[UA] Exchange rates and jails

[Liam Routt]

John Tynes wrote:
> > As a person who tinkers around with indie game design from time to time I've
> > often wondered if it would be even remotely worth it to get the damn thing
> > printing in Australia or just to stick to the US.
> 
> As a point of reference, Hogshead prints and warehouses all of its products
> (Warhammer FRP, New Style games) in the U.S., although Hogshead is in the
> U.K. and WFRP has a strong following there.

As an Australian publisher of roleplaying material, we print and warehouse 
all of our material in the US, and without that we'd be dead in the water.

The US market is the largest (pretty much - Europe is very large), so you 
want to avoid having shipping charges associated with selling there. In 
addition, the competition in the printing and shipping areas in the US 
keeps your quality decent and your prices down. While I didn't to a lot of 
checking of Australian prices, the ones I found were not competitive when 
you figured shipping most of your stock to the US. And finally (I think), 
the distributor network in the US is solid not just for that country but 
also for the rest of the world - people buy from them. We're using 
Wizard's Attic for fulfillment (a great reason to get it all done in the 
US), and they get our stuff to the rest of the world in a way that would 
cost us a lot more in time and advertising and expenses than we could 
afford.

I can't think of a single economic reason to print in Australia. On the 
other hand, I'd love to be closer to my printer, so I could look over 
their shoulder. But my experience has been that most Australian printers 
are not as au-fait with the current (money-saving) technologies, so I'd 
have to put up with more fuss over here as well. Another result of 
competition in the US - if you want the business you do what you can to be 
on top of everything.

I gather some rpg companies are printing in India (I think) at the moment. 
They get a very good price for decent volume, which offsets the delays and 
costs associated with shipping. Its not enough for me, though, at our 
small volumes.

Take care,

Liam
--
Liam Routt                                               liam at routt.net
Darcsyde Productions                     http://www.routt.net/Caligari/

        -- still waiting for the Absolute Destiny Apocalypse --

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