Pay What You Want for Knowledge Illuminates

Last night I added Knowledge Illuminates to the Pay What You Want list of of OSR items.  After the responses to yesterday's Friday's Question and reading what others, more proactive than myself, have said.  After a little consideration and kick ass pizza and an episode of Ghost Adventures (I really do like the show, they crack me up) I decided to go for it. 

I'm a fan of options.  For a buyer this is one of the biggest options you can have.  As I mentioned in the previous post, as a buyer I'm not all that fond of picking a price.  Never have been.  I know others have said get it for free then plop in the money.  It may take some effort, but I'll get there.  The interesting thing is that of all the OSR products on the list of PWYW, I already bought all, but two of them. 

Random Thoughts (some are obvious)

• Of course this won't work for print versions.  No way could I do this for print versions.  I'd end up paying others to read my stuff.  Had to do that for college.  Didn't like it all that much the first time around.  But I think this is a no brainer.
•  I think a suggested price would be helpful.  Although I haven't seen how I can do this.  When Knowledge Illuminates comes up in a listing of products its old price is there, but when you click on the product page it just has the PWYW box.  It would be great to have an area just to put a suggested price.
• For GM Games I don't see doing this for new products.  I will probably wait a few months before offering it PWYW.  But, there are ideas that I would develop just for PWYW.
• It makes bookkeeping a nightmare.  lol
• RPGNow for some reason did not put the PWYW option in the price section.  I had to get on Google+ and but Tenkar where to find it.  You'll need to go into Update Product Files.  This is where you usually select that its a PDF file.  If you want PWYW you'll need to select it in the drop down menu.
• I read someone mention they hope that free stuff doesn't go to PWYW.  I know I won't be doing that.  I'll continue to put out weird freebie stuff once in a while. 

 I thought about doing a perceived  value story here, but I won't.  It bored me when I wrote it.  Short version, Ivy and I ran a business for over five years and there is a lot to be said about perceived value of something.  Lowering the price does not necessarily make it sell better.  Not at all. 

Here's a little glimpse of what has gone on since I placed Knowledge Illuminates in the PWYW category.  It hasn't been 24 hours yet, but with the speedy Erik Tenkar he already reported the change.  I've translated all the money into US dollars.

I've sold a total of 17 copies since late last night.
12 got a free copy.
1 person paid .78 cents
1 person paid $1
1 person paid $1.90
1 person paid $2
1 person paid $10

This seems about average from what I've heard from others.  The other thing to consider is KI has been out for a while and most of the people who were going to get a copy has got it.  Nearly 33% of the customers threw some change into the tin cup.  One generous person laid down a tenner.

As a publisher it comes down to what you want out of your product.  Is this a viable option for you and your product?  I'm going to see how it goes.   I just checked and 3 people have KI in the shopping cart and 34 have it in their wishlist.  This has been a fairly steady pair of numbers.  With this option will it persuade them to choose KI?  I don't know, but its kinda cool to see how it will work.