POD and Pricing for Cartoon Action Hour: Season 2
Cynthia Celeste Miller:
Quote from: iago on October 21, 2008, 07:26:45 AM
Print on Demand is not well-equipped to do color, nor is it well-equipped to do hardcover, when it comes down to it. Combine both and you have a witches' brew of factors that will drive your costs up, steeply.
My usual other point of comparison to Lulu is Lightning Source. With LS, there are setup fees (usually about $75 in total) to get your job ready to go. Near as I can tell, Lightning Source either does hardcover with black and white interior, or paperback with color interior -- no color interior, hardcover options that I can find in the pricing schedules I've downloaded.
A 150-page 8.5x11 color interior PAPERBACK through Lightning Source would cost about $16.50 per unit after setup expenses. (They have bulk discounts that start kicking in at around 50 copies.)
But color hardcover? No dice, at least not that I can find. But I wouldn't be startled if the result landed withing sighting distance of Lulu's. Lulu's going to be the most expensive option out there, but few will get drastically less expensive than that without going to a non-POD, high-quantity print method.
Personally, my recommendation would be to back off of color interior and hardcover if POD's your only option.
Thanks for the heads up on Lightning Source. I appreciate it.
As for the issue of backing off of color/hardback, I very much at least want it to be available in that form, even if I have to also do a b&w softback version too. The reason is that the retro-toons that CAH:S2 is based on were extremely colorful and vibrant, and it just feels wrong not to follow suit with the game book. I think it makes the product feel kind of flat in this case. Granted, I love b&w books, but for this genre, it's a real detriment to the overall feel, in my opinion.
Cynthia Celeste Miller:
Quote from: guildofblades on October 21, 2008, 10:07:40 AM
Well, we don't do hard covers, but for soft covers we can do mixed B&W and color page books (with the right file setup). So if you are going full color for the artwork, but have pages within the book that are B&W as well, that could save you a goodly amount. Our per page rates run $.10 color and $.022 for B&W (not counting cover and binding).
Could be that maybe you want a deluxe collectors hard cover for those willing to pay for it, then a soft cover for the rest of the market.
Ryan S. Johnson
Guild of Blades Retail Group - http://www.guildofblades.com/retailgroup.php
Guild of Blades Publishing Group - http://www.guildofblades.com
1483 Online - http://www.1483online.com
Your prices are definitely good. I will definitely consider your services, as we have other products in the works as well.
I like your idea about offering the deluxe, limited edition version as well as the less expensive alternative.
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