale involving free ground shipping, ie. UPS to Switzerland. Regular shipping prices to Switzerland can be up to 50% of what I buy there, however. That frustrates me to no end. I stumbled upon the survey and decided to see what it would cost to order directly from you and was surprised that it would have cost me only $4.50 for a $12 book – which is a bit better than what Lulu offers. Buying the $12 Knockspell as a single item would cost about $8 in shipping! That's why I would prefer to buy from you directly.
There's another factor when selling through Lulu.com (or RPGnow for that matter) that is worth considering. If you're in Europe Lulu.com will print and ship the books from inside the EU, lowering shipping costs and bypassing completely custom costs. Given the chance I always buy directly from the source, but I had to stop buying products from the US as the custom costs began to increase to insane levels. Now I buy only from inside the EU and only risk buying outside when there isn't any other way to get what I want.
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