logic of low POD sales?

[jmucchiello]

From what I can tell, the general concensus seems to be that POD products don't sell spectacularly well. But it seems counter intuitive at first glance (at least to me).

While this has created a nice discussion about why POD is problematic for the publisher, let's turn this around and ask you to answer your own question: How many PODs have you bought? Why or why not?

Perhaps a poll on why people don't buy the POD of popular PDFs is in order.

I'm guessing money is the primary factor but a close second is the same problem PDFs have-- you cannot examine the POD before purchase to determine if it is really worthwhile.

 

[marketingman]

I must confess that my monthly gaming expenses are the same for myself now as when I owned a store. KODT(3.99),Dungeon(6.99),Dragon(5.99), so total $17 amonth.

I guess the question is why has a former store owner I did not carry POD material?

I happen to be alittle closer into the print buying side of the business So I am wondering in this age of instant communication you can not control print quality with faxes e-mails digital pitcures. I guess it really comes down to virtual team management.

35K for a start up is not a bad price. I still remember the days of cranking out the gaming zine via templates and mimograph machines. And then moving up to Photocopying boy were we hot back in 1982.

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Actually, the question would be "how long ago did you own your store"? After all, you may have owned it in a period predating POD. Then again, even today, POD isn't common to begin with, and it certainly wouldn't be used by any mainstream publishers (though it would be nice if SJG POD'ed their OOP GURPS sourcebooks!), so odds are there wasn't any interest in any of the products.

Only POD books I can think of that would have generated any significant interest were the Talislantia books about 5 years ago, and to be honest, I'm not even sure IF those made it to the POD process...

And while $35K for a single POD press may not seem like a lot, it is a significantly higher cost than offset presses. A decent used 4-color offset press capable of printing a 32 page booklet can be had for as little as $1500 (@ $8K new). Add a bindery unit for @ $2K and a trim unit for $1K, and you're ready to roll for under $5K the traditional way. Used POD systems will still cost close to the MSRP for new.

Of course, POD can go low-tech; $200 for a PII or PIII system, $1K for a high speed black laserprinter, $1K for a color laser printer, and $5k for a low end, mediocre perfect bindery system, for a total of under $7500. But going that way, you wouldn't even manage 100 books a day with such a system.

I'm starting to think I've done way too much research on POD over the last decade...

 

[madelf]

While this has created a nice discussion about why POD is problematic for the publisher, let's turn this around and ask you to answer your own question: How many PODs have you bought? Why or why not?

A fair question. The answer is... one.
The reason is... it was mine.
I haven't purchased any others at all (though I've been looking longingly at Sidewinder Recoiled).

But I'm really not a good sample of the consumer side of things. I've only bought three PDFs total (and they were not available as POD or I would have bought them as such). I haven't gone to a brick & mortar store and purchased a game book since D&D3 came out (and I regretted that purchase). Honestly I just don't spend much on game books at all.

Fortunately there are others who do, and those are the ones who's heads I want to get inside.


But, looking at my own position and thought process, I can reliably say that I know what my buying patterns would be if I felt I had the cash to spare on game products (and did enough actual play to make the spending worthwhile).

I would buy very, very few PDFs. The only products I would buy in PDF form are those that are not available in POD, or are of a nature that they would be more (or just as) convenient in PDF, such as short adventures that I could print out piecemeal and mark up, or possibly gm tools like NPC collections or something that might be handy to be able to break up. Any cohesive "game book", I would buy in POD over PDF in every single case. Any book of significant length (anything over 50 or so pages) would be very rare for me to buy in PDF even if it were the only way it was available, it would have to be an absolute "must own" game. In most cases I would simply buy a different game that I could get in an actual book form.

Now, whether the book is POD or standard print would make little difference to me. I have to drive over a half hour to get to the nearest bookstore that carries WotC and White Wolf products. I have to drive about an hour and a half to get to anything resembling a respectable game store, and even that has very limited selection. Generally the games I would be interested in (and in actuality, the vast majority of rpgs made) will never get anywhere near where I could walk into a store and look at them. (And this is a common complaint, so I know I'm not alone. Many people have difficulty finding a decent selection of games in stores) So I would be buying games from the internet anyway. Whether the book is on a shelf waiting to be shipped, or in a computer file waiting to be printed, would make no difference to me.

As far as publishing... at the point I'm at, I can't see going into the three-tier distribution system to (hopefully)break even on a standard print run. And you can't really do much better than that without a huge marketing budget. But I've built and promoted a website before. I know how to generate traffic, and I think I can get at least as many people's attention by marketing a game for internet and mail-order sales as I could get to try and order through retail stores. Given that model, POD is nearly perfect. It solves many problems and doesn't seem to have many drawbacks.

This is why I'm wondering how come it isn't used more often. Is there an actual reason it is not successful, or has it just not yet come into its own?

 

[madelf]

And while $35K for a single POD press may not seem like a lot, it is a significantly higher cost than offset presses. A decent used 4-color offset press capable of printing a 32 page booklet can be had for as little as $1500 (@ $8K new). Add a bindery unit for @ $2K and a trim unit for $1K, and you're ready to roll for under $5K the traditional way. Used POD systems will still cost close to the MSRP for new.

Of course, POD can go low-tech; $200 for a PII or PIII system, $1K for a high speed black laserprinter, $1K for a color laser printer, and $5k for a low end, mediocre perfect bindery system, for a total of under $7500. But going that way, you wouldn't even manage 100 books a day with such a system.

I'm starting to think I've done way too much research on POD over the last decade...

$5000 for a complete set-up to start printing books?
Crap!
I want one.

C'mon. There's got to be a hell of a lot more to getting ready to roll than that or everybody and their brother would be doing their own printing. What's the punchline?

 

[marketingman]

Well the guys whose printshop I hung around would drop 125k onattachments for their 4 color (please forgive) Hiedleburg.. My wife and I shut down our store and retired last July 7th, I fed the duck and water colored the bridge, then I charcoled the bride and fed the ducks, I then pasteled the brifge and fed the ducks, Then when the day came that I thought about physically watercoloring the ducks I got the computer.

Madelf it could be that cheap and that simple. we bought a working piza shop for $500 and a case of Budlite.

So the startup cost of 17.5k would give you a lot of breathing room for extras and an place to work from other then home.. so if we can find 5000 people to invest one dollar eaxch we could get the bulk of the capital equipment.

Never be ashamded of knowing your craft. I learned a lot more from my Grandfather selling scrap iron and pigs in the Ohio valley then I did in business school.

Why have not the Gaming Professional Organization step up Like Gama and the GPA or are they more interested in dues then delivering service.?

 

[Dana_Jorgensen]

Well the guys whose printshop I hung around would drop 125k onattachments for their 4 color (please forgive) Hiedleburg..

There's no suprise in that, but then again, why drive a brand new Cadillac when a old honda civic will get you there just the same. Heidelberg presses are the Cadillacs of the printing industry.

Why have not the Gaming Professional Organization step up Like Gama and the GPA or are they more interested in dues then delivering service.?

Pecause there's no reliable trade organization. GAMA, along with pricing itself and its service out of the reach of 90% of the game manufacturers, it is too closely tied to the publisher of Games Quarterly Catalog, MsM. How closely tied, you asked? GAMA seems to be basically sponsoring a new magazine by MSM that will mysteriously draw thousands of new gamers into our little hobby by being distributed exclusively to gaming retailers. How on earth that's supposed to work has yet to be explained sufficiently to me. The distribution model just doesn't justify $2,000 ads placed in the magazine, IMO. Did I mention that every time someone quits MsM, they seem to do so to join the GAMA staff, and when someone quits tha GAMA staff, it always seems to be followed by them joining MSM? Anyway, there is a vast and ever-growing conflict of interest between GAMA and MSM, with only one person really profitting from it, and I have no doubt that it is going to end up rotting GAMA out down to its core.

As for the GPA, I was a member long ago. The organization is filled with politicking, operates on little more than a buddy system, and is basically all talk and no action. Plenty of bright ideas, but no one willing to follow through with efforts or finances. I got a laugh when they jacked up the membership rates years ago because aside from bank fees and web hosting, the organization wasn't doing a damned thing that should have been draining the coffers. In fact, since I was a member, the organization has not only shrunk, but only a few of the over 100 members back then are still members now. And most of those few remaining members are still GPA staffers on one level or another, probably the only thing really keeping them there.

IMO, save your money for the next project you do, rather than wasting it on GPA or GAMA memberships.

 

[trancejeremy]

I think part of the trouble is, most people who order online do so because of a discount. Sure, POD books aren't priced higher than normal books, but on normal books, you generally get a 20%+ discount. Used books on ebay are even cheaper.

 

[marketingman]

Dana,
Thanks for alot of useful data and Iam sorry to hear that the so called professional organization are as ineffective has they were in the 1980's.
But you have ID a possbile new market for POD service section and given me fond memories of ink under my nails.

So we have IDed the following has possible causes.

1) Lack of quality control on the part of the printer. Publisher does not see final product before consumer and on later print runs.
2) Cost of small print runs lead to problems with distrubtion there by agrivating #1
3) POD items are given bad impressions by the above two so they sell because they sell small people feel they are vanity projects and not worth the time.
4) the price that publishers are force to charge to hit a break even thresh hold is to high for entry level products there by snowballing down the slope with1,2,3,
5) any one with the computer can produce POD's thereby flooding said market with yet more fecal matter to cover over the true diamonds.So the continues into the abyss of dispair.
6) Can not compete with the big print buyers because they are selling books at discount there by leading evryone to believe PODs are lacking in quality.
( I know this was one of the reason that lead me to retire, my margins shrinking to the point of not wanting to sell games anymore. I found a spot on the Internet that was selling the new 3.5 Players handbook presell at 51% discount. even direct from izards the discount was at 47.5%)
Thids has been very incitful and given me several wonderful ideas.
Dana wwould you like to be interviewed for the Silven Trumpeter?
Joe I would also like to interview you?

 

[madelf]

Madelf it could be that cheap and that simple. we bought a working piza shop for $500 and a case of Budlite.

So the startup cost of 17.5k would give you a lot of breathing room for extras and an place to work from other then home.. so if we can find 5000 people to invest one dollar eaxch we could get the bulk of the capital equipment.

I'm going to have to look into this.
I've got several thousand square feet of building out behind my house that wouldn't take much to patch up and wire. If I could get the equipment for $5000, that's very nearly viable (depending on costs for set-up and supplies). That could pay for itself so fast...
I'm going to have to seriously look into this.