Is there any chance of getting a PoD color option for 4e Gurps books

[xandarr2000]

I played a lot of GURPS 3E in the military but for many reasons I am late to the 4E GURPS party. I have however been buying a lot of the books as I can afford them (roughly 2-3 a month) locally first through brick and mortar stores. There are many however that they cannot get. The Amazon option only prints softcover and in greyscale. What can I say, I like the full-color look. I know if we purchase the PDF we can print one copy unless its an IP owned by companies other than SJ Games for personal use.

However, entities like LULU will generally charge upwards of $70-80 bucks for a 300+ color printed book. The net parasite son Amazon and the like will also falsely elevate the price far beyond the original cover price. It is a no win situation. Is there any way through DrivethruRPG SJ Games can work a deal for color PoD prints that come somewhere close price wise to the original $50.00 or so tag?

Another request would be for many of the Dungeon Fantasy, Thaumatology etc 30-70 page pdfs to be put into anthologies that could be printed out on demand. I want the information but absolutely despise reading it in PDF form. As a reviewer, I talk to a lot of gamers. The #1 biggest complaint I keep hearing about GURPS from the gamers out here in Colorado is "Love the system HATE the way they are putting it out there." It is too hard to collect it, and having to print it out via most print companies just to have a hardcopy looks pretty tacky next to the gorgeous original hardcovers.

Just some food for thought. Any input is appreciated.

[ericbsmith]

Disclaimer: I do not work for SJGames, so do not take anything I say as official.

Originally Posted by xandarr2000

However, entities like LULU will generally charge upwards of $70-80 bucks for a 300+ color printed book. The net parasite son Amazon and the like will also falsely elevate the price far beyond the original cover price. It is a no win situation. Is there any way through DrivethruRPG SJ Games can work a deal for color PoD prints that come somewhere close price wise to the original $50.00 or so tag?

I highly doubt that it would come in around the $50 price range. Printing one-off products are just kind of pricey, especially if you want a hardcover w/color on premium paper. Lulu can do ~240 pages for $57, ~340 pages for $75; that's a bit pricey, but you can oftentimes catch coupons. Their coupons haven't been as good the last couple years as they used to be, but they frequently offer 15% off or 10% off & free shipping (the free shipping is generally the better deal). That would knock the price down to ~$52 and ~$70.

Originally Posted by xandarr2000

Another request would be for many of the Dungeon Fantasy, Thaumatology etc 30-70 page pdfs to be put into anthologies that could be printed out on demand. I want the information but absolutely despise reading it in PDF form. As a reviewer, I talk to a lot of gamers. The #1 biggest complaint I keep hearing about GURPS from the gamers out here in Colorado is "Love the system HATE the way they are putting it out there." It is too hard to collect it, and having to print it out via most print companies just to have a hardcopy looks pretty tacky next to the gorgeous original hardcovers.

I do wish that SJGames offered many of their newer PDFs in print, however they have been extremely resistant to doing collections thus far, and currently seem more focused on making sure that the 3e books are available in PoD.

Fortunately, the cost for softcover B&W is fairly cheap on 60# paper and disgustingly low if you go with the cheaper 50# paper. I started laying out a print collection on Lulu for Pyramid in B&W, and on the 50# paper a 150-170 page book containing four issues costs between $3.50 and $4.00 each, which prices the entire run of 123 Pyramid Vol. 3 (including the two upcoming/final issues and the DF Compiled) with just under 4900 pages at a bit under $120. I recently had Lulu print me a copy of Magic, in which I included the Spell Prerequisite Charts and the alternate Prereq Count pages from Thaumatology which came out to about 300 pages for about $10 on the 60# paper; it would have cost $6 on the 50# paper.

As much as I like full color hardbound books it's hard to argue with that pricing for a softcover B&W book.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by xandarr2000

Is there any way through DrivethruRPG SJ Games can work a deal for color PoD prints that come somewhere close price wise to the original $50.00 or so tag?

Just some food for thought. Any input is appreciated.

As with eric, I also do not work for SJG. In my disguise as Gaming Ballistic, LLC, I have had cause to print using DriveThruRPG, CreateSpace, Publisher's Graphics.

The prices at DriveThruRPG are a matter of public record.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/pub_pod_cost.php

The characters book is 338 pages long, full color, and 8.5x11. That's $44 just for the print cost with no profit. Campaigns is 242 pages. That's $33.50. Granted, I selected Premium Color because I like good paper. You can chop that down $19 and $15 with "Standard Color Heavyweight," which is definitely standard color, but not remotely heavyweight. In short, quality printing costs about $75-80 cost, so you're not saving much there via DriveThru unless one were to offer them with non-premium production value.

I can say from personal experience I've moved away from DriveThru wherever I can do so; Lulu seems to have better quality but is even more expensive, and since I own my own files, I've started using Publisher's Graphics for my POD, as both higher quality than CreateSpace and DriveThru and much lower prices for printing cost.

I'm not sure PubGraphics does a "POD and fulfill" option.

Color POD basically stinks for cost, especially when one compares it to the per-unit cost you can achieve through offset printing at SIGNIFICANTLY higher production value.

In order to make POD attractive to offer through DriveThru you'd like to see at least the profitability of PDF, so you're agnostic to format. Given PDF of Characters is $30 . . . well, that's a $75 price point right there, for a product that likely won't meet the buyer's expectations.

Just my thoughts, but POD isn't (yet) the answer to "affordable high-quality color hardback" in most cases. It's FAR more competitive in price and quality in black and white, however.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

POD isn't (yet) the answer to "affordable high-quality color hardback" in most cases.

I do work for SJ Games, but I have nothing to do with print-buying – the job or the decisions that inform the job. (In fact, nobody who has anything to do with that side of the business regularly reads the GURPS forum, which is for discussing rules and campaigns . . . questions like these are more on-topic for SJ Games Discussion.) The last time the subject of POD was discussed with me in the room, though, the message was: "At the level of quality we're proud to put our logo on, POD isn't yet affordable for color or for hardbacks." You can take that as a sort of semi-official answer.

[Empada]

You can also make the Hard cover yourself.

look at this post DYI Pyramid Hardcover

some day I will try it

[scc]

Not a member of SJ Games, but there are a few things that I think Kromm forgot to mention.

First of all you're comparing the price between a one off item and a production run, basic economics says that the later will be cheaper.

Secondly the printing industry has probably changed a lot from what you remember due to the rise of digital delivery, international postage rates are simply insane.

Most importantly most pages in GURPS books aren't actually full color, they have two, something that I believe is called two-tone, but when you use a POD place you have to pay for full color.

[pestigor]

I have all the first print Hard backs and the majority of the illustrations in them are full color, the first to go black and white on it's first print was horror if I'm not mistaken (and I wish the horror PDF would have at least been in color but I figure that had to do with print costs)

All that said, I don't see POD color on the horizon for some time, if at all.

[scc]

Originally Posted by pestigor

I have all the first print Hard backs and the majority of the illustrations in them are full color, the first to go black and white on it's first print was horror if I'm not mistaken (and I wish the horror PDF would have at least been in color but I figure that had to do with print costs)

All that said, I don't see POD color on the horizon for some time, if at all.

Your misunderstanding what I'm saying. By random chance I have Magic open to page 35 in Foxit, and that's not in full color, it's clack, white, and orange. Another example is page 11 of Characters, that's black, white, and red, page 10 is full color but.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by scc

Your misunderstanding what I'm saying. By random chance I have Magic open to page 35 in Foxit, and that's not in full color, it's clack, white, and orange.

Try page 33. There's a full color picture there, Magic is full of them.

Another example is page 11 of Characters, that's black, white, and red, page 10 is full color but.

Yeaaaaaaahhhhhhh... ?

Every GURPS book either uses a single color to designate it separately from others in the series (check the DF line for a really good example) or a different color to designate chapters (Basic and Magic come clearly to mind for this).


I mean if your saying there needs to be a way to get GURPS pdfs in black and white POD, okay, you might have a point?

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by scc

Your misunderstanding what I'm saying. By random chance I have Magic open to page 35 in Foxit, and that's not in full color, it's clack, white, and orange. Another example is page 11 of Characters, that's black, white, and red, page 10 is full color but.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Yeaaaaaaahhhhhhh... ?

Every GURPS book either uses a single color to designate it separately from others in the series (check the DF line for a really good example) or a different color to designate chapters (Basic and Magic come clearly to mind for this).

I think what he's getting at is that PoD vendors charge the same for color prints whether you're doing full page images on every page or just a little color border with a few small illustrations. Most of the pages in GURPS books are basically just color borders, some have small images, and only a few have significant amounts of artwork on them. Theoretically it should be cheaper to print 200 pages of text with very little color and 50 pages with large images than it is to print 250 pages of full-page images, but PoD vendors charge the same regardless.

This is more an issue of the PoD vendors not taking into account the amount of color actually used on the pages than anything else. Of course, you're still going to pay more for a black, red, and white print than for just a black and white print because you're taking up time on a more expensive color printer. And one thing many people don't realize is that printing any color other than black, the three subtractive primary colors (and maybe the three additive primary colors, on a 7 color printer) takes ink/toner of two or more colors to balance the color and make it the particular shade you want.