Book Bindings

[Durifern]

My problem with binding is that recent books aren't 'bound' but glued. The core rule books were bound (string holding the pages together) the newer books are all glued. The drawback with the latter you can't lay them on your desk without having the pages standing up, with bound books the pages lie flat.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

Person who works in the claims dept. of one of the largest book publishers in the country stepping in...

Okay, that is weird. Why would a publisher be giving you a replacement book that is just as defective as the first book you returned?

They should have at least caught on that their stock is all defective and should take their grievance to the printing company.

Actually this happens all the time , esp.. with large publishers. I don't know how big the RPG companies are but for a large publisher, returns come in and get mixed up with good stock occasionally and it's not that infrequent to get two damaged books if they happened to come from the same print run. Going through the entire stock is a time consuming process and sometimes you just get unlucky and get a second bad book before the separation of the good from the bad is finished. Usually, at least for a large publisher, it takes at least a handful of complaints , or a second complaint from the same person to warrant a spot check of all stock. Spot checks are done by having a person in the warehouse pull stock at random and check it. It's not a fool proof method but few companies, even large ones, have the finances or people to go over each book from a print run with a fine tooth comb. I know at the publisher I work for , this sort of thing has happened at least a couple of times every few months or so.

I think it was just an honest mistake. Alert them to the problem, so they can fix it. Even if they are a smaller company with less product, they probably have fewer employees and not someone set aside specifically to run spot checks.

I'm telling you, the printing companies have way too much abusive powers because they are ultimately the one to make one writer's dream into a selling print product, which of course the writers have to pay them.

There is a difference between the printer and the publisher. Publishers are the people who make the decision (or, editors, to be more specific). Publishers consist of more than just editors though.

Printers (or, I think you mean binderies) are the places where the books are produced. The more copies of a book you have printed, the cheaper but the more problems. The more common the paper size and finish the cheaper as well. Usually the publisher orders the books to be printed from a separate printer and only discovers the problems with things like missing pages, binding issues, upside down print after a retailer or end user contacts them to let them know.

I have to disagree with the publisher being the ones to make or break a writers dream. There are tons of publishers and ways to self publish and promote.

And the writers don't pay the publishers. They pay their literary agents. Publishers usually only accept manuscripts from agents because unfortunately, they can't afford to pay enough editorial assistants to read through all of the material they'd get. Authors and artists who are serious enough to have an agent are usually worth looking at. Unfortunately for the talented authors who can't afford this, the people who just write rambling nonsense and submit it to a publisher have rather ruined it for them. I have a friend who is an editorial assistant here and he has told me about some of the unsolicited "manuscripts" he's gotten. They are really, really either scary or just plain bad. But there are plenty of publishers who still accept manuscripts directly from authors as well. If your stuff is good, an agent will usually work with you without an up front payment. Publishers, on the other hand, pay authors for the rights to their books.

And, again, in this day and age, anyone can self publish and self promote.

I wouldn't be surprised if they jack up the costs of printing and bookbinding of game products rather than reading products, which of course trickles the costs down to us.

Not quite sure what you mean here. I partially agree that for a normal book (i.e.. the latest hardcover by such and such NYTimes Bestselling author) are jacked up. The average novel costs about $4 to produce and sells for about $25. When you factor in the costs of paying employees, returns processing (what I do), and other misc. odds and ends, you're looking at more tacked onto the $4 but I'm not sure exactly what it is. It could probably go down a little bit, but I do know that there's not a ton of profit in publishing. Some, but not a lot.

RPG books, as I mentioned in an earlier thread, are pretty fairly priced when you consider the cost to produce them is higher and they are used longer and more repeatedly than a novel or regular hardcover.

 

[BSF]

[Hijack on the book industry in general]
I worked in a local bookstore for 4 years. Learned a lot there. Just to throw some more wood on the fire...

For large local bookstores, the kind that can afford to buy in quantity with the publishers, they can get as much as a 42% discount off cover price. So, a $25 is a $14.50 cost to the bookstore.

Based on Djeta's estimate of $4 to produce the book, that is $10.50 in gross profit. Keep in mind that the publisher has to pay employees, insurance, electricity, etc. Those types of things eat up gross profit pretty fast.

The local bookstore has $10.50 in gross profit for this same book. They have to pay for shipping, employees, insurance, electricity, etc. Once again, gross profit disappears in expenses pretty fast.

Now, for contrast, smaller local bookstores often cannot buy from the publisher. They go through a distributor (Often Ingram). In these cases, they only get a 35% discount (or less). The distributor takes a cut in the middle. That extra 7% can make a big difference!

The chain bookstores cut better deals (Barnes & Noble, etc). They often negotiate deeper discounts and buy in quantity to get free shipping. Often, they have it drop shipped directly to their stores. These little perks are part of what enable them to offer a 10% discount on hardcover best sellers, etc.

It gets to be a rough market.

Now, when I worked in the bookstore, RPG books usually had a 50% discount! They were a little better in the profit margin, but they stil weren't all that appealing (from the business side) since they didn't sell very fast. Basically, they would tie up inventory dollars and might not sell more than a few copies a year. So, despite my efforts, it was always hard to get them in stock.

I would be interested in hearing how the pricing structure compares to the game stores. But, that is discussing business and people may not be comfortable with that. I understand!
[End Hijack]

My current group of DnD/d20 books is holding out pretty well. 2nd Ed books were less resiliant. Except for Unearthed Arcana, my 1st Ed books are still going strong. Despite years of abuse. The second worst one is my DMG, which had the binding stomped on at one point. Still opens just fine, but the binding feels a little weird.

Of course, I do live in a high-altitude desert. Humidity is not much of an issue.

One of my players has a 3.0 PHB that has fallen apart, but to hear the other players talk about it, it is much more due to abuse than any defect in the binding.

 

[Magic Slim]

The only book problem I'm having is with my FRCS book. The side binding is starting to tear off, but nothing major yet. And my 2nd ed PHB is still in almost mint condition

Slim

 

[Pants]

The side binding is starting to tear off, but nothing major yet. And my 2nd ed PHB is still in almost mint condition

Advertisement:
"Buy 2nd ed AD&D! We use THAC0, but our bindings are awesome!"

 

[kreynolds]

When I picked up my 3.5 books, more than half of the shipment that B&N received were pretty messed up with bad bindings. One end of the binding would have less than half the adhesive necessary, while the other end would have two to three times as much as necessary. The effect was that half the pages weren't bound at all to one end, with the same thing but in reverse for the other half.

It was pretty bad.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

FFG replaced my copy of Midnight with a perfect copy. No questions asked.

I'm very for you guys who weren't so lucky.

 

[jgbrowning]

2 questions....

1. I've noticed that hardovers come in two types. one has a board on the spine ala the MM, while ohters don't have a board, ala Atlas's fantasy bestiary. What are the terms used to describe these two types of hardcover binding?

2.What do you guys think of lay-flat bindings?

joe b.

 

[DMScott]

I'm pretty hard on rulebooks, so I'm used to having some fall apart on me. My 3.0 PH is starting to show some real wear and tear on the binding. My AD&D PH from 25 years ago, OTOH, has a beat up cover but the binding's great. Kinda hoping my 3.5 PH behaves more like the latter than the former.

Worst binding ever was my 4th edition Hero hardcover, the big blue book. I think pages started coming loose around the third session we used it.