Self-publishing your deck.

baba-prague said:

Thanks for starting this thread, and for the very comprehensive work you've put into your post - great stuff!

I'd only add two small points. One is that we should also mention distributors. Distributors are not the same as wholesalers, although the two are often confused by people. A wholesaler merely takes your publication and sells it on to retailers when they order. A distributor has sales-people and is much more active (well, in theory!) in actually taking your deck to retailers, showing it in trade fairs and so on. The drawback is that a distributor will, on average, take about 65% of the retail cost of the publication (leaving you with 35% from which to pay all production and design costs - so thin, thin, thin profits!). However, we find distribution a big help as we are not in the US and really have no other way to get to shops in the US and Canada (i.e. we can't go and visit shops, and even phoning a lot of shops would be quite difficult and costly).

So - just something else for people to think about. However, I'd add that distributors usually don't want to take on just one piece, they like to work with publishers who intend to do at least a few things each year - otherwise it isn't cost-effective for the distributor. (Oh, and I should add that before anyone says how awful it is that distributors make huge amounts of money - they don't - it's a notoriously hard business for them as they have to give the shops around 50% discount often, so they end up with only 15% out of which to pay warehousing, sales force, publicity etc.)

The only other thing I wanted to say is that we should remember that AT is international and not everyone is in the US or near the Pacific Rim. So although I agree with your point about the expense of using Western printers, I would like to put in a word for other places. For instance, we are now working with two printers in Czech and possibly one in Poland soon. They are less expensive than, for example, the UK would be, and as long as you choose your printer with care, the quality is just as good (in fact as wages are lower here you could even argue that as printers have more staff there is a bit more time - and more skilled hands - to do fine adjustments). Having said that I'm NOT saying that we can act as agents for any printers (we just don't have time). But I would urge people in Europe to consider Eastern and Central Europe for printing - particularly the countries that are now in the EU and have no customs charges.

Good thread!

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Fool and Baba Prague and everyone:

Thanks so much for a bunch of great posts You raised a very important point that I totally forgot about: distributors. If you don't have distributors, it's a lot harder to wholesale your decks. I also want to mention reps, too, and our experience with them.

First, on distributors: there are distributors all over the world, but for the United States, the two big ones are New Leaf Distributing and Baker and Taylor. We are distributed by both, as well as by Brumby Books in Australia. The differences in distribution companies are night and day, but that is a whole 'nuther thread. I will say, however, that I agree with you about how crucial it is to be hooked up with distribution arms. If you want to get into, say, a Barnes and Noble, you won't have a chance in heck unless you are tied in with a distributor. You make less profit with distributors per item, because they will insist on anywhere from a 55-65 percent discount for resale. Of course, it is worth it. Also, until you have a track record, they will take you on a consignment basis (you only get paid when your product moves, so you are shipping product without immediate payment). Of course, it's a moot point because if your product doesn't sell, you won't get paid either way--if they buy once, they won't reorder, and if on consignment, you won't see any checks. If your product *does* sell, it doesn't really matter in the end whether or not you're on consignment. You'll get your money either way.

Another way to go is Reps. Sales Reps go out and represent your line to their established line of book and new age stores (or whatever category they specialize in). There are two kinds of reps: rep organizations and what are called "road reps." In my not so humble opinion, the former is the only kind worth messing with. I would stay away from the latter. It's a waste of time.

Reps have their own way of doing things, and you will find that you'll be creating marketing literature to meet their specific needs and spending a lot of time and money supplying them with materials to sell your line. That's a key word here, "line." A rep won't touch you if you only have one item, they want whole lines to take around to their stores. For more information on Reps, I recommend researching the UAMR (United Association of Manufacturer's Reps). Joining them will give you access to all the reps and rep organizations who can represent your line. (www.uamr.com) Reps work on straight commission, usually fifteen to twenty percent across the board, paid monthly on a cash-in basis.

Fool, that would be a truly great thing if you could print a bunch of different decks at a discounted rate. I don't know if that is doable for you, but if it is, you'd be offering a precious service to artists out there who don't have the wherewithall to print large runs. I wish you great success with that.

And to the individual who mentioned that the Pacific Rim isn't "the only show in town," you're absolutely correct. There are many other countries, albiet European, who are able to print more cheaply than the United States. In my research, however, nobody could come even close to the Pacific Rim as far as per unit price---even with the exorbitant shipping and tarriffs. And I did a lot of research over a year's time on this.

Thanks, guys, for jumping in and contributing to this very important topic.

Warmly,
Mindy Sommers
Dreaming in Color

Hi!
GREAT thread, and although many people have had many questions about "how to do it" it was never answered so thoroughly before, especially when discussing the more professional side of it...

I don't know if I can add much...but I'll try...
One of my biggest frustrations for the Sakki-Sakki Tarot was the collation. This can not be done by ANYONE (and I'm talking about the manual option. Printing in places such as Carta Mundi (or maby try Piatnik?), at least reassures that you'll get a whole-finished deck, with very few missing or double cards, as it is collected mechanically and they weight each pack before they wrap it.

if you DO end up doing it manually though, make sure to separate the deck into let's say 4 badges, so each person collects only one part of the deck, and then the parts are joined. This may prevent errors. Then, make sure to have a quality control, not just regarding possible missing cards, but also the cutting quality. This is important to inspect WHILE the cutting is done. The way they are cut works like a giant cookie cutter, and sometimes, some "cookies" get smashed, and that can ruin the SAME card in many sheets, meaning, you just lost whole decks...I lost MANY MANY MANY decks in that process...

Then another important thing is to weight everything including packaging. If I knew, i would have made my deck+package 1 gramm lighter. you have NO idea what difference that would have made regarding packing and shipping costs... It's a good to figure all that stuff in advance...

another important (frustrating) point is similar to what baba mantioned: distributors/wholesalers. Well, if you only have ONE product to sell, you have NO BARGAINING POWER. They can easily afford NOT to sell you... The same goes about marketing ONE product. It does not pay off financially. Unless you are willing to produce a line, why bother marketing ONE thing? The time you'll put into it is outrageously uneven with the results you can have...

NEVERTHELESS, if you do try and come up with a great deck, and a great packaging ,and a great way to market it, DO SEE THIS as your own journey. You'll learn a lot about your abilities, life, creation, marketing, production, business, people, the world, and what not.
No matter what you'll do and how you'll do it, you'll never--ever regret it! (or at least make sure to convince your self of that!!!)

Hi

Mindy, thank you fo the geat information! I find this all vey useful, and will be more so when I complete my deck and start thinking about publishing.
I find all the info about self publishing pretty scary and a lot of time and work and I know my limitations, I am a better artist than a businessperson. I am hoping I can get my deck commercially published when it's done.
If things fall through though because of lack of artistic control or whatever I will be revisiting all of this!
Steve, it would be great if you could set something up- a lot of artists are always looking for ways to print their decks and I might be interested with some of the smaller projects I have.

I have been wondering for a while, if you want to just make a few decks for yourself or friends you might be able to print them as though they are photos. There are a ton of places online and with digital cameras everyone takes digital files and as long as they are formatted right who cares what the original source? They would pobably have to be laminated and it would be a little expensive, about $15.00 a deck for pinting alone, not including lamination, backs, books or any kind of packaging, and you would still have to assemble them. But at least you could have the images printed nicely on heavy paper as a small quantity. Also, maybe you could have them printed with the whole deck as a poster or print on heavy paper as well and you would just have to cut them out and round the corners (more of a pain than you might think!!!).

Marie

peapodgrrl said:

Fool and Baba Prague and everyone:

First, on distributors: there are distributors all over the world, but for the United States, the two big ones are New Leaf Distributing and Baker and Taylor. We are distributed by both, as well as by Brumby Books in Australia.

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Without getting too technical, Baker and Taylor are usually regarded as a wholesaler, not a distributor. New Leaf (which our distributor distributes too - if you see what I mean) are strictly speaking more of a wholesaler too - though it's a whole debatable area. Here is a useful definition:
http://www.clmp.org/faq/publ_faq_sales_0007.html
nice concise little description - but you can find pages that go on at great length about this.

Anyway, like I say, don't want to get too technical on this, but whereas a wholesaler may take a single publication, a distributor rarely will, and that's one big hurdle.

I'd recommend the website of the US publisher's marketing association, which gives more information on wholesale/distribution. If nothing else, we are ably demonstrating that it's quite a complicated area!

edited to add - and I agree with M-Press on the cutting. Oh yes, CHECK the cutting and collation. Everyone says they do it fine, but many people don't.

In fact, in many ways (whoops, probably sort of contradicting myself here, but still) I would recommend using a local printer if possible - or one where at least they are close enough for you to be with them when they print/cut/collate so that you can check each stage on site. But I know that's not always possible.
We spend HOURS (literally) with our printers and particularly focus on adjusting the colour printing on our decks - several times for each plate on average. It makes a huge (really huge) difference if you can do this - and your printer will let you. But of course if exact colour matching is not a big issue with your artwork it may not be so crucial - like all these decisions, it all depends in the end...

Aren't they both? Aren't wholesalers also distributors by design? If the distinction is that a wholesaler takes only single publications, that hasn't been my experience, because the three companies I mentioned represent most of our products, not just our Luman Deck. New Leaf carries everything we make except one product, and Brumby carries our whole line.

What has been your experience as far as the differences, BP? I am very interested in learning more.

Edited to add: Ah, I see the link you supplied. Very interesting. But it's a gray area; New Leaf sends out marketing materials and catalogues to their 10,000+ stores, so that is active marketing. But the fact that they are beholden more to their stores than they are to their principals is probably an important distinction.

The term "distributor" has a particular meaning in the publishing industry, and perhaps this is what makes it so confusing. Of course wholesalers also distribute, but they are not usually regarded as "distributors" in the usual industry sense. I agree that New Leaf is a more debatable case - personally I would not regard them as a full service distributor, but you could argue the other way. But this may be a bit of a boring point for people who just want to publish one deck - it only becomes crucial if you intend to do several publications (more on that below).

No, I didn't say wholesalers only take single items (in fact Baker and Taylor and Ingrams between them wholesale most of the books in the US one way or another). What I said (sorry if I wasn't clear) is that while a wholesaler will often accept a single item (i.e. a one-off tarot deck where the creator/publisher is not intending to publish other books or decks) a distributor rarely will. Distributors will usually ask to see a plan (a broad plan that is! - kind of a statement of intention ) for at least a couple of years of publications. So going with a distributor is actually a big decision when you're starting out. We decided to go the route of becoming a publisher, as in publishing several titles a year and, increasingly, publishing titles that we edit, but don't write/create. That means that we can work with distributors happily. However, I wouldn't advise this in general - it really depends on what your aims are of course. For a single deck, using a wholesaler and NOT committing to producing further publications, may be a better way to go. I wasn't particularly advocating using distributors, just pointing out that it's another important thing to consider.

Oh - just wanted to add that the excellent MidWest Book Review (http://www.midwestbookreview.com I think) has far more information on all this. They actually say in one article that a very small publisher is often better off without a full distributor - it's an important argument, but as I say, in the end it all really comes down to your situation and your aims.

Interesting all in all! (and sorry, edited because I'm trying to be clear - instead of my usual rushed-off post!)

Oh dear. I hope I haven't killed this thread by talking about stuff like distribution - it's such a good thread and very useful. Maybe we should get back to discussing printing? It's definitely the more fun part!

I think i'll send this link to robert place, the creator of the Alchemical Tarot ...
maybe that would help him republish, who know !!!

Love, Light & Power
Omeada

collating

From my perspective I would love it if people wanted to collate their own decks. For quality control you cant beat it if you do it yourself you can take your time & ensure each deck is complete, with peace of mind.

M-press that is an interesting point about some damaged cards after die cutting. This is always possible but avoidable with care. I would proprose if I offered say 500 decks, I would find it easy to supply the decks as 78 lots of 500 cards to be collated by the designer. That way if I said 500 I would provide overs -say 550-600 cards to ensure that you get a definite 500 & it would save me the worry of ensuring every individual deck was perfectly collated.

For example to collate the decks by hand you would get alot of bench space preferably forming a circle & lay the decks out next to each other & walk around the table using thimbles to pick each card to make each deck. You can get a real rythm going after the first half hour & doing the deck in sections would also be a great idea. You could collate them all in a day or so. I dont have machines for collating & if the numbers are in the 500s I would do the job by hiking around.

Then there are boxes too I havent looked into that at all yet but can do them but they would bump the price up & Im looking to create a budget friendly option. Still it would be a quality deck & deserve a box but I would wait to hear what people think about that.

Thanks eveyone for this post, its really informative. I hadnt thought past the production side of things but distribution seems to be as complicated or even more so than the production (exluding design of course). Do people who have produced their own decks find the decks move themselves or does it take alot of effort marketing. This web community seems like a great place to do that & how do cards go on ebay?

baba-prague said:

For instance, we are now working with two printers in Czech and possibly one in Poland soon.

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We have been working with a printer in Poland, and while quality was not the same as Carta Mundi, I really was impressed by the skill and attention of their people.

ric