Do we know if SOTB is going to be available as a pdf like terrinoth? If I missed this being discussed already I apologize.

It will be, but the only official answer is "soon" ☹️ .

I suspect it will be a week or two after it drops off the Upcoming page.

Terrinoth and L5R both took a couple of weeks to come out in PDF, so we'll probably see it in early March.

2 minutes ago, CaptainRaspberry said:

Terrinoth and L5R both took a couple of weeks to come out in PDF, so we'll probably see it in early March.

Terrinoth dropped the same day the physical book. Some say it's because the book was sold out and others say it was an error that got caught too late to fix. No one but FFG knows the truth. The core book, however, took 2 weeks from street date to PDF.

8 hours ago, WillisRBC said:

Do we know if SOTB is going to be available as a pdf like terrinoth? If I missed this being discussed already I apologize.

Popular hope is either this Thursday (one week after the physical book) or next Thursday (two weeks post-book). But, as verdantsf said, the only official word we have is "Soon".

Can we pin this frequently-asked question for the curious passerby? Our pal @WillisRBC isn't the first to express confusion about this and it might save others a little time and energy trying to find the answer.

Hopefully they are just waiting for the print edition to be available everywhere and this means AU will have stock soon.

I wish FFG would give you a free PDF if you purchase the hardcover book. I have issues with paying $30-40 for a book and then half the price again (usually) for a PDF version.

I love that Kickstarter games usually include a hardcover AND a PDF to backers. Backing new games is usually cheaper than purchasing existing games, AND you typically get a heap of extra thrown in from the stretch goals.

A one off download code, as part of your hardcover purchase, would be appreciated.

14 hours ago, Andreievitch said:

I wish FFG would give you a free PDF if you purchase the hardcover book. I have issues with paying $30-40 for a book and then half the price again (usually) for a PDF version.

I love that Kickstarter games usually include a hardcover AND a PDF to backers. Backing new games is usually cheaper than purchasing existing games, AND you typically get a heap of extra thrown in from the stretch goals.

A one off download code, as part of your hardcover purchase, would be appreciated.

This is generally harder to do than you would think, even beyond it being an additional revenue stream.

If you put the code in the book, then you are going to have people copy the code at the game store and the legit buyer isn't able to use it(or it isn't just a one off code and then can be freely shared and makes any sort of watermarking impossible).

The ways I have seen to combat this in the past for companies that have tried are putting a scratcher over the code, but that doesn't really prevent the above it just means it gets scratched off in store. You can wrap the book in cellophane so the code can't be accessed, but then people can't flip through the book and you lose a lot of potential sales who might find interest in it. Or you can do something like make the code only available through web purchases in your own store, but driving business that way to your own store puts an unfair competition between you and the FLGS. You may make more sales through your own site, but then stores become less likely to carry your books and folks who are unaware of your product are less likely to stumble upon it. Paizo found a bit of a balance with that by giving a PDF only with subscriptions, but even that was met with some resistance by stores.

The idea is a great one and I bet that it would both be customer friendly and also encourage some people who have always bought just the books to look at pdfs of things they hadn't considered before once they see how useful it can be to have them, but until some new way is come up with to do it that tends to be pretty unfeasible

.

5 hours ago, Tarlane said:

This is generally harder to do than you would think, even beyond it being an additional revenue stream.

If you put the code in the book, then you are going to have people copy the code at the game store and the legit buye  r isn't able to use it(or it isn't just a one off code and then can be freely shared and makes any sort of watermarking impossible).

The ways I have seen to combat this in the past for companies that have tried are putting a scratcher over the code, but that doesn't really prevent the above it just means it gets scratched off in store. You can wrap the book in cellophane so the code can't be accessed, but then people can't flip through the book and you lose a lot  of potential sales who might find interest in it. Or you can do something like make the code only available through web purchases in your own store, but driving business that way to your own store puts an unfair competition between you and the FLGS. You may make more  sales through your own site, but then stores become less likely to carry your books and folks who are unaware of your product are less likely to stumble upon it. Paizo found a bit of a balance with that by giving a PDF on  ly with subscriptions, but even that was met with some resistance by stores.

The idea is a great one and I bet that it would both be customer friendly and also encourage some people who have always bought just the books to look at pdfs of things they hadn't considered before once they see how useful it can be to have them, but until some new way is come up with to do it that tends to be pretty unfeasible

.

Yeah, this. It can be done with proof of purchase authentication, however this tends to be complicated and annoying and your digital distributers (ie: drivethrurpg) need to support it.

The drivethru news letter today says Android is up. I did not check it as I am not interested in it, but just want to inform the players who want it.

1 hour ago, Seam said:

The drivethru news letter today says Android is up. I did not check it as I am not interested in it, but just want to inform the players who want it.

This is just the Novels though under FFG on DriveThru.

My bad, sorry.

23 hours ago, Tarlane said:

This is generally harder to do than you would think, even beyond it being an additional revenue stream.

If you put the code in the book, then you are going to have people copy the code at the game store and the legit buyer isn't able to use it(or it isn't just a one off code and then can be freely shared and makes any sort of watermarking impossible).

The ways I have seen to combat this in the past for companies that have tried are putting a scratcher over the code, but that doesn't really prevent the above it just means it gets scratched off in store. You can wrap the book in cellophane so the code can't be accessed, but then people can't flip through the book and you lose a lot of potential sales who might find interest in it. Or you can do something like make the code only available through web purchases in your own store, but driving business that way to your own store puts an unfair competition between you and the FLGS. You may make more sales through your own site, but then stores become less likely to carry your books and folks who are unaware of your product are less likely to stumble upon it. Paizo found a bit of a balance with that by giving a PDF only with subscriptions, but even that was met with some resistance by stores.

The idea is a great one and I bet that it would both be customer friendly and also encourage some people who have always bought just the books to look at pdfs of things they hadn't considered before once they see how useful it can be to have them, but until some new way is come up with to do it that tends to be pretty unfeasible

.

Most comic companies seem to have pulled it off quite well

it then again, people are more likely to steal for sixty dollars than they are for five.

Mongoose Publishing offer a free PDF if you buy there physical books from their online store. I think they also offer the same from other stores as long as you have proof of purchase. Works quite well for them.

They could just join the Bits & Mortar initiative. They have created a system which allows brick & mortar stores to give out PDFs to people who buy the printed books. It's pretty much hassle-free, works fine, and supports your FLGS.

Official date: March 5th!

Before I got the physical book, I would have bought the PDF in a heartbeat. As it is, the first time after the 5th I want to do a word search...