> P.S.: Funny, I've just heard on Swiss public radio that Stephen King has
> renounced to sell his books electronically!?! Why the hell does it work for
> porn and not for other-just as legitimate-businesses?!?
>
Don't know about the porn bit, but Stephen King's failure was for two reasons.
One : He relied on honesty. People could read the chapter and then pay. Many did not.
Two : He was greedy. The cost of reading the book on-line was more than the cost of buying the equivalent paperback, with none of the benefits - no reading it in the bath unless you go to the trouble of printing it out yourself.
There are a number of lessons for others in this. Electronic distribution is viable, but needs to be handled carefully. There needs to be a means of enforcing payment, and there needs to be a perceived reduction in cost to the consumer to match the perceived reduction in costs to the distributer.
I'm not convinced that piracy is a major threat. Others have tried similar things and not gone out of business. I've yet to see White Wolf or TSR materials from their various CDROMs on the web - not that I've looked hard - and as Nick points out, Steve Jackson has distributed material through the Pyramid site for some time now.
The major problem from Issaries point of view is whether they could actually find the time to keep a subscription site current. With only two staff, I'd guess the answer is "only at the expense of the books". I'd rather see the games on paper, so I'm happy with the status quo.
Cheers,
Graham
-- Graham Robinson The Stable Yard - Internet Solutions gjr_at_... http://www.thestableyard.net
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