Let's talk about printing & shipping RPG books

[cranberry]

D&D is under monetized after all...

Seriously though, I would expect costs to increase over time, but given recent bad press, the timing may not be ideal. And it is a substantial increase. I'm not sure you can blame inflation 100%. There is a video on YT by Robert Reich that essentially says that company's are just using inflation to justify price increases.

Nonetheless, digital books should never cost nearly as much as physical books. Yes, there is a cost to produce them, but there is no printing or holding (warehousing) costs. There is no distribution costs. Each incremental copy costs a fraction of a cent to "make". Most company's maintain computers and servers regardless of what or how much they produce (for Accounting, Marketing, HR, and other Admin functions), so the fraction of the server space needed to create digital copies is baked into their monthly server maintenance cost...and if you took the time to carve it out, the unit cost would likely be minimal.

 

[Morrus]

Nonetheless, digital books should never cost nearly as much as physical books. Yes, there is a cost to produce them, but there is no printing or holding (warehousing) costs.

As I think I’ve shown above, the printing cost is only a tiny fraction of the cost of making a book. ‘There’s no printing cost’ is not a particularly meaningful statement in this context .

There is no distribution costs. Each incremental copy costs a fraction of a cent to "make".

That’s not true. If you are to sell in any numbers you need to use a distribution platform such as DTRPG which might take 39% or more of the cover price. 50% if you’re on DMs Guild. This is far, far more than the lack of printing cost you mentioned.

While we might quibble about the amount of various costs, and I agree that PDFs don’t need to cost the same as print books, these two statements aren’t particularly useful regarding this particular calculation — the print cost is not the main thing, and the distribution cost does exist.

 

[aco175]

A distributor will often handle the next bit. They'll take around 50% of the cover price of the book. I don't know what arrangements WotC has, but I expect they're better than those that small publishers like us get. Still, it's a big chunk of the RRP. So for a $50 book, very very roughly, the distributor gets $25, you pay, say, $5 in production and shipping (likely much less if you're printing at the scale of WotC), leaving you with $20. Of course, those are not the only costs in making a book--that's just one cost out of many. A lot of stuff has to come out of that remaining $20!

Is this basically why a PDF costs $20 and the print book costs $50? Do some/most of the 'middle men' get cut out with Kickstarter? You still have the printer and shipper, but it seems that there should be some savings.

My son just graduated high school last week. He received his yearbook and it is a piece of crap. The cover is already warping and the spine is something along the lines of the 5e PHB first print run. It should get less use than the PHB, but certainly not the quality I would expect for a hard cover book. I do not mind the price increase in the new books if the cost is reflected in the quality, but my 1e books are still running great compared to my 5e books.

I hope things do not get cheap in terms of quality to get me to just go online.

 

[Morrus]

Is this basically why a PDF costs $20 and the print book costs $50? Do some/most of the 'middle men' get cut out with Kickstarter? You still have the printer and shipper, but it seems that there should be some savings.

Kickstarter fulfilment does not (typically) involve a distributor. Though there will be other fulfilment partners.

 

[wicked cool]

Ok is anyone paying attention to how everything has gone up and I have a question

Going out to dinner or supermarket etc-everything has gone up. Diablo 4 I think digital is 70 US dollars. I love in a well to do us state and I’m not sure about anyone else but there’s more and more stores etc going out of business.

The costs of retaining talent and operations has to go up. The costs of printing etc has gone up. They are passing on that expense to the consumer

This is done almost everywhere. You go to your local mom/pop coffee shop. They said we are passing the covid charge along to you.

I’ve talked to a small skirmish game company. The prices of printing cards has gone up dramatically

Has anyone bought miniatures lately. Prices have doubled in some cases.

 

[Velderan]

Kickstarter fulfilment does not (typically) involve a distributor. Though there will be other fulfilment partners.

Is there much of a difference in cost between distributer and fulfilment partner? Wouldn't a distributer be more of an on-going business arrangement compared to a fulfillment partner for a Kickstarter being a somewhat 1 time business deal?

 

[aco175]

Ok is anyone paying attention to how everything has gone up and I have a question

Going out to dinner or supermarket etc-everything has gone up. Diablo 4 I think digital is 70 US dollars. I love in a well to do us state and I’m not sure about anyone else but there’s more and more stores etc going out of business.

The costs of retaining talent and operations has to go up. The costs of printing etc has gone up. They are passing on that expense to the consumer

This is done almost everywhere. You go to your local mom/pop coffee shop. They said we are passing the covid charge along to you.

I’ve talked to a small skirmish game company. The prices of printing cards has gone up dramatically

Has anyone bought miniatures lately. Prices have doubled in some cases.

Was the question about miniatures or about the economy and inflation? If inflation is 8-10% overall and you are getting a 3% raise, then you are getting squeezed. People cut where they can, but basic things like food and rent need to be paid leaving little for games in some circumstances. I am still ok and plan to buy the new 2024 books coming out, but watch spending in other areas of gaming and are not buying cards, dice, most other books. My family is not going out to eat as much and watching some other areas.

 

[Parmandur]

Was the question about miniatures or about the economy and inflation? If inflation is 8-10% overall and you are getting a 3% raise, then you are getting squeezed. People cut where they can, but basic things like food and rent need to be paid leaving little for games in some circumstances. I am still ok and plan to buy the new 2024 books coming out, but watch spending in other areas of gaming and are not buying cards, dice, most other books. My family is not going out to eat as much and watching some other areas.

That's how the cycle works: the costs are going up for every business, amd they are passing them in to stay in business.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The last offset project I did (Twilight Fables, 330 pages, with ribbon and gilded edges) cost about $11 per book to get them printed and shipped to fulfiller. Fulfillment costs between $7-10 a book depending on who you go through. I didn't use a distributor or I'd be losing money on each book. I think I created a thread about these numbers a while ago, I may have to look for it. Ribbons were pretty cheap, less than $1 per book I think.

For small publishers like me, the biggest cost-per-book costs were printing and art. For large publishers, that art cost per book goes way down, so print costs make up the majority. What I mean, is that art costs don't go up if you sell more books, like printing does (art is a flat cost), so the ratio of art cost per book goes way down between 1000 copies and 50,000 copies.

 

[Morrus]

Is there much of a difference in cost between distributer and fulfilment partner? Wouldn't a distributer be more of an on-going business arrangement compared to a fulfillment partner for a Kickstarter being a somewhat 1 time business deal?

They’re two entirely different things. And yes, there’s a big difference costwise also. The distributor buys your books off you for 50% the cover price. A fulfilment partner performs a shipping service for you and charges you for the shipping. They’re very different types of entity.