When your old books are starting at $100 (Wilderlands of High Fantasy 3.5e, City-State of the Invincible Overlord 3.5e, are two good examples, though there are tons of out-of-print products - usually the good ones - that are really expensive) each on Amazon, isn't it time for a reprint?
-
NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Why no reprints?
- Thread starter Morlock
- Start date
Not necessarily.
A print run is a major undertaking, and is by no means cheap. The market must be of a certain size before a company would even consider it.
A high price on the secondary market does not mean many people want the item. It merely means that those who want it want it pretty badly, and are willing to pay for it. There may only be a few of them, though, so that a new print run would be wasted.
A print run is a major undertaking, and is by no means cheap. The market must be of a certain size before a company would even consider it.
A high price on the secondary market does not mean many people want the item. It merely means that those who want it want it pretty badly, and are willing to pay for it. There may only be a few of them, though, so that a new print run would be wasted.
Imperialus
Explorer
That is the reprint
. The original City State sells for between three and four hundred.If you want the City State for cheaps, then you need to track down the Mayfair Games one from the mid 90's. Of course there is a reason that it's priced that way.
No. The fact that a few people are willing to pay a premium for something doesn't follow that a lot of people are willing to buy it for less.
There are good reasons to reprint stuff, but collectors prices on the secondary market aren't one of them. All they indicate is that there's a small number of passionate people.
Think of it like a Bond villain. Blofeld really wants a Faberge Egg. He pays $1,000,000,000 for it. This doesn't indicate that millions of people will also pay $1000 for one.
I get the collector thing. I also know I'm not a collector, and I'd buy either product for what they'd be priced at through, say, lulu, but not for what they're selling for. I read posts by people all the time where they recommend product x and everyone laments that product x is now out of their price range.
E.g., I just bought 6 of the original Dragonlance modules. 1 because I lost it, and 5 because my copies were looking their age. I got them all for pretty good prices, and they were in surprisingly good condition. I feel like this is how the used book market should work - you pay less than you would for something new, because, well, it's not new. And it seems to me that there's money to be made if this isn't how the market is working in a particular instance. It's not like anyone buying these nice but not pristine copies of old modules is really looking to invest.
E.g., I just bought 6 of the original Dragonlance modules. 1 because I lost it, and 5 because my copies were looking their age. I got them all for pretty good prices, and they were in surprisingly good condition. I feel like this is how the used book market should work - you pay less than you would for something new, because, well, it's not new. And it seems to me that there's money to be made if this isn't how the market is working in a particular instance. It's not like anyone buying these nice but not pristine copies of old modules is really looking to invest.
Last edited:
So, lemme get this straight. Used, dead tree copies of Wilderlands of High Fantasy for 3.5e start at $100 on Amazon. Judges Guild or Necromancer or whoever it is won't publish a reprint, for whatever reason. And a PDF version costs $48 on DriveThru. $48 for a PDF that costs literally nothing to reproduce, for an electronic version of a print product that it's no longer competing with, at all. Yeah, I'll be paying that. Not. I don't subsidize that sort of thing.
I take back my use of these products as examples, they are indicative of no trends whatsoever, only anecdotal stupidity.
I take back my use of these products as examples, they are indicative of no trends whatsoever, only anecdotal stupidity.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
Pretty sure the rights have reverted, since Goodman Games -- not Necromancer/Frog God -- is printing Judges Guild modules this coming summer. (Maybe not, though, since they previously published conversions for 3E as well -- maybe they've just sat on the rights for a looooong time.) And given that they Kickstart many of their works, I'm guessing they don't have the operating capital necessary to, say, just print off a bunch of copies of the Wilderlands, etc., on the hope that people will purchase it once it's available.
The good news, though, is that a Goodman Games/Judges Guild would seem likely, and they do a good job of adding extra value to products over the course of a campaign that way. (The recent Chained Coffin module ended up as a full setting complete with multiple modules in a single boxed set, for instance, to say nothing of the varying levels of cover art that came with the campaign.)
The good news, though, is that a Goodman Games/Judges Guild would seem likely, and they do a good job of adding extra value to products over the course of a campaign that way. (The recent Chained Coffin module ended up as a full setting complete with multiple modules in a single boxed set, for instance, to say nothing of the varying levels of cover art that came with the campaign.)
Voadam
Legend
Another alternative is for the print on demand service from places like rpgnow. Old books that are rare and out of print that could be printed individually without high print run costs for the publisher. They are generally higher priced than big print run versions but they are an option that gives a little money to the publisher for otherwise high priced secondary market only ones.
Olaf the Stout
Hero
Yeah, I'd say there are 2 main causes for things not being reprinted.
The first reason is that the publisher of the product no longer hold the rights to the product. I'm pretty sure that Necromancer Games/Frog God Games no longer own the rights to the Wilderlands and CSotIO. So it's likely that they legally can't reprint the books.
The second reason is upfront cost of the print run. The publisher would have to invest a large amount of money in a print run that may not sell through for many years (resulting in money being tied up in unsold books and warehouse rental). In addition, a second print run will normally be smaller than the initial print run. So economies of scale may mean that they have to charge a higher price for the book in order to turn a profit (even though they aren't paying the writing, layout and art costs for the second print run).
So it doesn't surprise me that many publishers just go with a PDF/POD option for their older books or, if demand seems strong enough, use something like Kickstarter to republish the book with more stuff.
Similar Threads
