Books pricing themselves out of reach?

[BiggusGeekus]

Books need to be more expensive.

1) I priced Murchad's Legacy originally at $15 for the PDF and $29 for the paper book. People naturally asked if they could have a $15 cupon for the book if they bought the PDF. Guess what? After everyone takes their cut, I end up losing money doing that! I had to lower the cost of the PDF to $12 (for a 256 page book) so the percentage of RPGnow's take woud be lower. I'll end up making almost zero, but it's all I could do and still honor the $29 for this print run.

2) I am getting my butt smacked for lack of art (though people have noted that the art we did use is good) and layout. That costs money. But what's important to bear in mind is that people are evaluating the words based on the layout and the art. I think an argument can be made for that (e.g. Planescape's lovely artwork) but do people really want crummy prestige classes with great artwork or great prestige classes with no artwork? Obviously, they want great words and great art, but that means money.

I think I should stress that I have never been quoted a price that I thought was unfair or too much. In particular ENWorld's own Allen Palmer and Daniel Perez have bent over backwards for me. Great guys. Buy their stuff.

But the point is that people really aren't buying the books with low production costs. It is in a publisher's best interest to increase production costs and, if anything, stint on the writing. This isn't the direction I'll be taking, but the facts remain the facts.

 

[WizarDru]

Your not sure you agree but do not that Warhammer is closer to a CCG? Okay... The big difference in Warhammer, AFAIK, is that they actively support the hobby with places to play, tournaments and other big events. Fans have a huge impact on the settings via games. Once again, more like a CGC than a RPG. Outside of the RPGA, which is rarely brought up here, where can you play?

I'm not sure we're even discussing the same point, here (and I'm a little unclear what you're saying in that first sentence). I was under the impression your initial question about RPG book cost and why other hobbies didn't follow that model, specifically with respect to RPGs being too expensive and that "you'll never see these books go on sale", and that potential purchasers of the books (gamers, and younger gamers in particular) would not buy the books due to the cost. My only point with respect to Warhammer & 40K and their ilk is that you see plenty of young gamers dropping serious bank playing it, or at least that's my impression. In other words, you see the very group you're saying won't buy RPG books due to cost dropping more on Warhammer miniatures...and I don't think that the price is the sole or even dominant factor preventing them from purchasing the books, at least not in the $30-$40 range.

You also don't have to buy the whole goat in one setting. You can spend as much or as little as you want. Try getting a Player's Handbook with just the 'core rules' without spells or classes. Can't be done. Want a pack of dwarven troll killers or a gyrocopter but not a unit of Whitebeards? No problem.

You've lost me there, too. Are you saying that you can play warhammer by purchasing just a couple of minis at a time, piecemeal? Because I was under the impression that to field an army, you need some serious investment. The $80 starter set gives you a small force of orks, a rulebook and not much more. Exclusive units, elite groups and larger groups start to add up, not including the various accessories such as painting supplies and terrain materials, catlogs, rules supplements and the like. I mean, there's a sizable ramp-up cost just to get started. Want some dwarves? You need the dwarf book, and then a lot of minis. If you're doing it piecemeal, it'll be a long time before you have that warband ready to fight. Even starting from scratch with D&D, you're still ahead.

We're not talking Dragon magazine with fixed rates per word (which changes once again, depending on how experienced and well known you are.), we're talking about a specific product with a specific author. Heck, might as well throw in illustrators, editors, and layout specialist as some companies have prooven superiority in that field to others.

I'm not talking about actual cost, I'm talking percieved cost. Author cost is more or less intangible, except for measures of past performance. The type of metal and fashion of casting for a mini is a directly quantifiable thing. When I look at a dwarven forge set, I know why it costs so much. This is more difficult to quantify in the cost of a written work. Let's say Writer X got $1000 to write Supplement A. It didn't cost more for him to type up the manuscript, from a creation cost, than it did for Writer Y. But Writer X may have delivered what we percieve to be a better product, or his previous work sold better than Writer Y...so we value his contribution differently. But the consumer may be indifferent or ignorant of that kind of costing. A book may sell on King's name or Monte's name by itself, but when I was younger, the names were irrelevant...the content was not. I didn't pay much attention to which books Gygax wrote then, any more than I note specifically who wrote Races of Destiny now. Which is a long, round-about way of saying that many consumers don't take things like paper quality, artist cost, editing and author popularity into consideration for an RPG book....which directly influences the idea that some books are overpriced.

 

[JVisgaitis]

How does that less than two dollars get split between developer, author(s), artist(s), editors, cost of printing, and costs of business operations?

First off let me clarify my statement as it can be misleading. Less then $2 depends on the quality of art, writing, editing, etc. What you end up doing is figuring out your cost of goods (which is the price of the printing, art, editing, layout, advertising, etc. divided by the print run) and then you figure out a break even point. For example (and this is just off the top of my head), your cost of goods for a 224 page B&W book might be $4. If you print say 5,000 for $5,000 and have a price point for $30 you need to sell about 1,500 books to break even. That doesn't take into account conventions (which can actually cost you money), direct sales, or PDFs. My numbers might be a bit off without a calculator, but that's roughly what you are looking at.

On the other hand, a smaller company like us for instance isn't going to move as much product or produce as many copies so we have to charge more. It sucks, but Denizens of Avadnu needed to be priced at $39.95. Heck, we still haven't broken even on it but what can you do? Doing such a large product for our first release was pretty insane. If I had the chance to do it again I would have probably started much smaller (modules maybe). Would have kept the full color though, cuz that's a big thing with us.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with forking over $30 for a B&W hardcover or even $50 for a full color book with great art like Arcana Evolved. Softcovers and adventures seem to be getting priced higher and higher as well as some B&W hardcovers. The trend is that costs are increasing and that really annoys me because there is a lot I want to buy and I have to be very careful in my purchases. Keep in mind this is just the opinions and observations of a garage publisher. I'm in no way an expert on these issues.

 

[JVisgaitis]

Warhammer vs. D&D

On the Warhammer vs. D&D argument I'd definitely say that Warhammer is a heck of a lot more to invest. Yeah, you can get away with a unit or two, but until the game gets fun your dumping over $400 on a sizeable army plus they need to be painted and put together and then you don't have any scenery to play on! When you get all that done you need a friend with the same rig. These really are apples and oranges and there is no way in the Nine Hells that Warhammer is cheaper then D&D. Trust me, I have a basement full of stuff that cost me thousands of dollars. If your talking a game of Mordheim, your approaching more even monetary costs, but then we are talking only 8 to 15 miniatures per side.

 

[WildWeasel]

First off let me clarify my statement as it can be misleading. Less then $2 depends on the quality of art, writing, editing, etc. What you end up doing is figuring out your cost of goods (which is the price of the printing, art, editing, layout, advertising, etc. divided by the print run) and then you figure out a break even point. For example (and this is just off the top of my head), your cost of goods for a 224 page B&W book might be $4. If you print say 5,000 for $5,000 and have a price point for $30 you need to sell about 1,500 books to break even. That doesn't take into account conventions (which can actually cost you money), direct sales, or PDFs. My numbers might be a bit off without a calculator, but that's roughly what you are looking at.

Yeah, these numbers aren't gelling at all. However that $4 to produce is significantly more than the "less than $2" you quoted. Even $4 is, well, pretty damn low, given that the average $40 product sold is mre like $12 or so in pocket for the producer (the balance going to distributors and retailers). I doubt many companies are pocketing $8 in profit per copy.

On the other hand, a smaller company like us for instance isn't going to move as much product or produce as many copies so we have to charge more. It sucks, but Denizens of Avadnu needed to be priced at $39.95. Heck, we still haven't broken even on it but what can you do? Doing such a large product for our first release was pretty insane. If I had the chance to do it again I would have probably started much smaller (modules maybe). Would have kept the full color though, cuz that's a big thing with us.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with forking over $30 for a B&W hardcover or even $50 for a full color book with great art like Arcana Evolved. Softcovers and adventures seem to be getting priced higher and higher as well as some B&W hardcovers. The trend is that costs are increasing and that really annoys me because there is a lot I want to buy and I have to be very careful in my purchases. Keep in mind this is just the opinions and observations of a garage publisher. I'm in no way an expert on these issues.

So is this something you're doing for the fun of it, a chance to publish and maybe make a bit of scratch in the process, while keeping your day job? Or something you hope to (eventually) make a living at? I, for one, am fond of collecting a paycheck every other week, and that's a bit of the price of every unit the company I work for sells.

Books in general are getting priced higher. Both general inflations, and forces specific to the book industry (namely price of paper) have been at work. I remember when, ten or fifteen years ago, paperbacks were three or four bucks, now they're clocking in more like eight. And, unlike RPGs, they haven't really improved in overall quality, or in the amount of material you get.

I suppose it really comes down to: if people feel RPG books in general are being priced too high, leaving a derth of product in the sub-$20 dollar range, well, why isn't anyone jumping on that market?

 

[BiggusGeekus]

Both general inflations, and forces specific to the book industry (namely price of paper) have been at work. I remember when, ten or fifteen years ago, paperbacks were three or four bucks, now they're clocking in more like eight. And, unlike RPGs, they haven't really improved in overall quality, or in the amount of material you get.

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/

In fairness, $4 in 1990 would be about $5.75 today. So in real dollars, that's a $2.25 price hike, not $4. And, as you noted, the price of paper skyrocketed around 1995.

I suppose it really comes down to: if people feel RPG books in general are being priced too high, leaving a derth of product in the sub-$20 dollar range, well, why isn't anyone jumping on that market?

I touched on this a few posts up. Nobody buys low-end books. I wish they did. Belive me, I wish they did.

 

[Crothian]

On this whole "pricing themselves out of reach" there is not a single book I have run into so far that I refused to buy solely on the price. There are high priced books like WLD that I don't have, but that is based on use and interest in the subject matter.

 

[JVisgaitis]

I doubt many companies are pocketing $8 in profit per copy.

Will, if we would have hit our break even point we would have been making more then $8 per copy which we are really close to right now.

So is this something you're doing for the fun of it, a chance to publish and maybe make a bit of scratch in the process, while keeping your day job? Or something you hope to (eventually) make a living at? I, for one, am fond of collecting a paycheck every other week, and that's a bit of the price of every unit the company I work for sells.

Call it a resume. We have hopes of doing more and more and eventually we would like to use our experiences at this to springboard to something else. The world behind our products is well developed and could easily spring to other mediums. It started out as a novel, and I plan to revisit that someday. I wouldn't mind doing art and design on this all day, but those are pretty lofty goals. If it stays as a good supplemental income, I can't complain. What company do you work for?

 

[WildWeasel]

In fairness, $4 in 1990 would be about $5.75 today. So in real dollars, that's a $2.25 price hike, not $4. And, as you noted, the price of paper skyrocketed around 1995.

I touched on this a few posts up. Nobody buys low-end books. I wish they did. Belive me, I wish they did.

Which is why I included both things as contributing factors.

And while _we_ know low-end books don't so all that well, it was more of a challange to those who think that this is an "obviousily" untapped market.

 

[WildWeasel]

Will, if we would have hit our break even point we would have been making more then $8 per copy which we are really close to right now.

Call it a resume. We have hopes of doing more and more and eventually we would like to use our experiences at this to springboard to something else. The world behind our products is well developed and could easily spring to other mediums. It started out as a novel, and I plan to revisit that someday. I wouldn't mind doing art and design on this all day, but those are pretty lofty goals. If it stays as a good supplemental income, I can't complain. What company do you work for?

I'd hazard to say that most companies don't see that much profit on the average book.

So you don't have much of a company infratructure to support? If you did, then you could probablly handle larger print runs...and the price would like come out to about the same.

I sling pewter for Privateer Press.