Hello,
I just want to address any concerns with the new development of the 1,000 run from Bicycle. Yes they informed me that they are not moving forward with the 1,000 release. That being said, They are not moving forward with any new decks until their preliminary trial is over. They are still honoring the agreement I had with them. This does not change anything for my current kickstarter project. The Bicycle Bronze Age Deck will still be printed at a minimum of 1,000.
Here is the snap shot of the email I received.
Thank you!
It's interesting that they've decided to hold back for a while. They'll get a better per-deck profit margin on a 1,000-deck print run, but for a company that size it might not be enough to keep the lights on.
One still has to do pretty much the same actions to get a 1,000-deck run or a 10,000-deck run; it's just a matter of how many times each step needs to be completed. For anything that's not directly related to putting ink on paper and decks in boxes, the costs to USPC are the same - employees still have to move paperwork, get contracts signed, create proofs, etc. All those steps that occur before a single sheet of paper enters the press all take the same amount of time (and money and labor) for a typical glitch-free print run regardless of the number of decks made.
But at the same time, while the per-deck cost goes higher for shorter runs, you can't price yourself out of the market, either, by creating a per-deck cost that destroys any reasonable profit margin the client would have. So if they can't walk that fine line, they'll simply stop trying and go back to whatever works.
