reprint of the playing cards

I spent all day yesterday and all day today (up to this point) writing this. I wrote stuff and deleted it about 20 times. I crunched numbers and recrunched numbers.

And then Jocelyn got involved with the numbers and .... I think we might shoot for doing this in September of 2015. The key is that to get a really good price on printing, you have to wait two or three months. You can get them in a week, but then the price nearly doubles - and then we are back to where we started from.

But after spending so much time on this I thought it would be a waste to just never post it.

Trying to make a decision. There are so many variables and I have weighed the opinions of dozens of people. Here is my feeble attempt at a summary.

We are now low on cards. At the current rate of sale, we have enough to get us through next summer. Of course, it is possible a lot of people might buy some for Christmas, so we might be sold out before Christmas. So maybe we need to act immediately.

Plan A) get a few more printed at a high price per deck and keep selling them at the current pricing. I would barely be able to afford this.

Plan B) do another kickstarter, but this time with the idea of getting much higher quantity and, thus, being able to sell them at a much lower price. Maybe we can sell ten times as many at half the price.

The biggest expense on the cards is shipping them. It has been nuts. Other people seem to be able to get cards to folks for a lot less money. I think a lot of it has to do with being a huge company that has their own card printing press, and, maybe their own freight company (or a relationship with UPS that costs a tenth of what it costs the rest of us).

It has now been over a year and we have a lot more experience. We can do this cheaper if we can put together a big enough order.

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A reminder of the goals for this whole project:

1) the ability to give decks to friends and family in the hopes that you will then look less crazy

2) infect brains with permaculture through retail channels

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Another thing that has come up is that I very much want to give more candy to my kickstarter supporters than to the folks that buy this same stuff outside of kickstarter.

After running lots and lots of sets of numbers, it does seem like this is a doable thing if the kickstarter gets funding at about $42,000. But since this is all based on narrow margins, this is the break-even point. And pretty much demands that there are no mistakes anywhere along the way. So, maybe the thing to do would be to shoot for $50,000 - just to be safe. But for all those people that bought a brick last year, do they want two or three bricks again? Or do they have all they want? On the other hand, maybe the people that received cards last year would like to give cards this year? Kickstarter is a great way to find out. But maybe next year.

Is this something Diego would put in PV2015 goodie bags? Or that could be hawked at the conference?

What's really needed here is a card game that uses the content of the cards. Like Settlers of Catan or something. Or a PDC teaching exercise. Everyone draw 3-5 cards at the beginning the course, spend the week looking for relationships and patterns that have to do with that person/subject, then tell a tale about the connections on one card to the group at the end. Or play "guess my card" pantomimes in the evenings. Rules or directions that are free for instructors to download, but you need the cards to play.

Would it not be better to have a new and different pack of cards ?
Then some people might buy the new pack too on top of having the old pack ?
I worry you will hit the law of deminishing returns here.
Or maybe print some A3 posters of the cards to sell .

David

would it not be better still to have a completely new product?

The Best of Permies _ The Book
Editored by Duke Paul Himself
Just an idea you cull your fav posts over the years and make them into a book .

David

Paul - do you own the art for the cards? In other words - can you use it for things other than the cards?

If so, a reprint of some of the most beautiful ones as artwork to fit standardized frames might make unique gifts. The artwork can also be submitted to places like zazzle.com and people can put it on whatever suits their taste (various styles of t-shirts, phone cases, bags - whatever).

Anyway - that's my deep thought for the day.

Tuco Jacobs had asked the question about companion planting apps, and I did a search on Google Play for him to find any organic gardening, permaculture, or food forest apps, and the results were rather depressing.

I think for a new product, creating an iPhone and Android compatible app for everything permaculture and food forestie would be an idea that could possibly get permaculture more mainstream. Like all your podcasts and videos could be accessed from it. The permies forums could be accessed with it. With permission from others, like Geoff Lawton and Bill Mollison, links to their contents and videos could be added. Maybe all our collective knowledge of plants could be written to create a database of plants for the app. Maybe a poll or thread could be posted asking for what kind of content and tools people would want in a permaculture app, like a sun calculator, rainfall, weather data, recipes, livestock management, crafting, building techniques, etc?

So the stock at amazon is almost out. And my stock here is almost out. I raised the price at amazon to $24.95.

I think it is now time to explore the idea of doing another kickstarter.

reprint of some of the most beautiful ones as artwork to fit standardized frames might make unique gifts.

The trick is that if only one person wants one card, that is very expensive and can take a lot of time to arrange with a good printer.

The artwork can also be submitted to places like zazzle.com and people can put it on whatever suits their taste

Yup - but now we are talking about stuff outside of kickstarter. And this does not help get more decks printed.

The Best of Permies _ The Book
Editored by Duke Paul Himself

an iPhone and Android compatible app for everything permaculture

I have oodles of possible projects for the future. The question of the moment is: should I do a reprint with what I can afford and continue with the current pricing, or do a kickstarter and shoot for a low cost product?

Just checked for the amazon prices. See screenshot, I still get to pay 18,48 ATM


Just posted in the original card deck forum for a gross discount on the cards if possible, now saw this one. so my 2 cnts:

How about Catan/Magic/Yu Gi Oh/Whatever makes your hair cringe game version, where people get tricked into buying more cheaper refill decks. This way they can let their kids play with the common cards and learn the basics about permaculture. Would open up more and easier addable new editions and/or local varieties of the PermaCulture Card game. Just find a card-game style that fits into permaculture to base this game

Would you be interested in having a European Printer supplier for your card decks? This would save transport money/co2. Prices can stay the same because of all products sold here from the USA normally have import/export taxes.

Edit: Saw that the 18,48 pricing was from a freighter something, added another screenshot, stilll 19,95(saved my ass a bit there for screaming out loud),

2nd edit: no more screaming, why do you still get to buy it from a lot of traders for 19,95
Don't you have like a I want all the moneys agreement with them? Making them charge the same amount as you want them to.

Just took this qoute thingy from the other cards topic:

paul wheaton wrote:I'm not sure if we have 100 left.

I am just now running numbers for a reprint. The key is, should I print a thousand and keep things going as they have been going, or should I get 20,000 and sell them for half the price that I've been selling them?

I would say get them or 25k, make sure there is a marking somewhere which indicates it's print. This will make the first run almost a niche therefore a desired object for just collectors alone, they just don't know it yet.
Being serious I would go for the half sale price. 20 bucks is a lot, 10 bucks is a great gift. Or even to just buy for a weekend of playing when you left yours at home(giftstores at campsites/etc). If it is cheaper to acquire smaller stores are more prone to just buy a display box with 40 of them in it(making these can be ant/workshop/slave labor work). I know I would like to have one in my store if I had a store.

The challenging part is the shipping. I think I have optimized the shipping part. So, as odd as it sounds, we would offer price breaks at 4 bricks and 9 bricks.

Would you be interested in having a European Printer supplier for your card decks? This would save transport money/co2. Prices can stay the same because of all products sold here from the USA normally have import/export taxes.

I would be open to this. I thought Maddy might do it, but she seems uninterested.

I am crunching the numbers and I think I can do something where a person could, through kickstarter, get a brick for $50, 4 bricks for $160 and 9 bricks for $320. This includes US shipping.

So, people that support the kickstarter at $50 would pay $4.17 per deck.

If I put the cards on amazon in time for christmas at $7.50 per deck, amazon would take $2.50 ---- I think I can get this to work!

If people want to buy bricks after the kickstarter, the price could be $70/$200/$400 - so the folks supporting the kickstarter get the best candy.

click the thumbs up on this post if you would support a kickstarter for a brick (12 decks) for $50

click the thumbs up on this post if you would support a kickstarter for four bricks (48 decks) for $160

click the thumbs up on this post if you would support a kickstarter for nine bricks (108 decks) for $320

Any place to indicate wanting to buy just one or two decks? That's all we have the budget for, but I would still love to buy some!

Nicole Alderman wrote:Any place to indicate wanting to buy just one or two decks? That's all we have the budget for, but I would still love to buy some!

I know that there are kickstarters where they will sell one deck, including shipping, for something like $8. I don't see how they pull it off. Shipping is something like $6. There is such a thing as "media" shipping - but the fail rate on that is high enough that it would result in large support costs.

Plus, I think the kickstarter is designed for holiday shopping: get a dozen as gifts for the holidays and a few left over for bits and bobs the following year.

Plus, kickstarter can be kinda weird about quantities. If we say "one unit" is a brick, and then we do four bricks and nine bricks, then I think we are okay. But if we also do "a third of a brick" (four decks) then they might put the kybosh on this project.

I think I have done a pretty good job of optimizing this for the price of one brick.

Plus, I think we will be able to sell these through amazon for $7.50 per deck. Amazon worries about the shipping costs.

If I did put in something smaller, it would be for four decks at .... $30. And I really want to sell the cards during the kickstarter for a lot less than what they would be offered on amazon.

paul wheaton wrote:The challenging part is the shipping. I think I have optimized the shipping part. So, as odd as it sounds, we would offer price breaks at 4 bricks and 9 bricks.

Would you be interested in having a European Printer supplier for your card decks? This would save transport money/co2. Prices can stay the same because of all products sold here from the USA normally have import/export taxes.

I would be open to this. I thought Maddy might do it, but she seems uninterested.

In that case if the time arrives, email/purple me. Whatever you prefer regarding this matter.

I may have missed something, but if you're reprinting the same cards from the same printer, it seems like the printing costs would be less this time because they have already done a run with your material. Or is that not a factor now that everything is done digitally? But still, I thought reorders were less expensive for the printer. Could they cut you any kind of deal, especially if your second run is potentially larger than your first?

I was going to say, I don't know why you would do another kickstarter just to get more cards. Just print a large number of decks and continue to retail them at what ever price makes it worth your while through Amazon, or whole sale them to people who want the bricks.

I like the idea of making a small change of some kind that makes the original run unique. (I still have half a dozen decks).

If you run another kickstarter, then will you offer a new chance to be on the "keen on world domination" card? Maybe add a new world domination type card? If you do, will the original list of people who backed at that level still be included in the deck? I put the name of my farm on that card on the original run and figured it was advertising. Anyone who got curious about the list could google any of the names on it and they might find my "farmstay" website.... I have no way of knowing if any of the folks who've contacted me first heard of my place on the card, but it's fun to think about.

Not that I want to pay for being listed on another world domination card, but if you do go the kickstarter route, it's a way to generate some funds. You could pitch it that way, too. These cards go to a very select population, and they are the very people who might show up and might be welcome. Where else can a "business" get its name in front of this select group in perpetuity?

I've noticed that some items at Amazon do not qualify for free shipping, but can be added to qualifying purchases. Maybe that is something to consider.

As busy as you are, if it is just more cards you want, I think you would choose the easiest possible route, and keep your energy and attention on what ever it would be on at this time in the growing season, building season, as we begin to plan for the coming winter and get all our "toys" put away, and projects to a good overwintering phase.

Anyway, good luck with your decision.

Thekla

When you say you've optimised shipping, does that mean it is now cheaper to ship out of the US.

Cheaper cards would help to bring the per pack price to something near reasonable for those of us outside the US. $50 for 12 decks plus $63 shipping --> a bit under $10 per deck --> about NZ$17. Still pretty steep but at a stretch, something I would give to people I knew would treasure them.

Anything to reduce the steep shipping costs would be great.

I was thinking about giving out the decks as prizes in contests at our workshops, so I would support kickstarter for a brick or two, but the shipping cost to Europe is still too high. Normally the package from the US to Poland (20x10x10 inch, up to 10 lbs) costs me 25 USD . I use this carrier http://www.polameronline.com/default.aspx, but there are others as well. I believe it would be possible to use them as well within the Kickstarter, simply by asking you to send the brick to their US address. Then the shipping would be 25 bucks.

i like the cards, i bought 1 pack and it is beautiful. i was considering 24 packs, (is that 2 bricks?)
12 would be resold, 12 would be for clients/gifts.
shipping is the issue for me as well.

I just wanted to say that the first kickstarter I ever supported was the second fire DVD one. I got the 8 DVD set with all 3 versions. Even though I've downloaded all 4 of the old DVDs, I've only watched about half of one of them. On The Other Hand, the Permaculture Rhymer's Manual I have probably listened to an average of about once a day since then.

The point of this is, I'm not sure if I would buy the cards by themselves in a Kickstarter (unless the discount was ridiculous, like a brick for the price of 2 decks), but I could easily be swayed by extra "candy".

I like the idea of changing the cards of the second run, to differentiate them from the first. You could just have the printer change the color of the back of the cards. It would be an easy, cheap, and extremely visible change. Also, say you can sell the new cards for 50% of the price of the old cards, because of ordering a higher quantity, why not do the kickstarter price at 50%, then the retail price at 75%? If you can build in enough profit in the price, you can set it aside, and have the money for a third printing, without doing a third kickstarter. Permaculture is a growing trend (pun was not intentional, but I like it!), so the demand for the cards should steadily increase. Get as large of a quantity as you can get the funding for! I don't have any money that I can spend on the cards right now, but looking at them, I certainly would like to get at least a deck myself eventually.

Bryan Matthews wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:The challenging part is the shipping. I think I have optimized the shipping part. So, as odd as it sounds, we would offer price breaks at 4 bricks and 9 bricks.

Would you be interested in having a European Printer supplier for your card decks? This would save transport money/co2. Prices can stay the same because of all products sold here from the USA normally have import/export taxes.

I would be open to this. I thought Maddy might do it, but she seems uninterested.

In that case if the time arrives, email/purple me. Whatever you prefer regarding this matter.

Make me an offer that i can't refuse will love! My email is paul at richsoil.com.

Kim Arnold wrote:I may have missed something, but if you're reprinting the same cards from the same printer, it seems like the printing costs would be less this time because they have already done a run with your material.

It turns out that our printer subcontracted it to somebody, who subcontracted it to somebody .... and at some point somebody grabbed the artwork and started to compete with us. So we have elected to not use that printer again.

One of the reasons to get all of this on the market really cheap is to make it so those guys cannot make as much money on the cards.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:I was going to say, I don't know why you would do another kickstarter just to get more cards. Just print a large number of decks and continue to retail them at what ever price makes it worth your while through Amazon, or whole sale them to people who want the bricks.

That's a lot of money.

And, even if I traveled that path, do I print 20,000 decks and then sit on them while selling 200 decks per year? Or, is it possible that at the lower price, I sell ten times more?

will the original list of people who backed at that level still be included in the deck?

I dunno. I have not decided yet.

Sue Rine wrote:When you say you've optimised shipping, does that mean it is now cheaper to ship out of the US.

Nope. In fact, it is actually more expensive.

What we've done is figure out how many decks we can squeeze into a fixed rate box.

Richard Gorny wrote:I was thinking about giving out the decks as prizes in contests at our workshops, so I would support kickstarter for a brick or two, but the shipping cost to Europe is still too high. Normally the package from the US to Poland (20x10x10 inch, up to 10 lbs) costs me 25 USD . I use this carrier http://www.polameronline.com/default.aspx, but there are others as well. I believe it would be possible to use them as well within the Kickstarter, simply by asking you to send the brick to their US address. Then the shipping would be 25 bucks.

If we can set up folks in europe and oz to print and distribute, we might be right as rain.

Is there a way to "drop ship" to other nations/continents that would be workable and less expensive, kind of like "container shipping" on a smaller scale?

What I mean is, going the kickstarter route, all the decks going, for example to New Zealand, could go into the same package. They could already be addressed and ready to mail so that a trusted associate in the destination country could receive the large shipment and send all the little packages on their way, through the domestic carrier of choice. Maybe the international leg of the journey could be shipped by freight instead of mailed, it might be a lot cheaper. That might get the shipping price lower for the people in lands other than the USA who back the kickstart, but ONLY for the people who back the kickstart, because there would be one shipment to each country/ or shared postal system. And, there would have to be a threshold number of decks/ bricks to get the lowered shipping costs.(Incentive to back the project , incentive to order enough decks to get the lower shipping price.)

I really don't know enough about the EU and whether they have a shared mailing service. I really don't know enough about international shipping and freight to know if there is any basis in reality for this idea.

I also want to say I am appalled that your art work was stolen as the printing got sub contracted out to and through so many printers. I really thought there was a law against that, but I guess it is differentially enforced.

Who would have thought someone who recognized the value of permaculture cards would also have the personal (lack of?) ethics to allow them to counterfeit your cards. I am so sorry.

Thekla

Thekla McDaniels wrote:I also want to say I am appalled that your art work was stolen as the printing got sub contracted out to and through so many printers. I really thought there was a law against that, but I guess it is differentially enforced.

There are laws.

I suppose I could spend $20,000 in a lawsuit that would be spread out over seven years, and by the time I won, the business would be dissolved and long gone.

right, I understand not pursuing it, but still, it's a sorry statement about the deterioration of our or some other culture that we have to play the lawyer game, and find out it is not about justice anymore, but arguing and appeals and being clever and all that.

As I said before, I'm really sorry, for your sake, the artist's sake, and for all of us who must put up with such travesties against what is so obviously against humanity itself.

I gotta go earn money at the rate of $10./hr for awhile, lucky to have the opportunity!

Namaste

Thekla

paul wheaton wrote:

Thekla McDaniels wrote:I also want to say I am appalled that your art work was stolen as the printing got sub contracted out to and through so many printers. I really thought there was a law against that, but I guess it is differentially enforced.

There are laws.

I suppose I could spend $20,000 in a lawsuit that would be spread out over seven years, and by the time I won, the business would be dissolved and long gone.

Come now Paul. I highly doubt you get 20k and 7 years in. As someone who works for lawyers I can say that is probably very doubtful. Send them a threatening letter, from a lawyer with law, etc., and see what happens. At the very least it might scare them out of selling the cards. Doing nothing is like giving the thieves a stamp of approval.

Besides, You don't sue the subcontractors subcontractor subcontractor. You sue the person YOU contracted with. It is their responsibility to try to recoup their costs by going down the line, not yours. Or throw all the stones at once and name every single party involved in the original complaint.

elle sagenev wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:

Thekla McDaniels wrote:I also want to say I am appalled that your art work was stolen as the printing got sub contracted out to and through so many printers. I really thought there was a law against that, but I guess it is differentially enforced.

There are laws.

I suppose I could spend $20,000 in a lawsuit that would be spread out over seven years, and by the time I won, the business would be dissolved and long gone.

Come now Paul. I highly doubt you get 20k and 7 years in. As someone who works for lawyers I can say that is probably very doubtful. Send them a threatening letter, from a lawyer with law, etc., and see what happens. At the very least it might scare them out of selling the cards. Doing nothing is like giving the thieves a stamp of approval.

Besides, You don't sue the subcontractors subcontractor subcontractor. You sue the person YOU contracted with. It is their responsibility to try to recoup their costs by going down the line, not yours. Or throw all the stones at once and name every single party involved in the original complaint.

This reminds me of a documentary about a guy who makes a lot of money by buying weird Pezz dispensers(the candy things) directly from the factory. Despite strict production lines and destruction of not used Pezz dispenser he still would manage to get his hands on weird and rare collectables. To shut him down Pezz just started to produce all his weird and rare ones, making them obsolete and/or common. Maybe you can pull a stunt like that.

Shipping all the kickstarter cards to one country in one batch sounds as though it could be a goer. I'd be happy to wait for lower priced but slower shipping.

Also, getting cards printed in Oz to supply Oz and NZ might be even better.

What is the optimum number of bricks per package that you have discovered? The reason I ask is because I'm going to a gathering of permy types tomorrow and could ask if any might be interested in a combined shipment.

paul wheaton wrote:

Thekla McDaniels wrote:I also want to say I am appalled that your art work was stolen as the printing got sub contracted out to and through so many printers. I really thought there was a law against that, but I guess it is differentially enforced.

There are laws.

I suppose I could spend $20,000 in a lawsuit that would be spread out over seven years, and by the time I won, the business would be dissolved and long gone.

All films have the FBI warning at the beginning, stating that the FBI will investigate all reported copyright violations of the film. Does the FBI investigate other forms of copyright violations? If they do, it might not cost you anything to get your problem stopped. I am sure that you would have to sue to get compensation for lost sales, but an FBI investigation, and possible fine, should stop any further illicit sales.