I've been noodling over my Q1 data from IPR. While overall I'm reasonably happy with the level of sales (though nothing to touch, say, Cold City), I was taken by surprise by the level of additional costs on top of IPR's 15% commission - with the result that when I worked it through, I'm pretty much at break-even level on print sales to retailers.

This means I need to re-examine my prices and costs. I've been having helpful conversations with Fred, Brennan and Chad.

Prices - I shall be bumping them up a bit. But what it comes down to, I think, is that it's very difficult to impossible to sell to retailers via IPR at a useful profit and do the printing through Lulu and set a price level that makes sense to the market.

Costs - It turns out that you lose money by telling Lulu that you want everything handled in pounds. Making an order of a copy of Questers in dollars is roughly $1 cheaper - not a huge amount, but significant on the baseline. So I'll probably make that change. Don't know why it happens.

I'll also strongly consider using Fidlar Doubleday when I do the print run of Jaws of the Six Serpents, based on the positive feedback from people here. I've checked them out before and concluded they were more expensive than Lulu - but yesterday I realised I was failing to take account of that funny $ sign on the front of the numbers. Oops!

This is an option for Jaws as I expect it to sell enough to justify a run of at least 50. It doesn't make a lot of sense for products with lower/less reliable sales like Questers, which has been out a while, or LWTJ, which is rather nichey. That might mean that in future I have to be even more careful about which products I choose to make available in print at all. Or via Lulu only.

Overall - well, it's a learning experience!