[UA] UA in PDF format?

[Greg Stolze]

On Wednesday, June 7, 2006, at 08:54 AM, Chris Hall wrote:

> What is a "long tail" product?
>

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html

Basically, it's a product that would flail and perish in the 
old-paradigm bookstore economy.  When you've got a bricks and mortar 
store where you need to pay rent and where, therefore, you need to keep 
the stock rolling, a book that sells a copy a year at that location 
doesn't make its nut.  It does not produce enough revenue to cover its 
shelf space.  Therefore, you don't carry that book.  You carry Yu-Gi-Oh 
cards instead.

But with print-on-demand, GODWALKER 
(http://www.cafepress.com/stolzesshop) or SCARY FACE 
(http://www.lulu.com/gregstolze) exist only as data files until someone 
pays up front for the production of a copy.  I don't have to worry 
about some retailer overbuying, then tearing the covers off and sending 
them back for a refund.  My overhead is nil.  I can keep them in stock 
until doomsday, and if I sell two copies of SCARY FACE every year, 
well, that's ten bucks more profit than I'd other wise have made.

In the case of UA, there seems to be a small but steady demand.  People 
who play it keep playing it.  It never hit like a bomb and sold 
thousands of copies in a month, but it has never burned out, either.  
It's not a sprinter, it's a miler.  Therefore, it IS earning its spot 
on those shelves.  The supplements?  Maybe not so much.

-G.