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Iapetus Fantasy

Started by Lucca, April 06, 2008, 12:12:05 PM

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Lucca

April 06, 2008, 12:12:05 PM
Hi guys again,

Some months back, i published the game details on the Iapetus Fantasy here. I finally finished it and upload to Lulu.com.

As Lulu is pretty expensive to print, is there any other cheaper alternatives for me to print my book? Thanks all again!

http://www.lulu.com/browse/book_view.php?fCID=2277643&fHideAlsobought=1

Eero Tuovinen

#1
April 13, 2008, 01:32:31 AM
What kind of expectations do you have with a printer? If you're willing to print a hundred copies at once, say, then it is probable that something cheaper than Lulu can be found. 500 makes it a certainty. But it all depends on where you want to print (and where to ship the books), how many you want, whether you're willing to go grayscale instead of full color and so on. Really, the color printing is probably costing you a boatload, likely about tripling your costs if I know anything of Lulu's costing structure. There's not much to help that, unless you're printing in very large quantities.

Let me also say that you have very nice cover art! From the description the game itself doesn't seem to be at all to my tastes, but I like the illustration.
Blogging at Game Design is about Structure.
Publishing Zombie Cinema and Solar System at Arkenstone Publishing.

Lucca

#2
April 15, 2008, 03:24:16 PM
HI Eero Tuovinen,

Glad you like the book cover, actually it is meant to attract young teens and to cover up that the monsters are horrifying, as not to give nightmares!

Let me re-introduce myself, I am an avid role player as well as a gamer, having played quite well in Pristontale (Yufeng), Dofus (Magiclight) and Mythwar (Magiclight). I am also a MMO game designer.

The Iapetus Fantasy, have 5 Playable Major Races, Infiv'e, Elf, Human, Wolvine and Mystic.

There are also 4 Elite Race, Avalon, Faerie, Elflord and Mystic Warrior should the Player meets the requistes. For example, a Elf becomes a Elflord at level one.

There are also 10 Classes to choose from, Paladin, Exponent, Knight, Mage, Warrior-priest, Saki-warrior, Warrior-saint, Warrior-priest, Dragoon Knight and Mage Knight. Players can also multi-class with two classes.

At the start of the character creation, Players are gifted with one talent, that is Specialty Skill. They started with one random gift. There are Six Specialty Skills to choose from, Life Force, Intuition, Spellcraft, Priestcraft, Malevolent Air and Tactics.

http://kenshin-himura.ifrance.com/yufeng.html

All the Classes have different Specialty Skills from one another. So a Player can customize and play each race, each class differently.

Lucca

#3
April 15, 2008, 03:27:12 PM
Race Illustrations (Some Sample)

Class Illustrations (Some Sample)

http://img237.imageshack.us/img237/4234/a22kn9.jpg

Eero Tuovinen

#4
April 15, 2008, 03:39:46 PM
Heh, I love the innocent look of that illustration. I could imagine a good game out of those premises as well, but I'm a jaded bastard. Luckily you don't need to convince me ;)

Let us know if you need more perspective on your printing problem. One method to consider is to print only parts of the book in color, which might help keep the costs under control. For example, if your book has a dozen particularly striking illustration pages, then leaving only those in color might cut the printing cost by half. That's not possible at nearly all printers, though, as it requires them to have some specific flexibilities in their processes.
Blogging at Game Design is about Structure.
Publishing Zombie Cinema and Solar System at Arkenstone Publishing.

Lucca

#6
April 15, 2008, 03:50:15 PM
Quote from: Eero Tuovinen on April 15, 2008, 03:39:46 PM
Heh, I love the innocent look of that illustration. I could imagine a good game out of those premises as well, but I'm a jaded bastard. Luckily you don't need to convince me ;)

Let us know if you need more perspective on your printing problem. One method to consider is to print only parts of the book in color, which might help keep the costs under control. For example, if your book has a dozen particularly striking illustration pages, then leaving only those in color might cut the printing cost by half. That's not possible at nearly all printers, though, as it requires them to have some specific flexibilities in their processes.

Thanks thanks! Yes, i thinking of printing a few as samples first, since i have no other choice, or additional funds as lulu basic cost is very expensive.

I have 5G of illustrations and artwork in the Iapetus Fantasy @@ So i would like to see it all in print, as the artists felt the same as well.

Ron Edwards

#8
April 16, 2008, 04:46:46 PM
Please don't try to show the pictures here. The links will be perfectly good for that purpose.

Let's keep the discussion focused on the process of printing and publishing that will work best for you, rather than merely showing us pictures.

Best, Ron

Eero Tuovinen

#9
April 16, 2008, 05:07:07 PM
Quote from: Lucca on April 15, 2008, 03:50:15 PM
Thanks thanks! Yes, i thinking of printing a few as samples first, since i have no other choice, or additional funds as lulu basic cost is very expensive.

I might be imagining it, but that sentence makes me think that you might be using Lulu wrong. The idea behind a POD printer like Lulu is definitely not to print any copies at all of the book for yourself - or perhaps just one or two to use for demonstrations or whatnot. But other than that, and that wouldn't cost you more than a couple dozen dollars, you wouldn't be funding any printing; your customers will pay for the printing at the same time as they pay for each book.

That's pretty basic, but I'm just making sure that we're talking about the same thing. The high price is still a bit of a problem because it makes your game less competitive and/or leaves you less of a profit per copy sold, but it shouldn't be an investment capital problem. If you need to have several dozen copies of the book for some reason - you want to go to a convention to sell it, say - then your best bet is probably to find a digital printer to do a small print run for you. Lulu is probably not competitive at print runs over 50 copies for nearly any book (although the full-color nature of this particular one makes me uncertain, as many digital printers are not equipped to handle that).

The handbook route for capitalizing indie rpg publishing is to start by selling PDF and POD-printed copies until you've amassed enough capital to do a short run printing of the game. A 100-200 copy run can then be sold to better profit per copy. Your case is very problematic in many ways as full-color book simply aren't that cheap to make by digital printing methods, but the basic principle still holds: if you don't have the capital for the printing you really want, just build up some by selling no-cost alternatives like PDF and POD until you do. Lulu comes in the picture as the POD printer, it's not a solution if you're looking to print a longer run.

(Not all books and publishers strive for longer print runs, note; it's quite feasible to just stay at POD level as long as you don't want to do direct convention sales, retailer sales or anything else.)
Blogging at Game Design is about Structure.
Publishing Zombie Cinema and Solar System at Arkenstone Publishing.

Lucca

#10
April 18, 2008, 03:14:07 AM
I thanks you for your gracious feedback!

I need to print multiple copies of the book, as several people are working on it, and it is a cross nationality work. So i need to print copies for the artists involved, the test players who gave valuable feedback over a period of 2 years. As many of us are working in the gaming industry, it is also our contribution to the table rpg which is showing a decline due to the advert of MMO games. We have many good ideas but unfortunately what works and good for rpg and games would meet with resistance by the MMO due to many factors like time, programmning and stuff like, we stick to what works; less risky.

So the Iapetus Fantasy is to the point, with complete Character generation, Class, Race, Spells and a Monster Compendium.

We sincerely hope everyone would like this orginal piece of work! Thank you!

http://www.wuxiasociety.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3748

I stick the class illustration in the above link. When I have the time, i will link the Races and the Monsters!

Thanks Eero Tuovinen! I am thinking of Book Surge but gotten have to wait till i have the funds! I hope that in the meantime, there would be some players for the 1st edition promo book!

Lucca

#11
July 03, 2008, 12:14:31 PM
Hi everyone!

The website is up! It will give a much easier review rather than some random pictures! Thanks for the support! After months of editing and finalizing, it can now be pre-ordered:)

http://iapetusfantasy.page.tl/



Jake Richmond

#12
July 06, 2008, 06:38:07 AM
Hi Lucca. As you've noted, the problem with using Lulu for a full color book is that it is prohibitively expensive. As Eero says, you can list the book on Lulu and on your site and hope that people will order it. This is what I do with my games, and I've had a bit of success. The problem you have is that $65.00 is a lot to ask for a 200 page color book. Few gamers are going to take that chance.

You can absolutely get a lower price through another printer.

ComiXpress gives an estimate of $18.50 for a single copy of your book (or 18.00 if you run one of their adds on the inside back cover). Compared to $33.63 (which is what I assume Lulu is charging you), this is pretty good. You could probably drop your cover price by the difference and have a sellable book at $39.99. I'd buy it.

There are a number of printers that can do color books at similar costs. You'll want to get samples so you can see the quality. Getting samples from 3 or 4 different printers will cost a bit, so I suggest getting some recommendations first. I've dealt with both ComiXpress and Ka-blam, and both do pretty good work. A quick scan of the forums here will turn you up a bunch of printers.

Jake
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