General opinions wanted: Prefer deck or deck w/book?

Hi All,
I am in the beginning phase of developing my first tarot deck (hopefully the first and not the only!). I have some artistic talent that has been dormant for many years, so really wanting to create the best deck possible, I chose to team up with a very talented artist I know personally. I plan on creating the full concept of the deck, which may very well once fully put together veer off the main RWS or Marseilles road (maybe even integrate both, who knows). From there, I am going to give the artist a few key words per card and nothing more with which to create the imagery. I want to give her as little knowledge of tarot and stock tarot imagery as possible, thus allowing her to create her own unique vision.

Many self published decks do not include even so much as a LWB. If my vision of this deck comes to fruition, I plan on a full, possibly even hardcover book to accompany the deck. This, of course, would ramp up the production cost considerably.

So the question at hand is this: From a buyers point of view, is it preferable to buy a deck by itself first and then later buy a book if one was needed, or would you prefer to buy the full package at once?

Decks published for mass market can obviously charge far less for a deck/book combo (anywhere from $20-40 from what I've seen on Amazon, etc), so the choice is fairly easy for the consumer to pick up a mass produced deck/book. Self-published is obviously going to be substantially more (upwards of $50 to anywhere around $100 given estimated publishing prices), so to me, it is important to try to gauge the interest in such an endeavor before embarking on it.

As I said, right now, I am at the concept phase, and given my nature, the entire project could change multiple times before the final product. Your input would help greatly in shaping this, so any opinions/tips/general observations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance. Look forward to your comments!

As long as the companion book talks about things like what imagery is in the card, why you chose that imagery, etc, I'd say deck and book. If you're just going to give your own interpretations of the cards, I'd say just a deck.

rwcarter said:

As long as the companion book talks about things like what imagery is in the card, why you chose that imagery, etc, I'd say deck and book. If you're just going to give your own interpretations of the cards, I'd say just a deck.

Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply.

The book I have planned is more than simple interpretations. Yes, explaining imagery would be included, as well as detailed card combination explanations, new spreads, etc.

Given my plan for the deck is to take a non-standard approach, the book would explain in full the concept and how each suit (in all likelihood, they will not bear standard suit names) integrates with one another. What I would really like to achieve is a deck that stand on its own and requires next to no knowledge of any other tarot system. The book would be for beginners to learn and work with the deck from scratch as well as for experienced tarot readers to understand what the similarities/differences are to other tarot systems. As I said in the first post, there may very well be a blending of RWS & Marseilles (I think a marriage of these two in certain key areas will work well in the overall concept).

I don't want to go "safe" with this deck. I could have used my own rudimentary art skills to mimic traditional RWS imagery and created a deck that required no explanation, but I want more than that. It could very well turn out to be a disaster that will be mocked in tarot communities forever, or maybe something truly great comes of it. Go hard or go home...

In that case, I'll be looking forward to both deck and book!

I prefer deck and book sets in general. It sounds like you have quite a bit of good stuff planned for your proposed book.

I also prefer deck and book sets. They're more expensive, but I like that the book will often expand upon and explain the ideas in the deck.

Thank you for both your replies, Cocobird55 & Darkmage. I am truly hoping to see the project through in its full vision. The book would be essential if all goes as planned, so it's good to see the first few opinions favoring that direction.

I also hope to keep this thread running throughout the entire process. Have no idea how long it will take, but I'd love for the AT community to offer their opinions all the way through.

Thank you!

If I can choose, I'll take the book too - in most cases.

My deck of St Peterburg Tarot just HAD to come with a book. It can do fine on it's own, but the book was essential for me to understand the occult/esoteric background of Russia's history, and then understand the tarot symbols better too. It made the deck significantly more expensive, but now that I've seen the book, the price doesn't matters for me anymore. Totally worth it.
However, one of my other decks, the Zombie Tarot, didn't came with a book and did not needed to come with one. It is perfectly self explanatory to any fan of the matter that has at least some understanding of the zombie myths/culture. Other deck, The New Palladini Tarot, did not come with a book either, but that doesn't bother me also. I can see through it's symbolism just using my knowledge of traditional tarot.

It heavily depends on the deck's art, background of symbolism and target public. But my answer to your question is that one in the beginning of this post.

My interpretation & lay out are pretty well fixed. I buy packs just to have the different cards.

But, a LWB to cover the specific symbolism of the pack is always nice. This could be done inexpensively.

I prefer to buy the book and deck set!
although I know some people just want to buy the deck.

I bought the halloween tarot a few months ago and bought each part separately because the combined "kit" seems to be hard to get now.

but with a new deck that you don't know the exact meanings or pictures, a book is really useful!