Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Mongoosed No More

Mongoose Publishing has dropped their in-house printing scheme, citing poor production quality. They'll be outsourcing their printing from now on, with many books being converted to soft cover. The only book I've got pre-ordered from them is the new Traveller and I'm wondering if this will be printed in house or if it's done outside of Mongoose. I've asked in their Traveller forum.

For the past ten months, Mongoose Publishing has been developing its own printing facility in order to take advantage of digital printing systems. Unfortunately, various problems in the system have resulted in too many books that were of below acceptable quality. While it was an ambitious endeavour, it has regrettably proved unworkable.

As of last week, Mongoose Publishing has switched production of all books to established printers based in the United States. This means that all books now ordered from Mongoose Publishing will be of the highest quality possible. We wish to apologise to all of our customers for any inconvenience caused over the past few months, and wish to assure you that our previous levels of quality should be expected at all times. Our guarantee to freely replace any faulty book remains in place.

Many of our original hardback titles have been converted to softback titles, with a corresponding drop in the cover price. The first of these titles is Magic of the Young Kingdoms, of which we have just taken delivery. It is in stock in both the UK and US right now, and is a good example of the new printing.

Other titles, such as the Bestiary of the Hyborian Age, currently being printed and expected for release in March, will remain as hardbacks.

Once again, our apologies for the disruption of the past few months, but both our printing and distribution systems have returned to their previous efficient states.

6 comments:

  1. Mongoose confirmed for me on their forum that Traveller will be an outside print job.

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  2. Now, if they'd just start playtesting their stuff they might be worth looking at again :-P

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  3. "Congratulations.

    By buying this game you have enrolled as a Mongoose playetester."

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  4. Pretty much.

    Of course, part of the problem is that when they do playtest they tend not to listen to their playtesters. That's apparently what happened with RuneQuest.

    Traveller has had playtest docs out for a while now that anyone can access. We'll see if they actually do anything with the feedback they've been getting.

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