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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 1, 2014 5:22:10 GMT -6
I've been looking into POD options for the DD3 Ref Rules over the last few weeks (and commented my findings on the DD G+ Group).
In summary; there are many potential POD service providers but each has their own quirks.
Most of them, for example, are geared toward a perfect bound process only.
Lulu is a very popular provider but has recently changed to an alternate printer. It has been reported that since this change the quality of the Saddle Stapled booklets they offer has gone down significantly (I haven't seen them myself).
I have found one other provider that will do saddle stapled, digest-sized booklets, but they would cost around $9 per booklet without card covers.
I am still looking into one other option which will potentially give digest-sized, saddle stapled, card cover booklets at a reasonable price, but in the meanwhile it's worth asking the question: is anyone interested in a POD option for the DD Ref Rules? And if so, what would you consider to be a "reasonable" price for each of the three booklets?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2014 10:44:17 GMT -6
If I were to order a POD version, I'd be more likely to order through rpgnow.com and mostly interested in a single digest sized volume rather than three separate booklets.
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idrahil
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Post by idrahil on Jun 1, 2014 19:44:05 GMT -6
Silly questions maybe, but would these have art? And is your idea to have something like the 3LBB / what was in the Delving Deeper box set?
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machpants
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Post by machpants on Jun 1, 2014 19:52:40 GMT -6
I certainly prefer saddle stapled but it is not a requisite. It is hard to say what I think a max price is because so much depends on shipping costs for me, and I know Lulu ships from OZ thus very cheap.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 1, 2014 20:49:16 GMT -6
Silly questions maybe, but would these have art? And is your idea to have something like the 3LBB / what was in the Delving Deeper box set? My idea was simply to make the DD3 Ref Rules (as exactly as per the recent PDFs) available in hard copy for those that wanted them. Ideally I would have liked to be able to offer a three booklet, digest-sized, saddle stapled, card cover format at a reasonably cheap price (say, $4-$5 per booklet). But it turns out the POD industry is not geared toward this outcome. It is possible to get an approximation of my specification at about double the desired cost. It is also possible to combine the three booklets into a single, perfect bound volume and retain a relatively low cost. If I go with the single volume perfect bound option, I would have to consider a minor reorganisation of the existing PDFs so that the three TOCs were all at the front, only one instance of the title page appeared at the front, and only one instance of the license page appeared at the back. I would also have to think about how to present the existing covers.
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Post by bestialwarlust on Jun 1, 2014 21:21:42 GMT -6
Silly questions maybe, but would these have art? And is your idea to have something like the 3LBB / what was in the Delving Deeper box set? My idea was simply to make the DD3 Ref Rules (as exactly as per the recent PDFs) available in hard copy for those that wanted them. Ideally I would have liked to be able to offer a three booklet, digest-sized, saddle stapled, card cover format at a reasonably cheap price (say, $4-$5 per booklet). But it turns out the POD industry is not geared toward this outcome. It is possible to get an approximation of my specification at about double the desired cost. It is also possible to combine the three booklets into a single, perfect bound volume and retain a relatively low cost. If I go with the single volume perfect bound option, I would have to consider a minor reorganisation of the existing PDFs so that the three TOCs were all at the front, only one instance of the title page appeared at the front, and only one instance of the license page appeared at the back. I would also have to think about how to present the existing covers. As cool as that would be it sounds like it would be too much work to do this. If I wanted hard copies I'll just print them out in booklet format and bind them myself. Unless you get a lot of interest it seems like a pretty big project.
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idrahil
Level 6 Magician
The Lighter The Rules, The Better The Game!
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Post by idrahil on Jun 1, 2014 21:25:57 GMT -6
Aw, that's a shame that there's no option to make this possible. I would love to buy a few player books with the real stapling and card covers.
(Side question, hows the hard cover coming along?)
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 1, 2014 22:44:42 GMT -6
It is still possible, but comparatively expensive, to do saddle stapled booklets.
So the question really is: are stapled booklets at around $5-$8 each (plus delivery) really an attractive option, compared to a perfect bound single volume (all three booklets in one) at around $8-$10 (plus delivery)?
From my own perspective as a gamer, I'd really like to be able to "run off" a number of player's booklets to share around my game table, or even give away at conventions, but they'd have to be affordable first.
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machpants
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Post by machpants on Jun 2, 2014 3:33:25 GMT -6
For me, it really just depends, sorry I can't be more helpful! How rich I am feeling at the time. I also only really do orders in bunches (shipping); so if the 3 stapled booklets are from somewhere I would am not interested in anything else I'd be less likely to buy. Shipping is the big thing for me, obviously us Antipodeans are in the minority
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Post by cadriel on Jun 2, 2014 5:31:36 GMT -6
Swords & Wizardry Whitebox transitioned nicely to a perfect-bound 6" x 9" paperback. It's inexpensive (around $10) and contains the whole game. It's probably Delving Deeper's main competition.
I wouldn't want a 3-booklet version. What might be useful is if you could create a one-volume paperback with all three, and then a saddle-stitched booklet with just the first booklet (player rules). The referee could get the full book for themselves, and then give the others to the players. But realistically I'd just run it with everyone using a full volume.
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Post by discuit on Jun 2, 2014 6:14:12 GMT -6
Ideally, i'd like 3 booklets, but i'd also be happy with one singlebound version if that was the only option.
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Koren n'Rhys
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Post by Koren n'Rhys on Jun 2, 2014 9:18:09 GMT -6
It seems like those prices drive the cost beyond what is reasonable for a stapled booklet - more than I'd pay anyway. I suppose I'd offer a perfect bound softcover of the combined Ref Rules for those who want an inexpensive option. If copies of a specific booklet is desired for the players, table copies or whatever, then you need to print your own from the free PDFs. The hardcover, deluxe Reliquary with art will be available as the Cadillac option.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 3, 2014 4:21:05 GMT -6
Thanks for your input guys.
FWIW, the way I see it the various "minority" clones are more complementary with one another than they are competing with one another. Anyone who is interested in WB (for example) is likely to be at least passingly interested in DD too, and vis versa. Collectively, this little community of publications is helping to keep some of the more "niche" old school stuff present.
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idrahil
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The Lighter The Rules, The Better The Game!
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Post by idrahil on Jun 3, 2014 6:28:05 GMT -6
For what its worth, Swords & Wizardry did not appeal (or really make sense) to me until I finally read the v1 rules of Delving Deeper.
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Post by Vanquishing Leviathan on Jun 4, 2014 10:39:24 GMT -6
Ideally I would have liked to be able to offer a three booklet, digest-sized, saddle stapled, card cover format at a reasonably cheap price (say, $4-$5 per booklet). But it turns out the POD industry is not geared toward this outcome. It is possible to get an approximation of my specification at about double the desired cost. You could make them with a special stapler, a paper-trimmer, and a decent printer. Assuming you made and sold a few hundred of them, your cost per booklet should be under a $1. Pricing it at $5 per book would keep it affordable and provide a good profit margin to make it worthwhile. The biggest obstacle is that it is "labor intensive," both assembling and taking/mailing orders. Things you'd want to keep in mind is that you wouldn't want to have a lot of ink-heavy art that chews through your ink cartridge, and it would be best if you lived local to the majority of your customers, to keep postage costs low & # of sales high. I'm not sure where you live, but I'm guessing the majority of your customers would be in America, and so it would be best for you or your printer to be located there. You might also want to have the cardstock covers printed at a local printshop for you, since they tend to cause printer jams.
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Koren n'Rhys
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Got your mirrorshades?
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Post by Koren n'Rhys on Jun 4, 2014 16:22:27 GMT -6
Except, he's in Australia, if I recall...
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 4, 2014 17:15:05 GMT -6
You could make them with a special stapler, a paper-trimmer, and a decent printer. Assuming you made and sold a few hundred of them, your cost per booklet should be under a $1. Pricing it at $5 per book would keep it affordable and provide a good profit margin to make it worthwhile. The biggest obstacle is that it is "labor intensive," both assembling and taking/mailing orders. Things you'd want to keep in mind is that you wouldn't want to have a lot of ink-heavy art that chews through your ink cartridge, and it would be best if you lived local to the majority of your customers, to keep postage costs low & # of sales high. I'm not sure where you live, but I'm guessing the majority of your customers would be in America, and so it would be best for you or your printer to be located there. You might also want to have the cardstock covers printed at a local printshop for you, since they tend to cause printer jams. Thanks Vanquishing Leviathan. Yes, I have looked into doing it myself; it's really the only way to make the booklets affordable, and would have the added benefit of giving me complete quality control. The cost of consumables is low, yes, but the true cost per booklet includes art, plant, cost of facilitating orders, cost of financial transactions, and the cost of labour too. The cover art is already a sunk cost, but there'd also be the cost of purchasing a fit-for-purpose stapler and guillotine. Facilitating customer orders would have a cost, and managing the fulfillment, communications, and customer care thereafter would not be an insignificant effort. Handling financial transactions would cost money too--even the ultra "Lo-Fi" PayPal button would cost 8-9% of sale price per booklet (less on larger sales, but realistically every DD set sale would be a small one). And the costs of fancier systems go north from there (usually monthly charges + a percentage of sales). My challenge is to figure out how to cover all those costs across the sale of, say, 100 sets. I figure it's potentially doable as a "not-for-profit" service but, even if I allowed myself a few bucks per set for my time/effort, it's never going to make money. It would need to sell hundreds of sets per month, month after month, to be profitable. Alas, that just isn't realistic. Except, he's in Australia, if I recall... Yes, I live in Australia. I've looked into delivery charges too; it would cost around AU$8 to post a 3-booklet set from Australia to the US/UK (or AU$5 to New Zealand machpants). I haven't given up yet. In fact, just a few days ago I had a bunch of sample booklets run off with various combinations of paper and cover stocks. They're in the post already, so I'm expecting to see them shortly...
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Post by derv on Jun 4, 2014 17:28:00 GMT -6
Actually $8 shipping to the US doesn't sound that bad. I havn't ordered anything from Lulu in a while, but as I recall shipping was not what I would call cheap. If I compare $8 shipping to what I would pay for a used paper back book through Amazon, they usually charge $3.99 per book.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 4, 2014 18:42:57 GMT -6
Actually $8 shipping to the US doesn't sound that bad. I havn't ordered anything from Lulu in a while, but as I recall shipping was not what I would call cheap. If I compare $8 shipping to what I would pay for a used paper back book through Amazon, they usually charge $3.99 per book. That's good to know, thanks derv.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 4, 2014 19:15:15 GMT -6
If there's anything I can do for you from here in the 'States, let me know. Austin has a lot of local and national chain printing houses. I could have them printed and ship 'em from right here in good ol' Texas.
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machpants
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Post by machpants on Jun 5, 2014 2:12:49 GMT -6
$5 ain't bad Basically I will pick them up however you do it, just the cheaper means the quicker it happens.
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Post by bestialwarlust on Jun 5, 2014 5:35:46 GMT -6
Agreed I'll pick them up if you do get them in print format. Just make sure it's not a headache for you to do so. I've been playing DD before we had official printed copies anyway.
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Post by waysoftheearth on Jun 6, 2014 0:55:27 GMT -6
I just had a look at Lulu and they would charge $7.99 to post a single book to me. They say it's "globally" manufactured, so I guess that means they would print the book somewhere on the destination continent.
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