IS PRINT DEAD?

It was perhaps a prophesy (or just plain common sense) when back in 1982 a Star Trek movie had Spock giving Kirk a book for his birthday; not an Amazon digital gift for his Federation Kindle, but a real book with pages you had to use your fingers to turn. While books are relics of the past, like many things historical, they are still collected and favored.

Anyway, fast-forward back to the present, the year 2019, closing in on one-fifth of the twenty-first century. Do we still have books? Yup. Go into any Barnes & Noble and you'll find shelves full of them. All the major book clubs are still in existence. Go to Amazon and you'll find most books are still available in real-live-print editions, in addition to their Kindle offspring.

Overall however, it's obvious that digital is preferred. And to be honest, for entertainment value, I like digital books, too. What used to be a $25 purchase can now be had for $9.95... or less. You don't have to buy the large-print edition if you have poor eyesight – just increase the size of the text right their on your Kindle or Nook. Fortunately, reference material is still mostly provided in “real” editions, due in part no doubt to the massive size of these materials when transferred to digital edition.

But now, let's bring this subject closer to home. Thundergirls... in print. Hey, again, I love digital. Digital is the core element of the business that lets me work from home! Videos, comics, photos... many people have spent their hard-earned-money on things they can access from anywhere in the world. No postage! No “plain brown envelopes!” Digital delivery is indeed not just the future, it's the now.

But books... ah, books! It is an entirely different thing! If you are one to “pshaw” buying a ThunderGirls photo book, in my opinion it's because you haven't seen one, haven't held one in your hand. Haven't seen Becca in a punishing hold by Lee or Diana on one page, and anxiously turn the page to see what happens next.

Thanks to a popular publishing service (and you could guess it in only two tries) I am able to create these beautiful books – some are 7 x 9 inches, some of 8 x 11 inches; most soft cover but a few hard bound. And if you think “so what,” well I'll tell you so what – it's a labor of love. To visit my beautiful ThunderGirls again, to work once more to bring their skill and beauty to an audience in a new (but old) medium; that's “so what.”

And some might want to own one, but maybe the price is a deterrent? Twenty bucks? For... a book? Outrageous! Well maybe not as much as you'd think.

First, let's visit an inflation calculator in reverse. We'll see how much $20 was worth in 1993... the year we got started. Our online calculator of choice is Westegg, and it tells us that $20 has the same buying power in 2018 as $11.40 had in 1993. Back then, VHS tapes sold for $39 and up, dedicated female wrestling and catfighting magazines went from $10 to $20. So for 2019, a full-color photo book of beautiful ladies in interesting boxing and wrestling poses for the “outrageous” price of $20 doesn't really seem that outrageous at all.

And now let's look at the actual cost just to create such books. Without any coupons, the suggested cost of an 8 x 11 inch, soft-cover photo book with just 20 pages is $24.99, plus tax and shipping. So for me, one book like this would cost $36.36. Now that's more my version of “outrageous.” But start adding pages, to the maximum of 110 (90 extra) at a cost of $1.59 per page, and the cost of that one book is now $189.48.

That's not a typo. But it's not an actual cost either, because these places constantly have coupons and discounts, sometimes as much as 50% which would make that 110-page 8x11 book a (slightly) more reasonable $99.58.

And there's no discount for volume, either!

So how can I sell these for around $20? Well, a few times a year – a very few times – I can get even deeper discounts. I have no idea how the company makes any money from these, but when they hit, I try to take advantage of them. It's hard work, and I usually only have four or five days to get my order in. But when they show up, the late nights, the eye strain, the pain in my neck and back, all of that has been worthwhile when I hold these beautiful books with Becca, Diana, Lee and more, right in my hand.

Most of these books are 7 x 9 inches in softcover format. That may seem like a small book, but it's not really. It's similar in size to a comic book – but landscape (wide) instead of portrait (tall). And these aren't just magazine pages, oh no! The book covers are 110 # stock... a little thicker than most business cards. The inner pages are 65 #. Most magazines have 45-50 # pages with 80 # covers. Our books are perfect bound, meaning they have a square spine, not stapled. While they are not waterproof, they'll handle a quick spill a lot better than a magazine or comic book, too! These books have heft and quality.

Now I cannot predict the future, but I can give you the facts. There are very few of these books printed. Sometimes as little as three. And I'll always keep one. So on the open market, there might only be two for sale. I don't think I've ever had more than eight printed of any (with one exception), and more commonly it's four. So the word “rare” and the phrase “collector's item” might genuinely apply here.

“First Thunder” featuring Hellena Heavenly is the exception. I sent several copies to my flame-haired buddy, a way of thanking her for years of friendship, and hoped she might sell them (autographed) to some admirers. But there are still only 12 of them on the planet, so that still might allow “rare” and “collector's item” to be applied.

So no, print isn't dead. Not in my house anyway. And I hope you'll consider making a purchase, owning a little piece of a twenty-six year-old legacy that is ThunderGirls. By the way, ThunderGirls isn't “dead” either – we hope to have new photos and videos later this year!

Thanks for reading, and your support!

- Dayne

BUY SOME THUNDER!