A continuation of my posts* on self-publishing your oracle deck through US-based print on demand manufacturer The Gamecrafter. I’ve expanded the series, with much more info, and created a .pdf available now at DigitalGryphonDesign.com.
Earlier, in this post, I noted that “you can sell a deck of cards without any documentation. If your Tarot deck artwork closely aligns with the RWS (Rider/ Waite/ Smith) paradigm saying ‘just use any popular tarot book’ is acceptable … If your deck is non-RWS, or not a Tarot deck at all, not including more information on card meanings is a major shortcoming.”
The Gamecrafter does offer a wide range of document formats sized to match deck and box sizes.
The most popular- and certainly the least expensive- beyond the ‘Document’ (8.5″x11″ sheets) is Saddle stitching. That is, pages held by “a stitch made by placing the center of the fold (as of a magazine or pamphlet) across the saddle of the stitcher and driving wire staples through and clinching them on the inside,” (source: Merriam-Webster.
The Gamecrafter offers 6 page sizes of Saddle Stitch booklets:
Jumbo Booklet- 8″ x 10″
Large Booklet- 5″ x 8″
Medium Booklet- 3.5″ x 5″
Small Booklet- 2.5″ x 3.5″
Tall Booklet- 4.5″ x 8″
Tarot Booklet- 2.75″ x 4.75″
(3 examples shown here)
Booklets are priced as a base cost of US$0.90 + a per page fee; priced per sheet of 4 pages. The Jumbo Booklet is $0.55 per sheet; the smaller sizes are $0.40 per sheet. So a 20 page booklet costs $2.90 ($3.65 for Jumbo). This product can have a maximum of 40 pages.
The next higher price point is Perfect Bound books; books with covers that are glued together at the spine. At TGC the covers are made from 12pt card stock and the pages are made from high quality letter stock. A perfect bound book with 200 pages would be 1.05″ thick.
TGC offers 2 sizes; the Digest (8.39″x5.38″) Perfect Bound Book is designed specifically for the Medium Stout Boxes. The Letter (8.5″x11″) Perfect Bound Book was designed specifically for the Large Retail Box. Both sizes are priced at US$2.40 + $0.45 per sheet of 4 pages (US$6.90 for a 40 page book). This type of book has a minimum 40 page count and a maximum of 200 pages.
The most expensive book is the Coil bound; it has 12pt card stock covers and high quality letter stock pages bound with a plastic, spiral coil. A Coil Book with 200 pages would be 0.85″ thick. Finished size is 9.36″x10″- designed specifically for the Large Retail or Large Stout Boxes. A Coil book costs $3.00 + $0.65 per sheet of 4 pages (US$9.50 for a 40 page book). This type of book has a minimum 40 page count and a maximum of 200 pages.
Much more information, page templates, and plenty of examples from various TGC items is in this section of their website.
* Additional posts in this series:
Part 1: Publishing Your Oracle Deck;
Part 2: Oracle Decks: The Minimum;
Part 3: Upgrades at The Gamecrafter;
Part 5: TGC Tarot Inserts;
See Also: Color Printing Guide for TGC
These are NOT ‘sponsored posts’ – The Gamecrafter has not paid for, nor approved, my comments.
