Does WotC have a new printer?

[Abstraction]

I have worked in the print industry twenty years, though not hardcover. I hear a lot of people complaining about price on these new books. They have to understand two things. One, WotC hardcovers are the match of any textbook, both in printing and research. Full color throughout, high quality art, consistent easy-to-use design and sturdily made. Priced any textbooks lately?

Second, most people don't seem to understand the costs involved in printing. Paper and ink are cheap. Very, very cheap even if the prices have gone up. What is expensive is hours. The number of hours to get a book ready to print, from design to plates to makeready on the press, is the same no matter how many you produce. The difference between X number of books and 2X number of books is just some more hours on press, the cheap paper and ink, and some more hours in bindery. In other words, with lower print runs (which I have to assume with anything outside the 3 core), you have a higher unit cost per each. Wizards doesn't have to do anything in particular in printing to get the cost down. They have to sell more of each book in order to do so.

Let me also just briefly address the type size/leading issue. In printing, we have things called signatures. If you took a press-size sheet of paper and folded it down to book size, you would probably have 16 pages for the type of printing that WotC does (it could be 8, but I think a book printer would use a 40" press). So the book HAS to have pages in multiples of 16. The number of pages are probably decided first, before any content is produced. Then each section is alloted its pages and a rough word count. The writers produce the word count and it is manipulated to fit the alloted space using art and adjusting point size and leading.

Could they produce the book in 16 less pages with less art, 10 point type on 12 point leading? Yes, probably. They could even pass those savings on to you. Do you want a thinner book if you save 50¢? A dollar? We're talking really minimal cost per unit.

I agree that it would be nice if they filled the book with more stuff, but then we have to talk about the deadline monster, not to mention handling the reflow. Probably not worth it to have the books be a week late, even if they do increase the crunch by, say, 15%.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Well, if I have to spell this out:

I am a customer.

I used to like the books and have a positive feeling toward them.

Now, I don't like them anymore, and feel cheated and disappointed.

I have now passed over two WotC books that I would have bought if they felt better (Heroes of Battle, DMG II).

That's pretty obviously a problem.

So, if the cover art was ugly, you'd pass on the book?

For the rest of us, the stuff is fine. If you're all alone screaming that the books are inferior, while everyone else is fine with it, can't you understand it's just your asthetic's that are causing you to pass on books that are in all likelihood perfectly fine in binding and paper?

I mean, lacking any evidence of bad binding, what are you really saying?

 

[Vigwyn the Unruly]

It's pretty obviously your problem.

I really don't even understand what your point is. Are you here merely to invalidate my opinion? If so, I think there are probably better ways for you to spend your time.

Since no-one has posted any evidence of the books crumbling to dust at the merest touch, or even developing loose pages after heavy handling...

Well, that's certainly quite a standard, isn't it. So as long as it doesn't crumble to dust or develop loose pages, one book is as good as another? Fine, whatever.

 

[Vigwyn the Unruly]

So, if the cover art was ugly, you'd pass on the book?

Uh...yeah. And bad cover art would be a problem. If I don't like the cover, I'm unlikely to be inspired by the book, and I'm unlikely to buy it. If WotC books all of the sudden started having really ugly cover art, I would certainly consider that a problem. I'm frankly amazed that others wouldn't.

For the rest of us, the stuff is fine.

Good for you. I still don't understand why you have a hard time with the fact that I don't like the new binding. I mean, would you be somehow upset if WotC stayed with a high quality cover and binding?

If you're all alone screaming that the books are inferior, while everyone else is fine with it, can't you understand it's just your asthetic's that are causing you to pass on books that are in all likelihood perfectly fine in binding and paper?

Well, yeah, if that were indeed the case. However, I am certainly not the only one. Now, is this an asthetic issue? Certainly--but so what? What isn't?

And really...screaming? Gimme a break.

I mean, lacking any evidence of bad binding, what are you really saying?

I'm saying it's bad. The evidence is that I pick it up and it feels bad. What more evidence do I need? It's my money.

 

[BWP]

I really don't even understand what your point is.

Well, that makes two of us.

Are you here merely to invalidate my opinion?

No, I'm asking you to justify it. You stated that the change in printing style was a "big problem" as though it were an immutable fact that we should all be up in arms about. While several people agree that they're not especially fond of the new printing style (I might not be fond of it myself, but I haven't seen it yet so can't comment) that does not automatically translate into a "big problem" for anyone other than yourself, and so far the only cited reason that you think it's a "big problem" is that if offends your sensibilities. Excuse me if I think that you're over-reacting. (I'm not saying that you're not allowed to be offended; I'm just wondering why you think anyone else should care that you're offended?)

Well, that's certainly quite a standard, isn't it. So as long as it doesn't crumble to dust or develop loose pages, one book is as good as another? Fine, whatever.

I didn't say that "one book is as good as another", I'm trying to work out what the objective reason is to believe that the printing change constitutes a "big problem". No-one has offered one, least of all yourself.

 

[Vigwyn the Unruly]

You stated that the change in printing style was a "big problem" as though it were an immutable fact that we should all be up in arms about.

Well I really think that you're overstating what I actually said there. I did say it's a big problem. And I mean that.

It may not be a big problem for you, and I respect that--to each his own.

But it is a big problem for me. And I felt like your comments implied that my own judgment of the books was not enough to state that there was a problem. If I pick up the book and look it over, and am not happy with what I feel, that's about as objective as it gets. I mean, I'm not just guessing that I don't like it. I frankly don't need to justify that at all. I can simply state it. If you don't agree, fine.

Perhaps we should agree to disagree. I think the new binding stinks, and you don't.

 

[Zenodotus of Ephesus]

I think the new binding stinks, and you don't.

Not to disagree with you but did you have a problem with your binding falling apart? Are you in the printing business and know something about bindings that leads you to believe it will fall apart or is of inferior quality?

 

[Vigwyn the Unruly]

Not to disagree with you but did you have a problem with your binding falling apart?

No, I have a problem with it feeling cheap.

Are you in the printing business and know something about bindings that leads you to believe it will fall apart or is of inferior quality?

No, I am not in the printing business. I do not have to have any special knowledge to realize that the book I'm holding in my hand at the game store feels like junk compared to all of the WotC books I have previously purchased.

Several people have described the differences--books making a cracking sound when you open them, a feeling of being overly stiff, the covers trying to spring shut.

These are objective observations that anybody can make. I have made them, and I don't like them, and I think that's a problem. I wish WotC would go back to the quality that I loved about them and that made me a loyal customer in the first place.

 

[Ranes]

Last book I bought was Lords of Madness. I could tell the difference in the paper immediately. Heck, I could smell it. Doesn't everyone stick their nostrils into the gutter of a freshly printed book the second they get their sweaty paws on it? No? Anyway, there were problems with it.

The binding was fine. But the opening flyleaf was stuck to the inside front endpaper in three places. Separating them left marks on the endpaper and the flyleaf. That raised my blood pressure but what really got me sweating was when I turned the contents page and found its outer edge connected to the next leaf. As an earlier poster said, books are printed on sections (we call 'em in the UK) and these can fold to eight, sixteen or even thirty-two leaves (a page is only one side of a leaf). It was as if my copy of LoM had been guillotined just a fraction too close to the fold, leaving almost every leaf connected by its outer edge, to every other. In each case, the leaves were joined by no more than two or three invisibly small perforations. Before I read a word of the book, I had to go through it, from cover to cover, carefully separating each leaf. When I'd finished you couldn't tell where any two had been connected, so easy had they been to separate. But here's the funny thing; those tiny connecting points act like little hooks, so they occasionally reconnect when I close the book. I have to be very careful with it every time I open it. I'm careful about the way I handle books anyway - I only ever handle pages by their edges - but I'm even more fastidious with my copy of LoM.

Of course, if what had been written in the book had been dross, I would have been really upset. As it is, I think WotC books (that I own) are printed to very high standards and for a very reasonable price. I am more concerned about the padded typesetting used in supplements like LoM. Had that book been typeset to PHB parameters, it would have been considerably shorter. WotC, if you're going to pad out your products, please use art, not white space.

 

[Vocenoctum]

Uh...yeah. And bad cover art would be a problem. If I don't like the cover, I'm unlikely to be inspired by the book, and I'm unlikely to buy it. If WotC books all of the sudden started having really ugly cover art, I would certainly consider that a problem. I'm frankly amazed that others wouldn't.



Good for you. I still don't understand why you have a hard time with the fact that I don't like the new binding. I mean, would you be somehow upset if WotC stayed with a high quality cover and binding?



Well, yeah, if that were indeed the case. However, I am certainly not the only one. Now, is this an asthetic issue? Certainly--but so what? What isn't?

And really...screaming? Gimme a break.



I'm saying it's bad. The evidence is that I pick it up and it feels bad. What more evidence do I need? It's my money.

You seem unable to seperate two issues. "low physical quality" means the binding and/or paper is not doing it's physical job. If binding breaks, or does not hold, it is not doing it's job, right?

"I find the binding ugly" is what you're saying. My DMG2 did creak a little when I opened it, but so? My CoCd20 and countless other WotC books have been subtly warped when I got them. The condition corrects itself when compacted under the intense pressure of an overstuffed bookshelf, just as the creak disappeared as soon as the book was slightly broken in.

The reason you can't understand why we're still argueing, is basically semantics. Your sense of aesthetics was offended, so you're presenting a thread like the binding is substandard. You need to qualify your statements better ("the binding looks bad") vs proclaiming to the internet that the binding is bad, because to most people "bad binding" is a physical quality, not some personal aesthetic.

Hopefully that's clear enough.