Advice on How to Proceed...

FelicityHart

Hey guys I'm new here. I recently graduated with a BFA and for my grad project did a hand printed deck of tarot cards. Throughout my entire huge research phase it didn't occur to me that a community like this might even exist and I just discovered it while researching how the golden tarot (gooooorgeous) was created.

I'm wanting to print my deck, and I'm not sure what would be best so I thought I might ask you guys. I've researched into the options, RE: kickstarter to fund a large print-house project of a large run; self funded small runs of print on demand to sell via etsy; or approaching publishers.

My deck is completely finished, hand printed on woodblock (Ideally I would enjoy selling these for large cost as art decks/print originals), called the 'plague tarot'. I wish to scan these in and print them for more affordable runs. It has 52 cards minor arcana only (I have merged the knights and pages), and is based on the playing card and tarocchi originators of the 14th century as well as 'traditional' tarot meanings, particularly the theory that tarot is descended from morality plays. The number cards are playing card based so six suit symbols for the six of the suit, etc. And the court cards are more visual.

It's based on the black death and symbols related to the black death which correspond to the traditional meanings of the suits/symbols. For example rats as pentacles as rats brought the plague through commerce.

They are usable as the meanings correspond to traditional meanings, with alterations extending from it's referencing the black death. I have taken out the major arcana as I feel the deck has more 'weight' due to these changes/references . A LWB would be part of this to explain the major visual correspondences, and with that knowledge it can be used with reference to a book or by a knowledgeable reader to read, just as a tarrochi with no visual symbols can be read but is not preferred for it's ease of interpretation (no symbolic pictures to guide in the reading)

So my I guess general question is would anyone even want to buy this deck, and what might be a good option. I feel kickstarter would have an awesome scope and I could get a good quality print run but I don't have much social media reach and it could flop, and small runs I can't afford more than a few decks and again, no social media reach. Publishers I'm not sure would be interested in this deck and do take time.

Here is a link to some photos of the prints:

http://idee--fixe.tumblr.com/post/88582970418/documentation-of-my-graduating-project-plague

Sorry this is so long and rambling, I hope you guys can help as everyone here knows a lot :3
 

HudsonGray

Well, GameCrafter seems to be the current popular way to go, though some people are talking about another company called PrinterStudio now.

I know if you went through a traditional tarot publisher like Carta Mundi (they have a Tennessee office) to have them do it for you as your project they have a 2,000 deck minimum.

If you approach a tarot publisher with this as an item that they may want to publish and give you royalties on - if they accept it there's usually a several (?) year backlog of decks they already have that will be coming out before yours.

If you do it yourself, they can be done as a limited print run with a local printer who has card capabilities (the varnish and card stock are key to a good deck). You'll be fronting the cost of it though. Not every deck put up on Kickstarter gets funding, not even half of them get full funding.

There are many different ways you can go with this. How much work do you want to put into the project? What sort of returns are you wanting to get back on it? Selling art prints of individual cards can be looked at as well, your deck has a Goth appeal and all but again you'd have to be getting knowledge of the deck to the right niche group to get sales.
 

wooden-eye

Hi FelicityHart,
The cards look awesome...wow, so many wood-cuts! It really suits your theme. Well done.
Not wanting to be a downer, as you stated your deck is completely finished, (so this point might be moot) and I think I understand your reasons, but could you consider attacking the Majors, if you can stand it or if it is do-able? I fear some tarot peeps will be put off by a minors only tarot deck, though you may of course, sell many to playing card collectors.
Could you post scans of some of the court cards, I am intrigued and would love a closer look?
I would also love to hear more about your suit changes.
On another subject.
The kick-starter route does bring massive exposure, but has some risks involved.
Print on demand eg by The Game Crafter is a good option, but offers less choice for you as the deck creator with regards to card stock and finishes and packaging.
I personally went out on a limb and sunk some resources into self-publishing. I had the cards printed, I then collate the decks, print and make the LWBs and the bags. I then get sales through my website and eBay when I remember to relist it. Sales are generally quite slow, but enough for me to manage as I have a full time job, demonstrating the point that self-publishing rarely provides more than pin-money, but it has more than paid for the printing.
All of this obviously requires a time and effort commitment which never ends until you decide to pull the plug.

All that said , it is really worth while and it is a damn shame you didn't find Aeclectic earlier.
If you decide to do those majors, the extra time spent will be great for your deck , because you will do it here with our support and by the time you are finished there will be queue of people waiting with open arms to receive your baby.
Up to you though and good luck.
 

JOdel

MakePlayingCards.com is another print-on-demand house with no minimum # of orders, or set-up charge. Useful for someone who just wants an archival copy, or a limited number of copies, but not what you seem to be looking for.

Things need to be digitized in order to submit them. But these days I suspect that may be the case of any publisher. Selling an actual deck of actual prints may be doable, but you'd need to charge for your labor and I don't know how many collectors are likely to be willing to deal at that level.
 

Zephyros

You might run into a few issues if trying to sell it as a deck. Tarot is a niche market, and every modification on the base makes it appealing to an ever-narrower market. Decks that are not full tend to sell more slowly, and beginners don't buy them. Don't get me wrong, I think your deck is lovely, but it is, in the main, suitable for specialized collectors. Plus, I'm not even sure what kind of collector, whether those seeking oracle decks or Tarot decks. Add to that that you're using pips instead of images (again, not a bad thing, I prefer pips myself) and your target audience grows even smaller.

This isn't even to say it won't sell; there are enough specialized collectors on AT alone for a print run, but it's just a heads up on what to expect.
 

FelicityHart

There are many different ways you can go with this. How much work do you want to put into the project? What sort of returns are you wanting to get back on it? Selling art prints of individual cards can be looked at as well, your deck has a Goth appeal and all but again you'd have to be getting knowledge of the deck to the right niche group to get sales.

I'm definitely fine with working hard for it...I already spent over a year to do the original deck (almost full time working on it as I was in school), and I applied for and got a grant for the costs (wood, paper, ink, etc.) from my school. I've graduated so the money has dried up alas, but I worked very hard on it and it's just sitting in my house...so I think a lot of the motivation is that I want to get it OUT there, and it would of course be nice to make some profit as I want to make profit off my art so I can keep making it.

Kickstarter I think is my least favourite because you are right, it's over-saturated and there is so much good stuff anyways I feel like I am not as good! As well as like I said, I don't have a large internet presence.

Not wanting to be a downer, as you stated your deck is completely finished, (so this point might be moot) and I think I understand your reasons, but could you consider attacking the Majors, if you can stand it or if it is do-able? I fear some tarot peeps will be put off by a minors only tarot deck, though you may of course, sell many to playing card collectors.

I know that a minors only deck is very niche. I actually love the majors for their visual appeal and really wanted to make them but for this deck it doesn't make sense. Because of the deck being the 'plague' deck, it deals a lot with death and change and the macabre, so it already has strong meaning, and I feel adding majors would make readings too intense...like too much seriousness. As well for instance my king of swords IS death in my deck (the queen is the plague hag), as the swords of mine are 'coffins' or 'death', so if I had the majors there would be two deaths as well as some other 'doubles' or ones that are so similar as to be redundant.

All that said , it is really worth while and it is a damn shame you didn't find Aeclectic earlier.
If you decide to do those majors, the extra time spent will be great for your deck , because you will do it here with our support and by the time you are finished there will be queue of people waiting with open arms to receive your baby.
Up to you though and good luck.

I definitely wish I had found this community earlier, even just looking through the forums I found so much advice and book listings and links to cards and blogs that would have been amazing for my research phase and are also very inspiring. I don't know anyone into tarot, especially the historical and artistic side of it.

Your deck is really nice wooden-eye! I like how lush it is :3

Things need to be digitized in order to submit them. But these days I suspect that may be the case of any publisher. Selling an actual deck of actual prints may be doable, but you'd need to charge for your labor and I don't know how many collectors are likely to be willing to deal at that level.

I definitely want to focus this on larger runs of digitally printed cards. I have 4 decks of the hand printed ones, so if I sold 3 they would be at a large cost and for 'art' purposes. I also have two uncut sheets. For the purpose I'm posting about here I would definitely scan them and digitize them for either printing or to send to publishers....depending on ...what I actually decide!!! A big problem is I'm so conflicted because I have like...not much money so I can't print a lot, at least not right away...I'm looking mostly at make playing cards and printer studio as they both have comparable costs, shipping to canada, and enough options to satisfy me.

You might run into a few issues if trying to sell it as a deck. Tarot is a niche market, and every modification on the base makes it appealing to an ever-narrower market. Decks that are not full tend to sell more slowly, and beginners don't buy them. Don't get me wrong, I think your deck is lovely, but it is, in the main, suitable for specialized collectors. Plus, I'm not even sure what kind of collector, whether those seeking oracle decks or Tarot decks. Add to that that you're using pips instead of images (again, not a bad thing, I prefer pips myself) and your target audience grows even smaller.

This isn't even to say it won't sell; there are enough specialized collectors on AT alone for a print run, but it's just a heads up on what to expect.

When I started the project I definitely knew it might not ever sell, so it's even to try to see if ANYONE would be interested. The decision to do pips for me, was a turning point of okay, this deck will not appeal to anyone new to tarot...as well as pips are HARD to read easily. To find this community I was surprised at how well some niche decks do sell. I honestly didn't think it would be worth it at first because no-one would want to buy it...but now I think it would be worth a small try. A lot of my art is very niche and hard to approach, I don't make sales very often of my other stuff and many of the people I know consider me 'creepy' or 'macabre' in terms of my art.

Could you post scans of some of the court cards, I am intrigued and would love a closer look?
I would also love to hear more about your suit changes.

I'm going to post some pictures of the court cards and a small explanation of the suits in a different post for you! Because this one is getting long

thanks for all the replies, I really appreciate it especially from strangers!
 

FelicityHart

"The four suits traditionally are spades (swords), associated with suffering and the military; clubs (wands), associated with poverty and submission; diamonds (pentacles or coins), associated with the merchant class and the material body; and hearts (cups), associated with the clergy and spirituality." (A quote from my proposal to my school)

My deck alters these as Death represented by coffins as spades/swords. Wands/clubs are bones, representing the poverty of the lower classes during the plague (but also keeping with a trait of wands, the rebirth of the economy and social classes that occurred after the plague). Pentacles/coins are rats, the carriers of the plague bacteria on merchant ships. Hearts/cups stayed as cups, representing the clergy who were instrumental to a medieval understanding of the plague, and who waged a religious 'war' on the devil and his plague, which was believed to be caused by sin at the time.

My pages and knights were merged because I found a lot of the time pages historically haven't been included or the meanings were very muddled. My knights are the four horsemen and represent associations with their suit so coffins/the pale rider who brings death. Bones/the black horse who brings famine and disease. Rats/the white horse of conquest (economic and figuratively...rats almost brought down europe), and cups/the red horse of war, the religious war against the plague and 'sin'. I found these also suited the knights characters.

Here are pictures of my court cards except the rats because for some reason they won't upload???

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=3D61312E1527F86D!1030&authkey=!AMD50R-yrxAatls&ithint=folder,
 

dancing_moon

Welcome to AT! :)

I'm going to speak as a reader here, because as a person who hasn't produced a single Tarot deck in my lifetime, I can only watch with awe how other, more talented, people do it. My sincere amazement at your hard work and patience. :thumbsup:

The thing is, I can see a beautiful, interesting deck of themed playing cards here, and I'm not sure why it's referred to as 'Tarot'. :confused: Perhaps, positioning/marketing this deck as playing cards would be more promising. The playing cards market seems to be more 'grateful', because every change and embellishment to the original 'dull' deck is greatly appreciated, unlike the picky Tarot people. :D And it doesn't mean your deck will be used exclusively for gameplay. I've encountered quite a few people on Russian-language forums who use playing cards for divination and are on the constant lookout for new and unusual playing card decks. A dark medieval deck with suits changed according to the theme would be a lavish gift for those people. :)

Also, have you thought about participating in theme events with your deck? Like a medieval fair or something like that. Like others have mentioned, your prospective market is probably quite small but it just might have a higher 'concentration' at those events. :)

Hope you've found anything helpful here. Best of luck with your deck! :)