e23 digital content from Steve Jackson Games
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Warehouse 23
SJ Games

e23 currently has
4162 files available
for download!

About e23: Information and FAQs

Updated January 30, 2012

e23 is two things. It's a digital publishing project from Steve Jackson Games, and it's an online store like its sister-site, Warehouse 23. Like Warehouse 23, we offer products from a wide variety of publishers, not just SJ Games. The site went on-line back in 2005, and it has steadily continued to grow since.

How It Works

When you buy files from e23, we'll send you e-mail with a download link. If everything in your order is free, approval is instant, so we'll give you the download links when you check out.

Checks and money orders are not accepted for e23 purchases.

The best way to see how it works is to experiment! If you go to the Free Samples page, you can go through the whole process without putting any money down.

Reading Your Files

Most of the files we sell on e23 are in PDF format. There are some executable files, such as our own GURPS Character Assistant. However, PDFs are the majority of downloads.

To read a PDF, you will need a program that can read the file. The most common is Adobe Reader. If you don't already have this program, you can download it here, free. A number of other free programs also exist, such as FoxIt or Preview, that can be used to read PDFs.

When you download a file, you can print it out, or just read it onscreen. Your choice.

Note that these files aren't copy protected. Copy protection causes trouble for everyone. Our business model depends on our users' sense of ethics. See this question for more information.

Buy It Once, Own It Forever

A drawback of buying digital products is that if something happens to your hard drive, you're hosed. So e23 gives registered users some insurance.

If you're a registered customer, we'll keep a record of every digital file you have bought. If something bad happens to your system, you can redownload any or all of the files you've purchased. No problem. You bought it, you own it.

As an added bonus, you'll get a notice if we update a file (if you've chosen to such receive notices, that is), and you can download the new version from your account page.

Contact Us

E-mail: Usually, the fastest and surest way to reach us is by e-mail: e23orders@sjgames.com. If your question is about an order, including the order number will allow a faster response. If you've run into a technical problem, please include the precise text of any error messages you received.

Phone: If you need to call us, please use our toll-free number 1-866-FNORD23 (1-866-366-7323), Monday through Thursday, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., Central Time. We are option 2 on the menu.

Mail: Our mailing address is:
e23
P.O. Box 18957
Austin, TX 78760

We do not have a storefront, and cannot accept visitors.

Forum: The Steve Jackson Games forums include an e23 area, where customers can come to discuss services and options, make suggestions, or otherwise pass non-critical information to the e23 staff and customers.

The e23 Forum is not an appropriate place to post any message regarding a specific order, or for which you require a direct answer from e23 staff.

Suggestions: We're always interested in hearing what our fans like or dislike about our site, our selection, or our service. Please send general feedback to e23orders@sjgames.com. You don't have to be an existing customer to give feedback - in fact, it's just as helpful to know why people aren't buying from us!

For those who love our site, the best gift you can give us is positive word of mouth. By telling your friends and family that we did right by you, you're helping us immensely!

Frequently Asked Questions

General Questions

Q. I don't want to register or give you any personal information. Why should I have to?
A. You don't have to give us any information other than the credit card number or PayPal account you use for your purchase and the e-mail address we send the download code to. And if you choose not to register, the information you give us for a purchase will not be used for anything else, ever . . . see our privacy policy. But if you don't register, we will have no record of your purchases later and you won't be able to replace lost files. It's your call.

If you choose not to register, you will be sent a download code that will be good for 30 days or three download attempts, whichever comes sooner.

Q. Will buying from e23 get me onto spam lists?
A. Absolutely not. Here's our privacy policy.

Q. I forgot to log in before placing an order. Can you add the order to my account?
Yes. E-mail e23orders@sjgames.com with your username and the order number. As long as the e-mail address on your account matches the e-mail address used to place the order we'll be happy to update the account information so that you can enjoy the benefits of registration.

Q. If I buy a file and hate it, can I get a refund?
A. No. That would just beg for abuse. Please read the description and the ratings before you buy. If you don't like a product, though, we do want to hear about it. If we find out that something is flawed, we'll fix it (and registered users who bought it will be able to get the improved version for free). If we find out that a lot of customers hate a given product, we'll stop selling it.

Q. I thought I was buying a book, not a digital file! Will you refund my order?
From time to time a customer isn't aware they are purchasing a digital product. If this happens to you, notify us immediately and do not download the file. We can generally provide a refund. If the file has been downloaded, however, we cannot offer a refund.

Q. What is the minimum order?
A. There is no minimum order. If all you want is a single small item, or even a single free one, go for it!

Q. Why do you not accept checks and money orders?
A. Our experience on the Warehouse 23 side of things is that they're a terrible pain to process, we get very few of them anyway, and the majority of the promised checks and money orders don't even show up. If you are one of the very few customers who has no other payment method and actually remembers to send checks after ordering, we apologize. Please check out PayPal. It costs you no more; the seller pays the fee.

Q: Some of your products are labeled "Adult Material." What does that mean?
A: Occasionally, one of the products we sell will have some explicit art, language, or adult subject matter. And PayPal has a specific policy against dealing in "obscene" material. So a few of our products carry the "Adult Material" tag -- that means you won't be able to use PayPal for a purchase that includes that item, and when you purchase this item you are certifying that you are over 18 years of age.

Q. What's the point of selling PDFs rather than physical products?
A. Overhead is lower! We can't stay in business with printed books and games unless we expect to sell several thousand copies. That means that lots of good ideas never get printed because demand is too low. The break-even point for digital products is a lot lower. And for you, the customer, the point is that you can choose from a wide variety of PDFs and get the one you want instantly.

Q. Where can I send errata?
A. For a Steve Jackson Games product, send comments and errata to errata@sjgames.com . . . that will get it to the correct people.

For a product created by someone else, send comments and errata to the original publisher. Contact information should be in the product itself.

Technical Questions

Q. What if my hard drive dies and I lose my files?
A. No problem. If you are a registered e23 customer, we keep a record of everything you bought. You can download it again any time you need to. Your information may be reviewed on your Account Page.

Q. What if I forget my password?
A. Again, no problem. Log in to our secure server, give it your e-mail address, and it will send you a new password. Now, if you discontinue your old e-mail address and forget your password, verification will be much harder, and in some cases may be impossible. So if you get a new address, you should quickly log in and update your account information.

Q. Are the files in e23 copy protected?
A. No. That would interfere with your use of them.

Q. How about offering all these cool files in HTML, too?
A. Right now there doesn't seem to be enough demand to justify it. The people who want HTML really want it, and we're keeping the question in mind . . . but some observers think that the hardware standards are likely to change soon anyway, leading to PDAs that can handle page-size PDFs more gracefully. We'll see.

Legalities and Copy Protection

Q. Can I have a copy shop print up a copy of a file I bought?
A. Yes, you can have one copy printed for personal use, whether at home or through a copy shop. If the copy shop needs proof that you have permission, you can point them at this page, or write us at e23orders@sjgames.com to get official permission from the company.

Q. Can I repost these files so others can use them?
A. No. Please don't. The only way we can afford to do this is if people are honest, and don't "share" (that is, pirate) our files, or use files posted by the "sharers."

Q. What about making printouts for my play group?
A. Legally, a gray area. Our answer is "If you bought things to use with your play group, and you need to make copies of part of the material to have a good game, go ahead." Just don't do anything that turns into "handing them to the world." It is also possible to buy multiple copies of a file, if you want to print out the full book for multiple people to have (though that might get a bit hard on your printer).

Q. If you have no copy protection, how can you enforce all this?
A. If we find a serious piracy operation we'd try to close them down. Generally, however, we can say "Please play fair with us, because if we lose money on this we'll have to quit."

Q. Can I link to your website?
A. Of course. You don't need any special permission to add a link to us. Just link to http://e23.sjgames.com/. And if you want, you can use one of our e23 banners.

Getting Your Own Stuff Into e23

Q. Can I write something for Steve Jackson Games to sell through e23?
A. We welcome submissions. For instance, digital publishing is the only really cost-effective way to release adventures. See the page of e23 Authors' Guidelines.

Q. I'm already publishing my own digital game material. Will you sell it in e23?
A. Maybe! We'll be glad to evaluate what you have published and see if it fits our store. Please contact e23orders@sjgames.com for more information.

Website Features

Q. How can I tell which products are new since the last time I logged on?
A. The "What's New" link at the top of this page is the best bet. It will take you to a page that lists the latest releases, in order of freshness. The listings have subheads that give you the exact upload date, and you can click into the archives all the way back to before the opening of e23, if you want. And there's always the "e23 News" feature on the front page, which mentions the hottest new additions to the site.

Q. What about an email reminder when a new product is uploaded?
A. You can get one of those, too. Just sign up here and you'll get an email update every time a new item is added to e23's inventory.

Q. What's this about product ratings?
A. People who have bought a product have the opportunity to rate it on a scale of 1-5. Those ratings are there for everyone to see, and you can also see the Top Ten rated items on our What's Hot! page.

Q. Can I buy something on e23 as a gift and send it to somebody else? How about a gift certificate?
A. Those we're still working on. Hang in there.

SJ Games Questions

Q. What old SJ Games books will you be rereleasing as PDFs?
The short answer? Almost all of them.

Our plan is to rerelease every book in our back catalog that we can as a PDF. Unfortunately, circumstance prevents us from including literally every book. The licenses on some books (such as the GURPS Conan line) have long since run out, and we cannot make those into PDFs. But everything else will be available here for download eventually.

Q. When will (insert book name here) be rereleased?
Unfortunately, we don't have a hard and fast timeline on the PDF rereleases. While we have been regularly releasing old books, the order in which we've released them is based mostly on ease of conversion. More recent books with easily convertible files are at the top of our list. As time goes on, we'll be moving through progressively more difficult (and, incidentally, older) products.

What that all basically comes down to is this: we cannot tell you when a specific book will be released. For some books, we may not yet know ourselves.

Q. I'm a MiB; can I place an order using my MiB points?
Not at the moment, no. This is something we've wanted to add to the site since it launched, but technical limitations have kept this out of reach. Right now, it's looking like this is something that will happen when we merge e23 with Warehouse 23.

Q. Why aren't Warehouse 23 and e23 one site?
Good question!

Oh, you wanted an answer. Well, this is something we've been looking at for a while and the eventual plan is to merge the two stores into one. All we can tell you now is that we're working on it, and that the future will be bright indeed.

More Questions?

Other FAQ files you can read include:

The Warehouse 23 FAQ

The general Steve Jackson Games FAQ

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