Print Runs & Profit Margins - An Open Question

[Frilf]

I have a question or two for the print-based (as opposed to PDF-based) d20 publishers out there.

First,
What are the general production costs for going to print? (Assume color cover, soft cover, perfect bound, 8.5" x 11" pages, B&W interior @ 32, 48, 64, 96, or 128 pages). Also, are there any other sneaky "hidden" costs would be good to know about? (I know about the ISBN thing, but don't know where to acquire the numbers - help there would be good, too!)

Also,
What kind of margins (per unit) are typically used and what kind of sales figures (overall) can be *realistically* expected for a) modules, b) sourcebooks, c) gazetteers, and d) campaign source materials? (Assuming a decent distributor carries the merch).

I ask these things not only for myself, but for other PDF publishers out there who are thinking about jumping into the print market. Thanks in advance for your time and assistance.

Ian
@ Silverthorne Games

 

[rpghost]

What are the general production costs for going to print? (Assume color cover, soft cover, perfect bound, 8.5" x 11" pages, B&W interior @ 32, 48, 64, 96, or 128 pages). Also, are there any other sneaky "hidden" costs would be good to know about? (I know about the ISBN thing, but don't know where to acquire the numbers - help there would be good, too!)

Too much to cover here... which is why we plan to produce a book on subject of "offset printing and distribution" ... Anyway, I'd suggest you joing the GPA as they have a tool to allow you to submit to many printers to get a quote. These cost are all based on how many copies you want to make. A big mistake everyone does is over print. You should be careful about that. Swollow your ego and think business. ANyway, a good size might be 1000 copies and the costs can range from $1000-3000 for that page size range... way to vauge to answer you.

As for hidden costs- many people forget about shipping of these books to a warehouse. Alliance and other big distributors are NOT going to take your books and store them - you should talk to Impressions or Ossuem or Wizards Attic or someone - but you have to ship to them. That could be $100-500 based on the weight of all the books.

You don't need an ISBN unless you're planing to enter into the traditional book market or places like Barns & Nobels... So don't bother. They are about $275 for a block of 10 I think.

What kind of margins (per unit) are typically used and what kind of sales figures (overall) can be *realistically* expected for a) modules, b) sourcebooks, c) gazetteers, and d) campaign source materials? (Assuming a decent distributor carries the merch).

You're going to be handing over 60% of your retail price to the distributors and ship owners. So you're working off a base 40% at the most. Realistic sales figures would have to know if this is d20 or not and what kind of books. But if you're self-publishing and no one knows you you'll be lucky to sell 500 I think. Just my opinion from what I've seen in this saturated market. Source books sell much more then modules. Campaign source books are not that popular unless it can easily be chopped up for insertion into other campaigns or is marketed really well.

Of course you're going to get a lot of answers. I'm just giving you my rough off the cuff call on this. I do welcome others who are in the "real market" to speak up. John Nephew has posted some really good threads over at http://www.rpg.net about actual numbers for one of his recent (non-d20) releases... Check it out (don't have the link off hand, was a couple months ago).

Also he posted a worksheet to the d20weekly.com site:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25755

James

 

[JohnNephew]

James has a lot of good info there. The basic point is that there are many different possible configurations, and it's hard to generalize any numbers or equations. Different printers will give you very different quotes on identical jobs. Heck, different printers will give different customers different quotes on identical jobs, depending on what they perceive as your credit risk, how badly they want your business, if they know they're competing with other printers for your business (and that their past estimates were too high), etc. I typically solicit quotes from 4 or 5 different printers, and then go with the one best suited to the job (which usually means "least expensive in total cost of printing and shipping").

Overprinting is something to worry about. One reason it's easy to overprint is that the difference in cost between printing 1000 and 2000 may be relatively small. (On small print runs, most of the cost is set-up.) This drives down your per-unit cost (increasing your profit margin)-- or actually costs you more in the long run if you wind up spending money on freight, storage, and ultimately disposal costs. Of course, if you only print 1000 copies, you may run the risk of having to sell out your print run just in order to break even, if you don't watch costs closely.

One point I will disagree with James about is the ISBN question. I would advise any print publishers to get an ISBN prefix, and use EAN/Bookland bar codes. Yes, it's an expensive investment relative to the budget of, say, a single 32 page adventure. (Then again, if you just want to publish a single 32 page adventure, maybe going print isn't a good idea. A lot of 32-page D20 books are going to wind up in recycling centers and landfill in the coming year, as retailers, distributors, and manufacturers destroy inventory that they realize they will just never sell.) However, having that ISBN and barcode on your book opens doors. It makes it easier for game retailers with electronic Point of Sale scanning systems to sell your products (meaning it's more likely they'll carry them, or reorder them). It makes it easier for book trade accounts to pick up your line, if they choose to at some point; otherwise you'll be scrambling to get a prefix and custom-printed labels if you find yourself answering a phone call from an interested buyer at Waldenbooks or something. Finally, a potentially valuable sales venue for the small publisher is Amazon.com's Advantage program (htpp://www.amazon.com/advantage) -- essentially a consignment program. Anything entered in the program must have the ISBN and EAN/Bookland barcode.

In the USA, a company called R. R. Bowker assigns ISBNs. In other countries there are other agencies. (I think some countries assign them for free, to encourage local publishing.) Visit http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/index.asp for more information. ISBNs are purchased/assigned in blocks of 10, 100, 1000, etc. You get a prefix; our first prefix was 1-887801. It was a block of 100; the next numbers of the ISBN were two digits and then a checksum digit (calculated from the other numbers, to verify that the number was entered or scanned correctly). So for example, our game Once Upon A Time is 1-887801-00-6. The last ISBN in that sequence was 1-887801-99-5 -- the D20 hardcover Touched by the Gods. We had to buy a new prefix then, and this time we spent about 50% more money to buy a batch of 1000 numbers instead of 100. This prefix, leaving room for three digits, is 1-58978 (e.g., Occult Lore is 1-58978-021-3).

I hope this helps!

 

[MEG Hal]

I ask these things not only for myself, but for other PDF publishers out there who are thinking about jumping into the print market. Thanks in advance for your time and assistance.

Ian
@ Silverthorne Games

MEG is working on something that may be a big help in this area, e-mail Doug at info@mysticeyegames.com and he can discuss this with you before we go more public. Put in the header "Advice on going to print". This goes for anyone with the same issues, e-mail him until we have time to post something of a more official capacity.