Publishing Advice - Print route for Albion

Posted by: Tim Gray On: Oct 14th 2010

I'm still deciding which way to jump on this. A couple of you have already replied to my blog post but I thought I'd have a wider trawl for advice/comment.

At the moment the choice is to get Albion hardcopies done via Cubicle 7, assuming they agree, or to arrange them myself via Lightning Source. There are pros and cons both ways.

Posted by: Gregor Hutton On: Oct 14th 2010

Have you considered going with LULU too? I mean in a truly print-on-demand way as Diaspora has done.

I have been very pleasantly surprised by the number of sales I've had of Remember Tomorrow via LULU. They're not massive compared to the overall sales*, but they have paid me out each month for the last three months, and with no initial outlay by me.

I think having it clearly signposted on my webpage as for sale on LULU has sent people there.

*When I get the IPR numbers in a week or so I'll do the Remember Tomorrow numbers, but basically it's over 500 in print and PDF since June.

Posted by: Tim Gray On: Oct 14th 2010

Hi Gregor. I do have (most of) my existing books on Lulu, and I do get a handful of sales most months. I think for people in some locations it's a convenient option.

But I wouldn't use it as my main print channel for a major release again, because (as I'm sure you know) the pricing is erratic and the postage costs are crazy. If you want stock sent to IPR you have to use a workaround because Lulu refuses to recognise that the warehouse exists, and then the shipping cost per copy makes it prohibitive. I have older products that are very hard to restock because of this.

(PS - If anyone reads this and is thinking of doing a book through Lulu - check out the pricing options and *then* decide your book size.)

So yes, it's a possible option but one to use carefully.

Posted by: Tim Gray On: Oct 16th 2010

I'm now looking closely at option 2b, which is the OBS print programme. This is nearly operational now, and the aim is to allow RPGNow/DriveThru customers to order hard copies through the existing store. From the publisher side you get printing from Lightning Source without the set-up charges and there's less need to buy an initial run as it's more on-demand. (Though I would buy some to send to IPR.)

The question there is whether OBS is going to do this well: historically they have sometimes got new things a bit wrong, but my sense is that they're more sorted than they used to be.