Lets say I have a 300 page A4 PDF of a game but quite a lot of people want a printed version, hardbound or softbound. Without putting any money on the table upfront except for what gets ordered, are there decent options to produce and post printed books at a reasonable price?

I talked with someone I'd backed on Kickstarter and he shared some pretty great information about his printing costs:

Quote1,000 copies of oversize (8"x12") hardcover B&W book, approx. 184 pages -- $6,500 (when printed in China)
Shipping overseas/advance copies/proofs - approx. $3,000

The company I used was one called Global PSD, a Chinese printer with many US branches; I would have liked to use a US or Canadian company like Brenner Printing in Texas, or especialy Quebecor printing in Canada -- Quebecor does excellent work -- but Quebecor can't print larger than 8.5"x11" and also, both Quebecor's and Brenner's prices were WAY higher than the Chinese company, even counting the extra $$ for shipping! So with some nationalistic regret, I went with Global PSD, simply because it would have been between $12,000 and $15,000 to print the same thing in the US. And actually, they did great work, I'd definitely recommend them to anyone. Quebecor is good too. Brenner's quality is a little less than Quebecor's and I haven't worked with them before so I wouldn't recommend them as highly.

Softcover will be cheaper, and 1000 copies seems like the magic number from everything I've seen. While ordering higher numbers will decrease the cost per book, it will be much harder to move them all and you could end up with pallets sitting in the garage. At fewer than 1000 copies the prices spike up pretty sharply.

POD is always an option, and while I haven't explored it fully myself I bought a hardback of Thousand Suns that I believe was POD and the quality was very good.

That's the kind of thing I'd like to avoid to be honest, dropping ten grand on printing is professional publisher territory, I'd prefer just to have the facility available for people who want printed copies rather than make it the biggest expense involved. I'll look into POD, has anyone any experience with it?

Quote from: The Traveller;599997Lets say I have a 300 page A4 PDF of a game but quite a lot of people want a printed version, hardbound or softbound. Without putting any money on the table upfront except for what gets ordered, are there decent options to produce and post printed books at a reasonable price?

Print on Demand

If it is black and white then use Lulu but watch out for shipping costs.
300 pages using the standard b/w (which will render greyscale well) will run $13.35 or 10.30 euros or 7.60 pounds.

If it color and you play to sell the use RPGNow although the setup is a tad more difficult.

A4 standard color cost $1.60 + .03 cents a page for a softback book.

That's very reasonable. There's no minimum order is there? I suppose I could always do some sort of an indiegogo thing for those who might want physical copies.

Quote from: The Traveller;600301That's the kind of thing I'd like to avoid to be honest, dropping ten grand on printing is professional publisher territory, I'd prefer just to have the facility available for people who want printed copies rather than make it the biggest expense involved. I'll look into POD, has anyone any experience with it?

If SineNomine is around, he'd be a good person to ask.

I've got the Mongoose and POD versions of Stars Without Number - the POD versions is good quality. The M version is better, but not so much that you'd really notice unless you were actually concerned.

Postage costs are the big issue with PoD, but on the other hand, it's an expense for the customer (They'd have to pay postage however they got the book from you).

Unless you're really sure you can shift a full production run relatively quickly (And not have to pay for storage, shipping to/from conventions you attend, etc.), PoD saves you sinking a lot of money into printing that you'd have to follow with marketing costs anyway to sell your books.

Also has the advantage that you can just leave your game there, for as long as you want, with minimal extra upfront costs (You've spent all your money on writing, layout, etc. anyway). No need to kickstart it, just put it up and let people buy it.

Quote from: The Traveller;600315That's very reasonable. There's no minimum order is there? I suppose I could always do some sort of an indiegogo thing for those who might want physical copies.

Both Lulu and RPGNow have stores that customers can buy direct from. The royalty rates are 80% for lulu and 65% (non-exclusive) or 70% (exclusive) from RPGNOW. If you sell a $10 book that cost $2.50 to print then you get roughly the following

$10 - $2.50 = $7.50

$7.50 x .70 = $5.25.

This money can remitted to you into Paypal or a check. Although both really really prefer you use Paypal.

For example this
http://www.rpgnow.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=2993&term=bat%20in%20the%20attic

and this

http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/robertsconley

Each product has individual links you can use which I use here

http://www.batintheattic.com

Optionally you can use them as a print service although beyond a certain number it better to go with a traditional print one.

Setting up a store and trying to sell through either is worth it if you think you can sell a 100 copies in a year. It not money you can live on but it is not chump change either. And if you work at it, like James Raggi of Lamentation of the Flame Princess, then you could try to make a go of it as a living. But it is a ton o work.

Basically right now thanks to Crowdfunding, PoD and the Internet there is a graduated path that allow a author to bootstrap as far as he wants to go with effectively zero capital. But it not free money, a author has to put the time into and the amount of time goes up the further you try to push your sales.

I strongly recommend you don't announce anything specific until you have a completed product in hand.

Guy Fullerton did a whole series on layout & publishing. You might check it out also.

http://www.chaotichenchmen.com/search/label/Publishing%20Tips