PFRPG Hardcovers

[Charles Evans 25]

I understand that Paizo staff enjoy having holidays, and earning more than a slave labour wage, but I have some concerns about the 'three hardcovers a year' schedule which is being lined up. At the end of 2009, I gather, hardcover sales did massively well; extra staff were taken on, The PostMonster General was able to take a holiday for the first time in years, and an additional print run of the core book had to be ordered as the first one had practically sold out. Given Paizo's usual high standards of quality I would be surprised if these hardcovers (Core rules and Bestiary) had not done well... they are the basic rulebooks which you need to play the game.
I have some reservations however whether future hardcover products will sell so well. The advanced player's handbook and advanced game mastery guide might sell almost as well as the 2009 core books on their own merits, and Bestiary II, 'filling in' monsters which there wasn't space for in the first book could also do pretty well it seems to me; but somewhere down the line, the topics of rules-related hardcovers may become increasingly peripheral with smaller and smaller audiences paying for the same amount of effort and hard work put in by Paizo. A psionics book (assuming that ends up in hardcover) may not have much appeal beyond to those interested in psionics play. An epic psionics book (if that too ended up in hardcover) may only appeal to those interested in both epic level play AND psionics. Bestiary V full of the completely weird snaky creatures of a small island off the coast of Vudra (for the sake of argument assuming that all regular monsters have been covered by then, and 'themed' bestiaries are being released) will be of minimal use except to druids looking for exotic creatures to wildshape into, and for GMs looking to run games slanted towards that set of monsters. Okay, I may perhaps be compressing the timeline here in which matters may come to this point, but it seems to me that that was the corner with hardcovers (especially in their Forgotten Realms line) that Wizards of the Coast painted themselves into in a remarkably short span of time.

To reiterate my opening, I understand that hardcovers are (if popular enough) highly profitable, and that they can be very good for Paizo staff, but beyond what is currently scheduled, I hope that Paizo is looking outside of the conventional RPG box for future releases. My own suggestion is that possibly there could be an annual of some sort? I don't mean one which re-releases old material, but a sort of 250+ page 'super-pathfinder/wayfinder'. Marvel and DC comics sell thousands of annuals every year, after all, and they are essentially in the same business as Paizo - that of telling stories, albeit ones with a much higher emphasis/weight on artwork.

Anyway my thoughts on this subject, in the hope of getting a useful discussion about the future of hardcovers started...

[Kthulhu]

I think that it's invariable that as time goes on, the appeal of further books wanes for some. Some people may not ever go beyond the two core books...certainly everything past those will be more or less optional. That being said, I think the "three hardcovers per year" strategy is actually good BECAUSE of this problem....it gives more time to come up with good ideas for the book, and it gives more incentive to purchase the book since the company won't be putting out another book for several months. In fact, past Bestiary II (which I'm assuming will next up after the APG), I'd be happy if they pared the schedule down to just two (or even one) book per year. That would allow them to focus on the Golarion setting even more.

[Vigil]

I'd like to point out that WotC put out at least one hardcover a month during the five years of 3.5. So at the current release rate, Paizo will have caught up to Wizards in 19 and 1/2 years.

I'm not too concerned.

[seekerofshadowlight]

3 per year seems a good number. Already they do monthly and bi monthly stuff. 3 per year gives plenty of time not to rush out junk and not cause book burn out.

Wotc did 1 per month yet folks brought em, some didn't sell all that well and I think it had more to do with em being rushed, half broken junk, then massive burnout. The last year or so of books were just not great over all. Some gems in a sea of junk.

[James Jacobs]

The current hardcovers are doing VERY well for us. And a hardcover that sells only to half or even a fifth as fast/well as our core book is selling to would still be HUGELY profitable and successful.

Rest assured, we'll be watching sales figures and listening to feedback the whole time, but at this point I'm not seeing much reason for worry or concern at all as far as our hardcover line is going.

[Charles Evans 25]

Vigil wrote:

I'd like to point out that WotC put out at least one hardcover a month during the five years of 3.5. So at the current release rate, Paizo will have caught up to Wizards in 19 and 1/2 years.

I'm not too concerned.

Some of the things Wizards put in hardcovers Paizo are releasing in softcover (such as racial books) so they might hit the position Wizards were in a little bit sooner than nineteen and a half years if they go that route, although I hadn't realised Wizards were generally churning out hardcovers at quite that rate.

But Wizards seemed to me to have a strategy at times of using power creep to sell hardcovers, which strategy I hope Paizo are not interested in; Paizo did after all introduce numerous changes in PFRPG to make the base classes more playable and rewarding to stick with.

(some editing, tidying up)
James Jacobs:
I hadn't realise Paizo were in a position to sell a hardcover to so small groups and still find it profitable; are you able to do this primarily because you have experienced publishers who can gauge the size of their audience *just* right and order a print run accordingly?

[KaeYoss]

I don't see that much concern:

We get 3, maybe 4 hardcovers per year.

1 will usually be a bestiary. GMs always want more critters. Critters are fun. Wizards released 5 or 6 of these (plus themed pseudo-bestiaries) during 3e, and I think Paizo is much better at coming up with great critters. It will be years and years before Paizo might have to think about stopping the Bestiaries.

There are also many, many ideas people keep asking about. Epic Levels, Monstrous Characters, Psionics, Oriental Adventures, Classy NPCs, The Big Book of Great Equipment...

Considering that we'll only get 2 (maybe 3) of those per year (plus the bestiary), it will be some time before they run out of themes that had been done in 3e, but people want done right this time around, stuff that's really popular. After that (or parallel to that), they can come up with great ideas for PFRPG rulebook hardcovers, which I'm sure they can pull off, too.

I'm not concerned about their ability to keep up the good work for about a decade (at which point they will probably come up with PFRPG 2e)

And remember that the hardcovers are PFRPG books, i.e. rules-heavy stuff. They're not the setting books.

Those are still perfect bound releases in the Chronicles and Companion lines. And I don't think they'll run out of topics for that stuff any time soon, either.

Charles Evans 25 wrote:

are you able to do this primarily because you have experienced publishers who can gauge the size of their audience *just* right and order a print run accordingly?

No, they suck at that - look how fast the core rulebook had to be reprinted! ;-P