Lulu and me

[Clinton R. Nixon]

A few days ago, I was looking over Jerry Stratton's Gods and Monsters, a game I pimp whenever possible, when I noticed a new link on his page. "Book versions of these works are available." G&M isn't small, so I was pretty interested.

Clicking this link blew my mind.

Bob Young, the founder of Red Hat, (if that means something to you, keen. If not, it's not important) has started a company called Lulu.com. Lulu, in its own words:

Lulu has created a marketplace where creators can deliver their content directly to consumers. It?s publishing without a middleman. That means that more of your money is going right where it should?into the pockets of artists and creators.

Basically, Lulu is a website, free to use, that handles payment for you, and lets you deliver electronic content, or print books, CD, or calendars via their print-on-demand system. They take 20% of the cover cost, and you take 80%, with no money for printing up front. They've got some other technologies: the storefront set-up is automated, and if you can't create PDFs, you can upload a Word file, which will automatically create a PDF document with a table of contents.

Upon further research, I found that Lulu is dedicated to the very same sort of principles that the Forge is. (See the Lulu Creators' Bill of Rights for details.)

Purchasing experience
So, I wasn't willing to post about this and basically pimp the site without trying it out first. I purchased Jerry's books, and waited longingly for them.

First problem: Because Lulu prints everything on demand, by which they very seriously mean they don't print it until you order it, and they're not that big yet, they claim it may take up to two weeks to ship your order. This is not good: when I order something, I'd prefer the fairies of instant gratification put it in my hands right then. Most people feel the same way. Luckily, two weeks is the outside estimate. My first order from them took four days.

Second problem: They only use FedEx to ship right now. This is expensive and a pain in the ass. This will probably get remedied, however. I suggest, if you like their service, e-mailing them and asking for other shipping methods. They have been - with me - very responsive to suggestions.

Ok, so four days printing + two days shipping later, I get a book in the mail. The printing is very nice: the interior's better than standard printer paper, the text is clear and black, and the covers are well done, if the tiniest bit flimsy.

Problem the third: I got one out of the two books I ordered. I e-mailed them, and they rushed the other to me. Now, here's the fun part. They rushed me the same book again. On my second e-mail, they apologized like madmen, and somehow got the right book to me in three days total. What I'm saying is this: they do fuck up sometimes. They do, however, have the nicest customer service in the world when they do.

Printing experience
I also wasn't willing to recommend this service if I didn't have my own stuff there. So - and there'll be another announcement - Donjon's now on sale in print at the Anvilwerks Lulu Store. How'd the process work for me, though?

Uploading the body couldn't have been easier. I uploaded my PDF, and it was done and ready to print. The covers were a little harder: they want graphic files, not PDF, which I had to create. Besides that, though, this was easy, and they presented me with lots of previews of how my book would look.

Problems: They don't offer saddle stitching. I'm not a huge coil-bound fan, but at 84 pages, I didn't have much choice, as that's too small for perfect bound. If I wanted to, I could convert the game to 6"x9", which they do offer, and print it perfect-bound. I really didn't want to lay out the game again, though.

The pricing is reasonable, if a little wonky. The cost of printing the book is calculated. You can read about it at http://www.lulu.com/help/node/view/28, but how it works for books is this:

* The cost of printing a book is $4.53 + 0.02/page.
* You set a royalty.
* The book cost is (production costs + your royalty + 25% of your royalty). The 25% - or 20% of overall profit - is Lulu's and the rest is yours. As a breakdown, Donjon's 84 pages, and costs $12.95.
  - The production cost is 6.21.
  - My royalty is 5.39.
  - Lulu gets 1.25.

You can draw the comparison between this and other means of selling yourself, but note that setting your own royalty means that you set your own price point - a feature I appreciate.

-----

Anyway, feel free to look at the site and check it out. I think it's a good publishing resource, and I'm hoping to generate some heat for it, obviously: the more it's used, the better its service will be.

[Brennan Taylor]

Wow! Talk about print-on-demand, this is it. Very interesting. Thanks for the tip, Clinton.

It looks like this can't hurt you at all, since you could still explore other printing options while having your book listed on Lulu as well. Their terms are even better than most of the distribution outlets, too.

[james_west]

I know he said to compare it ourselves, but I thought I'd think out loud ...

I'd like to directly contrast this to buying a pdf and having it coil bound yourself at Kinkos. I've recently bought a couple of pdf games, and so this was fresh on my mind.

(1) Cost

I paid $10 or thereabouts for a pdf of My Life With Master, of which the author got presumably 100% I paid another $5 to have it coil bound at Kinkos. I didn't pay any shipping, so the total cost was about the same to me as the print on demand.

(2) Quality

I very much liked the quality of the final product; it sounds like it is comparable, but perhaps slightly inferior, to Print On Demand.

(3) Time

I got the game immediately, but I had to invest about an hour worth of time in making a pretty bound copy.

...

My point here is that the time is much faster, the quality slightly reduced, and the time investment slightly increased, to buy a pdf, if you want to wind up with a pretty bound copy.

As a buyer, I'd prefer a pdf if I was in a hurry to look at it, but I think I'd like print-on-demand if I didn't think I'd get around to reading it soon anyway.

Except, one of the players in my regular group is blind, which makes it hard for her to read any rules that -aren't- in pdf format.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

James,

Good points all.

Lulu works for me with the time increase only because I've recently changed my business model. All my games from now on - and I'll retroactively be doing this with Donjon - have their text for free online. Therefore, anyone interested can read the game all they like. If they want a printed copy, they can get one. It'll take a week or so to get, but they still have access to the text while they wait.

[Brennan Taylor]

Lulu works for me with the time increase only because I've recently changed my business model. All my games from now on - and I'll retroactively be doing this with Donjon - have their text for free online.

In what format are you offering the text? I'm just curious if you are offering it in an easily printable form, or just as online reference material (as in, any printing would to be screen shots).

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Brennan,

I'm offering the text as HTML. See my new game in development, The Shadow of Yesterday, for an example. I'm hoping to include a way to grab a one-page printable version of the entire document soon, as well, and will include the original text files when the entire game is finished.

[HinterWelt]

We do likewise in HTML format for all our core rules, complete with hyperlinked TOC and index.

An example:
http://shades.hinterwelt.com/SOEHTML/AETOC.html


Good luck with the project Clinton. Thanks for the info on Lulu, it looks interesting.

Bill

[Lxndr]

The current "major" rpg POD place seems to be rpgmall (with pdf sales through rpgnow).  It seems to me like Lulu allows for both pdf and POD sales...  and Lulu takes 20% off all sales, including pdf.  So, to compare the two (for my own edification, and for those reading this thread):

RPGNow takes 20% off any price you set for a pdf.  So does Lulu.  Advantage: Tie, precisely

RPGmall takes 40% off the sale price.  Lulu takes 20% off your royalties.  Advantage: Lulu, by far

RPGmall has no setup fee for books - instead, you pay for cover, binding, etc. separately (generally speaking, this works out to no more than a dollar).  You also pay 40c/book for warehouse storage.  Lulu has a flat setup fee of $4.53 and no warehouse storage.  Advantage - RPGmall

RPGmall charges a various charge per page, varying from 1.8c to 3.5c per page, depending on size and paper stock.  Lulu (seemingly) charges the same price per page regardless of size, and stock (and in fact it seems as though Lulu only offers one sort of page stock).  Advantage - RPGmall

RPGmall's sizes are 8.5 x 11 and 4.25 x 5.5.  Lulu's are 8.5 x 11 and 6 x 9.  Nothing in particular is better or worse about these two sizes, so the advantage is the same.  (Although RPGmall charges smaller prices for smaller pages, and Lulu does not, but that was mentioned above). Advantage- Tie

RPGmall requires a minimum pre-buy of 10 books.  Lulu, you don't have to buy anything at all - each book is printed only as needed.  Advantage - Lulu

RPGmall issues payments monthly.  Lulu quarterly.  Advantage - RPGmall?

Is there anything I'm missing on either side?  Lulu looks REALLY, REALLY nice (one place to sell both pdf AND print copies instead of splitting it between two stores like rpgnow vs. rpgmall?  Very nice.) but I'm still, personally, leaning towards rpgmall for my first publication.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Lxndr,

I don't think you're missing anything. You're certainly not missing the following point, but because it's weighty, I want to revisit it.

RPGmall requires you to print books upfront, and make sure you keep some in the warehouse. Lulu does not. The cost up-front might not matter to most, but the ability to actually print-on-demand book-by-book might.

As for me, the money and POD do matter. This is a digression, but I'm not the book publishing business. I'm in the "writing stuff and letting other people enjoy it" business. This isn't a disparagment against anyone else: it's just that personally really don't enjoy actually printing books, selling them, tracking costs, tracking inventory, and all that. Lulu's less hassle: I don't have to pay anyone, talk to anyone, or deal with anything besides some uploading and filling out a form. This is what I'm personally looking for.

[Matt Wilson]

This looks like a better deal the bigger your game is. If I have a 40-page game, and I sell it for $8, I get about $2 a copy.

Did I do that math right?

[Lxndr]

Yeah.  That's a little more than 2.13 a copy, to be a bit more precise.

(Which is more than the $2.04/copy you'd get from rpgmall, after their 40% gross margin was removed, assuming you ordered the minimum order of books.  That's Lulu's big advantage over rpgmall.)

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Matt,

It is a better deal the bigger your game is - most printers end up that way because of setup costs.

[talysman]

RPGmall requires a minimum pre-buy of 10 books.  Lulu, you don't have to buy anything at all - each book is printed only as needed.  Advantage - Lulu

wasn't there an RPGmall option that didn't involve any upfront purchase at all? I distincly remember getting yelled at when I compared Cafepress's book publishing service (works almost identical to Lulu) for suggesting that, while RPGmall was a better deal in most cases, Cafepress might be better for someone who doesn't want to front *any* money to begin with.

I like Lulu's options. it seems about the same as Cafepress, as I've said, but I didn't see the Cafepress restriction that forces you to pay them a penalty fee if your product doesn't sell for 3-6 months. there was something in Lulu's ToS that mentioned getting docked money if your account was inactive or cancelled, but I didn't see any description of what consititutes an inactive account.

one thing that bothers me about Lulu is I couldn't find any info on printing and selling CDs, although they sell mp3s for download. this is actually an important option for my plans. I may have to use Cafepress for my audio/video/data work,

[Lxndr]

So, Matt's question and my answer wound up with me doing some more in-depth calculations (nothing really comprehensive, but definitely more in depth) for various sizes and choices and whatnot.  

Overall, Lulu might offer less choices in publication (mostly in terms of page stock paper-weight), but on average, even with the higher set-up cost Lulu has vs. Rpgmall, you're still likely to make more money per printed book sold at Lulu.

In short, the more pages you have, the better a deal Lulu tends to be.  And the smaller you set your final sales price (in relation to cost-to-print), the better a deal Rpgmall tends to be.  

Which is, by the way, making Lulu look more attractive as an option.  And even if I don't choose it, thank you anyway, Clinton, for bringing this alternative to my attention.  The only other alternative I'd seen was cafepress, which didn't enthuse me - it's nice to know that rpgmall is not the only stop in town for a one-stop pdf/pod/storefront.  Y'know?

[Clinton R. Nixon]

No problem. I was thinking about why I find it so attractive compared to RPGmall last night, and figured out how to make it clear: Lulu is a better option for the hobbyist, someone who doesn't want to print books up front and deal with all that.

The Forge is great for what it does, and has inspired some awesome independent RPG companies. I think the hobbyist gets lost sometimes here, though, and am thinking maybe I should make a longer post on that.