hardback vs. softback cover retail pricing

[Sac2:Electric Bugaloo]

I've been looking around, but it seems that the pricing is all across the board. From what I can gather, let's say a 200 page book would typically have a retail price of:

softback: $19.95
hardcover: $24.99


But I've seen price ranges go from:

SB: $14.95-$24.95
HC: $19.95-$35.95

For the sake of this scenario, the quality among the sample size is equitable.

So I thought I'd ask the knowledge pool.

For a 200 page book, with quality equitable to what's in the bookshelves now for b/w interior art, what would you suggest as a retail price?

For full color interior art?

[daMoose_Neo]

Full-color, hard cover Wizards products run that $30-$35 mark. The thing to know about *that* is that Wizards prints by the thousands; you're likely to print in the hundreds. You need to factor that in, because that means your cost for the production is going to be that much higher. You also need to consider your channels of sale when setting said price; you want to recoup print costs, make something to recoup development costs, and maybe a bit more. Distribution, then, takes 60%+ straight off the top of that; I as a retailer pay $18 for a $30 WOTC product as noted above. The retailer probably pays $12 to $15, depending on their rates. Short run titles run, according to bad math on Lulu.com (which is over priced anyway) $18 per unit, 500 unit run, 200 pages, BW interior, hardcover. So, yea. Profitability in short run is very slight.

A well produced, short run book, B&W interior, through a good small press shop could easily go $20-25 SRP and still sell through distribution at a profit. ($3-$5 production cost, $8~ you're paid wholesale).

Recommendation: Sell the softcover basic edition to get folks in, and for sale through distribution if that's an avenue you want. Then, through your own site, offer a hardcover "Collector's Edition". If the paperback sells at $20, and you throw some nice stuff into the CE, you can probably mark it at $35 for the hardcover with bonuses and still make $10~ per unit.

[Sac2:Electric Bugaloo]

Originally Posted by daMoose_Neo

Recommendation: Sell the softcover basic edition to get folks in, and for sale through distribution if that's an avenue you want. Then, through your own site, offer a hardcover "Collector's Edition". If the paperback sells at $20, and you throw some nice stuff into the CE, you can probably mark it at $35 for the hardcover with bonuses and still make $10~ per unit.

This was actually my plan. For a limited edition, the differences would be:

-hardcover
-numbered and signed
-about 40 pages of extra content.

I was planning on pricing the soft cover at $19.95 and the LE hardcover at $29.95. Honestly, I'm not all that focused on profit (yeah, bad business model, I know). I'm more focused on distribution with recovering development costs as the secondary goal. I have a full time job I live off of, so this is more of a hobby. I can hear the groans already, so let me clarify that even though this is a (full time) hobby, I have not skimped with crappy material. The project I'm working on right now I have spent over $2000 on artwork alone from excellent artists like Eric Lofgren, Colin Throm, Grey Thornberry, Jeremy McHugh, and John Moriarty to name a few. I have treated other areas (layout, playtesting, etc) with the same devotion. Even though it's a hobby, I am very serious about the quality of a product that people will pay for.

I have experience with Lulu, and have been pleased with quality. But as you mention, per unit costs are fairly high. For a print run of 100-150 books, would you recommend an alternative?

Also, as a related question, how would you go approaching a B&M retailer? I know shelf space is limited, and with basic retailer discounts, I would actually lose a little money. For example, if it costs me $16 for a H/C that retails for $25, I'm thinking I'd be lucky to get the owner to pay $15 for it. For a softcover that costs me $10 and retails for $20, I might get my costs out of it.

Ideas? Initially I was thinking about giving the retailer 2 H/C copies to be included in some sort of prize package or raffle, and use the softcover (and additional supplements/expansions) to be stocked. As a retailer, would you entertain this offer, or think it's a bad idea?

[daMoose_Neo]

Well, I'm incredibly grateful to Ron Edwards over at the Forge for one very important bit of advice: play sells. Its a concept I took to heart for my store, and its what generates me the most money as a retailer and as a publisher. A large portion of my space is dedicated to open game tables, and I seat 20+ people for FNM events in a very small store.
As a retailer, I won't take something in on a pitch or on a whim; I gotta see it play, and see people playing, and liking it. I'd hit up area B&M stores who have game space, introduce yourself as a publisher, hook them up with a copy of the game "for their use, as they see fit" (suggest as a prize, maybe they'd like to run it themselves, etc), and ask if you can organize and run some demo events in the store. I had AMAZING luck with that; got a local RC shop years ago to carry my stuff and let me run games, it was great, sold through about 40 units in a month. But, he was also interested in seeing people play, unlike the two hobby stores in the area that just wanted to sell: they took the product in, but shelved it and almost never let me run anything at the store. They expected it to fly off the shelves without any work or commitment. In fact, the only time one of them sold *any* was when an article ran in the local paper about me, the game, and a game day I ran at the RC shop. Someone had seen the article, saw the game on their shelf, asked if "that was the game in the paper", and bought it.

So, advice: go local, make a spectacle out of it, make yourself a FLGS's best friend. Run small demos, combat scenarios, magic duels, whatever shows off the system in like 10 minutes, have extra material available for when they go "Hey, that was fun!" and run full-length adventures from there. Hit up college groups as well, if you have access. Last night, I had the local college gaming club playtesting an into adventure for my new campaign setting, happy to do it. From there, start looking at distro if you can afford it.
As for the retailers and sales, see if they do consignment. As I'm not having to invest directly in something, I'm more apt to take a little on a consignment product, as opposed to something I have to put money into right away and *hope* to recoup, at which point I hope to pick it up on the cheap.

As to production, I'd say order off your HC books as you need them only. You're paying more per-unit, but less likely to sell as many as well. If you put it up on your site for $30 direct through Lulu, the "cost" of the book is like $20 from what the calculator says. You pocket that $10 without actually having to expend anything. Softcover, shop around. Guild of Blades has a good track record, Ryan's been in the independent side of things as a publisher for ages it seems and might have extra advice for you. Find a decent place you can order 20-200 per batch as you need them instead of having to order several hundred at once.

[Tim Gray]

If you look at Mongoose as an example, and it knows a thing or two about shifting books, I think you'll find that one of its standards is a 256-page Letter-size hardback at $40. You might be underpricing. With colour hardbacks you might also be setting yourself up for a lot of money tied up in stock.

What you might want to consider is printing a small number of black and white softbacks and providing them to select people at cost or free to get some buzz going. Have some print run options lined up but don't press go until you see what the buzz does.

Don't do a main run through Lulu. Having said that, not all short-run printers can manage Letter-size hardbacks.

[daMoose_Neo]

Originally Posted by Tim Gray

Don't do a main run through Lulu. Having said that, not all short-run printers can manage Letter-size hardbacks.

Seconded. Lulu is good for literal print-on-demand, so those one-off copies for special occasions are great through them, but any kind of run, consult a short-run press.

[Guildofblades]

>>Also, as a related question, how would you go approaching a B&M retailer? I know shelf space is limited, and with basic retailer discounts, I would actually lose a little money. For example, if it costs me $16 for a H/C that retails for $25, I'm thinking I'd be lucky to get the owner to pay $15 for it.<<

You wouldn't. Paying $15 for that book would be only a 40% discount.

Any retailers turning much in the way of sales will be getting a 48-50% discount from their distributors on most things they sell. A bit less for WOTC products and a few others, but don't think that just any company can get away with pricing like that. As a retailer I only stock what I can get at full discount unless its a product line that can largely sell itself (ala, Magic the Gathering, D&D) or unless it can justify a higher price.

A hardcover at the size you are suggesting is vastly underpriced in todays maket at $25 or even $30. I would not expect any retailer to subsidize your effort by buying and selling your game at a reduced margin. You might find about 2 stores that will maybe do that.

I would suggest that you either raise your price, print enough so that you can lower your per unit print price or give up on selling the game through retailers and sell direct to the public instead.

Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.gobretail.com
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com

[Sac2:Electric Bugaloo]

Hmmm, I think for perfectbound, I'm going to go with Createspace. No hardback option, so I can stick with one-off orders to Lulu for those. What costs me $7 per book for Lulu for perfect bound, costs me $4.58 with Createspace, $2.69 if I pay the $39 pro fee (good for a year). So if the book retails for $19.95, I can still get a little profit if the FLGS pays $8 for them*.

I know Lulu has a lot more web app tools, but I have Creative Suite, so creating the docs in INDesign isn't an issue.

Has anyone had any experiences with Createspace?



*175 page perfect bound core rulebook

[Jeremy Keller]

Originally Posted by Sac2:Electric Bugaloo

Has anyone had any experiences with Createspace?

Yes. From another thread:

Originally Posted by Jeremy Keller

I use CreateSpace to print Chronica Feudalis. Ultimately everything has worked out, but NicodemisQuick's description of them being "hit or miss" is exactly how I would describe them as well.

The pros are that they are easy to use, fully automated, and have very fast turn-around times (especially when it comes to printing proofs and small orders). Larger orders (my largest one so far has been 75) take a few days. I think that's still faster than you'll find with most POD printers.

The con is that their customer service is absolutely horrible! It takes a minimum of three days just to get a CS rep to respond to a query. And if they make a mistake on their end, they don't seem to be likely to own up to it or want to do anything about it. You're better of just trying to resubmit your files again and cross your fingers that they do it right the next time.

Point in fact, after submitting my cover art, they told me I had submitted them 150dpi artwork instead of 300dpi. I knew the file was 300dpi so I asked them to fix the problem on their end. But they kept insisting my file was 150dpi. So after a couple weeks of going back and forth, I just sent them the exact same file. The next proof came printed sharply at 300dpi. But they still wouldn't admit to any problem on their end.

But it does seem that once you get a proof you like, the quality very consistently matches that proof. So once you get the setup of the files worked out and a proof you're happy with, you're good to go.