Print on Demand Cost Changes on DriveThruRPG
There’s been a lot of discussion about upcoming print cost increases on DriveThruRPG, particularly for black and white books. Here I analyze those changes and give guidedance for publishers.
On Bluesky, use the hashtag #TTRPGBiz to discuss this!
Bias, Experience, Scope:
I’ve printed stuff via DriveThruRPG since the Print on Demand program launched, and I worked there for 2.5 years (early 2022-mid 2024). I limited this article to printers in the USA1 as that is the main cost increase has occurred via DTRPG. I have ignored shipping costs in all cases.
Publishers control their prices on DriveThruRPG. When print costs rise, they can choose to increase prices or absorb the cost. Earnings are calculated by subtracting the print cost from the sale price; the remaining amount—DriveThruRPG calls it the margin—determines the publisher’s royalty.
Fake numbers, real math: A book sold for $30 on DriveThruRPG that costs $10 to print will earn the publisher $14 if the publisher is an exclusive (70% royalty) publisher with DriveThruRPG.
($30 [Price] - $10 [Print Cost]) = $20 [Margin]
$20 [Margin] * 0.7 = $14 [Earnings]
Print costs vary by print location (USA, UK, Australia), affecting earnings slightly. DriveThruRPG uses the highest possible print cost for initial calculations and non-USA sales reflect actual print costs and exchange rates. Currently, books ship from the USA to the U.S. and Canada, from Australia to Australia/New Zealand, and from the UK to the rest of the world. The Australian printer currently uses the same print costs as the UK.
These are the numbers that DriveThruRPG has provided about the price raises:
To make these numbers a little easier to fold/spindle/mutilate, I created this google sheet. You can make a copy of the sheet and input your own page count, this will calculate the cost for that book in every format DTRPG offers according to both current and upcoming prices. There are three tabs in it, don’t miss the second two!
Let’s run the numbers for a top-selling B&W letter-sized book:
Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. The Second Edition, Version 2.01
It’s a 8.5x11” softcover book, which is Large-sized in Lightning Source parlance. The current cost to print a single copy in the USA is $7.32 and the new price will be $11.96. DriveThruRPG offers a 3% discount on 100+ copies, reducing it to $11.60 per unit. This discount increases to 7% at 250+ copies and 12% at 500+ copies.
Now, if I input the same specs directly on the Lightning Source pricing website I get:
- $12.23 for a single unit (includes $0.60 handling fee)
- $11.76 per unit for 100 copies (includes $25.35 handling fee)
I went further and got quotes from Printvity2, printer I saw recommended in some discussions but I have not used, and Mixam3, a short run printer that I use regularly.
Here’s a price comparison at different quantities for letter-sized books:
| QTY | DTRPG B&W Old | DTRPG B&W New | LSI B&W Current | Printivity B&W | Printivity Color | Mixam B&W | Mixam Color |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $7.32 | $11.96 | $12.23 | $43.60 | $63.59 | $52.92 | $72.03 |
| 100+ | $7.10 | $11.60 | $11.76 | $20.74 | $26.42 | $13.45 | $25.45 |
| 500+ | $6.44 | $10.52 | $9.74 | $11.92 | $15.99 | $10.65 | $18.68 |
And here are numbers for a 256-page book in the 6x9” trim size, softcover.
| QTY | DTRPG B&W Old | DTRPG B&W New | LSI B&W Current | Printivity B&W | Printivity Color | Mixam B&W | Mixam Color |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $5.42 | $8.25 | $8.62 | $35.83 | $46.43 | $54.00 | $74.00 |
| 100+ | $5.26 | $8.00 | $8.19 | $12.92 | $18.48 | $14.45 | $26.65 |
| 500+ | $4.77 | $7.26 | $7.10 | $8.05 | $10.82 | $8.42 | $11.70 |
Looking at this information, I think it’s easy to say: B&W POD prices via DriveThruRPG were underpriced compared to other competitors in the USA. After the price raise they’re still competitive, and sometimes still cheaper than ordering directly from Lightning Source — especially the single quantity price, which is the most important price for most publishers on DriveThruRPG.
What’s the right course of action for customers?
You should buy B&W books that are on your wishlist now, before print costs go up. If the publisher later raises their prices, you’ve saved money out of your own pocket. If the publisher doesn’t raise prices later, you’ve put more money in their pocket.
What’s the right course of action for a publisher?
If you are publishing B&W books — especially if you are going to be publishing new B&W books — if you want to be getting the same amount of return that you were on one published last year, you will need to raise your cover price.
How much to raise depends on a few things. The questions I’d ask are:
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Do you have a backstock of B&W titles but are not producing new ones?: I’d suggest raising your print prices by enough to cover the increase in printing costs.
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Are you producing new B&W printed books?: I’d suggest you raise your print price to absorb the print cost increase and build in a little more margin.
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Are you producing new B&W printed books and have a backstock of B&W titles?: As above, raise prices to absorb the cost increase and build in more margin for all your titles, to keep them in price parity.
Price-to-customer increases are almost always a death of a thousand paper cuts. Over time, all sorts of costs go up: printing, MailChimp subscriptions, freelance artists, etc. A publisher doesn’t raise their price a tiny bit each time one of those things goes up — they wait until there’s a very clear event (often a new print run in traditional publishing) to do so, and then they make a raise that covers those increased costs plus builds in some cushion for future cost increases.
Your older books are probably not very price sensitive — if you are selling a few copies of older titles each month, the customers buying them are usually picking them up for a specific purpose so a price jump of a few dollars won’t impact your sales. However, if you keep your older books priced slightly lower than newer books, you may find some customers buying the less expensive older books only.
The other thing that raising backstock prices: if you have a whole bunch of POD books that were $9.99 and you raise to $14.99 you have price flexibility for sales and promotions whereas if you kept your book at $9.99 or raised it only to $11.99, you’d have less wiggle room for a sale/promotion/bundle.
How much should I raise prices?
If your book falls into the four categories below, raising the price $5.00 will cover the new print costs and build you in some further margin (that margin is smaller the higher your page count, of course):
- B&W, large size hardcover 240 pages or fewer
- B&W, large size softcover 272 pages or fewer
- B&W, small size hardcover 336 pages or fewer
- B&W, small size softcover 448 pages or fewer
Conclusion
For those selling a lot of smaller B&W books, this is an event that will be need to managed carefully — both with your own numbers and how you communicate changes to your customers. But it’s no means an event that should radically change how you’re running your business. Resist the urge to over-correct in response to this correction.
Want to talk about this? Let’s use the hashtag #TTRPGBiz on Bluesky!
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Everyone loves a footnote or three
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Mixam will sometimes print in a different country than expected; out of dozens of orders with them I’ve had one that I expected to be printed in the USA but it was printed in Canada. ↩
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Printvity has a minimum order of 5, single QTY from them is based on the price for 5. ↩
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Mixam isn’t technically a printer; they outsource to other printers. ↩