Why no new GURPS hardcovers?

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by whswhs

As for those below your pay grade: On one hand, my earnings from writing GURPS books are a significant part of my annual income; I believe only one of my copy editing clients pays me more, added up over a year. But on the other, I spend a lot of time on writing those books, and my hourly rate is substantially less than for copy editing; it might be less than minimum wage!

Except for the thing about GURPS earnings being a significant part of my income, ditto.

Originally Posted by whswhs

Now, I do regret that print books have become less economically viable, because I'd really like to have hardbound copies of my recent books to put up next to GURPS Steampunk, GURPS Fantasy, and GURPS Low-Tech

This as well. Which leads me to wondering why we don't see most GURPS PDFs offered as POD editions. We get the previously-in-print hardcovers and 3rd edition books as POD, but not the PDF-only ones save for the occasional short run of a handful of items like Spaceships and the first few DF volumes. I do not doubt that there are sound reasons, but I'm curious as to what they are. Layouts not as optimized for printing as SJ Games would like? Minimum size before it becomes economically viable? Special clause in the pact with the devil somebody made a while back, thinking that POD would never take off, so what's the harm?

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

This as well. Which leads me to wondering why we don't see most GURPS PDFs offered as POD editions. We get the previously-in-print hardcovers and 3rd edition books as POD, but not the PDF-only ones save for the occasional short run of a handful of items like Spaceships and the first few DF volumes. I do not doubt that there are sound reasons, but I'm curious as to what they are. Layouts not as optimized for printing as SJ Games would like? Minimum size before it becomes economically viable? Special clause in the pact with the devil somebody made a while back, thinking that POD would never take off, so what's the harm?

I would think the licencing and royalties might make it more complicated. That said it happened with How to Be a GURPS GM so seems doable. Maybe just not gotten around to it yet? Priority seems to be older books.
Royalty fees may need to be renegotiated for POD but I bet most authors would opt for a contract addendum that let them earn a different % rather than not see any POD sales at all. Those not willing to negotiate just don't get added to the POD queue.

[LokRobster]

I'm enjoying this thread mightily. The 'behind the curtain' details are very interesting to me, and make me hopeful for the future of GURPS when this much thought is going into each step forward.

Thanks out there to ya'll writers that continue to put stuff out at marginal personal gains!

I am much more likely to impulse purchase a pdf than a hard book. Where do i store a book i don't end up using!!? it'll go to Half Price Books almost certainly.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I would think the licencing and royalties might make it more complicated.

Shouldn't be. SJ Games owns basically all of the content for the PDF-only books (perhaps there's a handful of exceptions, but it's not generally the case), so there's no third party licensing to worry about, and my contracts, at least, include clauses for royalties on physical versions.

[binn05]

Originally Posted by Kromm

You are most welcome!
All non-English-language editions start with someone who has an established track record publishing in another language approaching SJ Games and making a translation deal. This is a license, and we insist on dealing with someone established because we can't check the resulting quality – we're taking their word for it. While I've interacted with Dayspring Games, Devir Livraria, Kadokawa Shoten, Pegasus Press, etc., that's strictly been to answer questions like, "When you use this term of art in English, what do you actually mean by it? The literal translation is very weird."

Thank you for the reply. So I need to poke Brazilian publishers for translations. :P

Can they create translated PDFs for selling at Warehouse23 or only printed copies?

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

It's really quite disheartening to hear people saying we aren't supporting GURPS when we are literally doing everything within our ability and means to continue supporting it.

You're a publisher, which means that you're in the business of perceptions. If people don't perceive you as doing what you know that you're doing, then there's a communication problem.

[Alden Loveshade]

Originally Posted by Kromm

It has nothing to do with "believes in." I believe in GURPS so much it hurts, and if it were up to me – and money were no object – I'd release everything as a glossy hardback, with lots of full-color art....But as long as their heart remains in an earlier age, it's really not us who don't believe, but them.

Is it OK if I share this post to a Facebook GURPS group?

[a humble lich]

I wonder how much is based on changes in expectations. When I think of gaming books from the late 80s and 90s, they were nearly all softcover, black and white, and non-glossy. Also, most incidental art was at a lower quality level. All of my 3e GURPS books are softcover and I can't think of any glossy, full-color, or hardcover gaming books outside of D&D from the 90s (Rifts, Taleslanta, MERP, Vampire, Shadowrun). Even a lot of the second edition D&D material was softcover and black and white. Now it seems all printed books must be full color and hardcover with amazing artwork. I recognize printing technology has improved since the 90s, but it still seems a little excessive to me personally.

Also, all the dang kids need to get off my lawn.

Edit: I forgot to add a thank you to all of the SJG staff that keeps supporting GURPS. That takes a lot of work and it is appreciated. As is the involvement writers have in the fora here.

[Dalin]

Hmm. For my small part in this conversation, I did not mean (at all) to imply that the incredible folks at SJG are doing anything wrong or not supporting their products properly. Although I do wish for more print books because it makes it easier for me to interest new people in DFRPG/GURPS, I do understand that the marketing realities don't support this wish.

I'm just grappling with how to do the best I can for my favorite RPG company with those realities in mind. Still not quite sure how to show people all the awesome content in these invisible PDFs.

Someone up-thread mentioned a 3-ring binder for the DF series. That may seem obvious, but it didn't occur to me. Maybe with those clear pockets so I can print the full-color cover(s) and slide them in. Has anyone experimented with local printshops for the DF titles (especially the ones with full-color covers)? I haven't messed around with that idea yet.

[scc]

Originally Posted by Kromm

2. "Okay, but there are people still making it work. Look at D&D!" Sure, but the war is over and one system and its derivatives won. Yes, there are certainly indie titles that get published because they're all but vanity projects that aren't so much about making money as getting published, and don't have to pay overhead on a games company with staff and an office. Yes, there are certainly Kickstarter projects that get published because they get money up front. Yes, there will be exceptions. But an established publisher can't rely on being an exception, can't always navigate the tax labyrinth that crowdfunding creates, and has to show a profit.

Personally I think that these vanity titles are part of the problem.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

For those curious, I published a breakdown of costs (most of them; some costs are confidential) for the recent Hall of Judgment softcover book on my blog.

The short version is that it cost me about $100 per page including printing, and I was only able to get away with that because I basically had most of the art pre-paid because I'd already done three other books with a common theme.

I've talked about the cost to go from zero to PDF in color, high-quality format on my blog as well, and the upshot is $100-150 per page just for the PDF. Printing and sales success for hardcovers really requires an offset run of 1,500 to 3,000 copies, because POD *cost* for "premium" hardcovers is RIDICULOUS. Check out the DriveThruRPG cost calculator and plug in for Premium Color (for what it's worth, Lulu is higher cost even than this, but some of the quality options are better). A 192-page 8.5x11 color hardback with not-really-that-great 70#/105gsm matte paper? $28 *per copy* to print, for a book with an expected retail price of $30-35 (the market cares not at all about my costs).

I recently had printed 1,500 copies of a 288-page hardcover. It cost me $12,000 and took about 16 weeks to do. If they sell . . . awesome. But I did Dragon Heresy as a faith-based initiative. I wanted to make a full-on hardcover book, and was willing to spend my own money to do it. And I did: the project is currently about $20,000 in the red, even *after* the Kickstarter brought in $16K.

Here's hoping, but the point is, at least for me, is that committing to full-color hardbacks on an ongoing basis means you probably need to have a locked-in demand of thousands of folks for each one to ensure you can recoup your costs, be able to keep the book evergreen if needed, AND fund future development.

I think that your doing the accounting wrong here, the cost of the art should still be counted against the project in some way.