D&D General Why grognards still matter

kayakingpoodle said:

I see the disconnect now thank you. if you reread my post you'll see i made no such claim. I did say that group A becomes more valuable if you consider they buy most/all of the catalog , but I did not say they became more valuable than group B.

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Sorry I misread your post. You claim that "group a is a lot more valuable" is pretty ambiguous. The English language really sucks some times.

codo said:

Sorry I misread your post. You claim that "group a is a lot more valuable" is pretty ambiguous. The English language really sucks some times.

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I agree i could have been more specific, thanks for pointing it out.

If A is composed of 100 units of people who buy 2 books each for a total of 200 units sold, and B is composed of 10 units of people buy 20 books each for a total of 200 units sold, A is substantially more valuable to the book company than B.

Not only does it cost less in setup (writing, art, editing, testing, production, etc.) for 2 books rather than 20 books, but the cost to print each of the 2 books is also meaningfully lower due to bulk savings on both printing and distributing those books.

Mistwell said:

It's worse really than that. They are not even harassing the wait staff. They don't even contact the restaurant or wait staff beyond maybe a yearly survey or something.

Instead they choose to harass the customers every day about liking what the restaurant sells, and loudly declaring that they shouldn't really like vegan tacos, shouldn't be vegans, and wishes the restaurant that these customers actively like sold beef tacos exclusively instead. How there used to be a beef taco place around there years ago and wish it were back. And then if anyone says hey, knock it off, I'm trying to eat my vegan taco here which I like, they whine about how it's their right to declare they don't like vegan tacos and it's toxic positivity to say how you do like them.

Every. Single. Day.

For years.

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Perhaps the restaurant changed its menu, and they liked what it used to sell.

Micah Sweet said:

Perhaps the restaurant changed its menu, and they liked what it used to sell.

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It's still a dick move to harass the customers of a restaurant, just because you liked the old menu better.

Mistwell said:

If A is composed of 100 units of people who buy 2 books each for a total of 200 units sold, and B is composed of 10 units of people buy 20 books each for a total of 200 units sold, A is substantially more valuable to the book company than B.

Not only does it cost less in setup (writing, art, editing, testing, production, etc.) for 2 books rather than 20 books, but the cost to print each of the 2 books is also meaningfully lower due to bulk savings on both printing and distributing those books.

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This is true if the only metric of concern is units sold. If you want to sell your whole catalog then the titles sold the value of group B increases beyond the units they buy. You're obviously going to realize more profit from group A, and if that is all that matters why bother with any other titles?

The point I am making is there is more to consider than volume when looking at sales. If you want to market to a specific group you still need to consider the whole customer base. As it has been pointed out the big cost is before the books are printed so chasing off customers that would buy the lower volume titles to keep some the customers that buy the high volume titles is something to be considered.

Each group carries sales in different ways, and they both deserve consideration when making changes that will affect each group.

Obviously this is over simplified as there are more than 2 groups and overlap between them all.

Micah Sweet said:

Perhaps the restaurant changed its menu, and they liked what it used to sell.

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Yes, sure. So after one complaint TO THE MANAGEMENT AND NOT THEIR CUSTOMERS, you go find another restaurant you do like. You don't return, not buy anything, but sit down next to their current customers and complain about how much you liked their old menu and think this new menu stinks every day for years, right?

Mistwell said:

It's worse really than that. They are not even harassing the wait staff. They don't even contact the restaurant or wait staff beyond maybe a yearly survey or something.

Instead they choose to harass the customers every day about liking what the restaurant sells, and loudly declaring that they shouldn't really like vegan tacos, shouldn't be vegans, and wishes the restaurant that these customers actively like sold beef tacos exclusively instead. How there used to be a beef taco place around there years ago and wish it were back. And then if anyone says hey, knock it off, I'm trying to eat my vegan taco here which I like, they whine about how it's their right to declare they don't like vegan tacos and it's toxic positivity to say how you do like them.

Every. Single. Day.

For years.

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It really comes down to which customers the restaurant wants, they can keep both groups if they want, by adjusting the menu to end up with the maximum number of customers.

kayakingpoodle said:

This is true if the only metric of concern is units sold.

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The only metric of concern is total profit.

kayakingpoodle said:

If you want to sell your whole catalog then the titles sold the value of group B increases beyond the units they buy. You're obviously going to realize more profit from group A, and if that is all that matters why bother with any other titles?

The point I am making is there is more to consider than volume when looking at sales. If you want to market to a specific group you still need to consider the whole customer base. As it has been pointed out the big cost is before the books are printed so chasing off customers that would buy the lower volume titles to keep some the customers that buy the high volume titles is something to be considered.

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The big cost is printing and distribution, not setup. However, setup is roughly fixed for each book, so fewer books means fewer setup costs, and also means less total overhead as you require fewer total employees to setup 2 books than 20. Each employee represents a cascade of additional overhead costs, from insurance, accounting, legal, workers comp, real estate, electricity, equipment, etc..

kayakingpoodle said:

It really comes down to which customers the restaurant wants, they can keep both groups if they want, by adjusting the menu to end up with the maximum number of customers.

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Or, they can change with the times and keep most of their customers Its not on them that one angery guy walks around with a sandwich board that says, "the end is nigh" all day; every day.