D&D 4E 4E at the printers...but we don't see it until June?

[F5]

I'm hoping that someone with more of an insider's view of the publishing world can explain that. In my mind, once the books have been printed you need, maybe, a month to check the first-run proofs for errors, and start shipping to distributors. Why, if the books are going to the printers now, will it take 3 months for them to be available?

Not a gripe, not a rant...I'm just genuinely curious.

-F5

 

[Syrsuro]

Because release dates are a lot more about publicity and marketing and roll-out and .....

And less about printing and shipping.

The release date is set and then they try to make the printing and shipping happen before them. You don't move the release date (at least not earlier) just because the lesser step of printing and shipping them happens to be done earlier.

Carl

 

[Loki5654]

At the printers =/= printed and ready to sell.

It does take some time for the actual printing process to happen.

 

[davethegame]

I'm hoping that someone with more of an insider's view of the publishing world can explain that. In my mind, once the books have been printed you need, maybe, a month to check the first-run proofs for errors, and start shipping to distributors. Why, if the books are going to the printers now, will it take 3 months for them to be available?

Not a gripe, not a rant...I'm just genuinely curious.

-F5

You've got most of the big steps, but they take longer than you might think. Once a full proof comes back, there's a lot of checking to be done, and possibly a lot of back and forth with the printers (in my experience, this is often in color matching.)

Printing will also take a while, considering the scale at which they have to print. It sounded like all three books are going at once, so consider around 1000 pages to be printed times the number of copies that will need to be made for nearly every game store out there, plus book stores, plus online sellers, etc etc. (Plus binding.)

Then I'm pretty sure most books will go to distributors, and not the stores themselves. The distributors need them earlier, so they can make sure that all the stores who order from them will receive them in time.

Then the stores will probably get them a wee bit early as well.

Plus, a good publications manager will tell you that you always need extra time in the schedule to accommodate for the unexpected. If the printers' offices catch fire, they want extra time to move the production elsewhere to still meet the deadline. They may not need the buffer, but it's always good to build it in.

Hope that helps.

-Dave, most of the way through his Master's Degree in Publications Design

 

[Voss]

Uh. Well, yes, but that doesn't apply in this case. From all indications, the books went out to the printers late, not early.

It takes time to print things. Especially, what, 100,000? copies? 250,000? between the three books? More?
Printing on that scale takes time. They'll have to double check all 3 books, to make sure that the (probably pdf files) will print properly. Masters will have to be sent back to WotC, approved and then sent back to the printers. Then, the printing company will have X printers capable of putting out Y copies a day (realize that they are probably printing other things for other people and have to schedule times and machines for each project). Then binding, then shipping to a warehouse, then to various distributors, then to stores.

10 weeks is actually fairly tight.

And, really, you better hope they're checking the proofs before the first run, not after. You don't want to start the run before you've gone over some samples.

 

[atom crash]

it is entirely possible that the material has been delivered to meet the printer's deadline but actually won't be physically printed for some time due to the printer's schedule.

Printing houses work for a number of publishers. AFAIK WotC does not have its own dedicated printing house whose deadlines they can control. Miss the deadline and you risk getting bumped for months.

 

[F5]

You've got most of the big steps, but they take longer than you might think.

Not surprising. My knowledge of the publishing process consists of a vague, "Stuff-happens-somewhere, then a box arrives with my books in it". If those more knowledgeable than I say that 3 months is reasonable, I'll take their word for it.

I wondered how much of the timing might have been, as Syrsuro suggested, delayed for marketing reasons. But, it sounds like this is a fairly realistic timetable.

And, really, you better hope they're checking the proofs before the first run, not after. You don't want to start the run before you've gone over some samples.

That's basically what I meant...didn;t know the appropriate publishing terms to use. Proof, masters? Tomato, Tomahto?

 

[morgul97]

I am not in publishing, but I've seen this question asked on other messageboards regarding other non-gaming topics (mostly political blogs) and the answer has always been that by the time the publishers get the material, review it, place it on their printing schedule, set the type, get the machines fired up, do test runs, do the final runs, do the packaging, do the shipping, it actually takes a couple of months.

 

[unobserved]

First of all the printer needs to get the files for the book and set them up to do a press test. It's usually a lo-res output of the book to make sure that all the pages are aligned properly and in the correct order. For a single book of 300 pages, that process itself could take a long time (depending on the size of the printer), but say the printer spits back the books in a week.

Then there's all the pre-press double-checking. 300 pages x 3 books of eyeballing every element of every page to make sure bleeds, margin, knock-outs and what-not were all set correctly. No point in short changing the time required here, years of work can be shot to hell if you let errors go to print. So say Wizards spends a week, maybe two going through all their double checks.

Then they've got to get the corrections back to the printer. Now the printer will run a full colour test and send the full colour proofs back to Wizards for review. Again, maybe a week or so.

Once you have the colour proofs you'll want to repeat all the checks from the previous process here to make sure nothing was missed but also now you're checking to make sure that the colours on the press match the colours that were spec'd in the design. Some times you'll need to make corrections to the artwork, other times you'll need to ask the guys running the press to tweak the saturation of certain colours in certain areas. So say maybe another week.

So say it's now taken you a month or so just to make sure that a) what you sent to the printers was 100% correct and b) it will come off the press looking exactly how you want it too.

Now the printer has to do the actual printing.

Probably one book will be run at a time on one single press (more if the print shop is larger). Someone from Wizards will probably be there to make sure that everything is coming off the press exactly as it should, otherwise whole batches get thrown out and restarted.

Sections of each book will be printed at once (usually pages of 16 or 32 or some other multiple of 4). Those pages will then need to dry properly and then be bound together and then bound to the cover. In between each section being printed the press will need to be changed and setup to print the next section.

I don't know what size of a first run they're printing but probably at least 100,000 or more books. This whole process could take weeks or a month.

Then they'll need to be all shipped up and sent out to distributors around the world that will then ship them out to individual stores. Again this whole process could take weeks to make sure the books get from printer to distributor to stores.

When all's said and done, 3 months doesn't really seem like that much time to get the book out the door.

 

[Revinor]

First of all the printer needs to get the files for the book and set them up to do a press test. It's usually a lo-res output of the book to make sure that all the pages are aligned properly and in the correct order. For a single book of 300 pages, that process itself could take a long time (depending on the size of the printer), but say the printer spits back the books in a week.

Weren't few pages we have seen at DDXP a kind of press test thingies? I mean, the process of proofchecking the printouts might be as well going on for few weeks already and we got the announcement that FINAL version of the books started to be printed en masse right now.