Retail customers get PDFs through the Bits and Mortar initiative

At GenCon 2010 for the first time, we supplied PDFs to all of our convention customers. It was a very popular move.

Similarly, through the Retailer PDF program, retail customers of bricks and mortar stores can supply our ebooks to their customers with the print version where we do. Other publishers do this, too, and it seems silly for every publisher to have a bespoke method for supplying these PDFs.

So, Fred Hicks of Evil Hat and a number of other publishers started chatting about a way of extending this program through a central non-profit organisation, where like-minded retailers and publishers could come together to share PDFs. The result, the Bits and Mortar initiative we announced at GenCon.

Fred has written a simple but effective back end which allows registered retailers to email links to their customers, a better solution, I think, than the Dropbox method Pelgrane Press has been using.

We’ve just about finished the beta phase, and you can expect to see many more publishers listed in a few weeks.