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Problem #39: Offset Printing
122 Plays4 days ago
Kristian and Tracy are back for a few encore episodes due to requests from the community! It's only temporary, but we thought we'd record a couple more to go more in depth about the crowdfunding and publishing process. This episode is about offset printing. What is it, why you might want to do it, and how the process of getting it done works. It's a long episode, but we think its an informative one.
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The Han Cluster® Role Playing Game Website: https://hancluster.com
Immaterial Plane: https://immaterialplane.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to the Designing Problems RPG Podcast, where we explore RPG development and all the intentional and, well, unintentional problems we create along the way. I'm Christian Serrano. And I'm Tracy Sizemore. We're your hosts for this brief resurgence.
Community Demand and Offset Printing Topic
00:00:18
Speaker
And this week, we're going to talk about problem number 39, Offset Printing.
00:00:43
Speaker
Tracy. Christian. Where have you been? Well, I've been very busy. How, where have you been? I've been busy as well, doing things, various things. Yes. And yeah, I've been quiet.
00:00:57
Speaker
I've been lurking on the discord every now and then I come in and I, you know, respond with an emoji or something, but yeah, no, things have been good though. And um yeah, I i miss you, Tracy.
00:01:12
Speaker
I missed you too. So what are we doing here, Christian? Well, ah we've we've had we've had some demand from the community.
00:01:22
Speaker
People wanted more designing. They wanted more problems in their life sure is what it boiled down to. They don't have enough problems. They don't have enough
Project Updates and Print Options
00:01:29
Speaker
problems. They wanted to hear more of ours and and talk about theirs as well.
00:01:33
Speaker
um So in that in that vein... Uh, we just finished campaign card at Mancy as far as, you know, putting it into layout. We want to get into people's hands for play testing, so to speak. Uh, it's really more of a tool set. So it's not play testing like an adventure, but play testing, like here, try using it in your game.
00:01:50
Speaker
Yes. See how not just this, the, ah the guide, you know, or the guidance that we offer works, but also how does the book itself work in terms of finding things and referencing it and so on.
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah. So, ah so part of this is also that Carl has, has, he's done the um pod cover options and things like that. And, you know, different layout options for different ah print options, right? Sure. Like the soft cover, hard cover, full, you know, premium, et cetera. um Yeah. Yeah.
00:02:22
Speaker
um And the question has come up a couple times about offset printing. And we've we've been wondering about that. we've been we We don't know how to think about it, really.
00:02:34
Speaker
in terms of like, okay, how many do we order? And you know, how do we distribute them and all those things? How do we track, you know, all that kind of stuff. and and And even just what goes into prepping it for pod, right? Like choices in terms of like, you know, is it the right amount of pages or whatever it might be? Or not for pod, for offset printing. For offset, yeah, sure, sure. Yeah, for offset.
00:02:57
Speaker
So anyway, so I'm hoping since
Crowdfunding and Printing Challenges
00:03:00
Speaker
you've gone through this. I have. That you might be able to illuminate things in this moment of darkness.
00:03:11
Speaker
Sure. let me ask you the first question. Are you going to crowdfund your campaign cardamancy? That's a whole other episode. I believe that that is germane to this question.
00:03:25
Speaker
I agree. I, and that's something I think about. That's yeah, you're not, I'll explain why, no, no, I, so you don't know hundred percent. Not wrong. Uh, I am really shy about doing a Kickstarter.
00:03:38
Speaker
Um, just because this isn't all we do, right? Like we got so many other things that we're working on in our lives and yeah the amount of, I've seen what it puts peg through. I've seen what it put, what it put you through. I've seen it Like, it can make or break you, right? Like as a person. oh And,
00:03:59
Speaker
you know, it's a lot. There's just a lot there. And then, you know, even like, how do you structure it? How do you, you know, are we offering enough that it'll gain enough, ah you know, um interest?
00:04:09
Speaker
Yeah. All of that. And so that that in and of itself is a whole and other intimidating thing. And yes, I get that we can use that as like as a gauge to figure out offset printing. But let's pretend Kickstarter didn't exist yet.
00:04:25
Speaker
Just pretend. Right. All right. Like we're back in say, i don't know, 2010 or something like, don't know, whatever it was pre Kickstarter. Yeah. um And we wanted to just say, let's invest. We'll just put out so many, you know, okay but how do you determine a safe number?
00:04:43
Speaker
well that i you know what, without crowdfunding, I have no idea how you determine a safe number. Okay. That's fair. um That's fair. Because
Offset Printing Process Explained
00:04:51
Speaker
that's part of the question is if you're going to crowdfund, that will help you determine your safe number. And that's the beauty of crowdfunding.
00:04:59
Speaker
Right. Like as even for the companies like Pinnacle, they crowdfund so they know how many they need to print. Right. Right. And of course they're going to print extras, but if they don't know that ah say Suede is going to sell, I don't know, 20,000 copies or whatever.
00:05:18
Speaker
And they, they decide arbitrarily they're going to only going to print 10,000, then they've lost money because they didn't print enough. Right. If they print a hundred thousand and only are going to sell 10, then they got a big problem.
00:05:32
Speaker
Right. Right. And, and, or they're going to have to work their butts off to sell those 90,000 that they didn't sell. Right. Yeah. Initially. Right. So crowdfunding sort of mitigates that risk. And that's, that's a part of risk management is to say, okay, we're going to crowdfund this. We're going to see how many people are interested. And now we know that 200 people want to buy this and want to buy it in a physical you know form.
00:05:58
Speaker
So now we know how many we can order so that we can afford our order yeah and still have some left over to sell. Right. So that's, I would, in this day and age, I don't know how you can tell what your audience is going to be.
00:06:16
Speaker
um especially when you're starting out, if you're an established company, you, you kind of know, you hope, but also go ahead. I was going to say, and there's also a component of Kickstarter being a way to build that audience. Exactly. That was what I was going to say. yeah That crowdfunder not only acts as a way to gauge how many people are going to buy your stuff, it acts as an advertising platform to let people know about your stuff so that they'll be interested in buying it.
00:06:44
Speaker
Right. Which is also why Peg uses it. It's also why so many people use it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So that's that's, I think it's an... Very important question to answer.
00:06:57
Speaker
about whether you want to, like, and I think I would encourage it, especially if you do want to do an offset print run, is to go ahead and crowdfund it.
00:07:10
Speaker
Right. And then go through that whole mindset of this is going to be printed book from a printer, not a POD kind of thing. Right.
00:07:21
Speaker
Because then that changes your whole mentality about the crowdfunder and how you approach it. and what kind of tiers you have and all that other stuff. So getting past that, let's say... Past all of that.
00:07:35
Speaker
i don't know how you would gauge. the the the the We'll start a little bit with the advantages of offset printing and what it means and what it is. Offset printing is basically a four-color printing process with multiple drums and plates and this complicated print machine.
00:07:55
Speaker
that does all this work um very fast. So it uses large sheets of paper that end up getting cut up later. but And um they go through a machine. It prints stuff really fast. It's it's complex.
00:08:09
Speaker
But um if you're interested in the actual process of it, there's lots of YouTube videos out there that explain what offset printing is. And the bottom line is that it results in more economical printing if you if you're printing in higher volumes. Right.
00:08:26
Speaker
And higher quality printing than, say, most POD print. options. Yes, absolutely. And higher and more options, and a lot more options. Yeah. A lot more options. Like you can do UV spot, you know, you can do UV spot, you can do ribbons, you can do any size you want. yeah Right. you Right.
00:08:46
Speaker
You can do ah foil stamping, you can do fabric covers, all this crazy stuff that POD does not offer. Or, you know, ah section sewn binding versus perfect binding, for example.
00:09:03
Speaker
Perfect binding is not, it sounds better than it is. It's not the ideal. Ideal is section sewn, or there's another term for it that I can't remember right now. but It's a stronger stronger binding. Much stronger. yeah Much stronger. Basically, they punch a hole in these segments of of eight pages that are folded into 16 pages in the book.
00:09:23
Speaker
And they punch a hole at the very end of that and put a thread through it and stitch it all together. And in addition to gluing it. Right. So it's
Choosing Printers and Logistics
00:09:33
Speaker
much more. Pages aren't going to fall out. Yes.
00:09:35
Speaker
Right. Right. Which perfect binding is has a tendency to do that. Right. You can do all that with offset printing. And you can do it pretty economically if you're printing at scale.
00:09:47
Speaker
And by at scale, I mean, you know, at least, i don't know, three to five hundred. Right. Right. 500 probably is a good minimum to think about.
00:09:59
Speaker
Yeah. um And the more you can print, you know, if you can print a thousand, two thousand, five thousand, ten thousand, twenty thousand, the more you print, the the lower the cost it is per unit. Per unit. Right.
00:10:11
Speaker
That then equates to. well so so two things. One, for the consumer, it's a cheaper product yeah in terms of ah paying for that hardcover.
00:10:23
Speaker
ah And for the publisher, it the more you print, obviously, the cheaper it is, the more your margins, you know the bigger your margins are. The margins get better. Yeah.
00:10:34
Speaker
And there's a lot to go into margins and what it costs to print a book. But if you're just talking about the offset printing cost, the cost the manufacturer charges you,
00:10:46
Speaker
It could be anywhere from $1 to $6 a book, depending on, or maybe more, depending on what kind of book you have and how many pages it is and what kind of quality the page the paper you're using are and all the options and blah, blah, blah.
00:11:02
Speaker
For me, for Cluster and total transparency here, it cost me about $6.30 a book to print it, to print $500. to print it to print at five hundred um ah quantity, right which is the lowest that I would recommend for for offset printing.
00:11:20
Speaker
And um that's not that's it's not cheap. Why 500 as the lowest? say say more about Just because the the cost per unit goes up quite a bit.
00:11:32
Speaker
Oh, okay. The lower ah quantity you print. Right. Right. So for the same thing, for if I printed a thousand, of each book for Han cluster, that cost per book would go down to maybe $4 a book.
00:11:48
Speaker
Okay. Maybe, maybe even a little less than $4 a book. Right. So it, it, it it becomes a lot more economical the more you can print.
00:11:58
Speaker
But if you don't have an audience to sell those thousand books, then you're just going to have a whole bunch of books that you can't sell. i mean, yeah, it's $2 you're saving times a thousand. Yes, yeah exactly.
00:12:09
Speaker
Exactly. So, you know, that that's those are things to consider. but But the other thing is, of course... You can have any kind of binding you want. You can have ribbons, foil stamping, fabric covers, UV spot glossing, all these other options. Size is kind of unlimited depending on what your who your printer is, right?
00:12:29
Speaker
If you're printing in the U.S., which is horrifically expensive, by the way, yeah generally you're also going to be limited to like 8.5 by 11 because that's what U.S. printers do. So, oh, ah so let me ask this. Yeah.
00:12:44
Speaker
If I may, how have the tariffs impacted ho Cluster? um Well, I got super lucky. Okay. So I just paid my tariffs for my the bulk of my shipment, which has come which came to the U.S., right?
00:13:01
Speaker
The rest of it's going to the U.K. I'll have to pay some duties there. But I just paid my duties here, and because we just hit the window of of Trump deciding that, okay, we're going to have a deal with China and basically bring us back to where we were at the very beginning.
00:13:19
Speaker
Now i I paid not very much. Right. Okay. Some, it wasn't nothing. Yeah. but i was I bring it up because we're speaking about printing in the U.S. versus yes overseas. And that's why I'm.
00:13:32
Speaker
Yeah. and And so my consideration, why I chose China, why I still chose China, even though I knew tariffs were going to be a thing. is because the tariffs would have had to be 60% to 70% to offset the cost of printing in the U.S. But China pays for that, right?
00:13:50
Speaker
Yeah, right. You're kidding. um You're funny. um And so that's why I'm like, there is no other choice. Right. but yeah I did look at Lithuania, and Lithuania was a little bit better. Really?
00:14:03
Speaker
um Interesting. Better than the U.S. Yeah. But nowhere near better than China. No, no. At the scale that I'm looking at. Right. Like if I'm printing 20,000 books, that changes. Yeah.
00:14:15
Speaker
But I'm not. I'm printing 500. Right. So a lot of the people like, you know, there are most companies print in China. Some companies print in Lithuania at Standard Impressor, which is a big printing house in Lithuania. And then some people print in Canada.
00:14:31
Speaker
Right. But there's there's different there's different financial models there depending on how many you're printing. Right. And if you're printing low counts, China is still the only way to go. Yeah.
00:14:43
Speaker
Okay. But U.S. s is just horrifically expensive no matter what you do. And partly is they can't print at scale. They can't. Which I don't understand. They charge an arm and a leg. Yeah. They just don't have the infrastructure to do it.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah. Like China does. Right. And i know that's I know it sounds terrible, but it it just is. it's just the way it is. It's the way the world is. Yeah. So anyway, the process.
00:15:08
Speaker
Yes. So that you have a sense of what you would do if you were going to do an offset print model. Yeah. Yeah. Like, like I know, i know how many I want to order. Yes. Right. I've got my, I've written my book.
00:15:20
Speaker
I've got the, you know, layout largely done the most part. And okay. The decision's made. You know, i I know what kind of cover I want. I know I want ribbons. I know all these things. now know the size of the book. i know the size of the book.
00:15:34
Speaker
Right. and and And part of that decision about offset printing is deciding that I had to decide early on was what size book do I want? Right. Do I want to go with eight and a half by 11, which will make this a little easier to print?
00:15:49
Speaker
Right. Or do I want to go with the Savage World size, the trade paperback size? And... be limited in who I can get to print it.
00:16:00
Speaker
Right. And I went with the trade paper, paperback size. I think it's worth I that decision right off the bat. I think that's worth it. Yeah. And it feels like a savage world's book.
00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah. when When you do that. Right. Yeah. I wanted it to be a savage world's book, you know, and that's a decision. It's part of the offset printing decision because it can be cheaper if you're doing it bigger because it's more standard.
00:16:24
Speaker
Right. You know, And so anyway, making contact, you make a contact with with an offset printer and there's lots of them. Standard Impressa in Lithuania. I used Asia Pacific in China.
00:16:37
Speaker
a lot of people who use Longpack in China. That's a lot of, a lot of game manufacturers use Longpack. okay um So there are a bunch of them out there.
00:16:47
Speaker
any Any advantages or disadvantages to any particular ones? just Well, the from what I understand, the long pack is generally considered the cheapest.
00:17:01
Speaker
not Not the lowest quality. They do great stuff, right? But they're generally considered the cheapest, but they are also a little more hands-off. in terms of what they need from you. Right.
00:17:14
Speaker
So meaning that they need more from you. If you're going to do a box, for example, they're relying on you to design that box. How big does that box need to be? What's the dimensions of that box? What are you putting in the box? What is what is the filler, the little pieces of cardboard that are going to make up the little things that fit the book perfectly in the Basically, you give them all the specs and they'll produce it.
00:17:37
Speaker
You have to give all the specs. Right. Right. And you have to get it right. Asia Pacific does a lot more hands-on. So they'll give you templates for a box. you say That's beautiful. say, want to put this stuff in the box. More hand-holding. And you need a box this big. Here's a template for that box. Now you can put some graphics on it.
00:17:56
Speaker
We have these offerings. Yeah. Create a Photoshop file that has the graphics for the box. Right. Or an InDesign file or whatever. Mm-hmm. They'll also Asia Pacific specifically handled um shipping for me overseas shipping long pack from what I understand does not.
00:18:13
Speaker
So you have to kind of arrange your own trans oceanic shipping for your stuff and, ah to your location and then have to do freight forwarding from the port to you or the warehouse that you're using, the fulfillment partner you might be using or whatever.
00:18:32
Speaker
Asia Pacific can do all that for you.
Working with Printers and Preparing Files
00:18:34
Speaker
they're a little more expensive. Yeah. It sounds like what you're saving in money, you're going to be paying for in work. Yes. Right. Yes. And I'll say that Asia Pacific has been fantastic to work with.
00:18:47
Speaker
um I'm not plugging them for any reason other than I worked with them and I worked with Alexander and Ryan and they were all fantastic. Like they were on it and this is a very exacting thing, printing a book. It's it's very meticulous.
00:19:04
Speaker
Right. And they worked with me in a meticulous way and I was able to to respond thusly, right? they would They would break down their questions into little bullets and I would answer their little bullets, every one.
00:19:19
Speaker
And just to make sure we were talking about the same thing, we would be repetitive if we needed to because that's the way printing has to be. right. You want to be very clear yes and precise about what you're precise. They even caught mistakes that I didn't catch because they've done this yeah you know a million times. Right. You know,
00:19:39
Speaker
And, um, so first is getting contact and getting a quote, yeah right? So, and getting a quote is a complicated thing in its in itself. Hopefully when you make contact with one of these printers and there are people, there are people who are specifically there to help you create a quote.
00:19:58
Speaker
Okay. You know, when you ask, if you go on Longpack's site, they have a little um worksheet or work thing that's already that's that's there that they can give you a rough quote.
00:20:11
Speaker
It's not the final quote because you might be able to do better with somebody who's actually helping you. But they once you get that, once you do that, they will contact you. Okay. And they will ask you more specifics and get and start a dialogue with you.
00:20:27
Speaker
Right. And that's where you start to put together the quote. What kind of what kind of paper do you want? What kind of cover do you want? What kind of binding do you want? what what How big is the book? What's the size? How many pages is it?
00:20:40
Speaker
Blah, blah, blah. Right. And um figuring all that out, it it takes a little bit of back and forth if you haven't done it before. Mm-hmm.
00:20:50
Speaker
um I had some help because Simon helped me a little bit with putting the quote together initially, yeah which saved some work for Alex, who is the printer, you know, the the printer's representative and and made it a little easier for us.
00:21:06
Speaker
But um they're going to work with you. I mean, there's no reason to be scared of that because they want the business and you have a potential for spending, you know, money.
00:21:18
Speaker
giving yeah I mean, yeah you're talking about spending money to print 500 books. That's not nothing. Are there professionals or services that can help you do that part?
00:21:30
Speaker
I know that Brandon has somebody he's working with that is facilitate helping facilitate for him. He's helping, they they're helping whoever it is, and I'm not sure who it is. They're helping facilitate between the printer and Brandon and to help facilitate the shipping that's going to, that's going to come. I see.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yeah. Right. I don't know these people, but there are people out there, I think, that do this. Right. Okay. um And again, I had Simon to help me. Right. And he was a great help at the beginning, especially with the quote.
00:22:03
Speaker
And then he kind of handed me off pretty early on just to Alex. And then Alex and I communicated from then on. Right. And so there's that. Yeah, and Simon's been through this number of times. Yeah, he's been through this a lot. And he knows the specs for Pinnacle Books, so he helped me.
00:22:18
Speaker
right yeah And then adjusting the quote and adjusting the quote again and again. Because especially if you're crowdfunding, and this is where it kind of goes hand in hand with crowdfunding, is you've got to figure out how many you need, what kind of options you're going to have. So say, for example, you want to have UV spot as ah as a stretch goal.
Engaging Audiences and Financial Goals
00:22:40
Speaker
in your crowdfunding. You might want it to have it as an option in your quote rather than the baseline, right? Same with ribbons. I had ribbons as an option in my quote because that was a stretch goal for HonCluster, for example.
00:22:53
Speaker
I also had foil stamping as an option. um that didn't get, ah that didn't come to fruition. I kind of, I'm glad it didn't actually. There's couple of reasons for that, but um that's all kind of building the quote. How many do you need?
00:23:09
Speaker
What kind of paper you want to use? Maybe there's a cheaper way to go if you haven't crowdfunded the way you hoped you would, you know what I mean? Like there's options there or, or even going black and white if you have to.
00:23:22
Speaker
Of course, if you crowdfund, you're generally saying it's going to be a color book and you've already made that promise. But maybe you haven't, right? Maybe you say if we get over a certain threshold, it's going to be color. you know Generally, you don't want to have a stretch goal that it's going to be offset printed.
00:23:40
Speaker
I would not do that. I would go that i would i would make that decision before you Right. Like in our case, if we decided to do this, it would be the whole, the whole Kickstarter would be to do offset printing.
00:23:54
Speaker
Right. I would do it. that I would not hedge on that. I would not say, well, if we, you know if we fund, it'll be POD, but if we reach this stretch goal, we'll do an offset. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. though Yeah.
00:24:07
Speaker
Cause then you have people investing, hoping it's going to be offset yeah and it's still technically funds. And then they're like, well, I want an offset. Yeah. Or people who don't back it because they're afraid it's not going to reach that stretch goal.
00:24:18
Speaker
Yes, exactly. Right. you yeah I think you have to commit. Yep. And I had to commit and I was like, here we go. yeah i don't know. i don't know how this is going to go, but I'm going to do it anyway.
00:24:29
Speaker
so let me step back a little bit because, you know, we're talking so much about how the Kickstarter goes hand in hand with, you know, what you're going print. I know there's no like magic formula for this, but generally, how do you know how much you need to make in order to do say this, you know, printing quote, right? like Like, you know what i mean? Like, you know, you got this many backers, this is how much money you ended up getting from Kickstarter.
00:24:58
Speaker
What does this equate to in terms of, yeah. I i mean, that's partly why you kind of want to get a quote before you crowdfund. I see. So that you know, okay, let's say, yeah let's say we have, so this is is another thing we can talk about.
00:25:15
Speaker
i don't know, maybe in one of our encore episodes, we'll see. But um there is a, there's a pretty reliable formula about how many followers you have versus how many actual backers you're going to get.
00:25:29
Speaker
So you have to create followers now too? Jeez. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. If you can get followers to your page and there's, know, there's a lot of mitigating circumstances here, but in a general sense, it's, it's a pretty decent formula. If you can get followers to your, to your landing page before you launch.
00:25:52
Speaker
And when you say, you say you have 1500 followers, right? All things being equal, and there are lots of mitigating factors, like I said, all things being equal, you can count on maybe 5% to 10% of those backers becoming, or those followers becoming backers.
00:26:10
Speaker
Now, just to clarify, when you say followers, we're not talking about social media followers. We're talking about who say that notify me on launch. Notify me on launch followers is what you're looking for. That said, that social media thing is a mitigating factor. On Cluster, if I followed that, I would have only gotten 20 backers.
00:26:28
Speaker
Right. Because I only had 300 followers, but mitigating circumstances. Right. I'm a very well-known community member in the Savage Worlds community. i had a following on Savage Worlds or on the Facebook group. I ran con games all over the place. I did have my own community.
00:26:47
Speaker
So I had... luck there, you know, in the sense, and, and it was hard for me to gauge how, how well this is going to do. I kind of knew instinctively like what I could plan for and hoping that I was right. I'm just remembering all the conversations. You're nobody's going to back this.
00:27:06
Speaker
No. Yeah. oh yeah. Yeah. And, but, but you know, that said, you know, that, that formula kind of works five 10%. You got 1500 followers. Maybe you get 150 back.
00:27:17
Speaker
It gets you in a safe ballpark, right? Yeah, it does. And that way you can say, okay, if I have 150 backers at the main tier, or and that's a whole other discussion is how to point everybody to the main tier, how to sort of create value so that you're pointing everybody that this is the tier you want to back, right? And by main tier, it's the main it's main to you and you want to get it main to them.
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah, this is the one I want everybody to back, right? In Honklusher, that was $100 tier. right Right. I was pointing everybody toward it. The all-in typo thing. The all-in $100 tier. Now, that might not be the case for campaign cardomancy or another Kickstarter. For me, that's what the main tier was. And it turned out to be that's how it worked.
00:28:00
Speaker
yeah Yeah. If i get 150 backers $100 tier, well, that' fifteen thousand dollars right and am i doing that math right i don't know 150 $100. Yeah. Two zeros. $15,000. Right. Right.
00:28:14
Speaker
yeah two zeroes fifteen thousand dollars yes right Okay, good. Now I know $15,000. If i have $15,000 and I have a quote for 500 books that cardo ah you of campaign cartomancy, I know what the quote is.
00:28:31
Speaker
I'm going to make $15,000. Kickstarter or backer kit is going to take their cut, right? That's a known quantity. And I'm going to have this much left over. So I'm going to have enough to print what I want to print and...
00:28:46
Speaker
um have some left over so may I might actually make make some money here. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. make Or at the very least, I'll be able to print enough that I can fulfill and have lots of product left over to sell later.
Handling Printing Logistics
00:29:03
Speaker
You know, assuming you have an audience to sell to and all that. And part of that becomes, well, in order to sell your current stuff, if you've got to make new stuff. But that's a whole other discussion, right?
00:29:17
Speaker
but um But yeah, so the quote is, Get a quote before you crowdfund. Before you crowdfund. So then you know what your targets are and or you can adjust based on number of people. you've got a general idea and what you think, how many backers you think are going to have to back this tier, then you can you can use the quote to gauge what you're going to make.
00:29:37
Speaker
Okay. So and made how much I wanted to make in order to do this print run. Now what? Now I've got the contact. I got the quote. I got the money. And then you finalize the quote.
00:29:51
Speaker
Okay. So whatever stretch goals you had that had to do with printing, like putting ribbons in the book or whatever. Okay. I met that stretch goal. That's going to be part of the printing. Right. What I have to do.
00:30:02
Speaker
Right. Or adding pages to it. Like it's no longer a 208 page book. Now it's whatever 16 over that, uh, 224. Right. Right. So quick question then in the con context, like you had cards also and maps and things like that.
00:30:19
Speaker
I had maps, yeah, and cards. Right. And so are those things separate quotes or they part of just one big quote? Well, assuming you go to a printer that can do cards and maps, then it's all one quote.
00:30:33
Speaker
Okay. Some printers don't do cards and maps. Standard Impressor, for example, does not do cards. Right. So they will do the maps, but not the cards. You got to go find somebody else to do the cards. yeah Asia Pacific does all of it.
00:30:47
Speaker
which is also part of the reason you I wanted to go with them. um Asia Pacific will also subcontract to do dice or to do crazy things like badges for Deadlands with a bullet it's you know and on through it or whatever. The accessories. the yes all those accessories. some of those Some of these printers can source all that for you and do the quote for you. Nice.
00:31:11
Speaker
Right? Asia Pacific can do that. Okay. Some can't. Some you have to go in separate, go go separately. and And like, for example, getting the backpacks for 20th anniversary suede, that was sort of a bottleneck. It came from somewhere else.
00:31:26
Speaker
And part of the reason that took so long to fulfill is they were waiting for the backpacks. Right. Right. So if you can, if you, if that's also an aspect of this is like, well, if you're getting accessories that take longer than other things,
00:31:40
Speaker
You're going to be waiting longer than you would normally wait. Right. for For example, if you just did books, cards, and maps. Right. Right. So that's all part of the, you know, fun circus of this whole thing. Yeah. and and And one advantage too of if you can get a printer that can do it all is that, then you know, and it being one big order, then it all ships together too. You're not waiting piecemeal for different things and then having to put it together yourself.
00:32:07
Speaker
Right. And then of course, where you going to ship it to? You're going to it you or you're going to fulfill it yourself you're going to ship it to a fulfillment partner like Studio 2? So that's, that's a whole other thing then, right? Like, are we ready for that part?
00:32:20
Speaker
No. Okay.
00:32:24
Speaker
yeah Because pick and pack fees are a whole thing. And then warehousing fees might be a thing. You know, it really just depends on your volume and what you've got left to work with.
00:32:37
Speaker
Volume and also how many parts you have. Right. Like, yeah. Like if you've got all these accessories like Peg does, then that's going to be, know, Yeah. I mean, the more stuff you have, the more likely it is you're going to have to warehouse it somewhere, either on your property or right with a fulfillment partner.
00:32:55
Speaker
Right. And then let them fulfill it, you know. But yeah, so next thing is finalizing the quote. you you All right. Figure all that out and then you pull the trigger.
00:33:06
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And what that means is you have to not only create your layout and all your book InDesign files generally um so that they meet the specs of the printer.
00:33:20
Speaker
Right. um In this case, in my case, three millimeter bleed on all sides and lots of other little things like, for example, make sure all images are CMYK. That's very common. that's just It's ah generally essential with offset printing. Right, yeah. That's a color profile.
00:33:42
Speaker
So all your art has to has to be either converted to CMYK, which is easy to do. There's a Photoshop. There's a Photoshop thingy. It just automatically does it for you. Super easy. Or have it done originally that way. But also all your images need to be in their original proportions generally.
00:34:00
Speaker
So you don't want to be stretching them. No. Yeah. um in one axis or another. You want them in the original proportions artist made them in. yeah right yeah And then no extreme scaling. So they don't have to be to one-to-one scale, but they have to be within a certain range.
00:34:17
Speaker
Right. And you don't want to go bigger than what provided. You don't want to be bigger. Yeah, never be bigger. Yeah. You can't add data to an image. You can always take, you know, by shrinking it, you can take data. Yes, exactly. And and when you tell your artist you need art, a lot of artists will assume you need art for screen.
00:34:33
Speaker
Mm-hmm. But you need to tell them, no, no, I need it for print, which means I need it 300 DPI. And if you can, CMYK. Yeah. And that was another thing I was going to ask is like 300 DPI is what I've always heard and what I've always known for print.
00:34:47
Speaker
Yes. But I've seen like, you know, 600, for example, is an option. Yes. And like James Denton, for me, he did 600 and then would give me a 300 version for print.
00:34:59
Speaker
600 works. It's fine, but it's big and bulky. And it's great if you want to print as as like a 11 by 17 thing of Haley Preston, which is kind of what I want. Like a poster, right.
00:35:12
Speaker
But yeah it's not great if all you need is 300. So you can either downscale it yourself or the artist can do it. It's easy to So that's the thing is the bigger you can get it, the better, because you can always scale down. You can't scale up.
00:35:27
Speaker
That's true. But the bigger you can get it, the more expensive it generally That's true too. Yeah. So it's it's it's all these little things, but these these things can be checked for in in ah automatically in InDesign.
00:35:41
Speaker
So it can check to see if all your images are CMYK. It can check to make sure all your proportions are correct. It can check to make sure you're not overscaling an image downward too much.
00:35:53
Speaker
Right. And it'll flag anything that isn't correct. And that's something you can Google to learn how to do that, right? Yeah. I mean, that's that's just a part of it's a part of the the, what they call it? the Yeah.
00:36:07
Speaker
I forget what it's called. I forget what it's called. But it basically preps it for printing. It does. yeah check It's a constant thing. And there's profiles that you can use. So if you if when you're just writing and doing layout stuff, you can have it very simple.
00:36:20
Speaker
And when you do your final checks for printing, you turn on all these other options yeah and let it do its thing. And then it'll find, you know, a hundred different problems right and you go and fix them and then you get it down. So there's no problem. So you have a green, a green, little green light.
00:36:37
Speaker
Pre-flight is what it's called. Pre-flight. That's right. Yeah. um So yeah, that's, that's the thing in in design. and And to clarify too, different printers have different specs. Yes. So it's not like you can just print, you know prepare this and then figure out who you're going to print with.
00:36:51
Speaker
Yeah. Generally, i mean, you can, but you'll have, but if you have art and you need three millimeter bleed, yep you you better make sure that you have your artist right making so that that three millimeter bleed works.
00:37:04
Speaker
Yep. And if you're doing this yourself, bleed just means it goes beyond the actual printed because cutting isn't super precise. Yes. So you need that bleed to make sure that it looks like it's hitting the complete edge. Yes. Versus.
00:37:19
Speaker
Because it'll go three millimeters beyond the cut line. Right. So the ideal cut line will be there. Three millimeters will be cut off and then the rest of the book is there. But that is not always how it works. Right.
00:37:30
Speaker
Sometimes they don't meet that cut line. So that's why you have bleed. Yeah. And that's, that's part of printing. That's the way it works. That's the way it works. um So then, so once you've done all that and you've got all your cross references done and you've got all your, all all your orphans taken care of, right. All the stupid stuff that, that,
00:37:54
Speaker
Requires an editor. That final 10%. Yeah, exactly. Then you send it over. And in my case, Asia Pacific wanted both InDesign files and the final PDF files that were printed to, and they ah they provide a printing profile for creating the PDFs.
00:38:15
Speaker
Oh, interesting. So it's a little Asia Pacific profile. It creates bleed marks and ticks and all this stuff the way they want it. And it it plots it that way.
00:38:26
Speaker
Interesting. Okay. um and And that makes it really super simple. So why the two files? I'm assuming the pre the PDF is what they print, is what I'm hearing. Yeah, generally they use the PDF. However, people who don't...
00:38:39
Speaker
ah aren't ah super experienced at this. Yeah. Sometimes don't do it right. Okay. And so Asia Pacific wants the InDesign file so that they can go in and fix things if they're easy to fix and the publisher has kind of messed something up.
00:38:57
Speaker
Right. Okay.
Proofing and Quality Control
00:38:58
Speaker
Right. So in my case, My InDesign files were not needed because my PDFs were for yeah exactly what they needed. Okay. So once I sent them the the first InDesign files, which took forever, by the way, because we're talking about gigabytes of stuff, right? Because they all have to be sort of packaged so that all the art is included and all this stuff.
00:39:19
Speaker
It took, it was an f FTP upload for Asia Pacific. So I had to get an FTP client and all that stuff. So this isn't like you can you can share it in Google Drive or something like that. No, no, no, no, no.
00:39:30
Speaker
No, it was all FTP. So it took a while to share all that because we're talking about six or seven gigabytes for two books, InDesign files, all the covers, all the cards, all that stuff.
00:39:44
Speaker
And then once I did it once and they realized my PDFs were just fine, they didn't need my InDesign files anymore. right um Cool. And then they check them, right, after that.
00:39:56
Speaker
They see, they make sure that all your PDFs are to spec. Right. like to what they need, or is everything CMYK? Is everything three millimeter bleed? Is there anything coming off the page that you may not have intended?
00:40:10
Speaker
Like, for example, a piece of art- Haley's foot or something. Yeah, that gets off the page, and maybe you do intend it. Right, or the page number in the corner, right? Right, the page number in the corner might be too close to the to the cut line, for example, because you want they not only want you to have three millimeter bleed, they want you to have any important piece of- of artwork or text three millimeters inside the cut line. Right, because it doesn't work. Yeah. Right. A margin to keep or padding even. Exactly. To make it look right.
00:40:38
Speaker
Right. Right. So they check for that. And then they they they kind of tell you what they find. and And for my case, it wasn't very much. It was only a couple of things that they asked about.
00:40:50
Speaker
And then there were things that I found after I sent the sent the stuff to them. And I said, oh, yeah, i messed this up. um if If it's okay, I still want to upload it and And I had a period where it was okay, that I would change out some of those files. So, how yeah, how many rounds of...
00:41:09
Speaker
I don't know if it's like a fixed number or anything, but like, of like, Hey, this is messed up, you know? I mean, i don't know. and For me, it was, it was it was a process of a few, a few days.
00:41:22
Speaker
Right. Where it wasn't round and bout. It was just stuff that I found. I'm like, Oh, shoot, I messed this up. I need to fix that. if if you If you'll allow me, i'll I'll fix it now. And they were just like, sure, upload it.
00:41:33
Speaker
There's still proofs coming. right So in my case, and it depends on you because it depends on you and your printer, what what this process is like, because you can pay for wet proofs that that are full on.
00:41:47
Speaker
This is an offset print run on the page with the binding, blah, blah. blah But it costs you an enormous amount of money. We're talking $1,000 just to print one book as a wet proof.
00:41:59
Speaker
Wow. um You don't generally do that. No. You might do a wet proof of the covers, but you don't I didn't because I trusted them to get or the covers. I mean, what I trusted them to get the colors right. I trusted them to to do all this stuff. So so the the first round of proofs for me were plotter proofs, which are basically an Epsom inkjet or whatever.
00:42:25
Speaker
printing the whole books, all the books on regular old paper and in, in a format so that I could look through for content.
00:42:36
Speaker
Right. So anything I wanted to change that I messed up, I can still do it. Yeah. So if, if there's a stat block wrong somewhere, or if there's a, if there's like, this is your last chance somewhere. Yeah. This is your last chance to change content.
00:42:50
Speaker
Right. Unless you want to spend lots and lots of money. Right. Right. And so I did. i found a couple. And then for me, it was they only wanted individual pages. So I found like five or six different pages in the source book that I needed to have stuff changed in.
00:43:07
Speaker
And all they wanted was that page. So you send the page. And then you have to sure that your layout still worked. Yeah, in PDF. Right. Yep. So I sent them that page. you send one PDF with those pages or do you send individual?
00:43:21
Speaker
No, individual pages. Okay, interesting. So that they can they can insert them into their prepped file because i see what you send to them is not fully prepped. They delete the page, add in the other one. i get you. Yeah. yeah Okay. Yeah, yeah. So there was one round of that.
00:43:38
Speaker
Where I fixed some stuff that was my problem. Like I changed like Flap Crass' stat block a hundred million times. I changed um the tangibility power, for example, during this time.
00:43:52
Speaker
But I still could. No charge for this. This is this is my stuff to change. After that is when you're not you're not looking for content anymore. You're looking for printing.
00:44:04
Speaker
Right. Okay. Yeah. So once those those plotter proofs are done and you've approved those, um and it just comes in this big swath of paper. There's no binding. There's no nothing. It's just a folded mess of paper.
00:44:19
Speaker
um Then they do printed sheets. And printed sheets are on the actual paper with the actual finish, with the actual stuff, but it's not bound. It's the full size, like, you know, spread.
00:44:33
Speaker
yes Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's still folded into sections. Yeah. So there are 16 page section and sections and they're folded, but they're not bound or anything. So it's just this loose leaf right thing.
00:44:46
Speaker
And in that case, you're looking for any printing mistakes, right? You can look for content mistakes, but any changes you make are going to cost you money. Right. Uh, probably quite a bit of money.
00:44:58
Speaker
Um, i I didn't do it, so I don't know. But um I know it was it would have cost me something. But I did find printing mistakes. I found smudges. i found color problems that I pointed out to them. And some of them were anomalies.
00:45:14
Speaker
And some of them were actual, whoops, that's the the machines were calibrated wrong. We'll fix that. So an example is like, because this is CMYK printing, it's four-color printing, which means that there's actually four colors being used.
00:45:31
Speaker
Yes, being printed right over top of each other. Right. And so sometimes if the calibration's not right, you get lines you know or like blurred lines. blurred Yeah, you could get that. I didn't find blurred, but I found a discrepancy in color between pages. Right. Like the the mixing of the colors. Yes. The mixing of it was wrong. And they were like, yeah, that's on us.
00:45:51
Speaker
We're going to send you new printed sheets. And they did. Yeah. Like they they took it on themselves. They said, yep, good call. Right. So all that to say, like, that's the kind of stuff you're looking for. That's the kind of stuff you're looking for. Yeah. and some of ah some of them were smudges that were just anomalies. Right. And some of them were like things like, oh, yeah.
00:46:10
Speaker
That color discrepancy, that's that that was a machine problem. We'll send you new printed. But the other the other some of the other stuff you saw was us ah not letting it dry long enough before touched it.
00:46:24
Speaker
Yep. that That happens. yeah So I'm like, yep. Okay, cool, cool. As long as it's not in the bulk, I'm all as well. Right. And then after the printed sheets are approved,
00:46:35
Speaker
um then they'll send you so production samples, which are the final bound samples. real things packaged in cellophane, you know, shrink wrap, all the stuff. It's what is going to be delivered. and It's what will be delivered to you.
00:46:50
Speaker
And then you have to approve those. Right. And you're looking for any other mistakes. what At that stage, what are the things that they'll accept as far as corrections? I don't know because I didn't ask for any.
00:47:02
Speaker
I did find... is that is that more about like the physical material? Like, hey... I think so. Okay. I think it's to ensure that, again, the printing process is right and all that stuff. The spot cover, if you do that. The cutting is right. I did find a mistake in Hancluster with the cutting, but I was like, well, I was not here, number one.
00:47:26
Speaker
I was at GameholeCon when the books came in and they were looking for approval really quickly. Yeah. um Because I wanted to stay on schedule. Yeah. So Booth opened them. She looked at them and she looked, it was fine. Right. But I did find one cutting issue where they cut beyond the bleed.
00:47:43
Speaker
Oh, okay. On two pages. Yeah. But, and it is on all four sample books. So it might end up being on all the bulk printing, but it's so slight.
00:47:53
Speaker
Yeah. It's okay. I really didn't want to delay it another month yeah because of that or two weeks or whatever. I'm just like, this is fine. yeah This is fine. Hardly anybody's going to notice this.
00:48:06
Speaker
And it really is. It's not my fault. it's It's their fault. But at the same time, it's like, well, I mean, come on. let's Let's be reasonable, you know. But the color was fixed and um all the other smudges that I found were fixed. So I'm like, this is great. I'm happy with this. right So anyway when you get these, like the proofs, the, you know, actual like print version, you really do have to go through these with a fine tooth comb. You do.
00:48:33
Speaker
Like do not just glance at it. Yeah. Right. you want to You want to take your time. And I did. I looked through every page, every layout page. At that point, I was, once I got printed sheets, because I wasn't looking for content anymore.
00:48:49
Speaker
My chance for content was gone. Right. Right. i I had plenty of opportunity to fix my problems. So at this point, I'm just looking at the print to see if the if there's any weirdness or color problems or smudges or for cutting issues. And I did find some cutting issues in the printed sheets that they did correct. Yeah.
00:49:10
Speaker
But I look through every page. Right. Every page. Right. Don't skim it. don't Don't skim it. Yeah. Yeah. Because this is exacting where you're go to print at least 500 of these. It could be you're printing 20,000 of these and you don't want that on every one of them.
00:49:25
Speaker
Right. You know? And once you approve the samples, the production samples, then they bulk print. And the bulk printing only takes like a week. Once you get there, yeah it's boom done.
00:49:38
Speaker
It may be only a few days. Yeah. Because they just they've set the plates up. It's all done. Yeah, it's just push the button. You push a button and and let the paper go through the feeder.
00:49:50
Speaker
And um and it that's it doesn't take
Shipping and Storage
00:49:53
Speaker
that long. And then they have to bind them and then prep them for shipping. So all that happens at at the latter half, after you've spent a couple, several months back and forth,
00:50:04
Speaker
About content edits and quoting and all this other stuff, right? That bulk printing doesn't take very long. And then if you're if you're me, I had Asia Pacific ship it across the ocean.
00:50:19
Speaker
So I spent X amount for that. now You said if you're me, like what what are the alternatives? The alternative is if you're using a printer that doesn't have their own shipping department.
00:50:31
Speaker
Oh, I see. Okay. If you have to arrange shipping yourself. shipping. Like that somebody has to go pick it up. Yeah. And then they- You have to get somebody somebody to it to the port, somebody to load it into in a container, somebody to unload it.
00:50:43
Speaker
Oof. I don't want to coordinate all that. Ship it to you, which is not as intimidating- This episode brought to you by Asia Pacific. What? It's not as awful as it sounds, but I didn't want to deal with that, especially my first time. Right, exactly. that's And i I kind of don't want to deal with it. That's for somebody like a Simon.
00:51:00
Speaker
ah Yeah, well, even then, Simon uses Asia Pacific. doesn't deal with it either.
00:51:06
Speaker
Well, it just makes sense to to have a company that can do all of that. Yeah, it just costs a little more. Yeah. Just costs a little more. but But I think, to me, that's worth it, right? Yeah. So you've got your bulk printing.
00:51:18
Speaker
Then you've got, they package it. They palletize it. They trans-oceanic ship it. They, it gets to the port. It gets unloaded. it goes through customs. You pay your duties. Yikes.
00:51:30
Speaker
And then it goes onto a freight forwarder. Because you kind of just like jumped over that. It goes through customs, pay your duty. How does that work? Yeah. Okay. Right. Well, for me, and it may be different for different printers and different companies and all this stuff, Asia Pacific either went in ah went together with other companies to fill a container they've actually filled a container.
00:52:00
Speaker
Now, these 40-foot containers, like they carry 33,000 pounds of stuff. Right. Right? Right.
00:52:08
Speaker
It sounds like Asia Pacific had its own container. So it was filled with 33,000 pounds of stuff. So probably printed material for various publishers. Publishers, right? right And they filled that container. Part of that container was filled with my stuff. My stuff was only 2,000 of that 33,000 pounds. Right.
00:52:29
Speaker
Right. Right. So, and because they own their own container, they have a, they have their own freight forwarder that receives that container at port at the LA port.
00:52:39
Speaker
Yeah. um And then, so once it's unloaded from the boat, it's transferred to that hauler, that particular ah freight forwarding company, they take it.
00:52:52
Speaker
And it goes through customs. and And so basically what effectively is happening is that freight forwarder pays my duties. I pay them. I see.
00:53:03
Speaker
So whatever it is, all the paperwork that they have to shuffle through with customs, you know, U.S. customs and all that, they're assigned the duties and the tariffs and then they pay them and then they charge me to pay them back.
00:53:21
Speaker
Okay. That's easy. So you don't have to deal with all that stuff. You just, yeah. I mean, it made it easy for me. Right. Right. I'm not sure how that works with other printers, but that's how it works with me. don't even want Is that, that, um, yeah. Scanwell Logistics ended up charging me for duties. I wired them the money cause I didn't want to have them wait.
00:53:40
Speaker
Yeah. I didn't want to have it stuck in custom somewhere or stuck in a warehouse anywhere. I wanted them to get their money as soon as possible. So I paid my $20. Right. to wire them the money that the next day so that it was done.
00:53:57
Speaker
And then um then it gets released. And if since they control the entire container, they got to unload it and get my stuff out of there and give that to a trucking company that's going to take it to Tucson.
00:54:08
Speaker
That was my next question. Yeah. And typically it's trucking, but I mean, is flight an option as well or is that? Oh, it's always an option. You can overnight this stuff even from Asia, but it's horrifically expensive. Yeah.
00:54:21
Speaker
it's It's totally an option. one What is the length of time typically once it's on the boat from Asia to... For me, ah China to US, s let's see, the the boat left at about October 28th or so.
00:54:35
Speaker
And then it arrived in port on, I want to say, maybe the 15th. about three weeks. So it took, what, two, three weeks? Yeah.
00:54:49
Speaker
Okay. Okay. About, because you know you're only going 20 knots yeah across the ocean on this huge container ship with with with thousands of containers on it. Each 40 foot, each 33,000 pounds. It's mind boggling, these things. And again, go to YouTube, look at this stuff because it's fascinating.
00:55:08
Speaker
but um But yeah, so that's how long it took. For for the UK, it takes a lot longer because the Suez Canal right now is kind of yeah unstable because of Middle East stuff. yeah So everybody's going around Cape Horn or Cape the cape of Good Hope across southern South Africa and going up that way. Yeah.
00:55:29
Speaker
So, you know, it takes a while. So my UK boat is sitting there coming up just off, you know, up above South Africa on the opposite side going toward the UK.
00:55:44
Speaker
So it won't be there until 28th so And you get to, look if I recall correctly, you get to track all this, right? Yeah. I got, I got a bill of lading number and i got the boat name so I could go marinetraffic.com and track the boat.
00:55:58
Speaker
That's cool. It was cool. Yeah. It was cool. And you know, when you're in the middle of the Pacific, it kind of disappears for a few days, but eventually pops up again and there it is.
00:56:10
Speaker
well But all right so, yeah, there's so that's that's that's that process. At least that's the process for me. Right. Yeah. And ah as we speak, I should be getting my bulk shipment ah in a week.
00:56:27
Speaker
So it's already cleared customs. It's already gone to L.A. Port. I've already paid my duties and I'm waiting for the trucking company to deliver it to me. So you're going to have a big old truck with a trailer.
00:56:38
Speaker
Yeah, with a lift gate and all that, and it's got a curbside, and then I'm going to individually 48 boxes um ah at forty pounds each so about two thousand pounds we have work comes into the house yeah
00:56:57
Speaker
Yeah. All right. And then some of that will eventually go to Daryl's and we're going store it there. Right. Right. Cause he's super generous and yeah likes me. Um, and he has room. I don't have room, but, um, do people do anything like, for example, like just get like a storage facility, like a storage unit or something and just store it there.
00:57:16
Speaker
Yeah. I could do that. yeah I don't have to, but I could do it. Right. Set up a table or something and just pack it all up of the over there. Yeah. I mean, I, what I, my plan is to have a few boxes here so I fill orders and stuff and then take it from Daryl's when I need to.
00:57:34
Speaker
How long do you think it would take you to fill orders? Meaning like, you know, getting the right book, the cards, whatever that somebody's supposed to get, you know, and then package it all up and get it out. my I don't know.
00:57:46
Speaker
i have ah about 150 orders to fulfill, physical orders. um I don't know. I've pre-cut all my bubble wrap. I've got my boxes bought. The boxes are specifically sized so that an all-in pledge will fit snugly and ease and perfectly inside it.
00:58:06
Speaker
And then um I plan to have people over for a packing party to do it. Cool. So I don't know how long it'll take. I think it'll take ah with with multiple people here, ah few hours.
00:58:19
Speaker
Yeah. i was going to say that sounds like just a weekend kind of a thing. Yeah. so I'll have pizza and it'll be a day. Right. if, if I'm organized and if we do it that way, the thing is I won't be able to resist starting to pack these things as soon as I start. Yeah. Well, why not? Right. If you can, if you can do like, so I won't wait for the packing party. I'll just start packing.
00:58:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And perfect my technique so I can show it off at the packing party so that we're right. We're fast about all the gotchas and whatever. That's good. are Yeah.
00:58:49
Speaker
That's the plan. I've already mocked it up. but Oh, the one thing I also didn't mention is you get blank dummies. So with the plotter proofs, with all the the stupid cheap Epsom inkjet plotter proofs, you also get blank dummies, which are white yeah products that are basically exactly what you're going to get.
00:59:10
Speaker
And that's to show the, like, so you know, like, is this the material you wanted? Yes. This is the glossy pages you wanted. Yep. These are the ribbons inside the book. This is the binding you want. This is the HT strip or whatever it is, that little fabric piece at the binding.
00:59:27
Speaker
um and ah But it's completely blo white and not printed. Right. And this is how the maps are going to be folded. This is how they're going to be packaged, all that stuff. sea So I use the the blank dummies as blank dummies for packing.
00:59:43
Speaker
Oh, brilliant. wasn't using my samples. Yeah. i was using blank dummies. was wondering how you figured out what box yeah to get. that make sense? measured and you know and I bought boxes from Uline. And you can buy pretty much any size box. Oh, yeah. If you ever get a Uline catalog, you know.
01:00:00
Speaker
It's amazing. When I finally registered, or not finally, but when way back when I registered in Material Plane, I remember all of a sudden I got Uline catalogs. was like, wow, there's a lot of stuff in here.
01:00:11
Speaker
There's a lot of
Order Fulfillment Strategies
01:00:12
Speaker
stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And boxes was many pages. It's what I guess what I want to say is yeah I, I don't want you to be intimidated by offset printing, except the fact that no need ah you need to order a minimum amount to make it worth it.
01:00:30
Speaker
Honestly, talking through this, I feel less intimidated. So thank you for that. And I think the Kickstarter part is the harder part. Yeah, that, that is, that is challenging. But, but the, I think if you've got a good salesperson and they're responsive to you, yeah they're going to help you through this.
01:00:47
Speaker
Yeah. You know, and ah like I say, I use Asia Pacific. There's all kinds of printers out there. Yeah. But, and I just use them because that's what Simon used. And i i had ah i had a contact and I used it, you know.
01:01:02
Speaker
And he basically just, he gave me some help with the initial quote to get the idea. yeah but then he handed me off and I was on my own. And the thing is, I was perfectly comfortable with that because Alex has been great.
01:01:15
Speaker
Ryan has also been great, who's the sort of production guy. at the at Alex is sort of the higher level like salesperson and quote manager and all that stuff. And Ryan was the nitty gritty, okay, here are your proofs and here's the specifics. you know Here's the interfacing between you and the actual machines and the people who are doing the actual printing.
01:01:39
Speaker
Yeah. all Both of them were fantastic. So I had a great experience with them. And they're all paid off now. So I don't owe them any more for the current project.
01:01:53
Speaker
The deal is done. Oh, and as far as paying goes, with ah with with them, and it could be different for lots of for different printers, they they wanted 40% order. Uh-huh. at order And by at order, I mean when you're turning in your design files and saying go.
01:02:10
Speaker
Right. They wanted 40% once you got your first proofs and then the remainder of when they ship it. Okay. So that's that's how it worked.
01:02:22
Speaker
Right. Okay. And then we can – oh, I'm sorry. No, no. Well, I have two questions. So you and Pinnacle did your own layout, right?
01:02:37
Speaker
Yes, so i did my own layout. So if I have, say, Carl doing my layout, um how much do I get Carl involved with all of this? you know versus Or do i do I relay between Carl and Well, how does I guess it depends on your layout person.
01:02:53
Speaker
yeah I mean, either one way or the other, they have to meet these specs. So I think if you're paying a layout person, I think it's reasonable yeah to say, here are the specs you that you need to meet. yeah Meaning every every important graphical element needs to be three millimeters um inside the cut line. You need to have a three millimeter bleed, all that other stuff.
01:03:15
Speaker
Right. And make sure that your proportions are right and all that. I think it's reasonable to ask a layout person to do that. Right. Okay. As long as you're paying for that service. Yeah. yeah Yeah.
01:03:26
Speaker
Yeah. And I know, for example, like Carl specifically, he'll be like, okay, you know, here's the specs for this. You know, like when he did the pod stuff, you know, he set it up for pod for us. He knew the specs, he set it up. Oh yeah. And some people already know it.
01:03:38
Speaker
Right. Right. Cause they've done it.
Offset Printing Pros and Cons
01:03:40
Speaker
Carl knew when I said, I want the trade paperback size, he knew exactly what to do. He knew exactly what size that was. Right. And he knew the three millimeter bleed. here Right. He knows Asia Pacific is, yeah, he's probably profiles before.
01:03:54
Speaker
Okay. Um, and then, uh, I had another question. remember what the heck it was. Uh, it was related to, Oh man, I can't remember.
01:04:07
Speaker
Well, i'll I'll finish with advantages, disadvantages, right? Yeah. Just to summarize. So offset printing, it's daunting, but if you've got to if you've got a confident minimum bulk order that you can make, $300 to $500, say $500, but I don't know. it It depends on your quote, right?
01:04:27
Speaker
It's going to be cheaper than POD. It's going to be cheaper and better. Right. You know? Yeah. At least per unit, you know?
01:04:38
Speaker
um Well, I mean, cheaper per unit. that's And usually you'll want at least 500. The more you print, the cheaper it's going to get ah with individual units. And then pricing is variable based on the size of the book, number of pages.
01:04:52
Speaker
um And I'll say multiple six of 16 pages is ideal, especially for section sewn binding, because they're going to, print eight pages at a time of these larger pages and then fold them in half.
01:05:06
Speaker
Right. and So you'll have 16 page sections. Right. So if you want eight pages at the end of your book that goes beyond the division of 16, say you you have a 208 page book, which is divisible by 16, you want only eight pages after that, you're still going to have to pay for the 16. Right.
01:05:23
Speaker
Right. Because you might as well fill those 16. Right. You can do it. It's fine. But you might as well fill those 16 or cut those eight. Right.
01:05:35
Speaker
So I planned it's going to be 208 pages come hell or high water. Mm-hmm. And this with an offset print run means any of those extras that you're thinking about doing and a whimsy, like let's add some Patreon ah supporters or let's add Kickstarter backers, you know, as a list or let's do an appendix with our influences.
01:05:56
Speaker
That could all just be cut because you need to meet your 16-page divisible thing. Yeah, that's something to campaign cartomancy. Right. um So it'ss it's something to consider.
01:06:08
Speaker
Whereas a PDF, it doesn't matter. Whatever. Let's add backers because we don't care if it's 216 pages or pages. does matter. It does matter. costs you more. And but with ah with a print run it does and does matter hidden cost you more you know and then um You know, higher quality than most PODs. I'd say probably all PODs, depending on what you get, I guess. Well, options as well.
01:06:33
Speaker
And way more options. yeah I mean, POD is very limited in terms of what size book you get, of whether you have, you can't do ribbons, you can't do spot gloss. I mean, i you just can't do a lot of that stuff POD. No.
01:06:47
Speaker
The disadvantage is that you need to order a high number to make it worth it. It takes longer because the process just takes longer. Yeah. It just does.
01:06:58
Speaker
um It can take many months to complete an offset print run. And not because the actual printing takes that long, but because the prep work and proofing and all that stuff of making sure you get it right takes that long. Mm-hmm.
01:07:10
Speaker
um And then, of course, whatever the printer's workload is. Like, when can they schedule you in to do this? Right. What's their Yeah. And the other thing to consider in in China is Chinese New Year. And there's a couple of big holidays. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've seen the Chinese New Year thing. Where they're basically gone for an entire week.
01:07:26
Speaker
Right. Right. Everything shuts down. Everything shuts down. It disrupts everything.
International Printing Considerations
01:07:30
Speaker
And if you happen to run into one of those things, everything's just going to shut down and for a couple weeks. It's just the way it is.
01:07:38
Speaker
um If you print overseas, you need to contend with shipping. you know And the U.S. s has very few options for printing these kinds of books domestically in an economical way. yeah it just It's almost a non-starter, really.
01:07:52
Speaker
It is. it's it's It's over twice the cost. Yeah. When you're talking about $6 a book versus $12 a book. In fact, the $12 a book for for US s is usually for $1,000. Right.
01:08:05
Speaker
right Not even for $500. Right. So it's just insanely more expensive um unless you're ordering a lot of them. Right. And then you start to get into like, well, can do they have the capacity to do this at all?
01:08:19
Speaker
Which they might not. Which they might not, you know. Yeah. In China, there's Long Pack. There's Asia Pacific. There's a whole bunch of others. In Lithuania, there's Standard Impressa, which is what Free League uses.
01:08:32
Speaker
But Standard doesn't do cards. So when they do their box sets... Free Lake does or Modiphius or whatever, they have to go print in China. Oh, wow. And then they put the together. So there's difference between their books and their box sets.
01:08:46
Speaker
Wow. Oh, they print everything. If they do a box set, the whole box that's printed China. The whole box that's going to be done in China. Because that's the other thing is you can get the box and the box can come out of the manufacturer pre-shrink wrapped. It's all done. Right, right. You know, that's the beauty of it. Packaged.
01:09:02
Speaker
And I thought of that. I thought of doing that. I thought doing a box set. and so But there's there's a whole thing about that yeah too. And then Canada is another option, a common option that I think like Cypher or Monty Cook Games prints in Canada.
01:09:16
Speaker
Is Canada also relatively economical? I guess, but I think you have to have big numbers. Okay. Yeah. I think you just have to have big numbers. Same with Standard & Impressa in Lithuania. The bigger the numbers you have, the better it is. Sure.
01:09:31
Speaker
You know, but it avoids some of the headaches and some of the geopolitical issues of printing in China. Yeah. So I get it. I totally get it.
01:09:42
Speaker
But as a, as a, as a publisher who doesn't want to lose their shirt, My only option is China. Right. Right. You know.
01:09:53
Speaker
And then there's a risk-reward thing. I would caution you against automatically assuming you can't do it. Because it's really not as insane as it sounds. It is it is involved.
01:10:07
Speaker
But it's not impossible.
01:10:10
Speaker
Right.
Risk and Reward in Publishing
01:10:12
Speaker
The thing is, if you quality matters. And if you can, doing ah doing a Kickstarter and saying, well, I want i want to make this a minimal, as easy, as simple as possible for myself, that may be shooting yourself in the foot.
01:10:29
Speaker
You may not get the support that you want because your quality isn't going to be as high as somebody else who's doing the same thing. So speak more to that.
01:10:40
Speaker
Like when you're saying, so for example, if, are you saying if I were to say, um I just want to raise enough to be able to order a print run. I don't want to do stretch goals necessarily. I don't want to do all these things. I just want, just help get a print run.
01:10:53
Speaker
And that's totally, totally fair. And if you want, if you've, if that's your plan from the get go, then okay, awesome. Then you've set your, you set your tiers accordingly so that they're buying what they, what, what they're worth. They're paying what their, what the books are going to be worth. Right.
01:11:11
Speaker
And you're going to, you're going to have, You're going to make more money because they're paying for quality. Right. There's that trade-off between making a lot less money because you just want to do it as simply and cheaply as you can.
01:11:29
Speaker
And sometimes taking that risk of of having higher quality can make you not only more money, but get a better impression.
01:11:42
Speaker
I was going to say, yeah, a better reputation. Yes, a better reputation. Exactly. You take that risk or you even take a hit because you want that reputation to be intact for the next time.
01:11:53
Speaker
Right. so um Yeah. Right. Almost like a lost leader in a way. Yes. yeah that's i mean, it it can be that way. And it really depends on how much you've invested in art yeah and how much you've invested in in graphic design and layout and trade dress and all that. other If you're, if you're doing that stuff, it might be worth it to do an offset print run because your quality is there the beginning and say, look, instead of charging, you know, $20 for just a digital PDF, I'm going to charge you $60, but you're going to get a really, really nice book with really cool art that I've paid lots of money for and all this stuff. It's worth it. I put my heart into this. I put my, i put my,
01:12:36
Speaker
um Money Where My Mouth Is, and I'm asking you to back at a level that you can see this in the quality I i hoped it would be. Right. Yeah.
01:12:47
Speaker
And then it it it it it could be worth it. It could be like, oh my gosh, I get my stuff and I love it. What an amazing book. As opposed to kind of cheap art and, and, uh, doing it half ass where it's like, well, yeah, it was fine.
01:13:05
Speaker
I've seen products where, you know, I, even just the PDF alone where I'm like, okay, this is every page almost looks exactly the same. Right. And I've seen this art, this exact same art piece twice, if not three times throughout the book.
01:13:22
Speaker
Yeah. And it's like, uh, Yeah. And that's, if you don't have it, then maybe it's not worth doing the offset print run. Right. But if you do have it, it may be worth doing the offset print run because it's like, okay, I want you to see this in its full glory.
01:13:39
Speaker
Yeah.
01:13:42
Speaker
I want you to experience but what I envisioned for this product. And I'm asking you to pay for it, but it will be worth it. And Honklester was that. For me, it was. Visually, and had that.
01:13:53
Speaker
Yes. It demanded ah high quality print. And i and i I designed it to be that. Right, right. I paid for art to do that. I paid for trade dust to do that. um It was intentional from the very beginning.
01:14:07
Speaker
Right. And it's easy to make the decision of like, oh, I'm just, this is my first time. this And that's okay. That's perfectly fine. Just realize don't, don't be completely, don't rule out completely yeah the idea that maybe your setting or your book or your game is worth that treatment.
01:14:25
Speaker
Maybe it is. Maybe it's not. It really depends on how many followers you've got and what the interest level is and what investment you've put into it. Right. Right. right um Yeah.
01:14:37
Speaker
Yeah. Right. It's it. It really, ah feel like it boils down to how big do you want it to be? Right. If you're looking at it and like, yeah, no, this is just a throwaway thing. I'm just putting it out there.
01:14:49
Speaker
Then yeah, sure. Don't, don't do the offset printing necessarily. But if it's like, no, this is my baby and I want want people to really get into this and I want them to really enjoy it, then yeah. Yeah. And if you've if you've got a following enough that you feel like you can justify it.
01:15:06
Speaker
I mean, the
Project Retooling and Creative Community
01:15:07
Speaker
worst good thing about doing the Kickstarter is if it doesn't fund, it doesn't fund and you don't have to worry about it. Yep. So. You can retool. Yeah. If it doesn't work for that, then you can say, okay, let's do a digital only version.
01:15:18
Speaker
Right. Right. Let's do that. We'll start small art.
01:15:24
Speaker
Like, I'm always afraid there's some goodwill lost there, but ah there's there's a lot of evidence that there's not If you do it too frequently, if you're canceling two or three times, which I've seen, I've seen people do that. and it's And that's like, I don't trust anything you're going to do now. Yeah.
01:15:39
Speaker
Yeah. If you do it once, fine. Things happen. a lot of backers will back you and say, oh, no, no, this is great. I want this to i want this to succeed. Go ahead and retool it and I'll be back. Right. Right. Or they even appreciate the fact that you're retooling it. Yeah.
01:15:53
Speaker
Yeah. That you're not trying in any way when you can't do it. Right. and Okay. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, this is just my experience as always.
01:16:03
Speaker
The huge disclaimer is that I am only one person and there's lots of ways to do this. There's lots of printers out there that do things differently. There's lots of of philosophies, but that's, this, this is some good, solid starting place information so that you can at least know how this process is supposed to work.
01:16:25
Speaker
Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah, this is helpful. and and And it has me feeling a little bit more confident about possibly doing a Kickstarter. a Cool. So, yeah. Join us.
01:16:39
Speaker
the pain The pain can be distributed equally.
01:16:45
Speaker
We will commiserate together. yes We will suffer together. All right. Are we done with this? but I feel like our encore episodes are going to be a little longer, but yeah. Yeah. We're only going to have a few of them.
01:16:58
Speaker
Right. Right. it's worth it. It's worth it. No, I think we covered it. Yeah. so All right then. All right. Well, thank you for listening to the Designing Problems podcast.
01:17:10
Speaker
We want this to be more than a podcast. Still, we want it to be a community. If you'd like to engage directly with us, share your creative triumphs, your roadblocks, or simply interact with a cool group of supportive people, we still have our own Discord server. It still exists.
01:17:25
Speaker
Come by, join the discussion, and share us some inspiration. Until next time, keep designing your problems because you're bound to solve a few.