Designers with printed books: who do you print with and how's their service?
Anna Kreider:
Ron,
Thanks for the links. I had seen those other threads, but I guess I what I was hoping for was more stories of personal experience with service. Also, the more recent thread seems to be a PG lovefest, which isn't terribly useful to me as I'm very resolved not to continue using them.
The big problem I'm having is that it's easy to find out information about price. It's very hard, however, to get information about how fast a given printer is and how good/bad their service is. Considering that I have the added difficulty of not being able to deal with printers in my own country, I'm finding that price is a much more negotiable point than service and speed. (Though price is still a factor. I'm not about to double my print costs over what I'm paying now just for added convenience.)
~Anna
guildofblades:
Hi Anna,
With our Retail Program, you won't need any money. Think of it as being like Lulu, but targeted at the games industry. We would print a couple units out for display in our B&M store, but otherwise we would just print more as needed to replace those two as they sold locally, or to fill e-commerce orders.
So if you wanted to drive mail orders _now_, that could be a fulfillment option for you. Whih of course you could and likely should change to point at your own mail order fulfillment when your full print run lands. Though we would hope you would continue to stay enrolled in our Retail Program so our stores could continue to sell it as well. But yeah, you could also order a quantity to have on hand yourself, if you wanted. I would advise against a big quantity though, if you are already commited to a larger run from someone else.
Yes, dealing with any commercial printer is a craps shoot at best. There was a reason that years ago the Guild began exploration of POD and in house production. Got burned too many times ourselves. Someone mentions McNaughton & Gun. Back in 1997, we waited 9 months for them to finally print and fulfill our 2,000 book run for our Dark Realms RPG. They refused to refund the half down deposit all along the way and only completed the order, at last, when we sent them a threatening letter drafted on the letterhead of a local laywer friend of ours. lol. Not a printer I would recommend. I personally have never had any experience with Publisher Graphics.
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
Pelgrane:
Vixen, our previous printer appears to have ceased trading, and we've switched to Publisher's Graphics. They were reasonably quick with proofs, but like most printers I have dealt with seem constitutionally incapable of managing expectations. For delivered stock, allow at least 12 weeks between setting up and ordering the first time and delivery. You may then be pleasantly surprised. They don't charge until they ship. There are many irritating hoops to jump through with lots of signing and faxing, though they are setting up an automated system.
I am hoping that once we've uploaded and had samples of all our books, I'll just be able to get reprints without too much hassle, but that's probably a pipe dream. I'm sure printers all think that publishers are fuckwits who don't know how to put together a print-ready file, and that most publishers share a similarly low opinion of printers. I do hope one day technology will allow us to bridge this divide.
Graham W:
Anna,
Here's a link another recent experience with Guild of Blades. Not all positive, not all negative.
Graham
Gregor Hutton:
Hi Anna
I, along with Contested Ground Studios, have most recently been using Fidlar-Doubleday. They were excellent on all fronts up until earlier this summer. They misprinted some of my books (it made them inelegant rather than ruined), while they screwed the print of Hot War and then missed out the Index from the reprint, forcing them to reprint the reprint. Net result was a lot of pulped books as far as I can tell. While I can't speak for Malcolm, Paul and John at CGS on whether they will continue to use FD, I think the whole experience will make them look around when they have more printing to do.
For me, they printed some sample copies and sent them to me free of charge by courier, and they were satisfactory. They then printed the latest run to my satisfaction and with a good discount to make amends for the earlier printing errors. I am satisfied with them and hope that they can return to their previously high level of quality control.
I will say that throughout all of this their customer service has been exceptional. They are always quick to respond to me and took my concerns seriously. Similarly, their dealings with CGS have been way ahead of other printers we have used.
So, whether I can recommend them is a tricky question. I will say that their customer service is great, and their most recent print run for me was perfectly fine. There was a slight delay of about a week on their scheduled date but I was kept informed of this at all times. (They were also very mindful to make sure that books made it to New York so that I could collect them while I was there on holiday -- so they were able to make a time-critical shipping date.)
I got a nice brochure from a POD company at GenCon (I think it was Quality POD: http://www.qualitypod.com/). They printed the colour Heavy Gear Blitz! book and their prices and quality looked good. I have no experience with them at all, though. Can someone confirm this? I think Nathan or Kevin took away the brochure we got handed on the DesignMatters booth.
I hope this helps, and I do sympathise. Being in the UK and having a market in the US means we encounter similar issues to you.
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