Is there anyway to publish without using a fulfillment house?

[Justin D. Jacobson]

As you may know, Blue Devil Games is forging ahead with our first print publication, Dawning Star.

The parameters of the book are: 256 pages, hardcover, full-color cover and interior. I'm expecting to price it at $35-40, but let's say $40 for the sake of this discussion. I'm currently planning on a print-run of 1000.

The current math of it, as I understand it, is that the books get "sold" to the distributors at a 60% discount, netting 40%, $16. There are several fulfillment houses out there, charging various rates, but let's average that out to 20% of net sales again for the sake of discussion. That leaves 20% of the cover price to cover costs, i.e., $8.

I can live with $16/book to cover costs (I won't even worry about turning a profit for purposes of this discussion), but at $8/book, I likely won't even cover the cost of printing it, let alone the cost of the writers, artists, etc.

Am I missing something? How do those of you who use fulfillment houses turn a profit? Is it possible to publish and distribute a book without using a fulfillment house? If so, how?

 

[Greatwyrm]

Hate to be a wet blanket, but...

I think your biggest problem is going to be price per piece for production. When you're dealing with a web-fed printing set-up (which I assume you are for a book this size) a huge part of your costs are incurred in the first 1000 or so copies you make.

If you ask your printer, you'll probably find the cost for the second 1000 books is significantly less than your first 1000. Of course, then you still have another thousand books to move. It's just really hard to make all the numbers work out when you're dealing with that small of a print run (I know it sounds odd to think of a thousand copies as small).

When you're dealing with the traditional distribution chain, you really need to be able to produce the book for about 20% of the cover cost. If you can't, you need to seriously think about other methods of production or distribution. You can do direct mail from your website or maybe work something out with a place like the Wizard's Attic. Both of those are likely to reduce your overall exposure, though. Going pdf is another option, but pdf sales, no matter how good, just aren't even close to what a print product can manage.

 

[jgbrowning]

As you may know, Blue Devil Games is forging ahead with our first print publication, Dawning Star.

The parameters of the book are: 256 pages, hardcover, full-color cover and interior. I'm expecting to price it at $35-40, but let's say $40 for the sake of this discussion. I'm currently planning on a print-run of 1000.

The current math of it, as I understand it, is that the books get "sold" to the distributors at a 60% discount, netting 40%, $16. There are several fulfillment houses out there, charging various rates, but let's average that out to 20% of net sales again for the sake of discussion. That leaves 20% of the cover price to cover costs, i.e., $8.

Generally, fulfillment houses take their cut after the distributors take theres. So it's really only 20% of 40%, so your cut is more like 30% of MSRP.

Is it possible to publish and distribute a book without using a fulfillment house? If so, how?

Yes. Put out a very good and physically attractive book. It also must be sellable, and by that I mean only that distributors have to think that retailers will be willing to take a chance on it. That may have nothing to do with the quality of the book. But I advise you to not go to print without having distribution (or fulfillment) lined up. The market is very closed now, even in comparision to how closed it was a year ago (when we got in).

I think your biggest problem is going to be price per piece for production. When you're dealing with a web-fed printing set-up (which I assume you are for a book this size) a huge part of your costs are incurred in the first 1000 or so copies you make.

If you ask your printer, you'll probably find the cost for the second 1000 books is significantly less than your first 1000. Of course, then you still have another thousand books to move. It's just really hard to make all the numbers work out when you're dealing with that small of a print run (I know it sounds odd to think of a thousand copies as small).

Also, the break-even point has increased with printing 2000. The potential profit increases, but if that profit is not realized and sales would have been the same (and covered by a 1000 print run) the publisher has lost money and has to warehouse the extra 1000 books.

When you're dealing with the traditional distribution chain, you really need to be able to produce the book for about 20% of the cover cost. If you can't, you need to seriously think about other methods of production or distribution. You can do direct mail from your website or maybe work something out with a place like the Wizard's Attic. Both of those are likely to reduce your overall exposure, though. Going pdf is another option, but pdf sales, no matter how good, just aren't even close to what a print product can manage.

I don't do a book unless I can get my production costs under 15% of MSRP. I really prefer 10%, but we often write our own material, so our expenses are less.

joe b.

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

No a wet blanket at all. In fact, I was already aware of the problem associated with a high-cost, low-print-run product.

When you're dealing with the traditional distribution chain, you really need to be able to produce the book for about 20% of the cover cost.

I'm curious where you're getting this figure. Do others agree with this benchmark?

I can see where that might be true if using a fulfillment house. My question is, can I do a traditional print-run through traditional distribution methods without using a fulfillment house? How does one go about actually accomplishing distribution without using one?

Thanks.

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Thanks for the feedback, Joe; you jumped in while I was typing my response.

But I advise you to not go to print without having distribution (or fulfillment) lined up.

Okay, how do I "line up" distribution? Contact distributors directly? Who do I contact? What do I send them?

The market is very closed now, even in comparision to how closed it was a year ago (when we got in).

I've heard this elsewhere. Is attempting distribution without using a fulfillment house a pipe-dream? (Particularly if it's your first print product like mine.)

 

[D_Sinclair]

I've heard this elsewhere. Is attempting distribution without using a fulfillment house a pipe-dream? (Particularly if it's your first print product like mine.)

No, it isn't a pipe dream. However, you have to approach it properly. Alternate Realities Publications is getting ready to enter the distribution chain for a second time. The first time was back in the 90's, prior to the chain of mergers that eventually turned Chessex into a subsidiary of Diamond Comics. The company got dropped as a vendor due to poor timing, being picked up as a vendor just a couple months prior to the start of the mergers and never really having the opportunity to show the company was worth distributor support. As "closed" as folks think the distribution tier is now, getting a new company into distribution has been a tough sell since as far back as 1991, which is when the bubble really burst (MtG's intro in 1995 and TSR's collapse in 98 were really just accelerants; distributors started dropping off the face of the earth in 1991, particularly up in Canada)

Anyway, the first thing you need to do is be able to prove you're not a one-hit wonder. This means you have to have several products ready for print, or better yet, several products IN print.

Second, you need to approach selling yourself to the distributors in a miserly fashion. Sure, you could blow $50 or $100 easily on each distributor you intend to court, but there's no sense in doing so if they've got no interest in you. So we've put together a nice little sales program of our own with the help of our local postal distro center's small business adviser.

First, we're starting out with a post card advertisement. The biggest post card the USPS allows, in full color, advertising one of our books. Costs about 50 cents when all is said and done. If the splashy post card generates any interest, it provides plenty of means for the distributor to contact us via postal, phone, or email means.

The next step is the news letter. Publish it quarterly, and send it to all the distributor buyers, whether they're doing business with you or not. Give out company news, note scheduling issues (sales rep on vacation week X of Month Y type stuff, as well as convention appearances), promote your existing products, and preview upcoming stuff. Offer free subscriptions for the distributor sales staff. Digest sized, saddle stapled, use some color, and print out copies individually, rather than photocopying it, so it looks professional. These will probably cost you $1 to $1.50 per copy to produce, assemble, and mail.

Third step is the promo package. You'll need to create one big introductory promo package which covers your entire range of products. This will be the initial promo package sent to a distributor's buyer. You'll also need to develop promo packages for each individual product. build it out of a one-sheet advertisement of the product, press releases regarding it, copies of reviews, interviews with the development staff, and ashcan photocopies of a chapter or two of the book. Promo packages are only sent when the buyers ask for them. These are where you start really spending advertising dollars, costing $2.50 to $4.50 per copy for each product represented in the package.

The final tier is the sample. This is why each and every publisher should have a POD account somewhere. When the book is ready to print, get a stack of them done via POD; one copy for each buyer you deal with, plus a few extras to cover comp copies, reviewer copies or whatever. A finished copy of the product should help improve the size of the initial preorders distributors place in comparison to just going as far as the promo packages.

POD is good for something else; it makes smaller products more viable on a ridiculously small print run scale. Create some 16-32 page adventures to support Dawning Star, POD them up, and add them to the catalog of products immediately available in support of your first main product. They're there, it makes you look more serious about the business, provides the consumers a nice illusion of good support, and if you only manage to put 50 or 100 copies of each adventure into the the distribution chain, you won't find yourself sitting on hundreds and hundreds of copies you can't move. Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of publishers inadvertently end up with a pair of blinders on and ditched adventure support entirely, rather than looking at alternative production schemes that would make the low sales levels viable.

 

[Cergorach]

Wow! That was extremely useful, thanks david.

 

[malladin]

You might want to look into Mystic Eye's Cover-2-Cover program. I think you might find it a bit cheaper, plus it comes with distribution if your products are up to scratch (correct me if I'm wrong, Doug/Hal).


Ben

 

[Ed Cha]

Getting 40% of the cover price and then giving out an agent's fee and then paying all the costs associated with printing, artwork, shipping, storage, etc does not work for small print runs. The first few hundred copies are the easiest to sell. Why sell them to the distribution network when you can sell them direct? That's the new business model for the small publisher.

 

[tensen]

We've been contacting distributors directly for the past few months. My experience. Of the ones that gave me a detailed responce. My highest priority one notified us that they wouldn't even look at our products without fufillment, and then gave a recommended list of who to contact for fufillment. (This after they were aware that we already have 3 print products.) I waited for three products, because that was the number I heard from two other distributors.

Mind you. We have done pretty well selling directly to stores without distribution. But that takes a lot of time and effort. For me. I've decided that I'd rather pay for the service of a fufillment house, and keep that time and effort for developing of new products.