Went exploring Papertrail for info on paper and found “New Type for Letterpress” available. I am a member of ATF (the Fellowship) and am interested in trying your type. Could you send me a Price List?
As you may deduce from some of my other blog posts, I’ve been going to ATF meetings for about (let’s see, Grafton, Piqua, Portland, New Haven, Auburn, San Francisco…?) 12 (?) years now. I think my first was at Sky’s in southern Illinois where, thanks to the remnants of hurricane Ike, I had to tow someone out of the mud alongside Sky’s driveway. So we’ve met several times.
Dithering over pricing is the main thing that is stopping me from going all-out announcing that I’m open as a type foundry. I really want to avoid having a complex pricing scheme, but then I also want to make sure there isn’t some corner of my pricing where my efforts and materials exceed my returns.
The simplest would be just to charge by weight or area (which are pretty much equivalent), but that would be shortchanging myself on the extra time required to handle and package smaller point sizes. It would also mean that I could not give a definite price for one font of any particular typeface. Charging by the em is mathematically equivalent, since you can convert ems to area by multiplying by the body size.
The other simple alternative is to charge by the piece regardless of the size. In this scheme, all full-strength fonts would be the same price, regardless of point size. In this case I would be shortchanging myself on the larger sizes, which use more materials (type metal) and more time on the caster (which has to run slower for larger type).
I suspect that I’ll end up setting a price per piece (and thus, per font) that varies depending on point size only.
Pricing for composed type also needs special consideration: I don’t want composed type to be substantially cheaper than fonts, because people will just buy composed type and dis it, getting them fonts (though with slightly skewed letter counts) at a discount. On the other hand, at the same price as fonts, it is very expensive for a use-it-once product. My though here is to price composed text at about the same as fonts, but to offer a premium rate for buying back the used type that is still as composed (though if it has been pied, I would just offer the scrap-type price).
One other consideration is, of course, what other foundries are charging—if my prices are too high I won’t sell anything. I don’t have anything really special in my catalogue that justifies any premium pricing either.
Went exploring Papertrail for info on paper and found “New Type for Letterpress” available. I am a member of ATF (the Fellowship) and am interested in trying your type. Could you send me a Price List?
Hi Tim,
As you may deduce from some of my other blog posts, I’ve been going to ATF meetings for about (let’s see, Grafton, Piqua, Portland, New Haven, Auburn, San Francisco…?) 12 (?) years now. I think my first was at Sky’s in southern Illinois where, thanks to the remnants of hurricane Ike, I had to tow someone out of the mud alongside Sky’s driveway. So we’ve met several times.
Dithering over pricing is the main thing that is stopping me from going all-out announcing that I’m open as a type foundry. I really want to avoid having a complex pricing scheme, but then I also want to make sure there isn’t some corner of my pricing where my efforts and materials exceed my returns.
The simplest would be just to charge by weight or area (which are pretty much equivalent), but that would be shortchanging myself on the extra time required to handle and package smaller point sizes. It would also mean that I could not give a definite price for one font of any particular typeface. Charging by the em is mathematically equivalent, since you can convert ems to area by multiplying by the body size.
The other simple alternative is to charge by the piece regardless of the size. In this scheme, all full-strength fonts would be the same price, regardless of point size. In this case I would be shortchanging myself on the larger sizes, which use more materials (type metal) and more time on the caster (which has to run slower for larger type).
I suspect that I’ll end up setting a price per piece (and thus, per font) that varies depending on point size only.
Pricing for composed type also needs special consideration: I don’t want composed type to be substantially cheaper than fonts, because people will just buy composed type and dis it, getting them fonts (though with slightly skewed letter counts) at a discount. On the other hand, at the same price as fonts, it is very expensive for a use-it-once product. My though here is to price composed text at about the same as fonts, but to offer a premium rate for buying back the used type that is still as composed (though if it has been pied, I would just offer the scrap-type price).
One other consideration is, of course, what other foundries are charging—if my prices are too high I won’t sell anything. I don’t have anything really special in my catalogue that justifies any premium pricing either.
TL;DR: I’ll have to get back to you on that!