(Topic ID: 171152)

Stern coffee table book Kickstarter?!?

By MinusWorlds

7 years ago


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    Topic index (key posts)

    29 key posts have been marked in this topic, showing the first 10 items.

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    Post #2 Link to Kickstarter project. Posted by ForceFlow (7 years ago)

    Post #74 Feedback on Stern editorial control. Posted by JoeDP (7 years ago)

    Post #109 Talk about editorial choices. Posted by JoeDP (7 years ago)

    Post #120 Confirmation that Batman 66 will be in the book. Posted by JoeDP (7 years ago)

    Post #123 Poster(s) shipping arrangements clarified. Posted by JoeDP (7 years ago)

    Post #130 Project update announced. Posted by JoeDP (7 years ago)

    Post #502 Backer update Posted by Matesamo (6 years ago)


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    #112 7 years ago
    Quoted from MrBally:

    Bally didn't use a Kickstarter campaign for their 65th or 75th Anniversary books.

    Thanks for posting this. Didn't know about this book.

    #113 7 years ago
    Quoted from xTheBlackKnightx:

    KickStarter is not a needed service for a real book publisher or author. Santiago Ciuffo did not need KickStarter for his book and this is recent, not 20 years ago.

    Nice colelction of books you have. Thanks for mentioning Santiago Ciuffo's Pinball book, which actually is the best selling pinball book of 2014 and 2015. The story of that book is quite interesting: Santiago printed about 60 copies himself in Argentina, which cost him a small fortune. When I tried to order the book I found out he could not export it due to customs regulations. As I was very impressed with Santiago's photography and story Pinball Magazine then licensed the rights to publish the book, payed Santiago an advance payment and published the book in 2014. I funded that myself without use of Kickstarter. The book is still available in the Pinball Magazine webshop: www.pinball-magazine.com/shop/.

    I used to think that funding the book myself (and with help from advertisers) was the best way to do it, but lately I'm doubting that more and more. Many Kickstarter projects use Kickstarter as a marketing tool and it seems to pay off as well. See: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/woodpunk/artcade-the-coin-op-art-book. Maybe I should start doing Kickstartes for new issues of Pinball Magazine?

    1 month later
    #251 7 years ago
    Quoted from JoeDP:

    If you have a manufacturer that you believe will do a good job for less money feel free to share.

    Pinball Magazine

    #346 7 years ago
    Quoted from Minneapolispin:

    Does anyone know if this book will be for sale beyond the Kickstarter campaign? Or are they just printing copies for those that pre-order?

    I'm not involved in this project, but the Kickstarter says, "A minimum run of 1,000 will make the printing affordable ..." This gives me the impression the Kickstarter goal of $50K was based on a print of 1,000 copies. As this goal was reached / backed by less than 500 backers, it seems only logical to me to assume there will be at least 500 copies left to be sold through alternative channels.

    #371 7 years ago
    Quoted from robin:

    without the dedicated effort from Joe and his team nobody on earth is ever going to create a book about Stern pinball in the first place.

    No?

    #391 7 years ago
    Quoted from Pinballlew:

    I hope this leads into more books about pinball!

    Are you familiar with Pinball Magazine? According to many those issues are more like a book.

    #397 7 years ago
    Quoted from Pinballlew:

    Has there been a pingame journal since the Barenaked ladies issue? That is the last one I have received?

    At Pinball Expo Jim presented a special on Heighway Pinball's Alien, which - as I understood it - was more like a rough draft that could be published in a regular issue after being polished.

    For those interested in interviews about new games, keep an eye out on the Pinball Magazine website later this week.

    3 months later
    #444 6 years ago

    For those waiting for this book to come out: why not kill some time by ordering and reading Pinball Magazine No. 4? Issue 1 an 3 are also still available. These magazines are more like books anyway with issue 3 and 4 having more pages than Stern's book supposedly will have, cheaper to buy and immediately available www.pinball-magazine.com/shop/

    #446 6 years ago
    Quoted from Micky:

    When is No 5 coming out?!

    Hopefully around October, maybe sooner.

    1 month later
    #480 6 years ago
    Quoted from frolic:

    My suggestion to Paperflock, since your entire business model is about crowd funding books, is that if you want to use crowd funding then you have a duty to continue the same communication throughout the process as you did when you were asking for money.
    "Sorry, I've been busy" doesn't work.

    As a publisher I have been following this project with great interest. Molly said it best on Facebook, which was something along the lines of: "Here's a couple of non pinball people who want $50K to write a book about pinball." Communication was mainly aimed to get the kickstarter funded. E.g: they didn't communicate that they had no writer for the book until way after the kickstarter got funded. Probably because, "Hi, we're going to publish a book but we don't have a writer yet" isn't going to fund $50K upfront. So you didn't read about that, but instead who would be writing the foreword, or doing a special drawing, which was brought as big news to bring in more funding. Marketing wise I understand, but I'm not sure whether Kickstarter was intended for such business models. However, it appears to be very lucrative: get funded first then worry about who you can source out realization to. In the mean time you run new projects, so should it be a surprise where the focus goes? The interesting part: projects like this raise way more money than publishing a book (or magazine) first and sell it when available (not to mention you wouldn't be selling many at $55 + shipping a copy). So who's the smartest here? Maybe it's not such a bad model after all?

    #482 6 years ago
    Quoted from frolic:

    At your current price of $20.30 US for PM Issue 4, that's only 2,463 issues you need to sell.

    It's hard to argue against this model when the free money is sitting there.

    In theory it's basically the Batman 66 model: overprice a product so that only a handful of will buy it, but those people generate more income than selling more product at a lower price.

    1 week later
    11
    #520 6 years ago
    Quoted from robin:

    Yes it is acceptable. Plus I think you're greatly exaggerating. It's just a book, man. Yes, they promised a delivery date. Yes, some things could have been done more professionally. But also keep in mind that it's a two-man operation. ...

    I'd say $55,000 gives anyone plenty of room to source out to all the professionals you need to get this done in time. They're not even writing it themselves. I could have done it for less and have it done by now and I'm a one-man operation...

    5 months later
    #740 6 years ago

    Thanks for mentioning Pinball Magazine's recent Pinball Road Trip Kickstarter campaign. The support and compliments are appreciated. I can see how some may feel towards backing another Kickstarter campaign while still waiting for previously backed campaigns to deliver. All I can say is that contrary to some other campaigns the content for the Pinball Road Trip book already exists. In theory the book can go to print right after the campaign successfully gets funded. As there is still some copy editing to be done it will be a little later, but I expect the book to be delivered by February 2018 at the latest. If that helps making you feel a bit more secure about funding and delivery, feel free to check out my campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1532002338/pinball-road-trip-a-photo-documentary.

    As for the PaperFlock project: I hope they will deliver soon. I'm very interested in seeing what book they managed to create.

    1 week later
    #758 6 years ago
    Quoted from puck:

    I missed that, when did that happen?

    Actually it was Dave Peterson who said something like that at the Stern seminar during Expo. You can check the audio on Pinball News.

    1 week later
    11
    #799 6 years ago

    Am I the only one who finds it odd that recent events require new edits? The book is supposed to be a historical document. Trudeau worked at Stern and contributed to the book. Why now leave that out? It's not like we leave historic events out of the history books because we didn't like the main players involved. If you're documenting 30 years of Stern, isn't that what it should be? Or should it be 30 years minus a few games?

    6 months later
    #1010 5 years ago

    I probably shouldn't comment on this, but didn't the update of 2 months ago indicate that it would be 8 weeks for the designer of the book to be done with the design? And now there is new artwork available?

    As for the CD archive: aren't those WNBJM images also on the Whizbang website? I thought for a second you had access to the CD archive that contains files from the early games. WNBJM was only a few years ago. can't believe they actually still used CDs at that time. You'd think it be all hard drives by then.

    1 month later
    15
    #1091 5 years ago
    Quoted from cooked71:

    Books on pinball are seemingly impossible.

    Good news: Pinball Magazine No. 5 has been sent to the printer. It's the biggest issue so far, exceeding the 260 pages of issue 3, so it's definitely more like a book
    More good news: no pre-order

    #1108 5 years ago
    Quoted from puck:

    What is everyone going to do with the book if and when they get it?

    Those ordering Pinball Magazine No. 5 will put Pinball Magazine No. 5 aside, take a look at the Stern book, put it away and continue reading in Pinball Magazine No. 5 Then again, it may still take so much more time that people by then have finished reading Pinball Magazine No. 5, although that will take a while as it is the biggest issue so far. Who knows, Pinball Magazine No. 6 may be out by then (and I'm in no rush to get started on that one), although I do hope the book will finished and delivered by then (or a lot sooner).

    4 weeks later
    #1121 5 years ago

    Since Pinball Magazine No. 5 is finished and available, I'm available as well. Maybe Stern should hire me to finish their book? As all the editing supposedly is already done, it should be like a walk in the park to get it over the finish line.

    2 weeks later
    #1180 5 years ago
    Quoted from toddtuckey:

    It looks like many people who preordered PINBALL ADVENTURES received Volume One today (although I have NOT gotten my copy yet!) It turned out to be 245 pages (we advertised 200 pages). You can order from www.pinballbuzz.com Hope you all enjoy it! Volume Two is on target for a December release! I will be signing copies and have it available at the Chicago Pinball Expo next week also! And don;t miss my seminar too on Friday 4pm! Todd

    Congrats! Looking forward to receiving my copy.

    #1186 5 years ago
    Quoted from Phat_Jay:

    Gary should have Todd finish paperflocks book.

    I called dibs on that a few pages ago.

    1 month later
    10
    #1244 5 years ago
    Quoted from cooked71:

    Someone at Stern needs to pick this project up and finish it.

    Gary has my number. Even Joe has my contact info. They can hire me to finish this. I can even take care of printing.

    1 month later
    #1423 5 years ago

    Just caught up with this thread. I find the update of a week ago very odd as they were already in design stage of the book months ago. And then you find out you don't have all games? Sounds like a poor excuse to cover up whatever else is taking them so long.

    3 months later
    13
    #1538 4 years ago
    Quoted from aeneas:

    If you want a pinball book - take a look at this one made in France.
    https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/dark-side-of-pinball-new-photos-book

    Or the award-winning Pinball Magazine No. 5 with 360 pages: http://pinball-magazine.com/shop/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=106
    Or Santiago Ciuffo's Pinball Book of 208 pages: http://pinball-magazine.com/shop/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=102

    When I was working on Pinball Magazine No. 5 I was wondering which publication would be published first: the Stern book of PM05. By now I think PM06 may even be published before the Stern book and I still have to get started on PM06. . .

    #1566 4 years ago

    I guess there must have been a lack of supervision on the person who put these pages together. That original Laser War layout makes no sense what so ever. Whoever did that should have been fired from that job instantly. Yet they let him/her continue the whole book? Seems very odd. In fact, it seems so odd, that I'm actually expecting the person who did the layout came up with the page they now show as approved, and they just whipped together a few worse looking pages that make no sense at all. Could it all just be such a smokescreen?

    2 weeks later
    #1620 4 years ago
    Quoted from j_m_:

    they can't really lose any money if they never produce the product. given that they raised over $50K to produce less than 500 books, I think that they would really have to piss away a good deal to not have enough funds to produce the actual book
    vireland or jonathan can confirm this

    Let me put it like this: if I was paid $50K to produce 500 books, I would make sure it was ready in time and it would be so impressive that it would create an even bigger demand for reprints.

    3 weeks later
    10
    #1630 4 years ago

    So I guess it will mostly be a cramp-as-many-images-as-we-can-fit-on-a-page book, without any eye for detail.

    4 weeks later
    #1642 4 years ago
    Quoted from jellikit:

    After Thursday they will have another machine to add to the book!

    That's likely going to cause a few months extra delay

    1 week later
    #1661 4 years ago
    Quoted from NeilMcRae:

    . . . what I was hoping for was more about the story of building these games...

    Sorry, you'll have to read Pinball Magazine for that

    #1665 4 years ago
    Quoted from Billy16:

    I hope that little dig means you are going to do an article on the story of Stern!

    At some point, very likely, although an 'article' wouldn't cover it. I actually already have most of the games photographed. Priority, however, is a different cover story. But someday . . .

    1 month later
    12
    #1702 4 years ago
    Quoted from frolic:

    from the update: "As you probably know, most pinball books have maybe one or two photos of a machine, and most of those photos were not taken by book’s creator. And most books don’t begin to approach this many machines! Documenting this much pinball history is a first!"

    As you should know, Pinball Magazine No. 5 covered over 180 different games. The books by Michael Shaloub and Marco Rossignoli feature way more than 90 games and as far as I understood they photographed these themselves (but correct me if I'm wrong). If the Stern book is as accurate as this update, it will be a waste of paper.

    I'm also curious which games, aside from the known prototypes, had a production run of less than 50.

    I'm also curious whether the book will include prototype games like Total Recall, Mad, Checkpoint with alphanumeric displays, Mini Viper, Aaron Spelling, Michael Jordan and such, but with the number of games being limited to 90 I guess that answers my question with a firm 'no'. Data East and Sega Games combined are roughly 65 titles (including prototypes that didn't see a full production run). Not counting the various models of the same game, Stern Pinball has at least 57 different titles listed on IPDB. So with 90 games, they won't be complete anyway. Then why bother about these 6 missing games? Only one word comes to mind: amateurs.

    #1714 4 years ago
    Quoted from LesManley:

    Seriously though, if these are being photographed from home collections, I can only imagine some of the modded / purped out monstrosities that will show up in this book...if it ever gets done.

    No need to worry about that. Unlike Pinball Magazine - where a full page is used for a complete playfield of a modern game - the playfield images in this book will be so small, you won't be able to notice any details...

    5 months later
    #1864 4 years ago

    Based on that update, I'm pretty sure I can find them a better printer deal, which will be a lot quicker as well. 6-8 weeks to print a few hundred books? That has to be a joke.

    8 months later
    11
    #2336 3 years ago

    First of all, my sympathies to all who ordered this book and got let-down after let-down.
    Second: thanks for the kind words on the PINBALL book by Santiago Ciuffo, which is published by Pinball Magazine (link at the top of this page).

    As publisher of Pinball Magazine, I'm familiar with how crazy shipping costs can be. I am working with two postal companies, both offering various rates, in order to keep shipping costs affordable. However, I've never seen the rates that you guys have been charged. I'm not saying these aren't accurate, but there must be ways to ship the books cheaper.

    If I may make a suggestion for overseas customers, like those in Western Europe: it may be very cost effective to ship all books and other materials that come with it as freight to one address in e.g. The Netherlands. From there, the books can either be picked up, or shipped to another lcation in Europe. The shipping rate with PostNL for a package up to 5 kilograms from Netherlands to most West EU countries is like 20 Euro, even cheaper if it's under 2 kilograms. The split shipping costs of the cargo package are probably even less than that, so I guess the shipping would per backer shouldn't exceed 40 euro. Not sure if I can be of any help, but I'm willing to see if I can in some way.

    Regarding the 90% refund: as far as I can see, the math is off. Kickstarter takes 5% and so does Paypal. But Paypal also applies fees (probably 5%) in case of a refund. I'm sure you can do the math on that.

    Slightly related (shameless self plug):
    As I mentioned, as publisher of Pinball Magazine I've been dealing with shipping books and magazines quite a bit. Recently I discovered a 'loophole' that actually results in lower postal costs in some cases. I'll spare you the technical details, but if you've been on the fence about ordering issues of Pinball Magazine due to shipping costs in the past, now may be a good time to maybe consider ordering one or more issues (which are more like books anyway).

    Jonathan
    www.pinball-magazine.com/shop/

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