Let's talk about printing & shipping RPG books

[Sacrosanct]

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?

Pretty much.

Fulfillment is "We will ship these books to the addresses you provide." Some will keep stock on hand for future orders. But they are basically just shipping direct to customers.

Distribution (at least in my experience with Aldi a long time ago) was "Ship us your stock, and we'll maintain inventory and ship to FLGS who place orders with us on an ongoing basis."

With fulfillment, I pay them for each book they ship. With Distribution, I don't pay for shipping or other costs, but they take a large cut of the MSRP, and sell to FLGS at a big discount as well.

*Edit Ninja's by Morrus

 

[Parmandur]

Pretty much.

Fulfillment is "We will ship these books to the addresses you provide." Some will keep stock on hand for future orders. But they are basically just shipping direct to customers.

Distribution (at least in my experience with Aldi a long time ago) was "Ship us your stock, and we'll maintain inventory and ship to FLGS who place orders with us on an ongoing basis."

With fulfillment, I pay them for each book they ship. With Distribution, I don't pay for shipping or other costs, but they take a large cut of the MSRP, and sell to FLGS at a big discount as well.

*Edit Ninja's by Morrus

And yhst distribution model is how WotC operates, though they get some good deals, I'm sure.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I print in the UK using Mixam and if a book run is costing me say £2000 (125-150 books maybe), then the ribbons will likely add £125-£175 to that. That's an approximate but you can see it yourself on their online calculator.

It makes the ribbons a considerable expense when you print in small volumes. I tend to make it a stretch goal on my Kickstarters but I'm certainly not making any profit when from the ribbons and that enhanced tier. Mixam don't offer printed end pages so I can't comment on that.

I would have to look and see if I've backed any of your projects -- I back a lot of them -- but I will say that ribbon bookmarks, even though they don't seem critical, are the kind of thing that nudges me into the "buy" column lots of times. To me, it speaks of a publisher wanting to create the best possible product, which typically carries over to other aspects of the book as well.

 

[Parmandur]

I would have to look and see if I've backed any of your projects -- I back a lot of them -- but I will say that ribbon bookmarks, even though they don't seem critical, are the kind of thing that nudges me into the "buy" column lots of times. To me, it speaks of a publisher wanting to create the best possible product, which typically carries over to other aspects of the book as well.

I like the theory of ribbon bookmarks, but in practice I don't use them, and they get in the way, or get messy.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I like the theory of ribbon bookmarks, but in practice I don't use them, and they get in the way, or get messy.

Oh, man, I use 100% of them, including when books, like Ptolus, have several of them.

 

[SlyFlourish]

Fascinating topic. One thought I had, that sort of vexed me, was with WOTC's announcement of price increases. On one side they said they're printing so many books that no printer can keep up with them. On the other they say they have to increase prices because of the costs of printing (which, as we've seen, go down the more you print).

Worse, the size of WOTC's books have gone down by almost 50%, and over 50% if you factor in that their font size went way up. This is definitely shrinkflation at work and feels like a profit grab because the price of everything has gone up so why not ours?

 

[Parmandur]

Fascinating topic. One thought I had, that sort of vexed me, was with WOTC's announcement of price increases. On one side they said they're printing so many books that no printer can keep up with them. On the other they say they have to increase prices because of the costs of printing (which, as we've seen, go down the more you print).

Worse, the size of WOTC's books have gone down by almost 50%, and over 50% if you factor in that their font size went way up. This is definitely shrinkflation at work and feels like a profit grab because the price of everything has gone up so why not ours?

I mean, printing a lot of books isn't helpful if you sell them at a loss. And I doubt theybwere at that point yet, but their costs will have gone up in 9 years, too, from gas to materials to labor. Maybe they would be better off doing incremental price increases every couple years, rather than waiting nearly a decade to adjust, but no way the price won't increase over time.

I just can't care about an increase that is behind inflation, and less than the size of a decent burger.

 

[Velderan]

@Morrus any insight you could provide on how these numbers have changed?

I'm not sure which books he was referring to, but in a recent stream Stephen Glicker said a quote he received back was 40% higher than the previous quote which was only a few months prior (at least I'm pretty sure he said a few months, point is he seemed to emphasize it wasn't a long time ago). I'm guessing this is part of the reason their recently completed Kickstarter did not include an option to get a book, since the material will be published over the next year and who knows what printing will look like in early 2025 when he'd be looking to get the book put together. Just curious your thoughts and what you're seeing.

 

[Morrus]

@Morrus any insight you could provide on how these numbers have changed?

I'm not sure which books he was referring to, but in a recent stream Stephen Glicker said a quote he received back was 40% higher than the previous quote which was only a few months prior (at least I'm pretty sure he said a few months, point is he seemed to emphasize it wasn't a long time ago). I'm guessing this is part of the reason their recently completed Kickstarter did not include an option to get a book, since the material will be published over the next year and who knows what printing will look like in early 2025 when he'd be looking to get the book put together. Just curious your thoughts and what you're seeing.

I haven't read back through the thread, but we haven't seen any big rise in the last 4 months.

 

[Velderan]

I haven't read back through the thread, but we haven't seen any big rise in the last 4 months.

I wonder if the price increases he's mentioned involve printing in China. I notice the recent update for the Knave 2e Kickstarter mentioned the books being printed in Czech Republic so maybe European printing prices are more stable?