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Mr. Dural Loyal user 273 Posts |
A trend of pre-ordering on PDFs and videos has been picking up steam. From what I have heard, we can expect this trend to develop further in 2020.
We all understand physical products such as books and gimmicks require money upfront to be produced (the cost of material, labour and specialised equipment). These resources may be out of reach for the creator but lets talk about digital files. A PDF requires a computer, or even a phone- I mean have you ever seen a Fraser Parker PDF ? Whats that ? you want it to look nice ? there are plenty of free templates on the net. You can also go onto a site like www.fiverr.com and get someone to make it for you for under $30. The only justification for a PDF to be on pre-order is to drum up hype , and get some buys (those suckered in by the hype) before a review that reveals the compromise appears. VIDEO : Now some might say that video production is costly so money would be required upfront. I am a video producer, and let me tell you that you can shoot great looking video with an iPhone and edit it with FREE software (Blackmagic Da Vinci Resolve is one of the best). There is no need for production costs with 2 guys sitting at a table. Another fact to consider is that any business venture requires initial capital investment on the part of the owner. The risk must be assumed by the owner, not the market - especially when it is a small community like ours. To this end, I will not be supporting any further pre-orders of PDFs and Videos. Announce and release your product when it is ready. Allow people make informed decisions based on reviews from initial adopters (not friends who "got a review copy and were blown away" ). Thanks |
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Ceierry Inner circle Europe 1578 Posts |
Ok.
Pre-Order my newest project, delivery date will be at the end of the year.
Author of 10S Star Sign Divination - olivier.ceierry@gmail.com for a digital copy.
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pegasus Eternal Order United Kingdom 10537 Posts |
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The Unmasked Magician Inner circle If only I didn't have a wife and a kid I would have MUCH more than 2645 Posts |
I never pre-order PDF's or video's because it would save me a couple of €'s. Because you will always end up with more cr@p you won't use than if you just wait a bit for reviews. From actual buyers that is, not the inner-circle-mates-of-the-mates-mutual-admiration-society-brigade.
Please check regularly if you are becoming the type of magician Jerry Seinfeld jokes about. (This applies to mentalists as well.)
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John C Eternal Order I THINK therefore I wrote 12945 Posts |
Pre order this!!
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Animated Puppets Loyal user Lost on a Green Screen 285 Posts |
It's all a digital Jam Auction!
Now shut up and hold up your digital dollars!!
I still recall the day I met Beaker from the Muppets. He said to me "Meep, meep, mee mee mee Meep!", and that has made all the difference.
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no2ss Inner circle California 1027 Posts |
Tempted to come up with effect *named* "Pre-order" and then not offer any pre-order on it. Though, given people's distaste for pre-orders, perhaps that would be self-defeating.
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Morganjj Regular user 168 Posts |
"The only justification for a PDF to be on pre-order is to drum up hype"
I mean, that's correct. Do you think people shouldn't try to sell the stuff they're selling? Shouldn't market their products? Preorders are a pretty standard part of the 'maximising sales online' toolkit. That's why people keep offering them. |
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The Unmasked Magician Inner circle If only I didn't have a wife and a kid I would have MUCH more than 2645 Posts |
Quote:
On Jan 10, 2020, Morganjj wrote: Do you think asking Mr Dural a question we all know the answer to helps? Do you think it’s better to ask smarta** rhetorical questions instead of stating your opinion? See how annoying and condescending rhetorical questions can be when they don’t add any interesting content? 😉
Please check regularly if you are becoming the type of magician Jerry Seinfeld jokes about. (This applies to mentalists as well.)
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Mark_Chandaue Inner circle Essex UK 4187 Posts |
I don’t tend to do digital products and I was never a fan of pre-orders but when I did Harpacrown I was surprised how many people actually wanted to pre-order. I gave in to pressure and opened HC up for pre-orders but only after I had already paid for everything, the books were with the printers and I had a delivery date. However in doing so I discovered another reason for doing pre-orders. Something like 80% of your direct sales come in the pre-order period. So if your item, digital or otherwise, is going to be available through magic dealers then pre-orders is where you will get the majority of your full price orders.
Whilst there is not necessarily the same costs involved in writing a pdf a similar amount of effort involved. Writing a good book can take years not even counting the time to come up with the material and audience test it in the first place. For a single effect it can take months researching credits and gaining permissions where required. Then of course the actual writing process takes a lot of time and effort. Of course with PDF’s the problem is that someone can have a brain fart in the morning and release it within days with absolutely zero risk. This means that digital downloads can be a bit more hit and miss. You have guys like Sean Waters and David Thiel creating superb books in pdf format and on the other side of the coin you have kids with zero performing or even life experience releasing untested material. My own philosophy on releasing material is that if you have confidence in your material then you should be willing to take the financial risk of having it printed properly. That financial risk has a tendency to make you very selective over the quality of the product in general and the content within. If the material isn’t up to scratch the first reviews from buyers will show this and you will lose your investment. Interestingly people are far quicker to post a bad review than a good one. Look through the Café at some of the crap products and you will see 30 odd pages of complaints. The good stuff on the other hand tends to be far quieter unless it has an element of controversy for example the new anverdi dice 24 pages vs only 5 pages for the excellent but uncontroversial CubeSmith despite the thread being posted earlier than the Anverdi one. So for digital content it makes far more sense to wait for reviews than to pre-order unless the person doing the release has a solid track record. Pdf or not I would absolutely trust material from guys like Sean Waters or Patrick Redford and their ilk. Unknown’s on the other hand I would always wait for review. Mark |
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The Unmasked Magician Inner circle If only I didn't have a wife and a kid I would have MUCH more than 2645 Posts |
That's interesting to hear, Mark! Thanks for sharing. Whoa, 80% on pre-order! Who would've thought that. Can anybody who tends to pre-order chime in and explain that? Is that FOMO? Or is it a burning desire to get the product as soon as possible? I'm curious, as I never pre-order myself.
Please check regularly if you are becoming the type of magician Jerry Seinfeld jokes about. (This applies to mentalists as well.)
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Mark_Chandaue Inner circle Essex UK 4187 Posts |
I can pretty much explain it. If you are a known entity those pre-orders are mainly from people that trust you and want to support you and any pre-order bonus tends to be a sweetener but not the main motivation. Once the product has shipped reviews are very slow to come unless it’s a dog, for example in almost 2 months the only review on TFW is madisons pre-release review. By the time reviews start to appear the item is readily available in magic shops and so most people that have been waiting for reviews buy from their favourite magic shop both out of convenience and speed, it’s quicker to get the item from a dealer in your own country than from the creator who might be on the other side of the world.
A small amount of people will seek out the creator to buy direct especially if they want a signed copy but most of your direct sales come at the point where you are the only game in town. Once it is on general sale in magic shops your main direct sales come from lectures where you are selling the item at a considerable discount for example I sell Ophiuchus for a fiver at lectures which is only a little bit over cost. Similar is true at conventions where people expect special prices rather than full retail price. Mark |
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The Unmasked Magician Inner circle If only I didn't have a wife and a kid I would have MUCH more than 2645 Posts |
Very interesting, thanks again! Good to know how things work on the other side of the fence.
Please check regularly if you are becoming the type of magician Jerry Seinfeld jokes about. (This applies to mentalists as well.)
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Mr. Dural Loyal user 273 Posts |
Quote:
On Jan 10, 2020, Morganjj wrote: Of course people should their stuff..wait you were being rhetorical..oh you! Look, magic products are different entity with NO returns or refunds because "you know the secret now". Pre orders on digital products have 2 purposes : 1. Pre-orders are merely used to drum up hype, which is where super magic review buddies come in..." Super Magic Review Buddies" - is that a term yet ? If not I'm coining it now. 2. Pre-orders are a way to skirt the sharp drop off in sales that occur when one of the "bought with my own money reviewers" unveil the dirty compromise that is a dealbreaker. "Bought with my own money reviewers"..is that a term ? if not I'm coining it now. |
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Afal New user 76 Posts |
Quote:
On Jan 10, 2020, Mark_Chandaue wrote: Not to mention that some companies deliberately cause controversy in order for people to endlessly talk about it on The Café. |
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dave_matkin Inner circle 4522 Posts |
Quote:
On Jan 10, 2020, Mark_Chandaue wrote: You see that type of pre-order is good. So long as the person offering it that way is honest and that they were wilt he printer. I bought into a Kickstarter some years ago - with the assurance that all of the tools were available as we have already produced this in the past we are just putting three of them together. (spot the Kickstarter project anyone?). And Harper Crown is a great book too! You are such a true gent Mark! Thanks again for sharing. |
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TheSecretFire Special user 597 Posts |
I never bothered with doing pre-orders on any of my digital stuff, but that's because I've always written/recorded material out of the desire that it will be beneficial to other performers. Since creating magic isn't my main source of income, I'm able to treat it as a "paying hobby".
However, for people whose livelihood is based on producing methods, pre-orders are a great way to gauge interest and thus save time on projects that aren't going to bring in much money. Let me un-pack that: Say you have (what you believe to be) 2 cool ideas. Which one are you going to put the most time and effort into producing? The one that sells the most! So you do a "pre-order" with each one, and the one with the higher number of orders is going to have a higher production quality than the other. Now you can tailor the design, graphics, illustrations, page-count (& font size), video editing, etc., etc. based on how much money you can realistically expect to pull in from a product. I've had a couple products in the past where I spent wayyyy too much time putting in extra ideas, variants, trying to line-up the video with music, so on and so forth.... only to get 5-10 sales. Turned out that many people just weren't that interested in paying money for those methods. So I could thrown together a basic video, tossed the chapter headings, not worried about video/audio fades, saved myself a couple days, and used that time to work on other projects that would yield much greater returns. So that's the "seller-side" of pre-orders: if market interest is high, then more effort will be put into production. If interest is low, then no one will know what the production quality could have been. Tom Phoenix |
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The Unmasked Magician Inner circle If only I didn't have a wife and a kid I would have MUCH more than 2645 Posts |
That makes a lot of sense, Tom. Very interesting and good to know. Thanks for sharing.
Please check regularly if you are becoming the type of magician Jerry Seinfeld jokes about. (This applies to mentalists as well.)
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TheSecretFire Special user 597 Posts |
Also, another benefit of "pre-orders" (I've never done this, but I know plenty of other people who have), is to get sales ASAP and/or to keep your name in the market.
Say you're not doing real well, and rent is coming up in a few days. A "pre-order" will allow you to throw out an idea, get sales on it, and come up with the method later. If the "conditions" are vague enough, it's not terribly difficult to come up with something to satisfy them. Example: a "card to impossible location" which uses no pre-show, no "extra steps", no DR, no sticky stuff, no forces. This is sold as the "ad copy" (to appeal to the market), and once the method comes out (after rent is paid), the solution satisfies all the conditions. You use a _____ combined with _______, neither of which were mentioned in the ad copy, thus it is entirely honest, and none of your sales were misleading. I don't necessarily have a problem with people who are struggling, as I was there once before, but big names who want to keep their name relevant by releasing mere mediocrity.... This is the kind of s&^% I try to avoid, though I know of several "higher ups" in the magic world who have done it. This is one of the main reasons I haven't put anything out in quite a while, as I don't want my material finding itself in the mix of mediocre/non-existent products. Thus I'm waiting for the "propless star-sign/PIN code" wave to crash, then the next book will be out. Tom Phoenix |
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The Unmasked Magician Inner circle If only I didn't have a wife and a kid I would have MUCH more than 2645 Posts |
Very, very interesting. And a bit sad.
Please check regularly if you are becoming the type of magician Jerry Seinfeld jokes about. (This applies to mentalists as well.)
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