I'd love to say that the life of a fledgling publisher is all good, but to tell you the truth I have no frame of reference. Put simply I have sales (woot) but no reviews (sigh). I have no idea what my customers think of my PDFs, how I could improve them, are they useful to you, is there anything missing that you'd expect? I need some user feedback.
So, If you've bought any of the first 3 sets of Item Cards; RGP001 - Adventurer's Gear, RGP002 - Potions or RGP003 - Animals or RGP004 Paper Minis Set 1: Animals please feel free to let me know what you think using the comments box below.
As an incentive I'll send each one of you a complimentary copy of my new GM Aids Decision Deck courtesy of RPG Now/Drive Thru RPG.
Please take my post as it is meant : Cinstructive critizism. I may sound harsh in parts but i am not a native speaker, so bear with me :-)
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of your Item cards, however the execution is just not my style so I never bought them. I prefer a painted look to photorealism. Especially for fantasy games at which these are targeted. I like that you try to keep it generic, but then you add prices on them, wich are very DnD centric.
With the Potions it is even more noticeable as they not only have a pricetag but also contain specific spell names out of DnD. I like the bottles and different liquids with descriptions though, I could get use out of those if I could copy them easily to edit out the Spellname and price. Same issue with the visuals as with the Items.
The Animals are good. The short descriptions and trivia on them is great. I like that you added an approxiamte Cap for carying capacity in an abstract way and not absolute weight. But again, Cost is fixed on the sheet. And they are fotos of course.
The Paper minis are basically good, I only miss the Trifold option. And of course Photos are not to my taste again.
Generally: Turning off the ability to copy is making sure I wont buy the product. Thats one of the biggest benefits of using PDF, I can copy paste at my PC and generate a sheet of items or potions or animals just as I need it. I usually never print out whole PDF only the parts I need.Sorry to be so blunt here, it is a pet peeve of mine.
For one dollar a piece your Products are great value! Thats impulse buy usually. However for the reasons above they are just not my cup of tea on a first impression based on the PDF samples.
Have you ever thought about using fotosketcher on the pictures? Might be interesting for future releaes as for me "Painted" immedietly suggests higher quality instead of Photos. Even when it is well made "Fake painted" :-)
The Decision cards tough look actually pretty cool. I am just wondering, with just 60 cards you cannot have all possible valuable Pokerhands in there right? The idea is great, would be a good on the road tool. I just bought them, so no need to bribe me anymore :-) Wouldn´t have found them if you didn´t blog.
I wish you all the best with your Products! I have the deepest respect for everyone who pushes himslef to create and publish something. I will keep an eye on your shop on Drivethrough!