Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="JohnNephew" data-source="post: 588263" data-attributes="member: 2171">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 <a href="http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/index.asp" target="_blank">http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/index.asp</a> 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!</blockquote>

Verification