New Price Increases plus Shipping = Lost Sales
This week Blurb has increased the price of what is one of the best selling formats (I think) 10×8 L/S. Unfortunately, this price increase coupled with the ridiculous shipping costs means that I will probably drop the idea of producing any new books. I have only produced 2 books and sold only a handfull to friends. That’s OK by me. My books were both softcover / 80 pages. If we take the base price of $21.95 and add $9 shipping we get $30.05. The most I can reasonably charge for my book is $29.95 which gives me a $8.00 profit. The price increase to $24.95 will reduce my profit to $5.00 so I loose 2 ways. Blurb raises thier profits, and I have to sell more books to reach Blurbs idea of mailing out profit checks. My "customers" have chocked when it comes to the shipping charges and, like in so many other threads here have declined to purchase when they saw the shipping charges. About the only way they will purchase a copy is for me to buy the book for them at "cost" and then they will pay me the $9 shipping charge PER BOOK! I suspect the actual charge is more like $3 per book in the US. That’s easy to check with a simple phone call to UPS. Both books were printed in Seattle and shipped to Ohio. The price to ship will be the same for both books. I have just last week mailed a book to my friend in Slovenia using the USPS Flat Rate Express mail envelope …....... the charge was $11.00. The same from Blurb / UPS is close to $50.00 !!!!!!!!!!!! Let’s face it folks, Blurb is making money hand over fist. from us. They make money from printing, shipping and even charge us $5 to mail our money to us. Now they are increasing the base cost of a 10×8 book by $3. I’m not buying the garbage about dropping the price on other products, I buy 10×8’s so it doesn;t apply to me. Blurb knew what they were doing …...... and so do we! My question: Will the price increase be applied to all new publications ONLY? or will it be applied "across the board" to all books in the database. If so, that means all previously published books will cost more. I smell a rat here. An instant rise in profits without lifting a finger! Dave.
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Hello Dave; With all due respect, In Blurb’s defence – I think you’re spittin’ in the wind… Blurb are not a charity – they are a commercial operation, out to make a profit for their shareholders – nothing wrong with that! You get their software for free, and you get a very good value-for-money book printed at the same time… We users have a choice as well – and if Blurb are too expensive for you, you’re free to go elsewhere, but overall, I have yet to find a Print-on-Demand vendor that offers the "overall" value that Blurb does… Pricing matrix’s are always a very difficult call… You can never please all the people all the time, so it’s always a question of taking a fair average and sharing the pain across all users… It’s no different to me for example choosing to pay for a book in say a range of 100-150 pages and only using 110 ! I have a choice, I can lose a couple of pages or accept the pricing… MY choice! There is an issue with shipping charges and options, I agree, and I believe Blurb have that on review, but the overall principle still exists… we have a choice… Cheers; Lee
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Dave, I don’t like price rises, who does, but the fact is that costs are rising fast for all businesses: power, oil, paper, etc are going up all over the world. So a price rise from Blurb at sometime was to be expected, this does not seem excessive compared to the cost of living increases. Probably the only thing not going up in price is the cost of storaging your Book, but Blurb offer you that for free, anyway. If their printing costs have gone up they will have gone up for printing ANY book, whether you uploaded it today, last month or last year so I don’t understand your "smelling a rat". I think shipping costs are high and certainly higher than Amazon. I would expect with the cost of petrol/diesel and jet engine fuel shooting through the roof as the price of oil rises ($122 per barrel this morning compared to $40 a few years ago) UPS, FedEx, UPS Swiss Post and everybody else in the shipping business will be putting their prices up soon as well - and I don’t look forward to that either. Blurb say they are reviewing the shipping options, I hope the result of hat comes through soon. You say a simple phone call to UPS will confirm your $3 actual estimate, why don’t YOU make that phone call for us all and post the result here? You, like any other user, can choose which publisher/printer to use for your books, If you are unhappy move your custom elsewhere. But I will probably stick with Blurb for two main reasons. I still think that for the quality of the finished product, and the ease of creating a good book, they are currently a best-buy, though I will keep an eye on the competitors pricing, if Blurb costs go up out-of-kilter with the rest of the industry I’d reconsider. With general costs worldwide increasing at the rate they are I would expect their compeitors to start raising their prices as well, again, if they don’t that will make me reconsider. .........Tony
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But I think what the original post is getting at is that there are other options that cost less as far as shipping that that are quicker, cheaper and do a better job than UPS. Of course Blurb has to make money (I don’t think they have done a stock issuance), but they would make more money by trying to bring in a wider customer base with more a more reasonable cost structure. Look at Arcadia – I’ve published four books (with a fifth one underway) since 2004. They take care of the printing, warehousing, sales and orders. I write, scan and layout the book manually (no software). A 128 page book wholesales at 11.95, retails for 19.99, and I make a dollar no matter where the book sells. Granted the format is smaller and more rigidly structured (and in black and white) and the volume per book higher; and its a different model. Still, you get a quality product at a reasonable price.
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I have no problems with Blurb making a couple bucks. But in the end ….......... the customer determines the selling price …......... not me. The market drives the commodity. It’s only worth what somebody wants to pay for it. In todays climate of rising costs and high priced retail markets it is even more imperitive to manage costs. We are all victims of the marketplace. To market a decent product (our book) demands that we should be aware of costs/profit margins …...... which are identical to Blurb if we are to stay in business, and not put a "Gone Out Of Business" sign in the window. As stated above, Yes, I do have a choice, use it or loose it. If printing costs have risen then why didn’t Blurb apply it to ALL books and ALL formats? You will note that the prices for the basic starter books have stayed the same. How do you account for that? Ink is Ink, Paper is Paper. I can accept an overall price increase, but have trouble accepting Blurb picking on certain formats/page counts. Obviously I don’t work for Blurb, so I don’t know the true inside info. Anything I say is subject to inturpretation. I see it as "Wow! We’re selling this format way more than any other. Let’s raise the price and make more bucks!". Blurb does make a good product. Perhaps I should stick to making a single copy for myself and forget about selling to others. I wasn’t thinking about conquoring the world with my books, so no harm done. After all, the increase was only 20% ........ we call all accept that much, happens every day.
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P.S. Why didn’t Blurb come out and say "Unfortunately, due to rising printing costs we are forced to raise our prices also". ........ then hit us with an across the board increase for all books, not just "selected versions".
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Hi Dave; Let me say at the outset that I’m not in for a bitching war – I’m simply in for the discussion… Again, with respect, your 2nd post doesn’t make sense.. I have no problems with Blurb making a couple bucks. But in the end ….......... the customer determines the selling price …......... not me You ARE the customer! IF either you are not willing to pay the price, or, your customers don’t like the prices you charge them, bearing in mind YOUR costs (including Blurb) then you have the options… You also say; You will note that the prices for the basic starter books have stayed the same. Well, that makes perfect business sense… Blurb want to attract as many new users as possible, and getting them to put their toe in the water with a small starter book is the ideal way of doing so… You wouldn’t want to price them out of the market before they’ve even tried you! Also; I see it as "Wow! We’re selling this format way more than any other. Let’s raise the price and make more bucks!". Again, that’s perfect business sense! You certainly wouldn’t want to reduce those prices… If the market won’t bear the cost increase Blurb will quickly review them, but I suspect that (without doing the research) Blurb are still very keenly priced if you try & compare like with like… Cheers; Lee
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Dave, With much of my reluctance to chime in and participate here, well, Dave, try to understand that Blurb Inc is relatively new company. As you might know, at any rate for any start-up companies like Blurb Inc (first three to five years) always very difficult to make money. Now, that Blurb just introduced a new product line of ImageWrap along with three other books (smaller to large-format books and some cases hardcover and softcover versions), when developing a new product, it requires some capital investment to finance. It is so obvious, and precise fact that now these days, the economy is so bad. Almost everything, including any "raw" materials, materials, papers, gas/oil, just about evertyhing, prices continue to go up. That is the fact of life, and that is the way things are going. In some case, I don’t want to sound too politicial – some cases, blame on Bush for doing nothing – "lassiez faire" policy. By doing nothing, it surely give some impact on everything, on everyone and every goods and services. As for shipping cost issues, it is, in fact, known issue for quite a long time. However, if you must contact Blurb team about your concerns. I am sure Blurb team will be very happy to hear your feedback or suggestion or insight you might have. I’ll just leave at that and step aside. Happy blurbing!
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I am in the same boat re: price increase. I have sold 28 books to friends and family and have provided the books at my cost. Now, having shown my book to their friends, they have decided to order 16 more books from me…..again at my cost. So, just as I start to place the order for the 16 books, I find that my 8×10 landscape book has increased 25 % !
I may be the customer, but the people who ordered the 16 books don’t want them now. So, the choice really is not mine, but theirs. Yes, I can go to another source and make my book over, but it is really Blurb who loses…........I’m sure an order of 16 books is probably a drop in the bucket to Blurb, but multiply that by all the other "customers" like me who won’t be placing a second order and it is Blurb that loses.
My heart just sank when I saw the price increase. I’m very disappointed!
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Big bummer for me too…I am working on an 80 page book with 50 books to order where I had already quoted the buyers a price and now the price increase means I lose about half of my profit. :-( Seems I can’t do anything about it but suck it up and I lose $ not blurb. Cheryl
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Hi Cheryl; FIRST rule of business… NEVER commit yourself to a re-sale price unless your own costs are known and FIXED! Always hedge your bets – specially when you are relying on unknown quantities… unless you’re prepared to take the chance!!! Did you also figure in the shipping costs from the USA from Australia? I hope so! Lee
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I did figure in the shipping cost (I used the blurb shipping estimate) but I didn’t figure in the customs. Having looked at the link that you sent in the other thread, if it’s total is over $1000.00 (which I think it will be about $1500.00) then I seems I might have to pay 10% if I read it correctly. There goes the rest of my profit! The reason I set the price that I did for the book is that it is for a school and I wanted to keep the price as low as I could. I thought I had all the bases covered. Seems not. :-( Cheryl
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Also, if I order 50 of my books can I order them at the base price if I don’t put a mark up on them and do I still receive the 10% discount? Sorry, I have so many questions. Cheryl
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Well I did just ring customs and now I am screwed. I know it is through my own fault but I really didn’t know any better. This is the first time for me to do this kind of thing. I am now committed to do the book and seems with no profit and I just hope it doesn’t mean I’m going to be out of pocket if the profit I would have made doesn’t cover all the fees. Feeling very disappointed right now. Cheryl
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So now I’m even more confused than I was before….I’ve just looked at the shipping calculator to get an estimate again and where there used to be three choices to choose from now there is only two…there used to be a trackable choice and now neither of the two mention tracking….If your going to bulk order a fairly large amount of books and have them shipped all the way overseas wouldn’t you want them tracked? Especially if you are spending other peoples money. This just adds to my confusion. As if I haven’t had a hard enough time working through things now this? I don’t know what to say…............... Cheryl
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Hi Cheryl; Wow – what a lot of issues; but let’s see if we can focus on some resolutions… 1. Seems to me your first port-of-call should be to revert to the school to determine whether or not they might be prepared to re-negotitate on the price, due to your "unforseen circumstances". May be worth a try, specially if you off er to "share the pain" in reducing your take from the deal… 2. Shipping; I believe that Blurb removed the trackable option to Australia because of the number of complaints about the cost of that option… Do you have any contacts in the U.S. that you could have the books shipped to, and then use them to re-ship by sea-freight with its own WayBill. That would give you a slow but trackable option… 3. Duty; It’s worth confirming that "books" do actually carry a duty. Frequently they are duty-free. Failing that, test the water on the "educational materials" front. Again frequently such goods are duty-free. Both certainly worth a bit of time reviewing. Failing that, it may be worth reviewing whether or not two shipments is feasible (to bring the import below the duty level).. but what you gain on duty, you may well lose on freight charges… Without knowing your book sizes, I can’t do the comparison… Hope you don’t think this is patronising; it’s certainly not meant to be… just trying to make some useful suggestions… Good luck; Lee
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Just for a little perspective here. My Publisher’s charge for an 11.25’ X 8.75", hard bound, dust covered, 20 page book is $34.95. Each additional page is .99 cents. So, a 100 page (I think that’s as big as they go) would be $114.95. Shutterfly is similar in price to MP, and Picaboo’s base price is higher and they charge $1.99 per additional page! Blurb charges $41.95 for the 8X10 in the 81 to 120 page range. Blurb seems like a deal to me in terms of price, and hands down winner on the sophistication and flexibility of their software, bugs and all.
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Hi Lee I don’t think you’re being patronising at all. They are good suggestions, I will take them all into consideration. I’ve looked into splitting the order and it would just lose out on the shipping. As for the shipping, with it coming such a long way I’d be a little paranoid without the tracking. I’ll take everything into consideration and see what I come up with. Thanks for the help. Cheryl
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I just noticed something in the shipping pages….in the shipping information page http://www.blurb.com/create/book/shipping there are three options of shipping to Australia but when using the shipping calculator to get an estimate http://www.blurb.com/shipping_calculator it only gives two options…the option of tracking is gone from there…this is why I got confused the other day. Which is the correct information? Thanks Cheryl
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For what it’s worth, I think Blurb’s prices are extremely reasonable. I just ordered a 418-page book, with Image Wrap cover. The cost was £49.95 plus £11.88 for express (trackable) shipping. That’s £61.83 for a book that contains over a thousand photographs. The cheapest place I’ve found for standard prints charges 4p each for orders of over 500, so I’d be looking at over £40, plus postage just to get the prints. Then I’d have to buy albums as well, so I’d be spending a lot more and the results wouldn’t look nearly so good! 60 quid for a totally personalised book of this size is a bargain in my opinion. I know we Brits do well on the exchange rate at the moment, and £60 sounds a lot better than $120, but I still think it’s good value.
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Hi Cheryl, We do list up to three options for each address, and per the note on the Shipping page, "Depending on your specific ship-to destination, we may have fewer shipping methods available." So, our system looked up your address and presented the two options available. Hope that helps. – Kathy
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What people fail to realize in their zeal to produce a book is that Blurb isn’t priced with wholesaling in mind. So they create a product, get a good reaction and THEn realize you can sell the things in small quantities. I have gotten quotes from Blurb for a thousand copies of my book and its not bad. I could certainly resell at the quoted price. But I can probably get i done cheaper at a local printer who would just ship it off to Taiwan. Authors need to do the math before making the book. Or Blurb needs to realize most authors do create with the intent of resale and find a way to cut its costs. Until it does, only a few carefully considered books shipping to the right location will come in at costs that make them a good business investment. The rest will go under "vanity press".
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How do you edit these posts?? My comment should read above: "...and THEN realize you cannot sell the things in small quantities. "
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I just went to reorder more 8×10 books and saw the $3 increase. Ouch, especially since I had just priced the books to a local store. This really cut into my margin. With all due respect and understanding about the increased costs of producing these books by Blurb, etc., what I can definitely fault Blurb on, and I believe it is unexcusable on their part to their valued customers, is the fact that I never saw a notification sent out about the price increase. Had this notification gone out, I would have checked the site to see how the increase would affect me prior to planning new sales, etc. As it is, I have been blind-sided when I went to place an order. Yes, I am only one customer. But cummulatively, we individual customers do add up. Ed
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