Some exciting news for the November Update…
Off-Set Printing
We have been quiet about a change of plans because we wanted to make sure all the details had been worked out before announcing anything, but now I’m super-excited to share!
These days, most US-produced RPG books are printed in China. The cost is always cheaper, but there are lots of complicating issues – language barriers, asynchronous communication, long lead times, production interruptions for Lunar New Year observances, higher environmental costs, loooonng shipping times, not to mention potential, pending political impacts on both tariffs and customs.
Accordingly, we’ve been working to move production to the US, specifically to Sheridan Printing. Not only will this help us avoid - or at least mitigate - the potential issues I noted above, but there’s also a fun bonus! Bang Printing (who produced first edition Blue Planet) is now part of Sheridan, so in a way the game has come full circle. Bang was amazingly generous and helpful back in the day as we raced to make a deadline with the 1st edition, so it makes me really happy to have the project back with them.
Slipcases
November progress was limited by, of all things, the slipcases. Slipcases have to be precisely fitted to the size of the specific books, so most printers outsource them after the books are done, adding up to eight weeks to the overall production times. Sheridan can produce the cases simultaneously, saving us up to two months!
Print-On-Demand
Through our partners at Drive Thru RPG, customers are able to purchase Print-On-Demand versions of the PDFs they sell there. For those unfamiliar with POD, the process basically uses industrial copiers to print one-off, hard-bound, full-color books. While they are great quality for what they are, the typical POD book does not have the image fidelity, color matching and physical quality of off-set printing. Still, for some applications, it's a viable option. It's particularly valuable for small printing houses such as Biohazard, allowing some to provide the only physical versions of their PDFs or to extend the tail on the physical existence of a game line as off-set print runs sell out.
Accordingly, we have been testing the process for Recontact, and though it won’t be going live until we deliver the core rewards, I thought it would be fun to share some images of extant (albeit POD) versions of Blue Planet: Recontact!
