How good is POD? Options

[olddogtree]

I am a big fan of Deliria, and Goblin Markets is, hopefully soon to be released. But, in an email it was stated that the cost for a print run would be too high, so they are going to sell through PDF and Print On Demand. So, my question is what is the quality of POD? How does it compare with a traditionally printed book? The price doesn't matter so much, for this book at least. But I am wondering if the quality will be as good as the core book and Everyday Heroes?

[dog_xinu]

it will depend on who is doing the POD for the book. I have great success with Lulu books. I have 2 openoffice books sitting on my desk that I use fairly often (2+ times per week). I bought years ago a shadowrun book about new Orleans. It was some sort of fun raiser for disaster relief if my faulty memory servers me right. And all three books look great minus normal wear/tear.

My only grief with Lulu books is they are smaller physically than normal books. Not talking about the print size. Without measuring the books to give percise numbers, I would guesstimate they are about 67% of the size. They are not a bad size, I just prefer full sized for gaming material.

Just me .02¥ worth...

[olddogtree]

Thanks for answering. One more question though. I have never been clear on whether or not LULU offers full color books? I guess what I am asking is, is POD the same as printing the regular way, only one book at a time?

[Grinder]

I've bought a couple of Earthdawn books via LuLu and all of them are in excellent quality. Don't know if full color books are available, all ED books are b/w. Oh and I suggest to spend the extra $ for hardcover bindings.

[Blade]

They do offer full color books, but the problem with full color books is that you can't handle the color settings so you won't know how your color images will look like until you get the book. I used Lulu to get a printed version of the first chapter of my webcomic and it turned out a bit too dark and while the printing quality is quite ok, it's not as good as what you would expect from a real comic book.
Maybe the problem lies in the files I sent, the setting I used for the book, or their printing... It's difficult to tell.

[deek]

Maybe the problem lies in the files I sent, the setting I used for the book, or their printing... It's difficult to tell.

Probably just your monitor. Unless you have a high quality monitor correctly calibrated to show print colors...well, you'll always be guessing.

[Adam]

My only grief with Lulu books is they are smaller physically than normal books. Not talking about the print size. Without measuring the books to give percise numbers, I would guesstimate they are about 67% of the size. They are not a bad size, I just prefer full sized for gaming material.

This isn't true. LuLu offers a variety of sizes; I have a brand new 8.5x11 book from them sitting on my desk. Within the range of sizes they offer, the publisher is free to pick whatever size they like.

Since Deleria was originally released as 8.5x11, I highly suspect that Goblin Markets will be the same.

Thanks for answering. One more question though. I have never been clear on whether or not LULU offers full color books? I guess what I am asking is, is POD the same as printing the regular way, only one book at a time?

Yes, you can publish full-color titles at LuLu, and no, the process that POD/Short Run printers use to print is different from a traditional offset print run.

[jago668]

I have the Earthdawn books from them in hardback. They turned out good, and were/are full sized.

[olddogtree]

My view of Print on demand books has always been that the would resemble one of the Palladium books. With black ink marks in random spots on the page. I knew a guy a while back who bought a D20 modern book, from RPGobjects through POD and it was terrible. But that would have been 3 or 4 years ago I think. I don't know the name of the company that printed the book. Thanks all for the information.

[The Exiled V.2.0]

I've never had a problem with POD, although I've only gotten it from Lulu so far.
I have all the ED books from RedBrick and they're in great condition, wonderful binding on both hard and soft stuff.
Regular books I've ordered from them also show good quality.