Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Races (PFRPG)

I didn't study Economics at school, but my tiny brain tells me that given the sheer volume of things they sell, Amazon can afford to keep a chunk of their catalog sold at a pricing that tiny companies like Paizo can't afford. Not to mention that Amazon's primary income comes from Kindle, AWS, subscriptions and allowing third party to run their business via Amazon. THAT is abuse of a near-monopoly status, just so you know. They CAN and DO sell things at near-loss, because they can afford it, which can and will drive some retail outlets into ground.

So factoring that in, you need to set the prices of both the physical book and the PDF so that you will actually earn some money, after Amazon and LGSs take their bite. Speaking of which, LGSs are another factor you need to take into the account with PDF pricing, because they're already mightily peed at you for offering subscriptions and even making PDFs in the first place, because both cut heavily into their sales. Set your PDFs too low and Joe the Anger Management Challenged LGS Owner will go into a fit of rage, stop stocking your books, throw PFS out and erect a shrine to WotC, who doesn't do such bad things to his little business.

I didn't study Economics at school, but my tiny brain tells me that given the sheer volume of things they sell, Amazon can afford to keep a chunk of their catalog sold at a pricing that tiny companies like Paizo can't afford. Not to mention that Amazon's primary income comes from Kindle, AWS, subscriptions and allowing third party to run their business via Amazon. THAT is abuse of a near-monopoly status, just so you know. They CAN and DO sell things at near-loss, because they can afford it, which can and will drive some retail outlets into ground.

So factoring that in, you need to set the prices of both the physical book and the PDF so that you will actually earn some money, after Amazon and LGSs take their bite. Speaking of which, LGSs are another factor you need to take into the account with PDF pricing, because they're already mightily peed at you for offering subscriptions and even making PDFs in the first place, because both cut heavily into their sales. Set your PDFs too low and Joe the Anger Management Challenged LGS Owner will go into a fit of rage, stop stocking your books, throw PFS out and erect a shrine to WotC, who doesn't do such bad things to his little business.

I am not asking Paizo to sell hardcovers at Amazon's price. This, however, is the only product I've seen where the price of the physical book is actually lower than the price of the PDF. It goes against Paizo's previous pricing strategies and doesn't make sense. I would hope that Paizo makes money from the wholesale sales of their books. If they don't we should all be worried. If Paizo sold PDFs for the same amount as their wholesale print books, the PDFs should theoretically have a higher margin already because their production costs are lower. However, in this case it is clear that the PDFs are being sold high enough that Amazon is still able to make money (or at least not lose money...most likely) selling a hardcover book for a lower price than Paizo sells its PDFs.

I totally get that FLGS owners don't like seeing low-priced PDFs cut into their sales, but Paizo's pricing model for PDFs has been "low cost" since they came out with Pathfinder. Given that Paizo sells a ton of books to Amazon, it doesn't seem to jive with the explanation for the high PDF price on this product being out of concern for the FLGSes. This is the first product I've seen (and I've purchase a lot of Pathfinder products) where the pricing is obviously out of whack. The bottom line is that the price of the PDF for this specific product does not make sense, and I hope it's not a trend.

Maybe Jessica Price would like to weigh in.

I think you've made your point, and from now on it would be wise to apply less pressure and let them answer if they choose to.

Gorbacz wrote:

I didn't study Economics at school, but my tiny brain tells me that given the sheer volume of things they sell, Amazon can afford to keep a chunk of their catalog sold at a pricing that tiny companies like Paizo can't afford. Not to mention that Amazon's primary income comes from Kindle, AWS, subscriptions and allowing third party to run their business via Amazon. THAT is abuse of a near-monopoly status, just so you know. They CAN and DO sell things at near-loss, because they can afford it, which can and will drive some retail outlets into ground.

So factoring that in, you need to set the prices of both the physical book and the PDF so that you will actually earn some money, after Amazon and LGSs take their bite. Speaking of which, LGSs are another factor you need to take into the account with PDF pricing, because they're already mightily peed at you for offering subscriptions and even making PDFs in the first place, because both cut heavily into their sales. Set your PDFs too low and Joe the Anger Management Challenged LGS Owner will go into a fit of rage, stop stocking your books, throw PFS out and erect a shrine to WotC, who doesn't do such bad things to his little business.

I am not asking Paizo to sell hardcovers at Amazon's price. This, however, is the only product I've seen where the price of the physical book is actually lower than the price of the PDF. It goes against Paizo's previous pricing strategies and doesn't make sense. I would hope that Paizo makes money from the wholesale sales of their books. If they don't we should all be worried. If Paizo sold PDFs for the same amount as their wholesale print books, the PDFs should theoretically have a higher margin already because their production costs are lower. However, in this case it is clear that the PDFs are being sold high enough that Amazon is still able to make money (or at least not lose money...most likely) selling a hardcover book for a lower price than Paizo sells its PDFs.

I totally get that FLGS...

It has been stated that Amazon actually sells at a loss at times, that is lower than wholesale prices. Vic Wertz has some posts on this, I believe.

I am aware that Amazon has sometimes sold items below cost. However, even given that, I've never seen Paizo sell a PDF at a higher price than Amazon has sold the equivalent book. If a Paizo employee actually confirmed that Amazon is selling this book below wholesale, it would help explain this. However, I'm not going to assume that Amazon is doing that. Maybe there's another explanation, too. Maybe Paizo is raising their prices at wholesale and Amazon still has stock that they purchased at lower prices. Who knows. So far nobody from Paizo has addressed my question, so it's all speculation.

The PDF for Inner Sea Gods is 27.99 USD on Paizo and the dead tree book is 27.76 USD on Amazon. Emerald Spire PDF is 24.99 USD at Paizo, the book is 24.29 at Amazon.

Additionally, Paizo doesn't deal with Amazon directly. Amazon is way too big to deal with tiny little plinks like Paizo. They purchase the books from Diamond/Alliance, so all Paizo knows is how much they're charging Alliance for wholesale (my guess: 50%) and then it's whatever large scale deal Amazon has with Alliance that factors in the final price. So might be asking Alliance or Amazon reps for answers on this one, I'm pretty confident they're as forthcoming with sharing details on their businesses as Paizo is, kappa.

And as for LGSes, go and talk to any LGS owner on how he or she feels about Paizo's business model and how would he or she feel if there would be more cheap PDFs for those big fat books. I recall the nice bloke from Black Diamond Games state humorously that he's the only LGS owner he knows that doesn't have a major issue with Paizo's PDF and subs model. And those issues range from "I'll gnash my teeth but deal with them" to "ARRGHMRBLE, NO PIAZO BULLCRAP IN MY STORE". Turns out, not every LGS owner is a business maverick, alas, but on the other hand you can't ignore them because organised play, WotC and the American p'n'p market being mostly people who like to buy their stuff in places where they can rub against some fellow nerds.

Of course it's all different in the ROW where LGSes hardly exist (and if they do, they don't stock Paizo to a major extent) and you have to factor in stuff like shipping or customs that makes PDFs waaay more attractive, whatever the price. Then again, ROW is something like 30% of p'n'p RPG market, so Paizo is excused for not factoring us Euros much :P

Hello freeAgent,

I don't have much to do with the PDFs or the pricing of our products so I don't have much insight to give you. I did find a post that may be helpful though in a similar discussion for Inner Sea Gods.

Hello freeAgent,

I don't have much to do with the PDFs or the pricing of our products so I don't have much insight to give you. I did find a post that may be helpful though in a similar discussion for Inner Sea Gods.

Good to know. The Inner Sea Gods PDF was around the same price as the book, but this one is about $4.50 more than the book. I guess the retail price is higher, but its price on Amazon is the same as the rest of Paizo's hardcovers. Oh well. You may want to consider your pricing strategy, since if the 70% rule stays around and retail prices go up faster than wholesale, this is going to happen again.

Like Diego, I don't have much to do with the pricing of our products. However, this conversation made me think of this thread that discusses the difference in Paizo's prices and Amazon's pricing policies. It might be enlightening.

No, that's not it. This is a new book and Amazon (easier to say than "not Paizo") has priced it in the same band as all other Paizo releases...

Oh. Amazon. I thought you were talking about profit based sellers. It is a longstanding joke in the investment community that Amazon has 'quarterly loss statements' rather than quarterly earnings statements. The few times Amazon has actually earned a profit they have quickly made adjustments to prevent it from happening again. They are working to corner the market on sales of... nearly everything. So long as their market share continues to grow their speculative future value will continue to increase and people will continue to invest more than enough money to cover their losses. When they should end this monopoly building phase and begin taking profits has been a fierce debate for years, but it doesn't seem like they are going to do so any time soon. In the meantime... comparing their prices to anyone else's is pretty meaningless. Everyone else needs to make a profit to stay in business. Amazon doesn't.

This book is pretty nifty.

Are we finished with the pricing debate?

Are we finished with the pricing debate?

Almost.

Anyone who feels this book is severely underpriced is free to send checks for the difference, made payable to "cash" to Crystal Frasier, c/o Paizo Publishing :D

I am not asking Paizo to sell hardcovers at Amazon's price. This, however, is the only product I've seen where the price of the physical book is actually lower than the price of the PDF. It goes against Paizo's previous pricing strategies and doesn't make sense.

No. The PDFs have been consistently priced 70% of the suggested retail price for as long as I can remember. The only exception to this is the core rulebook line, where they choose to sell the PDF at a very low price point to encourage people to try the game. This appears to be the first non-core book you've wanted to buy in PDF?

Just because one retailer can afford to sell stuff at paper thin margins (or often a loss for prime 2 day shipping) doesn't make Paizo's pricing inconsistent or wrong.

Also, if you really want the book AND PDF at a discount, that's why they offer a subscription service.

I know it's an old thread and that's bad, but I'm not sure where else it should go.

Was it ever explained why they changed racial ability modifiers the way they did?

Scalehearts are referred to as cunning and manipulative in their fluff and mechanically str/int is an extremely rare combo. With Scalehearts getting nerfed the only choices now are a variant dhampir and male only lashunta.

It seems weird.

Was it ever explained why they changed racial ability modifiers the way they did?

Scalehearts are referred to as cunning and manipulative in their fluff and mechanically str/int is an extremely rare combo. With Scalehearts getting nerfed the only choices now are a variant dhampir and male only lashunta.

Is there any reason you can't continue using the original version from Blood of the Moon and treat ISR as a variant?

Nerfed? Isn't +str/+con even rarer than +str/+int?

Nerfed? Isn't +str/+con even rarer than +str/+int?

Nope. Gnolls, Lizardfolk, Ragebred, Centaurs, Driders, Gargoyles and Duergar tyrants. And now Scaleheart too. 7 to 2.

Is there any reason you can't continue using the original version from Blood of the Moon and treat ISR as a variant?

I can, but a large number of GMs treat reprintings as errata/updates. I'm pretty sure that's the standard actually.

any pages on the snowcaster elf in this book? or just in races of the north??

any pages on the snowcaster elf in this book? or just in races of the north??

No pages, just call outs here and there in the elf section.

so in other words I dont want this book

If you only wanted if for Snowcaster specific stuff and nothing else related to elves or any other races, then probably not.

well what would be the reason to get it, sure more elf stuff is great, but is it stuff that is repeated elsewhere along with the other stuff or is it new stuff?

It's new stuff (more options!) and updated stuff (Skinwalkers got a buff).

Innovative human racial trait, is it worth it ? or is it better to take skill points ?

Argh, enough with the teamwork feats already.

Half teamwork feats would be ridiculous, but 85%? Seriously?

Seeing this book makes my desire for a new hardcover book about the many races of Pathfinder even stronger.

As I said before in another thread, I would love to see a "monster codex like" book about the 0HD races, with pregenerated character stat-blocks...

I'll settle for feats that aren't combat feats so that you need to have a class that grants them to you.

I'll settle for feats that aren't combat feats so that you need to have a class that grants them to you.

huh? Anyone can take a combat feat.

*sighs* I meant teamwork feats...

Am I the only one who's PDF copy of this (Inner Sea Races) in file per chapter format has the pages messed on the common races PDF? My copy, and I've tried pulling it down a couple of times, has pages 57-77 replaced with the last 20 pages from the end of the book. I'm not even sure if this is the right place to post this, but it seemed like the most relevant option.

Am I the only one who's PDF copy of this (Inner Sea Races) in file per chapter format has the pages messed on the common races PDF? My copy, and I've tried pulling it down a couple of times, has pages 57-77 replaced with the last 20 pages from the end of the book. I'm not even sure if this is the right place to post this, but it seemed like the most relevant option.

I just checked my by chapter copy, and had the same issue you described. You are not the only one!

My guess is that their master copy needs to be tweaked.