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Miskatonic Monday: some helpful advice to Miskatonic Repository creators, regarding pricing your creations

Posted by Michael O'Brien on 10th Sep 2018

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Some helpful advice to Miskatonic Repository creators, regarding pricing your creations:

The Miskatonic Repository community content program has been in operation since the start of the year.

The top-grossing item, a scenario, has been available for only part of that time, and is priced at <$4. It has made its creator over USD$800.00 so far.

A different scenario added about the same time has had significantly more sales (downloads), but is "Pay what You Want". It has made its creator less than $150.00 so far, because the vast majority of people who download it choose to pay nothing - even though it has a "recommended price" similar to the above.

Likewise, a "pay-what-you want" scenario was uploaded in July and has been downloaded approximately 150 times, for a grand total of 0.60c to the creator - because virtually everyone who 'bought' it decided to pay $0.00 because they could. A similar product, with an actual price (99c), has had a similar number of downloads and made the creator $75.00 so far.

The lesson: whatever you do, DON'T make your product "pay what you want" if you want to make any sort of financial return on a community content product. The typical payment for a pay-what-you-want product is, sadly, $0.00 regardless of how many people download it.

As the creator, you can nominate any price you like, including pay-what-you-want or even free. They are plenty of satisfying reasons to participate in this creative process that don't revolve around money.

But if you're participating and hoping to get any sort of financial return for your efforts in community content, put a price on your work, even if it is 99c.

WHAT IS THE MISKATONIC REPOSITORY?

Miskatonic Repository Releases

Are you a Keeper looking for new scenarios and story elements? A player looking for something mysterious to spark a character idea? Is your group looking for eerie ideas to use in your game? The Miskatonic Repository is where you can find —and create —self-published material for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game.