Publishing questions

[jc_madden]

If anyone here has self published or gone through publishing houses or POD websites like RPG I'd like some imput on your from your experience.  For me it's not "about the money" but when you have to pay people for art and whatnot it starts to become that way huh?  For those that've done POD through RPGmall is it similar to say Cafepress where you choose the markup on your product and that's what you make on your item?  About how much do they cost to host your game?  If you've independantly published something through a coop or small publishing house what's an example of a minimum run?  And how much did it cost?  If these are things you don't really want to discuss on the list we can move it to email.  Add @yahoo.com to my name and there you go.

edit:  I took a look at the cafepress book binding options and wow they're easy.  Has anyone here that's used them have anything positive/negative to say?  How's the quality of the perfect bound books, do they fall apart or hold together well.  What about paper quality?  Does the wire-o hold up nice?

[MisterPoppet]

I'd do it through lulu.com. not only are they more helpful, but you can have several books in your store at once. plus they have both pdf and paper forms you can sell. that and it costs nothing to sell your books.

-MisterPoppet-

[Jasper]

I also use lulu, for Trials of the Grail.  I found their interface for uploading and setting print options very straightforward -- you can do it all in one sitting, and there's no set-up delay (as at RPGNow where you must upload your file and then send an email so that a human moves it into the proper place; lulu is wholly automated).

TotG is not enormous (75 pages) so the $4.75 baseline for printing seemed like a lot to me at first, but it's less than other figures I've seen quotes, and their per page cost is low.

The major disadvantages to lulu are fairly expensive shipping and the fact that the site is primarily for authors of novels.  This means you won't get much traffic from people just cruising the site looking for RPGs, as you might at RPGMall.

On the other hand, lulu offers a very clean, professional looking site (and they do give you a sotrefront).  It just feels reliable.  I can't speak about cafe press, but I have always found the RPG networks sites (RPGNow, RPGMall, etc.) to be extremely clunky, slow and unprofessional. (This is unfortunate, and it's not a slam--I use them for my pdf sales.) So if that sort of thing factors in for you, there's another point for lulu.

[smokewolf]

I have recently switched to Lulu from RPGMALL and couldn't be happier. While RPGMALL was timely and relatviely easy, they lacked laminated covers. Black areas on the cover then would eventually flake and do so fast. Also they require a minimum of 10 per order. While this is not so bad, with Lulu you can order 1 if you like and get laminated covers.

I am about to try their ISBN service and see what that is like (something RPGMALL does not offer either). We will see how that goes, but from what the other Keith has told me it seems worth the money.

[Troy_Costisick]

Heya,

Yeah Lulu looks like a real good site to go with.  I encourage you to check them out.

Peace,

-Troy

[Grand_Commander13]

I've heard allegations of terrible quality on POD products (it was in a discussion about Lulu, but the hecklers didn't mention Lulu specifically).  To be more specific, they spoke of incredibly high prices (I didn't think that was so at Lulu...  [For RPGs at least; they were talking about publishing novels]) and crappy binding.

Who can back up/refute these claims?

I only ask this in here because Lulu was specifically recommended to a new member, so I feel it's pertinent.

[smokewolf]

As far as POD quality goes, Lulu is the best I have dealt with so far. I also saw examples of Alex's Fastlane and the other Keith's Conspiracy of Shadows and it was their quality which made up my mind. I thought RPGMALL WAS good until I saw theirs. The laminated covers rock.

As for price, RPGMALL was $7.20 per book without a laminated cover and you had to order a min of 10 for yourself, they will not POD directly to customers. You stock their warehouse after you pay for the copies.

Lulu price is $8.29 per book with laminated cover, heavier paper and no mins. They will also POD directly to customers. Also, with the ISBN service the price is lower so that big names like Amazon will pick your stuff up. My price per book I think will be $5.32 for Ingram distribution, but I do not have to buy the book first, I will just get royalty.

The above prices are for production only, Lulu does add on a commission as well for each sale.

[jerry]

To be more specific, they spoke of incredibly high prices (I didn't think that was so at Lulu...

Who can back up/refute these claims?

I can do both for the above. How's that for service? :*)

I use Lulu for Gods & Monsters. I'm very impressed. Even shipping is reasonable if you're willing to use the slow version. (It's not as good as Amazon's free shipping, of course.)

In general, print-on-demand books cost more to produce than mass-printed books.

If you're using the storefront at Lulu, however, you can still produce books at very reasonable prices. It depends a lot on how much money you wish to make per book.

Now, where POD books tend to cost a *lot* is when people want to sell them through distributors such as Ingram, to bookstores. Distributors really want to buy your books at 45% of retail. What this means is that you need to at least double your printing costs if you plan to sell through, say, Amazon.com through a distributor such as Ingram. And you still aren't making any money. If you want to make money, you need to add double the amount of money you plan on making to the final cost as well.

This can result in POD-produced books--especially the kind we're talking about here which will almost always be printed one at a time--costing a lot more when purchased through mainstream stores such as Amazon.

Jerry

[kushinagi]

Okay, this is not entirely connected, but with Lulu.com, if I don't want them to sell it, and I just want to buy the copies for myself (I have my reasons for not wanting it distributed through them), could I do that? I really don't want my book for sale on their site.

[timfire]

Hi y'all,

I'm going to quote Mr. Edwards from a (very) recent thread:

Hiya,

Folks who are new to the Forge, please take some time to run searches and scroll around a little in the Publishing forum. This is a truly astounding archive of small-press experimentation and success, and you'll get a lot out of it.

Best,
Ron

This topic has been discus ALOT. You'll get far more information out of a search than you will from these responses.

[Polaris]

We just got some copies of the Kevin and Kell RPG in from Booksurge (one of the POD services we use), and are very pleased with the results.  They also have printers around the world for drop shipping, they have good customer service, are members of the GPA, and can do one book at a time.

Their cost for a 8.5 X 10 perfect bound book is:  2 cents per page + 1.30 for the cover.  They can do hardcover or softcover.  The above price is for color laminated cover and B&W interior.  They can do color interiors, but that is obviously more expensive.

We are going to have RapidPOD (Ken Whitman's company) print some books for us for GenCon Indy.  I have not seen his work yet (have heard that it is great, and that it has problems... but the person that said it was not good pointed out that Ken was very willing to help fix any problems).  He uses a 1200 dpi printer (which is the highest I have seen for POD).  

Sincerely,
William Andersen
ComStar
http://www.comstar-games.com
http://www.comstar-media.com