Printing RPG books?

[fireinthedust]

How do Paizo and WOTC print their hardcovers? Who do they print with?

And what are the economics and pitfalls of printing books? I mean, how do the numbers come up? For example, was the Star Wars Saga line license from Lucasfilm so expensive that WOTC had to use a smaller size of book just to make a profit?

Any publishers here wanna give us the scoop on how the printing side of the industry works?

 

[fireinthedust]

no responses but a lot of views, so at least there's interest in the nitty gritty of our hobby...

Any hoo, the reason I ask is that I'm looking into self-publishing for fun and the millions I'll easily rake in. That and gifts, props and suchnot for my player group and friends, and we're looking at Blurb for the printing, but I'm just wondering what it looks like from the inside to do printing/publishing.

 

[Aurumvorax]

The 4E books say "printed in USA" and there are a couple of big printers in Texas. I doubt they rely on one printer and go to whoever gives them the greatest rates for their print run.

I'm taking most of my information from the comic book world, which I'm somewhat knowledgeable in, and this carries over from indie companies self-printing their own comics and graphic novel collections. The expense of printing is large up front but it's reduced the more you print (bulk discount). The general process includes sending your manuscript to the printer who then send you a preview copy. Once you make changes and approve they'll start the printing process and send you the results. This means that you have to store your own merchandise which is where the second expense comes from. A lot of self publishers have their garage or basement devoted to storage but it needs to be a dry, clean place.

As for the Star Wars books, size isn't an issue. They could have used a standard format and actually saved money by having a fewer page count. I'm pretty positive the unusual formatting was to cause the books to stick out. Literally. Publishers will experiment with different sizes as a means of advertising and product identity. People are more likely to pull a book out the shelf if it looks different from the others.

As far as economics go, prepare for a large initial investment. Once you get everything "set up" it becomes cheaper and some printers will offer discounts for customer loyalty but if you can't move your material then you'll get a big kick in the groin with hundreds of material that will never be sold. Print-on-demand services like Lulu have little-to-no risk at the expense of a fraction of the profit you could be making. The quality of printers varies wildly but I noticed that Singaporean printers in general produces the highest quality material (Fantagraphics almost exclusively prints in Singapore and they have some of the best book binding I've ever seen).

 

[Rogue Agent]

I'm actually really curious about DM screens. Particularly the newer style of printing on stock that resembles a boardgame.

It's pretty trivial to do some googling and find a number of printers you can get quotes from. But I haven't had much luck in finding any printers advertising for products similar to a DM screen.

 

[Aurumvorax]

I'm actually really curious about DM screens. Particularly the newer style of printing on stock that resembles a boardgame.

It's pretty trivial to do some googling and find a number of printers you can get quotes from. But I haven't had much luck in finding any printers advertising for products similar to a DM screen.

This link might help you out. These guys do custom boxes and are pretty popular, even working with Nintendo on Pokemon. This post deals with board game self-publishers. Printers are pretty flexible and can manufacture a wide array of material, not just books. Some don't advertise (or rather, not enough people ask for them to bother advertising) their other features so ask them and you'll be surprised.

When assembling something together like a board game or RPG box set similar to TSR's BECMI, there's a process called "kitting" where all the separate-but-related materials are assembled at the manufacturer (so they'll print the box, the booklets, toss in the dice, then shrink wrap the package). This is a good service because otherwise the printer will send you everything separately and it will be your job to put it together (remember, time = money). Some printers will also store and ship your material to distributors. Again, this is a good service but it requires more finesse and organization to coordinate it.

The time between getting your finished product and actually shipping it for distribution (provided you're not selling directly) could be several months! If you've ever looked at the print date of a book, it's usually at least 2 months prior to its actual sale date. I've seen books that didn't make it to shelves until after a year they were printed.

 

[DnD_Dad]

Go to a local print shop and talk to someone about what you want to do. Usually even if you live in a small town they still have a print shop. Once you find them and tell them what you want they can find the most economical way of making what you want happen. Make sure you have your image of what you want made up, scaled in inches, cmyk color, or process color(whatever you like,) and be ready to negotiate. Good luck

 

[the Jester]

There are a ton of variables to something like this- color/bw, bleeds, paper type, binding quality, etc.

 

[fireinthedust]

nice!

How does one find out what Paizo and others are usingÉ

 

[Bedrockgames]

Hey fire. There are two major kinds of printing: off-set and print-on-demand. Off-set is cheaper if you do high volume and it gives you more control at times over the look of the book (is a bit more technical though). Print on demand is good for smaller print runs ( which suits a lot of rpg companies) but you sometimes get fewer options and no discount for high volume. There is also warehousing, selling and distribution to consider.

Because we are small and want to focus on design, our company handles pre-production (including layout) but leaves the printing, warehousing, etc to another company. Even with that stuff cleared off our plate there remains a lot of business to take care of. And because we do our layout work, we have to follow printer requirements closely----nothing worse than accidentally putting in a pantone color when the printer requires cmyk. The key thing to remember: just because an image, font or color looks one way on your screen, that doesn't mean it will look the same printed.

 

[Aurumvorax]

nice!

How does one find out what Paizo and others are usingÉ

Send them an email and they might tell you. Like I said earlier, I doubt they use one manufacturer. They probably associate with dozens.