GURPS On Demand

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Emerikol

I thought the on demand was cheaper and less of a risk.

POD usually is more expensive per copy. It's less of a risk because you don't have to guess how many copies you're going to sell.

(Traditional print runs come in thousands, with significant setup costs compared to POD. So, you need volume to amortize those setup costs, and you need a market that will purchase thousands of copies -- which RPGs simply aren't, unless you're WotC. Notice Douglas' comment upthread about a mere 1000 copies being considered a hit. You have to pay to produce those thousands of books, even if you guess wrong on how many you're going to sell, and you have to pay to warehouse them until someone actually does buy them. If you operate out of Texas, say, I think there's also an inventory tax involved. So, you avoid sinking a lot of money into producing the books up front with POD. The advantage, if you can sell out, is that the average cost per book winds up being lower than with POD. Like so many things, mass production makes things cheaper, but only in volume. In small volumes, POD is cheaper since you can avoid a lot of those setup costs in favor of some smaller setup costs. And of course the writing, editing, layout, artwork, project management, and so on will be present in either method.)