Hi everyone,
I was wondering if anyone could explain why the new Ultimate Magic book has been delayed until July 12th on sites like amazon and Borders.com??
I had pre-ordered it on Borders.com using a good coupon and store credit -- some of us have to game on a budget, y'know! -- and while I'm used to Borders.com having a back-order on just-released items, I think that a release delay of July 12th is rather excessive!
Is this somehow due to GenCon? Or is it an effort on Paizo's behalf to give small/independent stores a legitimate chance of competing against the "big guys" by hoping that customers will be impatient enough to pay full price for this new rulesbook?
I'm not posting this to be a jerk or to start any crap, but I would like to know the reasoning behind this delay...
Cheers, JohnH / Wanda
Do the FLGSs have to wait that long as well? Or are they able to bring the books in now? It would be interesting if Paizo allowed the FLGSs to get a chance to sell their books before the big internet chains discount them 20%.
ah, thanks, man :)
You could check out the myriad other discussions on this topic here, here, and here for answers from other posters and Paizo staff. (The last thread in particular deals with Borders) Hope that helps!
Hi Brandon,
Thanks for those links -- they were most illuminating! :) I don't always have a lot of time to trawl around the messageboards, so these were quite helpful.
However, I believe that my original question still stands -- why is there such a delay, and what is Paizo doing to address it?
Also, I wanted to point out that I support my local brick 'n' mortar store (Rivendell Books & Games in Rehoboth, MA) as best I can, but the spiralling costs of everyday things (especially gas) makes this difficult. I don't mind buying modules and supplements from him, but paying full price (i.e., $40 to $50) for a rulesbook just isn't feasible these days! :-<
Cheers, JohnH / Wanda
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Paizo doesn't sell the books directly to Borders, B&N, Amazon or other big companies. Borders takes Paizo books from Diamond/Alliance, the biggest gaming distributor in US. Since big chains don't limit amount of preorders, they just send out whatever books they get and tell the remaining customers to wait until next big batch of books from Alliance comes along.
And since RPGs aren't exactly hot sales for big chains, they order books from Alliance in very conservative amounts once in 2-3 months.
There's not much that Paizo can do about it. Even if they send more books to Alliance, the big chains won't pick up more than their low-priority RPG sales suggest. And big chains won't work directly with Paizo, because it's too small a company - it's much more convenient for them to pick their entire RPG range from one big distributor than to deal with hundreds of small companies one at a time.
BOTTOM LINE: Buying stuff from Borders/B&N/Amazon is a bad idea if you are interested in getting the book as soon as it is released.
Hi Brandon,Thanks for those links -- they were most illuminating! :) I don't always have a lot of time to trawl around the messageboards, so these were quite helpful.
However, I believe that my original question still stands -- why is there such a delay, and what is Paizo doing to address it?
Also, I wanted to point out that I support my local brick 'n' mortar store (Rivendell Books & Games in Rehoboth, MA) as best I can, but the spiralling costs of everyday things (especially gas) makes this difficult. I don't mind buying modules and supplements from him, but paying full price (i.e., $40 to $50) for a rulesbook just isn't feasible these days! :-<
Cheers, JohnH / Wanda
There isnt alot of paizo can do. It isnt like they are witholding books from amazon's distributor. It has to do with amazon's ordering and shipping methods. Paizo has no control over that.
BOTTOM LINE: Buying stuff from Borders/B&N/Amazon is a bad idea if you are interested in getting the book as soon as it is released.
Fair enough -- but as I don't actually play Pathfinder regularly (there isn't a group in my area as far as I know), and I have other things that take budgetary precedence, at this time I have to wait until it's available at a (to my financial situation) more reasonable cost.
Cheers, JohnH / Wanda
P.S.: And yeah, I know that I could purchase the PDF for less money, but call me old-fashioned -- I'd rather have an actual, physical book! ;-)
CEO
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In short, we stay on top of the orders from Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Noble, and the other book stores, and when they haven't ordered enough, we bug them about it. But we can't make them order if they don't want to. All we can do is keep pushing.
We send our sales manager out to all of those stores and many more on a regular basis to get into their face and make them remember Paizo. Some stores really start to pick up more Pathfinder while others make promises but have yet to deliver.
There are plenty of books for all of those stores to get their orders filled. We made the books available in plenty of time for those stores to have placed orders and received them in time to ship out to customers on the release date. Truly, that is all that we can do. The rest is up to them.
-Lisa
The proverbial horse and water situation.
I pre-ordered mine on Amazon.
Got the email from them pushing the date back.
Sent them a cancellation and picked the book up at my FLGS.
Booyakcha!
Hi Lisa!
Thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my query.
It's not every company whose CEO would bother to do this, and I very much appreciate it.
I'm now able to see the situation more clearly, and realize that the burden is on these companies and not Paizo.
It's just frustrating for someone in my situation, as I hope you can understand.
You and your employees/freelancers put out a top-quality product, and it's a line I'm happy to support.
Cheers, JohnH / Wanda
In short, we stay on top of the orders from Amazon, Borders, Barnes and Noble, and the other book stores, and when they haven't ordered enough, we bug them about it. But we can't make them order if they don't want to. All we can do is keep pushing.
We send our sales manager out to all of those stores and many more on a regular basis to get into their face and make them remember Paizo. Some stores really start to pick up more Pathfinder while others make promises but have yet to deliver.
There are plenty of books for all of those stores to get their orders filled. We made the books available in plenty of time for those stores to have placed orders and received them in time to ship out to customers on the release date. Truly, that is all that we can do. The rest is up to them.
-Lisa
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What you do is order it now from Paizo. When it comes put it in a bag and bring it with you to your local Borders and Barnes and Noble. Ask someone at the service desk when they will be getting it in. When the clerk tells you its not out until July, pull it out of your bag and say "really?".
My local Barnes and Nobles does not get Pathfinder stuff in until about a month after its out everyplace else. I wonder why they don't wait a month on the latest Harry Potter or Twilight book.
Its discrimination plain and simple.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Paizo doesn't sell the books directly to Borders, B&N, Amazon or other big companies. Borders takes Paizo books from Diamond/Alliance, the biggest gaming distributor in US. Since big chains don't limit amount of preorders, they just send out whatever books they get and tell the remaining customers to wait until next big batch of books from Alliance comes along.
And since RPGs aren't exactly hot sales for big chains, they order books from Alliance in very conservative amounts once in 2-3 months.
There's not much that Paizo can do about it. Even if they send more books to Alliance, the big chains won't pick up more than their low-priority RPG sales suggest. And big chains won't work directly with Paizo, because it's too small a company - it's much more convenient for them to pick their entire RPG range from one big distributor than to deal with hundreds of small companies one at a time.
BOTTOM LINE: Buying stuff from Borders/B&N/Amazon is a bad idea if you are interested in getting the book as soon as it is released.
Don't confuse the "we changed the release date" issue with the "we haven't ordered enough" issue! The book trade guys changing the release date has *nothing* to do with how much they order. What it's really about is that, as the release date approaches, if they haven't received their stock, they just make up a new release date. When their stock arrives, they won't actually wait for that phony release date.
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What you do is order it now from Paizo. When it comes put it in a bag and bring it with you to your local Borders and Barnes and Noble. Ask someone at the service desk when they will be getting it in. When the clerk tells you its not out until July, pull it out of your bag and say "really?".
My local Barnes and Nobles does not get Pathfinder stuff in until about a month after its out everyplace else. I wonder why they don't wait a month on the latest Harry Potter or Twilight book.
Its discrimination plain and simple.
Likely because they sell 100 HP/Tw books per each 1 PF book. It's not discrimination, it's optimization of the business. Yeah, it sometimes sucks to have a niche hobby, but at least you can buy RPG material in book chains over there. Some parts of the world ain't as lucky :)