Heor Lab should offer a PDF to HeroLab conversion service.
 

Hey everyone,

I think Hero Lab should offer a service where they take a PDF from someone and plug it in to Hero Lab ......

......for a small fee of course.

They could charge different amounts depending on the complexity of the project.

A small "CLASS" PDF could be as cheap as $15 or $20.

Or a new Archetype PDF.

Or Magic items.

The list goes on and on.

I think there is definitely a need for a service like this where the information is correctly entered into Hero Lab.

Given the size of the current dataset, and the number of existing people working on HL, I would say that should be a solid no. Lone Wolf is a small group already, getting a new class or archetype correctly programmed can take a week or more due to complexities. LW already has a book or two per month on average to handle from Paizo along with bug fixes and troubleshooting. Adding support from random third parties would quickly bog them down. Depending on the complexity of the magic item its fairly easy to do via the editor for anyone.

There are people who have delved into the editor, and learnt some of its' secrets.

There are also companies who have a product that they would like to have available to hero lab, fantasy grounds, roll20, or whatever.
Many of those companies aren't big enough to have a dedicated digital guy.

Some are willing to hire a free lance, either one time or also to maintaining the files over a period of time.

You might have found a market... not sure if there are enough 3rd party companies out there, without hero lab or other digital options, that would pay to offer that service to their customers.
Of course, they would charge a bit for the HL files, to recuperate their losses in having them created.

Just in my case... I've paid for the HL files for several Frog God Games product, for the Spheres of Power along with each non-setting specific expansion, and if a product on kickstarter offers HL that's a large portion of my decision to back or not. Sandy Peterson's Cthulu adaption and Spheres of Might both offered HL conversion in their kickstarters.

True, but some companies like in the construction trade let their employees do side jobs........whats to say those Hero Lab employees couldn't just make some extra cash on the side by doing this sort of thing?

Depends on how long it takes to enter it, your proposal of $15-20 would be ok for 30-60 minutes of work. Maybe if that was an hourly fee instead it would work as a side job.

Conflict of interest, largely.

Time is a factor as well, of course. Paizo's Player Companion line is usually around 30 or so pages, and the amount of work for a proficient data file author (like myself) to enter and refine (check, test, and correct) content for one of those is anywhere from 25-40 hours. Could be more, for exceptionally crunchy books.

3rd party stuff may be less, or more complicated. Depending on how far they want to stretch the rules, it may or may not be worthwhile to handle some things too.

Hey, do you mind if I fix the typo in the thread name?

So at UK minimum wage price (£~6/hour) this would be around £150-240 for an HL expert.

Give or take, depending on the complexity of the job and the size of the book.