What would you pay for Ken's X-15 professionally printed?

[cgutzmer]

I am looking to open a publishing house - kinda.... I am using Ken's X-15 to figure if tihs would be profitable or not

I have quotes out with a couple people to see how much it would cost to have Ken's plane printed using digital offset printing in a short run of about 300 models printed (with directions)

Keeping in mind the model sells for $9.00 digital download what do you feel would be a fair price for the final end customer to pay? I likely wont be shipping this myself but hope to sell these to more traditional websites like Jason etc that are already established in this area. I might do it myself but I dont really want to take on this aspect if I can help it as it will use time I really dont have to offer

I also hope to chat with comapnies like hobby lobby to see if they might put it on the shelves next to the plastic kits etc

Thoughts?
Thanks!
Chris

p.s. I will also likely look for someone to do a side by side biuld of this kit and the digital download kit to see if there is a noticable difference in quality if this idea progresses/

[Phil]

It would help to know how many pages of parts we will be getting...

[OldTroll]

<<The Lurker pops up>> If it was printed on gloss paper I'd say $12-15. This is an exceptionally fine model with very detailed instructions. <<and disappears again.>>

[buffalowings]

I am yet to see the plans, but if it's as good as OLD TROLL says, I would pay 10 to 15 bucks

[n810]

$15 would be totally doable. Actually, for that one, based on the extreme amount of black ink that goes into printing it myself, I would probably be willing to throw down $20.

[Rick Thomson]

$15 sounds reasonable, shipping rates are the reason I don't buy too many printed kits though. I'll be willing to lash out a bit more for his XB-70 when it is finished though.

[NYC Irishman]

THe kit is a work of art but any chance of publishing it with an update of the Drop tanks/ Boosters it had for some of the flights...I love Kens model but its hard to see it on the gound with its wheels down...

Just a thought like

John John

[Don Boose]

Looks like you have consensus.

Who was that masked lurker?

Don

[Dyna-Soar]

The best part is that in plastic, you buy a kit for the same price that is 1/2 or 1/3 the size of Ken's model.

[Maltedfalcon]

Interesting concept.
Lets See, That model parts wise is 18 pages 8 1/2 X 11
If one were to take that to a really nice laser printer copy place
(I have a friend who owns a copy shop with a really really nice color/copierprinter
that can handle large format paper/cardstock/and really high dpi)
They charge 85cents/ page color but have price breaks so figure .50cents/page (you might be able to do better.
now offset is more expensive to start up but cheaper in the long run (go figure)
so the .50/page is a good starting point. (mind you thats just the printing
cardstock is extra... but lets use the .50 for guestimating, if you can get a better price then it would include the paper in that cost...

Not sure how many pages in the instructions but they can be B&W so they will be negligible in cost... perhaps 1$ for the instructions.

So 18 times .50 = 9.00 alone in parts cost
+ $1.00 for the instruction sheets.
Now you will need an envelope that does not fold to mail it, sized for 8.5x11 figure $1.80 each.
So materials wise you are up to $11.80 in costs.

Now you said this was a business and hopefully the start of something ongoing.-
So you need to price the time you put into this, working with the printer/ validating the quality, sorting models/instructions, putting them into the envelopes... your gas to an from the printer (again and again) storage costs( they take up room in your house)
ooh yeah dont forget to roll in the costs of business licenses city/state/county and you will need to go to your state franchise tax board and get a resale license (otherwise you have to pay sales tax on your copies/papers/supplies,etc....) a file cabinet to keep all that paperwork...

All that being said, a 50% mark up would actually be very cheap.
Oh I forgot. how much are you paying the original designer/model you sell.... OK lets figure he gets 50% of the gross.
So you charge $23.60 for the model, Plus Shipping and handling, (that includes pulling a model out of the stock drawer, labeling it, taking it to the Post office and mailing it.) That ought to be about $5.00 (including first class postage anywhere) some will be more expensive some less, you will break even) dont forget, shipping labels cost money too! as does the printer and ink)

So if you were being serious, I would expect you to charge $23.60 plus sales tax (if we are in the same state) plus $5.00 shipping and handling.

The shipping would be a wash
10$ for the model
1.80$ for the envelope
5.90$ goes to the designer
5.90$ to you the "publisher"/model
or a net profit to you of $1,770 on 300 models
minus all your business expenses, licenses, bank fees, paypal fees, income taxes.
& dont forget to pay the sales tax you collect to the state.
& remember you pay the printing up front, so unless you actually sell all the copies of the models you printed your profit gets really screwed up, but once they are printed they are like money in the bank, (sometimes it just takes a while to cash out that money)

and for fun lets figure out if you put 80 hours into bringing this model to production including driving to printer/back/ postoffice/back county/city hall/ back, making labels, filling out forms, stuffing envelopes/phone calls, etc...
$1,770-taxes/expenses say = $1,000,/80 hours = 12.50$hour

So to answer your question, I would expect to pay around $23.50 for this model from an offset printer. how much are you thinking of charging.