Preferred page count for PDFs

[Cyrad]

When buying 3pp products as PDFs, do you prefer smaller supplements or larger supplements?

I'm curious because I recently bought a bunch of PDFs all less than $3 each with less than 10 pages. While it's cool to get content in piece meal like this, managing all the files is kind of a hassle and I have trouble remembering what came from where. I feel more likely to casually skim through a larger PDF than open a bunch of files.

[Ciaran Barnes]

I agree with you. I would prefer a larger one, as long as it's organized. I suppose it's the same as my preference for large hardcover books over the small paperback supplements.

[Mark Carlson 255]

I prefer to have my money go farther in that often in the 10 page PDF you have a few pages of stuff that is not really game related so you are actually only getting 4-6 pages. Where as if you have a 128 page book the same 4 pages of stuff is not as noticeable.
MDC

[Malwing]

Larger. Because I can print out or order prints of rules that I can put in one place.

Having a bunch of smaller supplements gets harder to keep track of and except for GM material rarely gets used at the table.

[Rusted Iron Games]

Just listening. Don't mind me. jedi handwave

[Andre Roy]

At the same time I rather have a smaller supplement with substance than a "shallow" big supplement with very little substance.

And it depends on what you are getting, for some aspect of the game it's easier to make a bigger supplement with substance, other you are better with smaller (or a bigger one which is a collection of smaller supplements).

[Cyrad]

Andre Roy wrote:

At the same time I rather have a smaller supplement with substance than a "shallow" big supplement with very little substance.

And it depends on what you are getting, for some aspect of the game it's easier to make a bigger supplement with substance, other you are better with smaller (or a bigger one which is a collection of smaller supplements).

Well, obviously you dont want a 32 pager with tons of bloat. But could you be more specific?

[Scott_UAT]

I mean, you never want bloat. If it's bloated it's poor content design in my opinion.

[Andre Roy]

Cyrad wrote:

Andre Roy wrote:

At the same time I rather have a smaller supplement with substance than a "shallow" big supplement with very little substance.

And it depends on what you are getting, for some aspect of the game it's easier to make a bigger supplement with substance, other you are better with smaller (or a bigger one which is a collection of smaller supplements).

Well, obviously you dont want a 32 pager with tons of bloat. But could you be more specific?

I'm primarily thinking about class and race options. A new archetype or Bloodline, a couple new racial options for the [Insert race], etc. tend to be more a focus type of supplement and thus tend to be smaller.

Same could be said of a new class or new races. Even if you add a few new traits, Alternate racial traits, a couple new feat,new archetypes and spells, it might run 10 to 15 pages if you keep the fluff to bare minimum.

Although 3-5 such classes or races can be combined to form a bigger class supplement.

[Mark Carlson 255]

IMHO, PDF's are not as much as a problem as printed materials (unless you have to pay for something unusual besides just the space it takes up on the sellers HD).
But in print you have how the whole printing process works, how they cut and fold the huge sheet of paper to make a book, how the little books bind to the cover, etc. So in book printing there are specific optional page counts and if you are going to do both then people generally default to the standards of the printed page.

MDC

[Cyrad]

Andre Roy wrote:

Cyrad wrote:

Andre Roy wrote:

At the same time I rather have a smaller supplement with substance than a "shallow" big supplement with very little substance.

And it depends on what you are getting, for some aspect of the game it's easier to make a bigger supplement with substance, other you are better with smaller (or a bigger one which is a collection of smaller supplements).

Well, obviously you dont want a 32 pager with tons of bloat. But could you be more specific?

I'm primarily thinking about class and race options. A new archetype or Bloodline, a couple new racial options for the [Insert race], etc. tend to be more a focus type of supplement and thus tend to be smaller.

Same could be said of a new class or new races. Even if you add a few new traits, Alternate racial traits, a couple new feat,new archetypes and spells, it might run 10 to 15 pages if you keep the fluff to bare minimum.

Although 3-5 such classes or races can be combined to form a bigger class supplement.

You're saying you prefer that supplements more focused around a class, race, or concept?

[Alice in Blunderland]

I much prefer larger supplements personally.

Between Pathfinder, D&D, WoD, Savage Worlds, and a slew of other rule systems that I buy PDFs for, it is super hard to find an individual PDF.

Compiling several smaller subjects into a larger PDF would greatly aid me in keeping the clutter to a minimum.

[PathlessBeth]

I've noticed the average quality of any given item in a small PDF tends to be higher than in a large one. Partly, it could be because additional scrutiny is given to anything in a small product. If one feat in a four page supplement is poorly written, then a significant portion of the supplement is unusable. If one feat in a three hundred page book is poorly written, it gets waved away as "not for critics," and people are more likely to use the rest of the book. Hence, consumers hold short products to a higher standard, which may have caused publishers to hold their writers and editors to a higher standard for short products than for long products.

On the flip side, short products tend to cost significantly more per page or per word than long products, so it sort of balances out.

[Mark Carlson 255]

I guess what is really needed is a PDF compilation product in that you could easily organize and edit multiple peoples products into one or more products/organizations to fit your style.
That way you could have all of your class's in one book, all of the spells in another, etc.

But I think there would be quite a few problems with copyright's, formatting and people pride for this to happen in a official product and seeing the light of day.

MDC

[Andre Roy]

Cyrad wrote:

You're saying you prefer that supplements more focused around a class, race, or concept?

I do enjoy those type of supplement as it gives me more options and diversity.

But I also enjoy new Campaign supplement (Core setting and Bestiary) which tend to be much bigger obviously as well as adventures.

[Alexander Augunas]

I suppose it begs asking; what constitutes a big PDF versus a small PDF?

[Chemlak]

Now that's a loaded question, Alex.

I just spent a few minutes looking through my 3PP material, and there's an interesting pattern (which may just be publisher bias, so don't take this as a given): products cover a range of pages up to about 12, and then suddenly jump to about 30 (I got one hit of 28 pages, but most were 30-40). And then you suddenly jump to 64 pages.

Now, even with my admittedly dire knowledge of publishing, I know that a print book must have a multiple of 4 pages in the interior, and they commonly get bundled in groups of 8 (which is why you get books with page counts of 32, 64, 96, 128, and so forth, and there's a word for it and I don't know what it is), so the 64 page jump is a viable print product (I'm not saying you can't make smaller print products, but they're not as common).

So, a "small pdf", to me, is anything of fewer than 32 pages, and is pretty much always going to be less than 13 pages.

A few examples: Ultimate Relationships from Legendary Games is 8 pages long, including covers, and I consider it small. On the other hand, Ultimate Charisma from Everyman Gaming (I think you might know who I mean), at 68 pages total (hey, look, 64 interior pages), is not small. Middle ground, Mythic Monsters: Demons (the first Mythic Monsters book), by LG is 30 pages long, but I have to actually trawl through my collection to find The Genius Guide to Feats of Multiclassing (21 pages), or Dodeca Weather (20 pages), and it's then really hard to find anything more than 12 pages long.

I'd say a rough way to figure out if it's a "small PDF": if, as a publisher, you're not caring about page count for the purposes of possible print runs and it's fewer than 32 pages long, it's small.

[Ambrosia Slaad]

From chatting with a 3PP owner a ways back (I think it was LPjr), PDFs that will also be available via print-on-demand have different costs for different pagecount ranges, and juggling the right ratio of content vs. costs to the end user can be tricky. Does the publisher keep it shorter, cutting some content to fall below a certain pagecount range, and thus more affordable? Or does the publisher feel that customers will be willing to support more content at the higher cost? (It's been years, so I might have missed some critical variables in there.)

Often 3PPs have to keep a tight budget to keep the end product affordable, yet still be able to pay freelance writers, artists, editors, and layout folk a reasonable amount. Hopefully they'll have a bit left over to pay the 3PPs own expenses like taxes, that monthly fee to Adobe for InDesign and PhotoShop, the webhost for the company site, etc. And then it's good to keep cash in the coffers so you can put money down up front to commission new art and pay your freelancers when they deliver (instead of waiting til publication).

---

I think little/smaller PDFs are good ways to gauge what the customers are interested in without sinking money into bigger products that may not break even for years (if ever). A 3PP could commission 1 or 2 pieces of new art (the rest stock art) and do as much of the writing & editing & layout in house as possible (paying the business expenses but not themselves much/any) to release one project as a few/several small PDFs... so that they make enough to finance the bigger projects and compilations. Small, more affordable PDFs are also good for impulse-shopping; I know that when I buy a Paizo PDF(s), I usually buy one or two smaller 3PP PDFs too.

But they can't charge too much; many customers have certain expectations on pagecount and pricepoint from Paizo's products that no other 3PP can hit because they will never move products at Paizo's volumes.

[Luthorne]

Depends on a number of things. In general, I am more likely to shell out for smaller PDFs with correspondingly smaller prices, especially if it's a new company, or it's a concept that I'm not completely sold on, or if the product description is vague enough I'm not completely certain what I'm actually buying. Usually a product that's under five dollars I'm more willing to take a risk on. A product that's ten to twenty dollars? I have to either really be into the concept, have a lot of trust in the company, or it has to have not only positive reviews but detailed ones that explain exactly what you're getting. Drop Dead Studios' expansion for Spheres of Power have both me into the concept and some degree of trust in the company, while just about anything for Everyman Gaming is generally trusted...and I can't think Endzeitgeist enough for his efforts, even if I don't always agree. Spending more than that? Confidence in the company, the concept, or the product itself (if there was an open playtest or somesuch) is pretty much required for me. Smaller products are also easier to digest, too, which certainly has its advantages over a big pdf...though if it's a topic near and dear to my heart, a big pdf can be quite delicious. On the other hand, if I'm only interested in a concept or two, well.

Of course, there can also be budget issues, but that's more personal and less something a third party developer can do anything about!

[Marc Radle]

Chemlak wrote:

Now that's a loaded question, Alex.

I just spent a few minutes looking through my 3PP material, and there's an interesting pattern (which may just be publisher bias, so don't take this as a given): products cover a range of pages up to about 12, and then suddenly jump to about 30 (I got one hit of 28 pages, but most were 30-40). And then you suddenly jump to 64 pages.

Now, even with my admittedly dire knowledge of publishing, I know that a print book must have a multiple of 4 pages in the interior, and they commonly get bundled in groups of 8 (which is why you get books with page counts of 32, 64, 96, 128, and so forth, and there's a word for it and I don't know what it is), so the 64 page jump is a viable print product (I'm not saying you can't make smaller print products, but they're not as common).

So, a "small pdf", to me, is anything of fewer than 32 pages, and is pretty much always going to be less than 13 pages.

A few examples: Ultimate Relationships from Legendary Games is 8 pages long, including covers, and I consider it small. On the other hand, Ultimate Charisma from Everyman Gaming (I think you might know who I mean), at 68 pages total (hey, look, 64 interior pages), is not small. Middle ground, Mythic Monsters: Demons (the first Mythic Monsters book), by LG is 30 pages long, but I have to actually trawl through my collection to find The Genius Guide to Feats of Multiclassing (21 pages), or Dodeca Weather (20 pages), and it's then really hard to find anything more than 12 pages long.

I'd say a rough way to figure out if it's a "small PDF": if, as a publisher, you're not caring about page count for the purposes of possible print runs and it's fewer than 32 pages long, it's small.

In printing, those are call 'signatures'. Typically books are printed in 4-page, 8-page, or 32-page signatures.

[Chemlak]

Thanks, Mark!

[Mark Carlson 255]

About those 4 page segments, IIRC a RPG print guy said that you have 4 of those 4 page segments in a larger sheet of paper that they fold into the various pages of the book. But I could be miss-remembering whi exact worlds also.
I was also luck enough to find a Battle tech book that had back to back blank pages a few pages apart. These printing oddities vary rarely make it out of the publishing house as the printers catch them and destroy the copies before they leave the shop.
That reminds me I should have it appraised.

Anyway, small PDF's also mean that publishers can keep things coming out the door instead of waiting on a bigger project that can eat up more capital, time and effort and may or may not be a success.
The main problem for me is again that there is publishing overhead that occurs in every product, front page, back page, title page, etc and if the count those in their page count you are paying a lot of $$$ for just a few pages of material.

The main advantage that I see are as people said above is the $ spent for a RPG product covering info for a small subject may be worth it where as a larger product would not. ie create a bunch of small PDF's describing new magic items of specific types and let the people pick the ones they want instead of buying a whole book of all the various types of magic items of what only some are of interest to them. The main problem here is if you like the work of the author and you decide to buy all of their stuff you can end up paying a whole lot more buy buying in small chunks than if you simply spent the $$$ for a larger book in the first place.

MDC

[Marc Radle]

Mark Carlson 255 wrote:

About those 4 page segments, IIRC a RPG print guy said that you have 4 of those 4 page segments in a larger sheet of paper that they fold into the various pages of the book. But I could be miss-remembering whi exact worlds also.

I was also luck enough to find a Battle tech book that had back to back blank pages a few pages apart. These printing oddities vary rarely make it out of the publishing house as the printers catch them and destroy the copies before they leave the shop.
That reminds me I should have it appraised.

Like I said, those are called signatures. They do indeed get folded down, bound, and then trimmed into the final book. The actual size of the signature depends on things like press size, print run, etc. 8-page signatues are pretty typical for a standard offset print run. Larger sigs are also common in larger print runs and huge presses. 4-page sigs (i.e) 2 printer-spread pages on an 11x17 or 12x18 sheet, front and back) is more common with smaller print runs - often on digital presses such as are used for print on demend services.

[Ambrosia Slaad]

The More You Know ☆彡 :)