Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

This for PDFs.
I can read GURPS PDFs on my HTC Hero, a phone several years old.
I can also read them on my computer or print them out and am pretty content that no other format will work as well on all 3 mediums.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

And that question keeps coming back, too... <sigh>

What is this Need some people have for the newest thing when the older thing it's intended to replace still works?

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

Resurrected topic or not, everything that was said earlier remains pertinent:

SJ Games has neither the staff nor the money to produce several versions of each RPG product, one optimized for each of digital, POD, and traditional print publication. Thus, the company produces everything just once in a format that all of these media can accommodate moderately well: PDF. All recent digital devices can display PDF and all present-day printing technology can work from PDF. Nobody at SJ Games would disagree that hyperlinked electronic formats that flow to accommodate the individual reader would be wonderful, but these would be troublesome at best for printing, and we simply don't sell enough copies to justify parallel production threads.

As the production process is identical for all media right up to the print-and-ship phase, the price tag in each case is largely the same. Paper, ink, and shipping aren't cheap at all, but they aren't half the price tag of a physical book, either. The company has to maintain its premises, cover its business expenses, and pay its staff and freelancers. Most of the price of any RPG supplement pays for the writing, editing, layout, art, indexing, and proofing of the thing, along with overhead (accounting, marketing, office space, computers, etc.). The premise that digital formats are quick and easy, and thus nigh unto free, only holds true when the content and production are of very low quality. Professional values cost money.

This does mean that those who choose to print their PDFs may end up paying more than if they had bought print books, as they pay the same amount for the "intangibles" as if they had bought printed books, and then don't reap the volume discount on printing that a publisher enjoys. However, the choice to print PDF is exactly that: a choice. Going purely digital is always an option, and one we support by giving our customers free accounts with persistent PDF libraries that they can download to whatever device they happen to be using. For instance, I read my GURPS supplements on a desktop PC, laptop PC, tablet, and phone, and I've done so on three continents. If I were a paying customer rather than staff, I would be paying just once for this privilege.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

And compared to some publishers who shall remain nameless (but they're ones who don't pay for numerous interior illustrations or fancy layout with boxed text, tables, etc., let alone indexes), SJ Games' PDF discount is extremely reasonable. I look at the pricing difference for electronic vs. dead trees the way I do because of the comparatively low prices of SJ Games PDFs.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I thought that was the case, but wasn't 100% sure. My girlfriend is wanting to get an iPad, and part of her sales pitch has been, "You could put your GURPS books on it and take it to games!" (as she could afford an iPad much more easily if I helped out with the price). From what you're saying it sounds as if that would work. . . .

Bill Stoddard

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

It would work – you would start the iPad's browser, navigate to e23, log in with your account's username and password, and download the PDF to the device. Unlike, say, the iTunes Store, e23 doesn't enforce a download limit or restrict MAC/IP authorization to a small number of devices. Our barrier to abuse is that to download the file, you must log in with the ID we accept as validation for password changes and purchases. On a device you own or trust, that's no big deal. By contrast, an unethical user freely handing out access to his or her account would soon have somebody cache his login info, with predictable consequences (and little sympathy at our end).

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

I do that all the time with my iPad. If you want to download them on the fly, you want a good full-featured PDF reader (GoodReader is awesome). Nikki Vrtis just inherited my old first-gen iPad, and from an editorial/production perspective she's found it immensely helpful to have access to the entire GURPS library on a two-pound device.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

There are a couple of long threads floating around the forums on this. iPad of any stripe can handle the GURPS PDFs and the 'new' iPad is fantastic for this purpose. I've just counted and I have 120 GURPS PDFs on my device - increadible really. We live in the future.

I will say that the two-column format is easier to read (IMO) than the three-column format, but other than that the solution is pretty much perfect. Good PDF readers and bookmarked PDFs (which SJG do) mean you can navigate pretty easily and word searching is brilliant.

As to price - professional results cost money, and we are really operating on Steve Jackson's good will and the coat tails of Munchkin here, so overall I think the prices are very reasonable.

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

All this discussion about iPads. Any plans for iBook versions?

I appreciate the comment about PDFs being a bad format, just not as bad as other choices, but I do not believe that is true anymore. ePub 3, in addition to having all sorts of great features for something which is consumed on-screen, also can render to print just as well as PDF.

It is not like the issues with PDFs have not been known for a decade, and it is not just net cranks complaining: PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption Avoid PDF for On-Screen Reading

I really do understand the labor issue too. Also, part of my motivation for buying so many books in the beginning was that I was trying to keep Steve from going out of business (again)! I still buy source books that I never expect to use, but my largess does not extend to PDFs! I buy much less now, even with more disposable income, because I cannot find GURPS manuals on the shelves.

Obviously, you think you have it worked out, and your current business model lets you scratch by. Maybe the kids really are buying more stuff than the grognards, but I am skeptical. What have you done to convince yourselves that the price point is right? How do you not know that cutting the PDF price in half wouldn’t result in four times the amount of sales?

Your price for print publications is fair, and there really is no way for you to reduce that. Also, you have set PDF pricing based on a reasonable discount from the print version, a discount that is more aggressive than many print-oriented publishers. I submit that it is not enough.

The iTunes App store created millionaires in no small part because it turns out that software developers, in trying to break even, were setting the MSRP too high and strangling themselves. Apple is poised to revolutionize electronic publishing, just the same way they did for music and software. Is SJGames going to get a piece of that gravy train?

Re: Is a 5th Edition coming soon?
 

It's been tried, check this out for the details.