Hi all,
Ok so I was content to get Hearts in Glorantha issue one out via Lulu.com last August. It sold moderately well to the immediate target audience, Gloranthaphiles, who were exposed to it either at Continuum or via the World of Glorantha list on yahoo lists. I've been using my store front to make sales, and after an initial rush things have slowed down considerably. I also made a couple of sales at Furnace and sold half a dozen to Patriot Games.
I'm about to launch the winter issue, which is a much more mature and polished effort, mainly because I've learnt more about desk top publishing since issue 1. Also SimpleQuest (my take on RuneQuest, using the MRQ SRD as a base) is coming to an end, and Monkey is finally moving along for a Spring 2009 release. So things are about to get busy on the D101 front.
Tim's already suggested approaching IPR for Monkey and possibly HiG as well. For pdf I'm getting sorted with One Book Shelf and possibly doing direct sales via my own website. What other retail outlets should I approach? Bear in mind that I've got no space at Castle Von Newport to store stock except on a very temporary basis, i.e. books arrive from printers and then get sent on almost immeadiatly. Also I've a small stash of money, from initial sales but the whole reason I went with Lulu in the first place is that it requires almost zero investment to get started.
Please fearless veterans of the Collective, help this small publisher move outside the comfort zone of Lulu.com.
Well
Submitted by Gregor Hutton on Wed, 17/12/2008 - 13:53.
My answer would be that it might be in your best interest to stay with Lulu.
Look at your sales numbers and sales profile. If you are selling 50-100 in the first month - say at cons and through a very high uptake of orders/preorders - then you could do an appropriately sized run through a digital printer. Then perhaps fulfil slower tail sales through Lulu.
Factor in IPR or games shops if, and only if, they have said they'll take them. Ask before you print.
A couple of points to bear in mind...
The pound is no longer strong against the dollar, and most digital printers are in the US.
Transatlantic shipping is not cheap.
Someone has to hold any stock you don't sell immediately.
The upfront cost is not small but you can minimize this risk if you have a good idea of how many you can sell quickly.
So, I can't tell you exactly what to do. Do your likely sales justify a print run of 50-100? Get quotes and compare them to Lulu.
Alternatives
Submitted by Tim Gray on Wed, 17/12/2008 - 19:00.
Several CE folks have had good experiences with Fidlar Doubleday in the States. Fred Hicks has a lot of good things to say about Lightning Source (which IIRC has a UK branch). There are others, but those are the ones that stand out to me as having recommendations from trusted sources.
I'm going to be in a similar position with Jaws: stay with Lulu or go elsewhere? The answer for me is to suss out the pricing at Lulu - which you can only be 100% sure of by uploading the product and putting a given quantity in your cart - and see whether the difference between that and other places is worth the extra hassle. For instance, Fidlar is slightly cheaper for 50 copies of Jaws, but not enough to be worth the extra effort - but if I were going for 200 the difference is much bigger.
(Oh, I'd check out the Lulu prices for different formats before choosing what size to make a new book. And the US and UK pricing schemes are quite different. E.g. I'd be very wary of doing a Letter format book now as it's expensive, at least in the UK.)
Quite a few retail outlets do buy through IPR. Leisure Games is one of them. That's great in terms of coverage, but you have to look very hard at the figures to make sure you're making a profit after the retail discount and IPR's cut(s). I've found that it can be quite hard to print at Lulu prices and sell at prices that make sense in the market, especially for smaller books. In hindsight, I wish some of my books had been done with a smaller format and more pages. (You can tell IPR not to make a product available to retail if you like.)
Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk