Dear Atlas staff -
Any chance we'll see some more books available in PDF soon? And if so, which ones are we likely to see?
Now that I'm overseas for a few months PDFs are the only feasible way for me to access the books, so I'm the market to duplicate my hardcopy collection back home...
Thanks,
Patrick
I think we're fairly well caught up on getting the out-of-print titles into PDFs right now. We don't currently have any on our "To Do" list.
Definately adding my backing to this request, as I am in the unfortunate position of having no space for hard copy, so only buying pdfs at all.
I'm also interested in the 4th edition backlog that hasn't yet been pdf yet, especially the tribunal books. 
Oooh yeah, old tribunal books would rock as reprints. Esp. as you already stated it is very unlikely you will release them in 5th edition.
As soon as they go out of print, we'll consider them for PDF-ing. We still have copies in the warehouse, though, for now.
I'm sorry if this has been explained elsewhere, but a quick search didn't turn it up: what is your reasoning for only releasing PDFs for out of print books? I understand that you do so, but I'm wondering why you do so. I count myself among the group that buys PDFs only, for reasons of space. I'm curious why you build in this delay. Thanks in advance.
We've had two reasons up to this point. The first is to support the bricks & mortar retailers, who are really the bread and butter of our business. The second has been that we owned the rights to a lot of out-of-print titles, and we wanted to prioritize making available those titles because they were not otherwise on the market.
I have to admit, I've been thinking about changing this policy. I don't think we'd switch to simultaneous release of books in PDF, but now that the out-of-print books are available in digital form, the next category we might think about are the books that are still in print but haven't been widely distributed in years. For example, few if any of the supplements for Over the Edge are available through the typical game distributor (and some of them are probably not stocked by any game distributors anymore); these days most of the sales of these titles go through Amazon and Warehouse 23, because few local game stores will even as a special order get something like a 16-page OTE adventure that was published in the early 90s, even if we have a few hundred printed copies in our warehouse.
So if we find some time to work on getting more PDFs together, books that are, let's say, in print but 5+ years old are likely to be the next candidates for PDFing.
I understand and respect your desire to support your core business through brick and mortar stores. I certainly don't expect you to move to releasing PDFs simultaneously with the hard copy books (though I'd be very happy if you did), but the thing I'm really missing is PDF copies of long available core books. It doesn't strike me that a book like the Ars Magica 5th Edition core book is going to go out of print any time soon, and it's available in fairly wide distribution. I own a hard copy edition, but I'd really like to buy a PDF copy as well. I don't imagine I'm the only person who would want to own both a PDF and hard copy.
I second that request. I own 2 core books, but a PDF version would be really appreciated. Maybe showing some proof of ownership of the core book in printed version we can get the PDF for a few bucks more? Probably not going to happen, but you can still hope 
Cheers,
Xavi
I've recently become interested in converting the majority of my gaming library to electronic format, so I can lug it around with me to conventions in my Ipad. One of the most common games I play at cons is Unknown Armies and I would love to be able to buy the 2nd Ed rule book from you as a PDF. I'm also interested (so I can keep up with the new hotness at the UK Grand Tribunal) with the Ars Magica 5th Ed rulebook (I have the 4th).
I own both these games in physical format, but unless I'm going to run them, I cant carry them to every convention on the off chance I'll get a game of one of them. So it would be great if you could consider offering these as PDF purchases along with your other UA and AM5 PDF's.
I do get your desire to help Bricks n' Mortar stores, but when I look at the industry/hobby as a whole, nearly all of your competitors and counterparts are offering their core rulebooks as PDF's - FFG, Eden, White Wolf, Catalyst, Chaosium, PEG, AEG, Posthuman, even Palladium! are all selling PDFs. Heck a lot of the indie publishers are making their living purely from PDF sales. Given the rest of the market has gone that way, I dont think Atlas is going to save a single B&M store by holding out on PDF's.
A better way to perhaps support Bricks and Mortar stores is to perhaps offer them the opportunity to get in on the PDF action - why not give the B&M stores an advantage by saying that if a customer buys your hardcopy core rulebook, that the store can then email you the customers email address and you'll send them a free PDF copy of the book they just bought? (or the store can include a CD ROM with the PDF on it with each physical purchase). That is what Cubicle 7, Evil Hat and Arc Dream have done with one major UK store (Leisure Games) and this has encouraged me to buy more games from this B&M store than Amazon. (example of what I'm saying= leisuregames.com/acatalog/PREORDERS.html )
Steve
And there is even a programme for publishers to help out game stores with PDFs- Bits and Mortar-
I think this would help Atlas be more effective at helping game stores, whilst simultaneously helping Atlas' bottom line as a number of people would buy an AM5 or UA PDF rulebook from Atlas.
SJE
Michelle called my attention to this thread again, because I was talking to her about making more PDFs of existing books for sale.
We not too long ago put Lion of the North online, even though that's still in print (after all these years...these are still copies printed by Wizards of the Coast when they owned Ars Magica, which we acquired when we bought the game from them). I've been working on distilling other books into PDF as well -- this morning I uploaded Cause and Cure to Paizo and e23, though last I saw they were not yet live for sale/download.
When I confirm that new PDFs are available for download, I'll post a message on our front page/blog. Depending on what else interrupts me (and how long it takes the online sellers to make the file live), I should be able to get a steady stream of one new PDF per weekday for a while at least.
As I said earlier in the thread, I'm going to focus on older books that many or most of our distributors no longer stock. Within that category I'll probably start with the ones that are technically easier to make into PDFs (meaning, I can find the files in our archives and it's a format that I can access without too much difficulty). Eventually I may have to go with scanning of hard copy of some of the really old books from the early 90s.
Anyhow, keep an eye on the front page for more news on this topic.