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Why are there no preorders or subscriptions for PDFs? I would totally preorder and maybe even subscribe if I had the options on Starfinder products. I am sure there are other people that feel the same way.
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Chief Technical Officer Vic Wertz, June 2, 2011:
We have no plans to offer PDF-only subscriptions.
The main benefit to customers of a PDF subscription vs. individual PDF sales is that a subscription would be more convenient for them. But let's examine the reality of that:
- Without a PDF subscription, people who only buy PDFs come to our site once a month after they hear that the new volume is shipping (which we always mention in our weekly newsletter, so if they check that regularly, they won't miss it). They add the PDF to their cart and check out, and download the PDF.
- With a PDF subscription, the process would be very similar—we'd send you an email that it was released, but you'd still have to come to the site and download it. Ok, you'd be making a few less clicks because you can skip the checkout process, but realistically, we're talking about pretty much the same amount of time and effort invested on the customer end.
So let's be honest here: convenience is not drastically improved. The *real* difference is that, presumably, PDF-only subscribers would get their PDF without having to wait for the regular onsale date.
However, every time this topic comes up, we hear from people who say that if we offered a PDF-only subscription, they would drop their print subscription.
Now, print costs are tied strongly to volume—the more copies you print, the less each copy costs. So, the heart of the question for Paizo is this: Would offering a PDF-only subscription cause enough lost print sales that it would noticeably affect print run sizes, which in turn would increase costs (including, possibly, the cover price)?
There are only two potential answers to this question: yes, it would noticeably affect print run sizes; or no, it would not noticeably affect print run sizes.
If the answer is no, there's no problem here; in fact, we might even attract enough PDF subscribers to increase our revenues. (I doubt those increases would be significant, though, since people who are likely to subscribe are already probably buying most of the PDFs individually now.)
However, if the answer is yes, then offering PDF-only subscriptions could cause irreparable harm to our business.
So we have to look at risk vs. reward. The reward for our customers is the ability to get a copy of the PDF about a week earlier than they can right now, and the reward for us is probably not going to be dramatically high. The risk, however, is damaging, or even potentially *crippling* our main business. That's not a risk worth taking.