If you'd like to combine an order (Pal Blues with Dragon Tales), then email us at [email protected]. We'll let you know if it makes sense to do in your case.
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If you'd like to combine an order (Pal Blues with Dragon Tales), then email us at [email protected]. We'll let you know if it makes sense to do in your case.
Is there any way to poll book ownership through people's forum profile? That might be a good way to get a more solid number for any possible reprint runs. From the news page it seems that only book -1 and book 1 have had reprints. I managed to order book 2, today, from the misplaced boxes lot.
In visiting sites like eBay and Amazon, the out of print books are hitting very high prices. There's no way in Hades that I'd shell out $900 to an Amazon merchant for book 0 and another $130 to an eBay seller for book 3 just to complete my collection.
Things like this always make me curse the speculators who I had my first bile-filled taste of during my days of playing M:tG and seeing "the lotus" go from $15 in 1994 to well over $2000 nowadays...always just out of reach...like the cookie jar (first on the counter, then on the shelf, then on top of the fridge and finally locked in the pantry). Limited runs are great for those who can get onboard at the get-go but those who board later are left adrift.
OotS is truely a great story with excellent continuity. That said, I'm sure when the final strip is posted and the final book is compiled and sold out, there will still be reader interest in this work. Tolkein(LotR), Homer(the Greek one), Toriyama(Dragonball), <insert other author of epics>, <repeat>, Burlew. Story is really important...and I am a stick figure art fan.
Oh yeah, people *do* like compilations...think "Harry Potter 7 disk/book box set", Peanuts comics and such. I'm sure the readership of OotS would get the word out..local Craigslist ads are easy to do...Facebook is everywhere.
Anyway, thanks Rich! OotS has kept several friends and myself enthralled and hungry for more. Any gamer I come across gets referred to this site.
Stormreaver
I just got word that Paladin Blues sold out late last night, so that's the official end of the donation drive.
Ordered the book. It's about time.
I now have that feeling of completeness :D
I'd pay for a pdf version of the books/strips that aren't available here for free. I just looked at ebay/amazon and, yeah, I'm not paying $100+ for a book that sold not that long ago for $15.
PDF might well be a good option for getting some money for reprints. I'd buy the books, although at the moment there's no way I'd pay more than retail for a hard copy. A few hundred bucks for a comic book is too much for me, even for a great comic like OotS.
the giant said many times that he's never going to release pdf, otherwise they would start going for free on the internet in no time and he'll lose most of his income.
I'm sure there will be reprints of mosst of the books in the future, because there are a lot o fpeople wanting those.
But, just to avoid problems, I suggest to everyone intersted to buy the books as soon as they are printed. You're not saving any money by waiting. And no matter how little your financial compensation, or how great your shipping expences, I still say it's worth the price.
My bookshelf reads -1, 0, 1, 4 (being somewhat late to the party), and I'll be glad to put the new book next to the rest. I guess I blinked and missed "No Cure" again, but if 2 and 3 ever do get reprinted, I'd be a buyer.
The books are already available online for "free." I'd prefer a physical copy, but I'd settle for paying for a legit pdf. For the absolutely paranoid about piracy, look into Adobe Digital Editions or something. Or make it a password-protected website or something.
WOTC didn't stop 4E piracy by stopping the release of PDFs. People just scanned the books and as a result WOTC made no profit instead of some.
Oh well, it's your product and you're free to do what you want with it.
It's really weird, but I have every book that's been released (I just completed it with Fools for christmas), and there has been no trouble getting them, for normal price, according to anyone I know who's bought them. And it's not because they were just released ones either, I only started reading in 2007. Am I just crazy lucky? :smalleek:
My argument is that there will be piracy anyway. If you choose between 50% of people buying the product legit and 0%, you would choose 50%. Not selling pdfs does not mean there aren't pdfs out there to begin with. There's clearly more demand here than supply, especially on the older books and the ones that have content that isn't available for free here. It's at a business's peril if they don't mitigate loss.
As I also said, they can do whatever they want with their product. The argument that not selling PDFs will mean there will be no piracy, however, is unsound.
I think the main reason The Giant wouldnt want to release PDF versions is because they would undercut the printed versions. He needs to see a certain number of books in order to make the print run worthwhile.
Besides, you wouldnt get the funky bonus strips, commentary and other neat features in a bonus version.
That's a valid point.
Yet, several people here in this thread mentioned already that they can not find some of the books or generally don't have the money to pay for the books plus shipping.
Offering the books in digital form would attract new customers. It would satisfy customers, who right now can not make a purchase because the book they are looking for is not in print. It would allow for sales that Rich is missing out on right now.
I don't know if that would offset the earning lost on printed books. I do understand that Rich doesn't want to risk destroying his working business model.
Well, that's the point: a (paid!) PDF version would only make sense if it contains the bonus material. The basic stuff one can already read online for free.
I own all the books released so far and preordered 'Dragon', yet still I would be willing to shell out a few more bucks to get digital versions of this (including the bonus material!)
As nice as the books are, we live in a digital age and I spend more and more time reading stuff on my notebook or tablet.
This is what he has said in the past as part of his reasoning of why there are no PDF versions of the printed books.
He has heard all of the pro/con arguments before. I highly doubt anyone here is going to bring up anything that he hasn't considered/heard of before. Including other companies/artists who have "successfully" released PDF versions of their material.
Look, it's his business model and it's up to him how best to implement it. He is well aware there are other ways to do things. He just chooses not to do it.
If you want to try to convince Rich to change his mind some unspecified time in the future, your best bet is to simply politely ask that they be made available one day and leave it at that. But don't bring up the pro/con arguments to him. And don't try to argue with him about it. Because I really doubt it is going to do any good. In fact, all it might do is irritate him. Which makes it less likely that there are ever PDF versions one day. :smallwink:
0% as in online sales, obviously. It's a linked market, sure, but I was obviously talking about online sales. People who pirate aren't going to pay for the books anyway.
Also, those of us who don't live in the states don't like paying $30+ for shipping a $15 book. I've only ever seen OOTS books here on sale in specialty stores, not mainstream bookstores.
I suppose worrying about the market getting cannibalized by online sales might be valid... except there is no primary market for the old books now. There's no profit made on the old books now by the owners of OOTS here. The only people making money are resellers.
If the choice is "nothing" or "sell the pdfs of the old books", surely online sales would accomplish something. If the answer is that I'm going to have to wait for a year or two, well, I might not be reading this comic in two years. Cash in hand now. Possibly not later. I'm kinda interested in the bonus material, but I'm mostly interested in the prequel books that include new stuff. You know, the ones that cost $100 on Amazon.
On topic: Please find a cheaper way to ship to Canada. $12 is pretty high.
Except that the old books have been reprinted before and they will probably be reprinted in the future. And online sales makes it less likey (in Rich's view at least) that the books will be reprinted in the future.
So while you may have "cash in hand now", apparently there's not enough people like you in Rich's view to make it worth changing his business model. At the moment at least.
Is this bad for you? Perhaps. But Rich never claimed that he was ever going to make 100% of his potential customers happy.
The sad fact is that some people won't be able to get what they want. The question then becomes, "Do you wait until you can get what you want? Or do you move on?"
As I said, your best bet is that you and many people like you simply ask (and I do mean simply ask) Rich to make his old books available by electronic means. If enough of you ask, then who knows what might happen?
Now I never said the bet would have a good chance of paying off. Simply that it is a better bet than repeating the same points that have been brought up over and over and over and over again. Believe it or not, you're not the first person to mention the wonders of electronic distribution of books. :smallamused:
Thanks for the generalisations. A) For most parts of the world, it's not 30+. B) you can combine several books one shipping. C) The books are worth 25,99 as they are 35,99. D) I do not come from the US and I bought all books so far.
You have an MBA or something or an own business and speak from experience or are you just rambling around?Quote:
I suppose worrying about the market getting cannibalized by online sales might be valid... except there is no primary market for the old books now. There's no profit made on the old books now by the owners of OOTS here. The only people making money are resellers.
How the world works: Make your own business and you can decide about your own business. Apparently, the owner of this business here decided he can live with how things are.Quote:
If the choice is "nothing" or "sell the pdfs of the old books", surely online sales would accomplish something. If the answer is that I'm going to have to wait for a year or two, well, I might not be reading this comic in two years. Cash in hand now. Possibly not later. I'm kinda interested in the bonus material, but I'm mostly interested in the prequel books that include new stuff. You know, the ones that cost $100 on Amazon.
Mow some neighbours lawn for two hours and take your 12$. It's actually simple as that.Quote:
On topic: Please find a cheaper way to ship to Canada. $12 is pretty high.
The shipping is as high as it is because stuff NOT sent via the expensive rates got damaged too often. Apprently, a) the world is more complex as you thought and b) people are not as stupid as you thought.
Good service has a price. That is also true for the postal service.
Apart from that about piracy: Do not advocate it. If you decide you REALLY need the books, download it, but shut up about it. If you like some artist's work, pay him as soon as you can (i.e. the stuff is available again). If you do not like an artists work enough to pay him even after you downloaded something, do not bother do read/download/steal it at all. If it's not worth 30$ of your money, it's also not worth time from your precious life!
I honestly fail to understand that whole "I play/read/listen to it because it's "free" thing"... you think something is not worth some lame money - but you think it's worth your lifetime? I feel that's priorities upside down. But that's just my personal opinion...
This seems to be the crux of your argument, and also the part I disagree with the most.
While you're right that someone who adamantly refuses to pay for things are not going to buy either, there is a rather large chunk of the readership who would not go and seek out a scanned copy, knowing it would undercut the Giant's livelihood.
However, how many of those readers have loaned their books to a friend? I have. Would I also "loan" a pdf to someone? Probably. However, a book and a pdf are not the same thing, a book can only be loaned to one person at a time and it has to be someone you know in real life, but a pdf can be loaned infinately.
It comes down to a question of ease, the current system allows pirating from those who are legitimately comfortable with stealing, there is no possible way someone who downloads a scanned copy can believe they are doing things ethically.
A pdf system allows the book, the official book, to be loaned between anyone who knows eachother online. A pdf isn't scanned in but is the official product, and so the reader doesn't get the impression of bootlegging. Anyone who thought about it undoubtably would consider getting a pdf the same as stealing, there would be a lot who simply wouldn't think about it. Being given a book from George seems a lot different than going out to some warez site and finding an illegal download.
That reminds me: Giant, I think the shipping price for this book was entirely reasonable, thank you. (I'm Canadian too, by the way). I spend around five hours a week at work processing orders for product to be shipped across my country, across the border and occasionally to other parts of the world. I see the costs of shipping and I know that the amount for shipping these books is a perfectly fair and reasonable price.
Also, Giant, is there any way you can stop all the fighting in the Middle East? You apparently have control over tariff rates and inter-contentental shipping expenses, so I thought I'd ask :P
Thank you, FujinAkari. This comment made me chuckle enough to diffuse the rant I was building up in my head.
Suffice to say, digital pdf downloads are not in the works at this time. My concerns are not piracy; the majority of people who are not willing to pay for content simply don't read the stuff that doesn't get posted here, and the rest, I can't stop. No, my concern is that printing is a very difficult business with very, VERY thin margins of profit compared to the amount of money invested. And those margins are mostly dictated by the economy of scale: printing 5000 copies of a book may only cost 30% less than printing 10,000, and printing 20,000 may only cost 60% more. But they all sell for the same price. So, my printing business only functions if I can sell ALL of the copies that I print, and I estimate the print run as exactly as possible.
Releasing books digitally messes with both of those needs. I can't predict how many people will buy digitally (polls are worthless), and I can't sell a paper copy to someone who has bought a digital one. If half of my predicted customers buy digital instead of paper, then the cost of each paper copy skyrockets and I can't afford to print them anymore. And contrary to what people think, not everyone wants to buy digital.
In the end, I want my books to be, well, BOOKS. I am therefore willing to sacrifice the few digital sales (and I do believe them to be relatively few, since my work is online already anyway) in order to keep my paper business in business.
Now, having answered that: This thread is not about my business model. I am not looking for business advice, and I'm not keen on people tell me I'm doing something wrong just because I'm not doing what they want me to do. Stop it.
Let's keep this thread about the new book and ordering problems/concerns with it, OK?
Two Questions:
1) Was I supposed to get an email, or will that just be when it gets shipped?
2) Will there be an in-character preface? I quite enjoyed those.
Ordered my copy. To the Abyss with shipment costs, there is nothing like reading OotS on paper. Beats pdf/jpg by far :)