Book Costs (Was Re: [HoE] Lost Colony CCG "Who Cares!")

["Caias Brian Ward" <talespinner@mindspring.com>]

A little scale on printing costs:

Assuming a softcover book, perfect-bound, with a 4-color cover (CMYK, means
that components of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and BlacK are mixed to produce all
the colors in the image), interior art, about 200+ pages, costs about, after
you pay artists, writers, etc, $7 per book.  This assumes a print run of
2000 or more, and that you haven't handed the book out to be totally
freelanced.  Hard covers will cost more, as will color insert pages.  Unless
you sell direct, you go to a distributor who buys the books from you.  You
would sell the book for 60-70% of cover, so that puts you at $12-$14 you get
back.

So it's less money than you think.  CCGs are cheaper to print and develop,
and even with the licensing on the CCG patent (held by WOTC), you still can
make more money if you get a hit, becuase it's a renewable resource.  People
will always buy more boosters for as long as they are involved, in order to
get the cards they want.

Shane or other industry people, I'm not working in hardcover yet, and don't
know your distributor terms, so Your Mileage May Vary.  But feel free to
chime in.

Caias Brian Ward
www.talespinnerstudios.com

----- Original Message -----
From: Grand Master Nilus of the Dark Angel Chapter
<grandmasternilus@hotmail.com>
To: <hoe@gamerz.net>
Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2000 4:24 PM
Subject: Re: [HoE] Lost Colony CCG "Who Cares!"


> >You're not the only one.  I'm willing to stick my neck out on this
matter.
> >It
> >seems a bit odd NOT to premiere a new rpg at Gen Con.  If we are speaking
> >money,
> >I'd think that premiering a new rpg would be better than a CCG, where the
> >markets on such things are always so fickle and temporal.
> Actually CCG are way mor profitable to start.  Technically one one person
in
> a group of 4-8(average gaming group size) needs to buy the RPG books. With
> Lost Colony that like 70 buck(Player book, G.M. book and G.M. Screen)  but
> for a card game everyone need to buy a deck plus everyone is gonna buy
> booster decks.(Because you never get any good cards in a starter deck)  So
> its gonna turn out to be about 20 bucks a player so thats like 80-160
> dollars.  Not to mention a game book probably cost around 10 buck to print
> if its hard cover so Pinnacle making probably around 50 bucks on your 70
> dollar purchase.  As a possed to a CCG which costs almost nothing to
print.
> CCG companies are just in it to make money.
>
> Dan Sulin
> "Death to WOTC"
>
>
>
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