Hello Jack,
Thanks for the email- it's always enjoyable to see people taking an interest in the game, and you bring up some points that deserve answers.
First, the only thing Mongoose has rights on is the print versions of SWN and Skyward Steel. All digital versions and every other print product is entirely mine. So when I say that the current PDF will remain free for the foreseeable future, you can read that to mean "free always". I certainly have no plans to take it off the market within the next year, and I can't think of a reason I'd want to pull it afterwards, either.
Second, when I say that the Mongoose version is unchanged except for the additional content, I really mean that- all the text, layout, art, etc is exactly the same barring a few typo fixes. The only additions are the extra 40+ pages, some additional comments about them in the Designer's Notes chapter, and their new presence in the index. Mongoose has absolutely no role in producing the source file for printing; if there are typos and goofs in the new edition, they're purely my fault.
So why the $40 price boost? Because that's the only way to get it into bookstores and gaming shops, really. My apologies if you're already familiar with the way that games get from a publisher to a gaming store, but I'll recap the way it currently is for me and the way it'll work under Mongoose.
Right now, I charge $25 for a book that costs me around $11 each to print via POD. From the remainder, DTRPG takes one-third and I keep the rest, for around an 8-9 dollar profit per book sold, depending on whether it's UK or US-printed.
Conventional trade retailers like gaming stores and bookshops require around a 50-60% discount off cover price for every book they buy. If I tried to sell a POD-printed SWN to a Friendly Local gaming Store, for example, they'd demand a price so low that I'd likely lose money just selling it to them. $40 is the minimum that allows Mongoose to pay for the book, take their share of the income for their risk and their distribution network, and still leave something for me. As it is, I'll almost certainly be making substantially _less_ on a $40 Mongoose book than I do on a $25 DTRPG book.
So why do it? Part of it is just the pleasure of knowing that a game I only released at the end of November is now in a shiny hardback in gaming stores on multiple continents. Nobody goes into RPG creation for the sake of the money, as you know. But the other part comes from Mongoose's advertising and distribution network. I'm reaching online forum-going RPGs right now, but I've got no presence in gaming shops or trade publications. By letting Mongoose flog my wares, I build the audience for the game, and help drive them toward products that I do own and produce entirely.
But why limit PDF sales? Initially, it's just to help make sure Mongoose makes back its investment on the books. They're paying for the print run, and if it fails, they're the ones out the money. I don't need their permission to sell a PDF, but it would be exceptionally rude of me to let them push the book into a new market and then offer a cheaper version of the product of which they get no share of the income. I'm sure someone will come along and pirate a PDF of it if it gets popular enough, but I don't want to intentionally screw over Mongoose myself. Once sales are established, I might offer a PDF, or negotiate to let them offer one in turn.
Those are the essential reasons behind the recent doings. I know it's no fun to see a $25 book turn into a $40 book, even with an additional 20% pagecount, but the books you've got are completely valid. Nothing in them will be changed by the Mongoose edition, and you'll still be able to point other people to the existing PDF in confidence that it will stay free.
With regards,
Kevin Crawford
