It's admirable you want to print the book in the USA, but for a very short run like this it's pretty silly/non-productive. 1000 books isn't going to help any American printer much at all, but keeping the costs down will help every American buyer. You can easily do a book like this overseas with all the bells and whistles for around $3 a book all in, delivered to your shipping location in the US.

Source: Personal, firsthand experience with this stuff for 30 years.

I mean, I guess it depends on how small the printer is, then. 1000 is absolutely miniscule for any printing operation of size. In the big picture, it will make virtually no difference at all, and small runs are penalized with a cost structure that is designed for larger scale than 1000.

PM me what your quote is, delivered, per book and I'll probably be able to turn you on to a place where you can get it cheaper, or where you can upgrade the quality for less than you're paying. I've worked with domestic and overseas printers for almost 30 years.

I just realized that the book is simpler than I thought:
Hardcover
Custom art dust jacket
Custom art slip cover
(This is going to be smyth sewn, right?)

For some reason I thought it was foil-stamped, too. For one that simple at 200 pages, it should be around $2 a unit in quantity. If I can help you, I will point you in the right direction, but this isn't any kind of offer to get involved beyond that or do this for you.

Likely there will be other forms of the book at retail or Amazon, etc after the backers are taken care of, just maybe/probably not the LE, and maybe/probably not immediately.

How many pages is this again? 200 or so? If you're doing the printing overseas, the translucent/transparent pages shouldn't add that much to the overall cost per unit, even for a short run, especially if there's only a dozen or two pages per book with this printing.

The cost to do it certainly shouldn't be a reason to cut it because it's just not that expensive, especially if you're doing it overseas as they should for a run like this.

Sometimes you make what you think are reasonable assumptions about things that are an extension of what you already know. It seems like they just found out that the printer(s) that quoted them will charge a lot for this feature, when it can be done inexpensively overseas.

For example, I try to print here in the US where possible, but sometimes the quotes are so outrageous, I have to go overseas to make something viable. I had a US printer literally raise the cost on a hardbound book run that was much larger than this pinball book by $4/unit just to add a number of colored bookmark ribbons. For cloth ribbons. That feature quote was more than the cost for the book itself. So that one went overseas and turned out fine with a much more reasonable cost.

So, yeah, overseas is where this Stern book needs to go to control costs and make it as cool as a $55 coffeetable book (edit, didn't realize most of their pledges were for the low level) should be, retaining the transparent/translucent pages (hopefully they even have them designed already - I would think exploding them into layers in a compelling way would be a challenge).

Domestic Media mail is around $5 for up to 6lbs, and the book shipper/sealing tape is $1 at the very most, so there's $49 for production of the book. For overseas printing, including delivery to the US, I would be shocked if it was more than $7/unit delivered (and likely more like $6) for a short run of 1000, even with the fancy transparent/translucent pages and a nice foil-stamped dust jacket. Unless there's some other real reason for the change, printing cost should not be a cause for cutting that feature.

$25k stretch for enamel pins? That seems silly. Those are ridiculously inexpensive to make and should have probably been included at the T-shirt level.

One-armed man?

Or if he bought bitcoin early last year, it'd be worth $650,000 now.

Which one was that?

If your last award was 5 years ago, probably time to give it up. Hadn't heard of this particular Kickstarter blowout. Thanks for the link.

I checked with the vendor I use for printing in China and adding transparent overlays to a hardbound oversized book adds relatively little to the cost. So, it's probably do-able - IF they have the layered art.

Wow. Long haul confirmed. Designing 150+ pages of a coffeetable book from scratch at essentially the END of the project won't be completed by next month. This has likely become a Fall 2018 release, which makes 2 years total.

Hold on...graphing...

Colors on the corrected pic look way off. He looks like he has a sunburn in the corrected version, and he obviously didn't in the original. With more natural fleshtone correction, the curtains are gold, which is more likely for that era. I quickly re-did parts of it (top) the original is center, and your correction is bottom.

sternbook-pic (resized).jpg

Uh...no. I have plenty of my own work to do. I had a really crappy surgery recovery around the turn of the year that put me way behind on everything except chatting up pinball and rufffling feathers occasionally, which doesn't pay.

I was just showing what was possible with not a lot of work or time, and that whoever is doing the color correction is likely very inexperienced and/or not up to the task if they think that sample is a good example.

Yeah, but Gary would have been pissed if his dad had a gash on his head and blood running out of his eyes. You can't be trusted with normal.

vireland does this crap for a living, when needed. And just to be clear, I spent maybe 10 minutes cleaning up the sample I did, just to show the direction it SHOULD have taken. It could look even better with more time spent.

The problem with the correction sample he showed is the color correction was WRONG which affected everything in the picture negatively, so it made Sam ruddy-looking and made his chair look brown rather than black and the curtains look orange. The seam in the chair was also erased, which is wrong.

I did, however, take a smidge of artistic license in that the white spot on his lips is most-likely from the flash, but it looks better without it, so I removed that.

I understand about approvals from Stern on content and interviews with creators and designers that take time, etc - they're making a different kind of book from what you're doing. That said, it FEELS like there was little sense of urgency in any of this, and that FIRST photo "correction" sample after a year and a half of nothing was plain embarrassing.

If we're expanding the scope to Data East, let's expand to Stern's competitors to get a complete picture of Stern's journey! Why not expand to Deeproot and just release a bigger book next Fall? A homebrew chapter would be cool, too, let's add that and delay it some more!

In showbiz, these moves would be called vamping.

Does that still qualify for media mail?

Meh. I still support KS occasionally. Some work, some don't. I look at it more buying into the POTENTIAL for a cool thing to be made. But yeah, this particular one seems extremely amateurish. It's like they don't have any idea what the flow for making a book should be. At all. And that "photo restoring" - yeesh. So bad.

That reads like an insult to shit.

I'm here for the entertainment.

Well there was a backer update 39 days ago that someone posted here, so SOMEONE had to log in to Kickstarter to post that...

"Paperflock is a Lousy Date"

That photo restoration sample of the work they're doing on pictures was DEFINITELY not "first rate".

Pretty dead twitter, I doubt anyone sees it, including PaperFlock. You're better off tweeting Stern.

They have wi-fi on the beach!

It is a very amateurish layout, but I didn't want to be bitchy and point that out after demonstrating how bad their "photo retouching" skills are in the book sample. So, since you said it - I agree.

You can do a LOT more long before it becomes a mess. The visual interest just isn't there.

Well, it says Stern's reputation is on the line, so of course...uh, wait...nevermind.

Resolution is way too low. At 300dpi they'd be like 3" x 4".

No need. Trudeau'll be in court tomorrow for a plea. They can just catch him while he's waiting for his case to be called.

If there's a full investigation, there might even be two bookings this year...

Who knows? Who even knows where the book layout REALLY is? We've seen a couple bad photo retouching samples, an amateurish layout sample and that's it. There's no way to know where the book will cut off or if it will ever really see the light of day.

Not enough money in it for the lawyers.

I still don't get the shooting machines again when Stern gave them all the assets from the flyers already. If those were print ready, the ones in the last 15-20 years should have PLENTY of resolution unless they're blowing up the playfield on all the machines. And if they're shooting machines at the PHOF, those machines may or may not be in an original configuration, so as a reference, this book will be worthless.

I also hope their "color correction" is better than the single example they posted a year or so ago...

But they said, "...we will meet the challenges head on and not be satisfied until the product is amazing and people get more than what they hoped for."

They wouldn't lie, would they?

Fake news doesn't exist. It's fake or it's news. News by definition is not fake. That term drives me crazy.

So in this case, the updates are likely lies or partial truths.

Especially if your blood is always away from your brain too many times a day to count in exotic locations.

The "improved" layout is really pedestrian. Super-amateur. I mean, it IS better than the original placeholder layout, but only just.

I don't believe they did the whole book with the layout that looked like the crap one. No one is that dumb. This is just another way to buy more time.

Meh. Layout IS improving, but still too little, too late.

Or, it will LOOK like that's what he's doing, but there will be no staples in the stapler. Only an impotent "click", "click", "click" with nothing to show for it.

Especially since the lion's share of that $50k wasn't even hard costs to print and ship the books.

From the examples, the layout looks really inconsistent and poor. For example, I think showing the full plastic set and actual keyfobs a pin came with could be very useful for the present and future, but they don't do it on all of these, and in the case of Harley, they use the plastic set picture as a design element and have it bleeding from one background into another. Also, they have the SAME EAGLE shown in the plastic set and then overlaying the sticker sheet on the left. Crappy.

Yeah, precious little about the games and their creation/stories, etc. Lots of photos and that's about it. Not really a great time capsule coffee table book.

Orson Welles in the studio is a force of nature. My favorite...

No point. He's trying to forget about it, or at least hopes you do.

So their website is still dead and they've added another pin to the list of pins left to photograph from 77 days ago? Mmmm hmmm.

Haha, I initially read that as "Keeping the Bull Alive" and thought you made a joke ornament.

Of course! Why didn't I think of that? Stern's 40th is so close now...

Media mail (their most likely shipping method) is around $5. The box is probably 50-75 cents, so that's over $2,500 just for shipping - 5% of what they took in.

Oh, I thought the pledge included shipping! That's terrible. Well, their cost should be around $6 if they're doing it right. But yeah, if they're charging on TOP of what you already paid, expect $15-20.

Exactly. I can get them from CHINA with that lead time, at a cost of less than $1/book.

China's a big place. A number of the factories outside the hot zone are already running again. And while paper is a great transmitter of disease, supposedly coronavirus dies on surfaces after about 2.5 minutes.

Made the whole book transparent, apparently. Ink, too.

No kidding. This is well past ridiculous.

crickets.gif

George "Every two weeks until we getcha there" Gomez?

That is very bakcwards.

How small are those pages? Based on the scale suggested by the thumb, it looks like ~7" tall.

I was estimating on the large side. If it was average thumb, that page height would be closer to 6". Did they ever say what the dimensions of the book were supposed to be? For a coffee table book, I would expect it to be much larger.

For a small project like this, China is the only way to go. The only thing you have to watch out for is the paper stock and inks they use. Make sure you get a sample before your run. Most of them are printing digitally now so this is much more practical than when it was all offset press. Also, make sure you go hardcover bound for durability. Perfect bound seems attractive, but they are anything but perfect long term. Pages tend to fall out over time in my experience.

The worst part about China is arranging the shipping, having a broker you trust to get them through customs, and the associated fees. But even with all that, at QTY 1000, embossed hardcover (small emboss, don't go crazy) with a dust jacket you'd still be in the <$5 unit range (probably like $3.50-$4) for printing/shipping.

Probably because they are out of money with thousands of books to ship.

But using media mail, these are what, like $3 to ship? If they haven't got the scratch left for that, yikes.

Lots of pinball flyers on sale on Ebay, and this is like a bunch of flyers in one place, so...

Actual shipping costs of this book are not $13 for the US. They simply aren't.

Media Mail for 2 pounds domestic US zip presorted is $2.63.
https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/Notice123.htm#_c156

Add a generous $1 for the sleeve (it's likely $0.70) and that's $3.63:
https://www.uline.com/BL_1302/White-Easy-Fold-Mailers

There's no way there's $9+ of labor to ship each book.

Post office will pick up commercial presort shipments.

Escorts, well, I don't think that's related, unless it's categorized as breaks.

That's what auto-pen is for.

Media Mail, coast to coast US shipping is $3.95 for a 3 pound box 12" x 10" x 5". Let's generously add $2 for the box (it's really less than $1) and $5 for handling. That's $11, generously. So, obviously they're using the shipping as a secondary profit center - $12 pure profit in your case alone.

Ugly.

Or maybe it's for his Hep C treatment from all the carousing. That's like $40-95k to get cured.

444 copies isn't much at all to ship out. If he's overcharging shipping by $12 on each one (and it seems like it's a lot more the more you got), that's $5000+ pure profit, minimum, on shipping alone.

5 pounds shipped coast to coast via media mail is $4.92.

UPS Worldwide Saver 2 day service for 6lbs from CA to Netherlands is $56.03.
UPS Standard (slow) for 6 lbs to the Netherlands is $30.41

Impossible to see these massive shipping charge increases as anything but a surprise last-minute shakedown.

Where are these books shipping from? Does Paperflock allow pickup?

It's a mixed use building. Paperflock is registered to a space that's an apartment on the 11th floor, not the business areas. Looks like $1400/mo for a 1B/1Bath. So, likely Joe's apt or the apt of the agent for service.

Interestingly, that same apartment is registered to the business Octopotees.

Express mail is the most expensive USPS tier. You picked the wrong method.

Plus you're checking RETAIL rates. If he uses something like Endicia for a month, he can get another 15% or more off those rates.

Media Mail DOES NOT take "several months" to deliver. Even at the busiest time (Christmas) it can take up to 3 weeks, but that's only "up to" and it's often less. All other times of the year, Media Mail takes about 7-10 days.

To anyone that does any amount of shipping he sounds like a con man or a moron. The reality he presents is not what it's like in the real world.

I checked international with 6 lbs and shipping with USPS or UPS was 1/2 to 1/3 what he's charging. Total shakedown.

Depends on the company, but for such a small job (444 customers is a SMALL job), it's probably not cheap. He should be knocking this out himself in a few days to get it done. But even with a fulfillment company, he's easily pulling in another 30% profit for himself on this shipping scam. Or, he's a total moron and doesn't know how shipping works. Take your pick.

A page or two back I ran the weight and numbers for international through our shipping terminal and came up with like $35 UPS and $60 USPS international, so about half to a quarter of what he's quoting.

And yet, I still kinda want to play it - almost enough to buy one of the $3000 ones constantly changing hands.

The one and only "color correction" example they put up says otherwise. It was grade school-level photo work and did not bode well for the other pictures that needed work. The page samples look like game flyers. I don't expect them to admit their layout skills suck, but this interview was basically image repair, it sounds like.

Yeah, seems very ponzi-scheme-ish.

Maybe more like a secret...SATAN.

church-lady (resized).jpg

I can confidently say, having done many in China at much higher quality - hardcover with foil stamped and embossed covers with dust jackets. That the book they showed is a $2 book to print, all in, $3 max with shipping. I'm being generous with that estimate, too, given the low quantity printed, they probably paid more than I would have printing thousands.

So, no, unless they're total morons, the printing is the cheapest part of the project and it shouldn't have been much at all.

Dude, you need to get a new printer in China if you think I'm blowing smoke. I absolutely have done MANY books of this quality for that price. The last one I did was more extravagant, but almost exactly the same size as the paperflock one and was saddle stitched, included faux-leather cover with gold foil-stamped front and spine, full color dust jacket, 3 color ribbons to hold your place, and gold foil-edged pages. It was also 25% more pages than the paperflock one and more extravagant than usual, so it was $4.50/unit, all-in, delivered our warehouse (I literally looked up the invoices to make sure). I GUARANTEE it blows away the quality of whatever paperflock is fleecing people into thinking cost them a fortune to print. If I dialed back the upgrades and page count to match the paperflock one, I could have gotten that book done for $3/unit, no problem, especially if there was no rush on the sea shipping (paperflock time, FTW) and I could wait for a container remnant deal to get it from China to Oakland.

Here's a picture of a stack of them, since you're concerned about my "credibility."

ArtBook-no-dust-jacket-small (resized).jpg

Game art/character books.

No, but you were claiming I was essentially lying by saying I could get that book printed and delivered for about $3 each. Remember this gem:

So, yeah, that was the thrust of your message and it was total BS. You happened to be talking to someone with a LOT of experience manufacturing in China, often with deluxe books. I wasn't lying about what I've done printing similar and much better books, but that was your CLEAR implication. It was not welcome, so don't try to dial it back now. A direct apology is much less ass-like than trying to move the goalposts. You're going to look better admitting you were wrong than pretending you didn't make the accusation you did.

I personally don't care what they paid. I'm just pointing out from a position of experience with book printing overseas that they're either really stupid at printing books or lying. Take your pick.

You can be shocked. You cannot, however, imply I'm a liar and expect me to ignore it. And I would not call what I've seen of the book they did "high quality." It looks average at best.

I don't think I ever said they were making bank. But they certainly are wasting money left and right. The grade school photo retouching sample they supplied that was TERRIBLE is another clue that they had little idea what they're doing. You can't make those kinds of mistakes when you're working with a small budget.

You can't buy just the book, sorry. It's just one component of a deluxe PS4/PSVita video game release I did.

It's nice to see that they really spent a lot of time making the pictures look consistent and great like they said they were going to with photo retouching.

But that's not the worst of it - did they REALLY go to print calling George Takei "George Taki"? REALLY? No one proofed this in ALL THE EXTRA TIME they had available?? Can't wait to see what raw treasures are on the other pages...

paperflock-sample.jpg

I sent a 2.1lb book coast to coast media mail (with tracking) 12/15 for $3.86, that is scheduled to arrive the day after Christmas. 11 days, coast to coast, WITH tracking for $3.86 at the BUSIEST TIME OF THE YEAR for USPS. Figure $1 for the literature mailer I used (I'm sure you could do better than retail) and it's less than $5 cost, all-in, PROVEN in the real world, to ship a book larger/heavier that the paperflock one.

Their excuses and overcharging because of them are TOTAL SCAMMY BS.

If they're REALLY shipping from the post office retail counter and using priority mail flat rate boxes, they are enormous morons. With 400+ orders, they should be using endicia and a Zebra label printer (total hardware/software investment $150-$175, recoup $100+ selling the zebra printer when they're done) to save the post office time and them substantial money. I can't believe they're really this stupid.

But they're not saving money at all. The medium flat rate box, coast to coast is $15.05, using the "free" USPS box. As I just tested with a real book, a 3lb book, sent media mail with tracking arrives in 11 days and cost $3.85, a difference of $11.20 on EACH shipment. Figure $1.20 for a correct-sized book-mailer box and some protective wrap, and they'd still come ahead $10 on EACH shipment. Let's say 300 of the 400 are just books, that's $3000 savings. And if USPS loses 3% of the domestic packages, that's 9 books, I'm sure the $3000 they saved would be enough to send out 9 replacements. It's like they've never managed shipping before. Makes no sense the way they're doing it.