Well, after researching my options for doing a print version of TFR I finally decided on KaBlam as they do an awesome job and have a good online store. The good news is that I just uploaded the files to them and should be getting the copy in my hands in a couple weeks. Assuming it looks right then I’ll make it available on Indyplanet.com for sale. So it should be in May. I’m also considering doing a limited number of artists editions with a custom sketch and signed. Let me know if you’re all interested in that.
This edition of volume one will be in full color and includes the first two chapters. As mentioned before the ebooks and this book have a new beginning scene that’s not on the website. Basically it gets right into the pirate story. I originally did that because I wanted a snappy beginning with better art and wasn’t happy with the art in chapter one. However, I’m including the original chapter one at the end of the book as kind of a prequal.
I’ll be working on volume two this week as well. It should include chapters two and three. I’d include chapter five but it would make the book too expensive. As it is, volume one is ninety pages and costs me $9.66 to make. That’s the actually printing cost per book. I haven’t decided on a price yet. The problem with color print on demand is that it’s pretty expensive. I’m thinking of $16.95 for volume one and $25 for the artist edition. Let me know what you think.
[Edit: I'm adding a poll to help you all vote on a price and whether or not I should do a black and white omnibus version, which would kind of be cool and cheaper. Let me know your thoughts.]
[poll=8]
So $7 profit for you. At $17, byt the time you add shipping is $20 to the buyer, or psychologicaly close to it. Psych is why you price things at $x.95, to keep people from realizing they are paying the extra dollar.
I’m cheap. But, you also have to compete in the marketplace. For comparison, I can buy all 5, which is ALL, of Schlock Mercenary for $100. Some volumes are $15. The author just got nominated for a Hugo award. It looks like I can buy each volume of Girl Genius for under $15, and Order of the Stick goes for $14 up to $33. You might do a page count and compare.
I’d vote for $14.95, no disrespect intended. I’ll only realize it cost more for shipping by the time I’ve set up the order. Do what you think is best though.
$14.95 might work. That would at least be almost $5 profit and make it much easier to buy the second volume. The problem with print on demand such as Kablam is that each book costs more to make, especially for color. Girl Genius and Schlock Mercenary are printed professionally by a traditional printer which means each book only costs like $3 or $4 since they’re ordering at least two or three thousand books at once. But Howard Taylor of Schlock has an audience of 30,000 a day and can do preorders to be able to afford the huge price of ordering a run of 3000 books. My audience is about 600 or so a day. Even so I noticed that most of the newer Schlock books are $25 and over 200 pages. The first Girl Genius book is only $10 but it’s black and white which is way cheaper to print. If I did TFR in black and white I could get the cost down to $4-5 per book. But then it wouldn’t look as good. But I noticed that the color Girl Genius books are all $19.95-$22.95 depending on page count. And I know from their ebook counterparts that they run about 130-140 pages. On the other hand, Inverloch, which is printed by Kablam same as I’m using, is $19.95 per volume for a manga sized color book and they run about 160 pages. That means she’s only making about $5 on each book, since the cost of printing is almost $15 each.
I don’t think $16.95 isn’t too off for a 90 page color book compare to them. But seeing as I intend on doing two volumes, I’m not opposed to $14.95 or even a straight $15 if more people would be willing to buy it at that price.
I could also do a black and white version for $10 each. As I said black and white is way cheaper to print. And while it looks good, it would be near as nice as full color. Anyway, as always I’m open to input.
So printed volume 2 would contain chapters 3 and 4?
Can you get a discount if you buy 100 books or $1000 of product? If so, then your profit margins go up, but of course you are out the money up front. That might let you lower the price to the customer and keep the same profit. You could also get someone to loan you the $1000 in return for a small amount of the profit. If you made $500 on $1000 of capital, I’d call that a good return, but that does not count all of your time. You could also offer package deals: buy both print volumes and save. And you could start visiting comic and scifi conventions to sell your books, and of course book stores and gaming stores.
Actualy, I don’t need to know the innards of your business. I’m just trying to get you to think of it AS a business.
Good luck!
I appreciate your input.
I’m really hesitant to shell out a lot of money upfront on books or do a real print run at this point since my audience is too small. To make a print run of books worth it I’d need about 10,000 readers a day. Then I could do preorders to see if I could raise the money first to pay for the print run. If you get enough orders, you print the book, if not then you refund all the money and nobody is out anything. That’s basically what all the webcomic artists usually do. I’ve been researching this for the last six months so I have considered a lot of options. But I need to be a lot more popular than I am now. Which is why I’m using print on demand. Then they only print them as they’re ordered. Unfortunately, I don’t think Kablam does bulk discounts.
Although most don’t know this, I actually did do a small print run of thirty black and white books that contained the first four chapters and sold fifteen at Baltimore Comic Con. However, the cost of going to the convention was just way too much to justify going. It’s all rather expensive at this point.
Right now, my biggest concern is making the comic as good as I can and building my audience if possible. There’s not too much point in thinking about stores and products until my audience is large enough to justify it. The only reason I’m doing books at all is that several people have asked about it and print on demand is pretty easy and no risk. Besides, I’d like to have them for myself.
Color omnibus? I really prefer the color.
I could probably do a full color omnibus for about $31 or something like that. Or maybe $30.95 (just to throw everyone off
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