I just found out about a multi-publisher effort to support local gaming stores. It is called Bits & Mortar. The aim of Bits of Mortar is to ensure that PDF gaming does not kill off local gaming stores. Here is the blurb from their homepage:
Bits & Mortar wrote:
Bits and Mortar is a pro-retailer, pro-brick-and-mortar, pro-PDF, pro-eBook initiative backed by several game publishers (find out who). We love real, physical brick and mortar game stores, and we want to see them survive — and thrive — even as the digital content options for gaming become more prevalent.
Plenty of customers out there want the best of both worlds. They want the easy portability of an e-book, and the lasting durability of one made out of paper, glue, and ink. They want to be able to support their favorite local game stores, and they want to be able to support their favorite publishers. The Bits and Mortar initiative is all about making sure they don’t have to choose one or the other. We want them to choose both, every time.
Here’s What We Offer
- If a customer buys a book published by a Bits & Mortar publisher (see the list of publishers here) from their local game store, and that book is available online as a combined print and PDF bundle, we will give them the PDF at no additional charge. It’s a free value-add and a thank you from the publisher for supporting their local game store.
- Better yet, we will make it possible for that local game store to give the PDF to the customer directly, keeping the sale completely “in house”.
- When a B&M publisher has a product up for preorders online, offering a free PDF for those who preorder, we will work with retail stores to provide that same offer in-store. Your customers won’t have to choose between getting access to something early online and supporting their favorite store — they’ll get to do both in one place.
Interested? Read more on how to sign up.
The following publishers have already signed up:
Would Paizo be willing to sign up to something like this?
