Publishing games through Lulu.com

[Eggie]

Recently (I think fairly recently, I havn't really been keeping up with it); the site http://www.lulu.com has started selling CD's.
They've had the capacity to have .zip files you can download for a fee for some time, but no-one seems to really have thought to take advantage of it.

I'm thinking...could this mean a rise in independant games for sale? I don't know what the rates are exactly, they're probably cheaper than cafépress and the option to download the game for a price in addition to owning the CD could eliminate some nasty issues with postage and packaging and such.

Y'see...Unlike with books, where holding it and reading it on paper is infinately prefferable to looking at it on a computer moniter...Downloading a game and installing from a CD both have the same outcome.

Actually...Scrap the CD thing...No-one would go for that...

So...My amazing topic for discussion which I'm 'throwing in there' today is...
'The idea of selling games cheaply through Lulu.com...Any good?'

[Joseph DiPerla]

Lulu is good only to get an ISBN number for cheap for your books. It is also good if you lan on producing your own publishing business and plan to buy your books at a Bulk price. And when I mean bulk, I mean like 5000 copies.

So it has its uses. I would personally get the ISBN number for my book or game, publish privately and use something else to publish my books.

As far as games go, I would use Lulu just for the downloadable versions.

If you want my opinion of what is best to use, use CafePress. Get an ISBN number, make the game available for download, then publish it to cd on Cafepress and sell it there. I bought games off of Cafepress before and they are pretty good.

I would do the same for books since its cheaper than Lulu. I would use lulu for pdf downloads and audio books, but not for the actual book itself.

I would use lulu.com in conjunction with cafepress.com honestly.

Check this link out for some published games through cafepress: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/browse/pp-_N-1140_in~dim~search-1

[m0ds]

Why not try producing your games for yourself? It's fun, it's good experience and it can be very rewarding...though if your game's popular you might find yourself snowed under with orders! But I personally would love that, plus you can decide how long you want to distribute them for etc.

All you really need is;
- Some dvd jewel cases, usually £3.99 for 5 - however, just ask for some old ones and they'll usually give you a bundle
- A printer, colour, most printers these days are exceptionally good quality. All you'll need to worry about is your cartridges.
- A CD writer, a cd stompa & CD stickers
- A bunch of envelopes

This won't cost you much more than £100 for about 50 copies, something you could cover with a donations button on your own website.

Regarding Lulu, it sounds good for .zip downloads with fee's, that's something I'll definitely look at using in the future (but for software rather than games). None the less there is still a high call for boxed editions of adventure games, and again I find creating a box, manual and extras is all part of the fun - so I'd be happy to do it myself rather than Lulu or cafepress.

[HillBilly]

Is there any (cheap) way to make the paper to fit the jewel cases after it's printed? I'm rather lousy with scissors, and it takes a while to do it too.

[Mr Jake]

Would you be able to get a guillotine? We have one, I don't think it was that expensive.

[Snarky]

Actually...Scrap the CD thing...No-one would go for that...

That's what I would think, too, but...

Games Sold in 3 weeks:

CD's - 86
Downloads - 14
Total:Ã,  110

[Eggie]

People do like their material possesions don't they...

[HillBilly]

Yes, because you can easy lose the downloaded file. And you never know when the person who sold you the download link/code close down, leaving you to nothing but a useless URL. 


Oh god it's so sad.

[m0ds]

HillBilly, I use a knife - but that's not a brilliant method either. Perhaps Matt Goble will shed some light on perfick' box designs?

[Matt Goble]

HillBilly, I use a knife - but that's not a brilliant method either. Perhaps Matt Goble will shed some light on perfick' box designs?

DVD Cases?  Print them with crop marks then cut down with a sharp knife and a metal ruler (Self healing cutting mats are cool  )

For the AGS Annual I made use of the work kit, so they were printed on a Xerox Docu-colour whatsit, two to an A3 sheet, then cut down on a computerised Guillotine 

One of these days I'll get the hang of adding 3mm bleed to covers and then you don't have to be so accurate with your cutting...

[voh]

I would do the same for books since its cheaper than Lulu. I would use lulu for pdf downloads and audio books, but not for the actual book itself.

Lulu is more expensive than CafePress? Pah! Poppycock! I checked the prices because I knew that was a blatant lie, so here you go.

LULU      8.5x11      perfect   0.02 per page   4.53 base
CPR      8.5x11      perfect   0.03 per page   7 base

A book (like mine, which is currently 97 pages), would cost the following with the companies.

LULU: (96 * 0.02) + 4.53 = 6.45 USD
CPR: (96 * 0.03) + 7.00 = 9.91 USD

That's a difference of 3.46 USD. That's almost 1/3rd of the CPR price that you can slash simply by going with lulu.

If your book is really massive, the payoffs are even bigger.

250 page book: 9.53 / 14.50
500 page book: 14.53 / 22.00

The funny thing is - 0.02 is 2/3rd of 0.03 and 2/3rd of 7 would be 4.67 - so the price of Lulu can be stated to be 2/3rd of CafePress' price.

How's that for cheaper? CafePress is a LOT more expensive than lulu is.

[Mr Flibble]

Can I ask a relatively unrelated question, but one not worthy of its own thread?

If you were to buy a boxed AGS game, would you prefer a CD case or a DVD case? I've been toying around with the idea of releasing a boxed game, and I wondered which people prefered.

[LGM]

Definitely DVD case.

[Joseph DiPerla]

Hey Voh, sorry, I miscalculated the prices of the book production, and I apologize. Well actually, I have to confirm that myself still.

I couldn't really tell if you were calling me a lier or nor, or if you meant to say it was just a miscalculation on my part. But for future references, you might want to be careful with how you type things. It could be easily misinterpreted, especially on forums.

But this next comment is just in case you did mean it that way, "I did not lie". I dont lie. I may misunderstand, miscalculate, misinterpret, and whatever other 'mis' I do, but I do not lie.

And I just looked back on the pages, your right on Cafepress as far as the pricing goes, I didn;t check out the lulu though.

But I am sorry if I mislead someone unintentionally

[stu]

Hey Voh, sorry, I miscalculated the prices of the book production, and I apologize. Well actually, I have to confirm that myself still.

I couldn't really tell if you were calling me a lier or nor, or if you meant to say it was just a miscalculation on my part. But for future references, you might want to be careful with how you type things. It could be easily misinterpreted, especially on forums.

But this next comment is just in case you did mean it that way, "I did not lie". I dont lie. I may misunderstand, miscalculate, misinterpret, and whatever other 'mis' I do, but I do not lie.

And I just looked back on the pages, your right on Cafepress as far as the pricing goes, I didn;t check out the lulu though.

But I am sorry if I mislead someone unintentionally

lies, ALL LIES!

[voh]

I'm not calling you a liar per say, but you might want to check your facts before you go off claiming things like this. If you had to check cafepress' prices, and don't know whether the Lulu prices are correct, you obviously didn't know it before and just said something :p

Next time, check your research better

edit: check the following page: lulu's cost and you'll see it's true - CP is expensive

[Joseph DiPerla]

Lol, Sorry for the misinformation.

Believe it or not, I did check it out before. And I was thoroughly convinced I had it right. Then you came up with your stats and I went back and checked again and it turned out you were right.

My apologies.

[stu]

If I made a decent enough game, I'd do what m0ds suggested, and get my own DVD cases, print my own stuff, then I'd sell it on eBay.