Print-on-demand

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hello all,

I have only a few more days to decide whether to order the 5th edition books in print-on-demand, and for me it's a massive investment.

Does anyone have experience with any books printed by the service Atlas is going to use? Are there pictures of the books already? Can someone tell me first hand experience with reading and actively using some of them? Or similar prints?

I'm sorry if this sounds insulting. Of course Atlas has done its very best to offer good products. I'm trying to find justifications for spending that much.

Thank you very much in advance.

2

I don't know off the top of my head which service Atlas will use, but I have used DriveThru, Lulu, and from Kickstarters. (Though one Kickstarter was from a pair of typography nerds who immediately pulled out their micrometers when a sample came in, both on dimensions and paper thickness. Consider them an outlier.) The PoD books have all been attractive, if occasionally a bit expensive. (Printing a one-off and shipping is less cost-efficient that printing a 1000 or so all it once.) Some books will offer both Standard Color and Premium Color. From DriveThruRpg

Standard Color uses a thinner paper stock than Premium Color. This usually means the colors are less vivid, but it also means the price drops a bit per page in the production process.

Premium Color will also print across the full page. Standard Color can leave a tiny margin around the perimeter. But the difference in price can be significant - for the Vampire 20th anniversary, standard is $65, and premium is $110.

For books that I cared enough to purchase in dead tree, I have been totally satisfied. YMMV

3

I can't find any information in backerkit, but currently they use Amazon POD for softcover 5th ed books. My experience has been mixed - Amazon seems unusually prone to printing errors compared to Lulu or DriveThruRPG. Only once or twice has it actually prevented me from reading the text of a section, and I'm sure you could return it and get a replacement if that happened, but worth being aware of.

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4

My experience with them has been good. The paper quality isn’t as nice as in the original offset hardcover books, but the print is fine.

5

We've been using the Amazon print-on-demand service. I'm looking at other alternatives, and it is possible that we will use a different printer for some of the books we need to print to full the crowdfunding campaign.

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