RapidPod & GenCon?

TheLe · Aug 22, 2007

Some friends of mine have been talking about using RapidPod to get the cards and books printed for an upcoming convention, but I cannot definitively give a 'yeah' or 'Ney'. So I thought I would ask for a specific example.

For those of you who have used Ken Whitman's RapidPod -- did it work out?

Did RapidPod deliver as promised for Gencon Publishers last week?

~Le

GRIMJIM · Aug 22, 2007

Avoid them like the plague.
Ken has, apparently, sold up and moved on and the new company hasn't been honouring old deals - certainly not on cards.

An associate of mine had an order on, for gencon, that was not delivered and lost his set up fees, I was left without cards and had to go via emergency measures to have product for Gencon UK.

Previously I'd have given them the benefit of the doubt, but not now.

Christina · Aug 22, 2007

TheLe said:
Some friends of mine have been talking about using RapidPod to get the cards and books printed for an upcoming convention, but I cannot definitively give a 'yeah' or 'Ney'. So I thought I would ask for a specific example.

For those of you who have used Ken Whitman's RapidPod -- did it work out?

Did RapidPod deliver as promised for Gencon Publishers last week?

~Le

From everything I've heard (which I'm sure is just a drop in the bucket), you should STEER CLEAR!

trancejeremy · Aug 22, 2007

It's Ken Whitman. That's all you really have to know. Look him up on google/yahoo. Especially google's usenet archives.

TheLe · Aug 23, 2007

GRIMJIM said:
Avoid them like the plague.
Ken has, apparently, sold up and moved on and the new company hasn't been honouring old deals - certainly not on cards.

An associate of mine had an order on, for gencon, that was not delivered and lost his set up fees, I was left without cards and had to go via emergency measures to have product for Gencon UK.

Previously I'd have given them the benefit of the doubt, but not now.

For Gencon, as in this year? What happened?

`Le

Paradigm · Aug 23, 2007

I got my goods. Lee, the new man in charge of the printing operation, is a decent guy. I'd wait a while to hire them though, they have to catch up with a lot of stuff.

jaerdaph · Aug 23, 2007

In 2005, Phil Reed had good things to say about RapidPod too. I don't know if he still feels that way, but here's the link:

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=190177

The only other thing I learned from Googling Ken Whitman is that he, if it is in fact the same Ken Whitman I'm finding, is a Scientologist. Are people not supposed to do business with him because of his religion then, because I've not found anything negative about him or RapidPod other than some comments here by people who aren't even in the rpg publishing business, most of which is either second hand "information" and not backed up with any evidence.

For all I know, maybe Ken Whitman is the devil. If people are going to say things like avoid RapidPod like the plague, at least provide some credible evidence as to why.

I just don't like seeing people attacked on EN World like this without a good reason as to why. None of the RapidPod threads to date have proven anything negative to me about Ken and his company, but when folks like Phil Reed of Ronin Arts and Eric Wiener of Paradigm say positive things, that holds a lot more weight in my book.

rom90125 · Aug 23, 2007

Looks like there have been problems since 2002:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=220543

Cathix · Aug 23, 2007

We used Lulu.com and had terrific results. I can't say enough good things about them.

TheLe · Aug 23, 2007

jaerdaph said:
The only other thing I learned from Googling Ken Whitman is that he, if it is in fact the same Ken Whitman I'm finding, is a Scientologist. Are people not supposed to do business with him because of his religion then, because I've not found anything negative about him or RapidPod other than some comments here by people who aren't even in the rpg publishing business, most of which is either second hand "information" and not backed up with any evidence.

First off, are you yourself a publisher? And second, are you not looking deep enough?

GrimJim's post (on this thread) already confirms of at least one snafu with Ken and RapidPod. I have talked to him privately and I know the details of this and I can tell you that it is very real.

And I also know of at least 3 other publishers personally that have gotten burned very badly in previous business deals with Ken and/or RapidPod.

To counter that, Lee has said that he has no problems.

Still, Ken has screwed over small publishers in the past in order to keep his larger and more exposed customers happy (and has confirmed this in posts), so it is no surprise to me that Lee and Phil are happy with the special attention they got.

So as of right now, the verdict is still up in the air as far as I am concerned. I just want to know if they delivered at Gencon 2007 -- right now its 1 yes, 1 no.

Edit: For the record, I have met Ken and he is indeed a very nice man in person. However, I was unable to work with RapidPod because he didn't return my calls or emails, and so I had to find an alternate printer.

~Le