DriveThruRPG Print-on-Demand Prices Going Up By As Much As 50% In The US

DriveThruRPG has notified creators that the costs of its print-on-demand books will be increasing significantly. The price increase has been attributed to increasing supply costs in the US. The price increase comes into effect on April 1st, and mainly affects books produced in the US.

• Black-and-white hardcover books will increase from 20%-50% in the US, depending on the size of the book, but only 3-4% in the UK.
• Black-and-white softcover books will see an even greater increase in the US.
• Standard color books will increase by 12%-13% in the US, but only 3% in the UK.
• Premium color books will decrease slightly in the US but increase slightly in the UK.

DTRPG uses Lightning Source as its printing partner, which has a printing facility in the US and in the UK.

Here are some examples of how much books will now cost to print in the US:

Black-and-white:

• 100-page black-and-white hardcover will increase from $8.60 to $11.14.
• 300-page black-and-white hardcover will increase from $13.08 to $19.04.
• 100-page black-and-white softcover will increase from $3.76 to $5.69.
• 300-page black and white softcover will increase from $8.32 to $13.73.

Standard Color:

• 100-page standard color hardcover will increase from $11.90 to $13.45.
• 300-page standard color hardcover will increase from $22.98 to $25.97.
• 100-page standard color softcover will increase from $7.13 to $8.05.
• 300-page standard color softcover will increase from $18.43 to $20.81.

Premium Color:

• 100-page premium color hardcover will decrease from $20.05 to $19.
• 300-page premium color hardcover will decrease from $49.50 to $41.
• 100-page premium color softcover will decrease from $15.87 to $13.75.
• 300-page premium color softcover will decrease from $44.87 to $35.75.

Due to increasing supply costs in the US, Black & White print costs in the US will increase significantly, from around 20% for low-pagecount hardcover titles up to about 50% or slightly more for large hardcover books, and with softcover titles seeing an even greater increase.

UK print costs for Black & White books will also increase, but only by 3-4%.

Standard Color print costs will increase by roughly 12-13% for US printing but only around 3% for UK printing.

On the whole, Premium Color print costs will decrease slightly for US printing but increase slightly for UK printing.

• Example 1: A 180-page large premium hardcover currently costs $32.10 to print in the US; after April 1, that same title will drop to $27.80.
• Example 2: In the UK, the same 180-page book currently costs £20.23, which will increase to £20.93 starting in April.

While this directly affects customers in the US, it also has a potentially disastrous effect on those who are currently running Kickstarters which are fulfilling via DTRPG after April 1st, as the printing costs of their books will be significantly more than budgeted for in the Kickstarter. With the price of a print-on-demand print run increasing by as much as 50%, this could cause some crowdfunders to actually lose money, depending on their margins.

 

[Dire Bare]

Ah, right. I was expecting that for large-scale publishing. For some reason, though, i thought small-volume orders were mostly printed in the US for US customers, so I figured that would remain mostly unscathed. But I figured wrongly, apparently. Ink, equipment, etc, costs, I guess.

Sigh.

I'm sure it is all complicated, but I assumed paper . . . maybe books are printed in the US, but paper (and other supplies) are imported.

Various factors have been pushing prices on everything up for a while now, but the impending tariffs are likely to cause the price of EVERYTHING to get more expensive, even things that are not directly imported. And of course, the reason behind inflation is that corporations will raise prices whenever they feel that can get away with it, rising costs or not.

And with the interconnected nature of global trade . . . it wouldn't surprise me if tariffs imposed by the US on imports would also ripple out and increase costs worldwide in all sorts of goods that don't seem directly related to US imports and exports.

Sigh. It's hard not to get political (and emotional) about it when this is going to impact us negatively in so many ways beyond our games getting more expensive.

 

[The Soloist]

I switched to 100% PDFs on January 1st, 2025.

 

[Riley]

Thank you for the heads up.

 

[ericborg]

Going forward it's gonna be real hard to tell what companies are legit effected by tariffs, and who are just doing a cash grab. I hope in this case it is the former.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Going forward it's gonna be real hard to tell what companies are legit effected by tariffs, and who are just doing a cash grab. I hope in this case it is the former.

Look up how the publishing industry is responding to tariffs. This isn't a DTRPG thing.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

DTRPG apparently got some of the math wrong on Thursday and just sent out a revised pricing scheme. Updated the first post. Basically, the news is almost across the board worse.

 

[jdrakeh]

Ugh. It's my birthday tomorrow. Think I'll pick up the latest copy of HARP.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

I switched to 100% PDFs on January 1st, 2025.

I've only ever used DTRPG for pdfs. On the rare occasions I want physical books its straight to the publisher or the FLGS. If course, they'll be impacted as well. Dire times.

Look up how the publishing industry is responding to tariffs. This isn't a DTRPG thing.

The fact there may be bible shortages because of this strikes me as remarkably ironic.

DTRPG apparently got some of the math wrong on Thursday and just sent out a revised pricing scheme. Updated the first post. Basically, the news is almost across the board worse.

Even so, I wonder if they're going far enough? Shipping costs are going be massively impacted sooner or later as well, and it's increasingly clear that some businesses will refuse to deal with US firms simply out of principle, further altering supply and demand figures. This may only be the first of many waves of price increases.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The fact there may be bible shortages because of this strikes me as remarkably ironic.

We live in a post-irony world, given how badly irony was beaten to death over the past few years.

Even so, I wonder if they're going far enough? Shipping costs are going be massively impacted sooner or later as well, and it's increasingly clear that some businesses will refuse to deal with US firms simply out of principle, further altering supply and demand figures. This may only be the first of many waves of price increases.

Yeah, I think this may just be the beginning of tough times for the RPG industry, among many others.

 

[Scribe]

We live in a post-irony world, given how badly irony was beaten to death over the past few years.

Yeah, I think this may just be the beginning of tough times for the RPG industry, among many others.

I'm absolutely going to lose it before the end of the month at this rate.