19 thoughts on “Which  is the best choice (qualitywise) for the print edition of Class Warfare in EU, Lulu or DriveThruRPG?”

  4. LULU has better quality but is most likely more expansive because

    a) The DTRPG option includes the PDF

    b) Lulu shipping is more expensive for EU customers (DTRPG ships from GB but I think LULU ships exclusively from USA)

  5. LULU has offices both in France and UK, I think when I ordered last time I received the book from France, I should find the paper invoice to check. Priority mail to Italy without tracking is 7.99 €, 4.99 for standard mail. Minimum price from DTRPG is 6.25 € for economy. Prices for other EU countries should be similar.

    Johnstone Metzger are there significant differences in the amount of money you earn depending on the printer?

  6. With Lulu, I always use Standard mail (as you said: cheaper than Lightning Source/DTRPG) and I never had problems.

    Personally, I’m waiting for December because I hope for hefty discounts at Lulu.

    Last year the best deal I got was 40% off and free shipping.

    AFAIK the discount only counts for the publisher (lulu) so the author will get the same money.

    My advice: If you’ve got the chance to pay in USD, change Lulu’s storefront to the US store because they have the best discounts. Shipping costs won’t be higher just because you order from the US storefront.

    Lightning Source/DTRPG really has problems with bleed in their standard printing options. The paper will flute a bit. Most authors  use standard option nonetheless because otherwise the book will be too expensive.

    With Class Warefare it shouldn’t be that big of a problem because there are not that many big images in the book but be warned. The pages with full-page images probably won’t look that nice. At least that’s what I assume from my experience with the game Supers! Revised.

  7. Sophia’s right on all points. The profit difference between countries/regions is literally pennies. Australian sales of CW give me 4 cents more than American sales, and Canadian sales gives me 3 cents less. In contrast, I’ve seen DTRPG printing costs fluctuate more than 50 cents before.

  9. Lulu takes a smaller percentage of profits but has slightly higher print costs. DTRPG justifies a higher cut by giving authors tons of extra services and advertizing. The real complicating factor is not being able to bundle print+pdf sales at Lulu, which is the expected norm in rpg circles.

    Basically, though, I try to manage my prices so that the customer doesn’t have to think about what I get out of it. I make the most money if someone buys the print from Lulu AND the pdf from DTRPG, but of course this also costs the most for the customer — unless they have a good coupon. Coupons do not cost the author anything, the discount comes out of Lulu’s pocket entirely. I make the least amount of money if someone only buys the print from Lulu and no pdf, BUT if someone doesn’t care about the pdf, I want buying from Lulu to be the preferred option, because their print quality is superior. So, that’s the game design that goes into my pricing strategy.

  11.  I am interested in the content and I want to support the creator as much as possible. I think I will buy the PDF on DTRPG and order the book from Lulu, together with a couple of adventures, with the next discounts.

    You do not sell PDFs with Lulu because of the contract with DTRPG?

  13. Paride Papadia  That is exactly what I did.  I had to have the pdf as soon as it was released.  I read where the Lulu print copy was nice so I ordered it separately.   It might have cost a little more, but I have the best of both worlds.  Really glad I did.  Makes me wish I had ordered his other books from there.

  14. Johnstone Metzger so you recommend having an exclusive for pdf sales with DTRPG? I am planning to release some new playbooks soon and was just setting up my publisher account. 

  15. Well, I don’t have a good reason to sell pdfs through any other source. When people want to buy rpg pdfs, DTRPG and RPGNow are the first places they go. It’s not worth it to sell pdfs at Lulu, nobody will buy them there, I dunno about others like Gumroad, and the exclusive contract doesn’t stop you from selling pdfs yourself (directly) or stop you from selling print elsewhere. So yeah, you might as well.

  16. Johnstone Metzger thanks sir, I did not realize you could not sell them yourself directly from your own website with the exclusive in place. Much appreciated. Also really enjoying your Class Warfare. 

  17. No no no, you CAN sell them yourself with the exclusive contract in place, you just can’t use any other third party provider. It might depend on how elaborate your setup is, but I think you should be able to sell them from your own website (like with a paypal link to your email or whatever).

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