Price of plans

[John Rudd]

I've just joined in a discussion on the price of printed plans over on the MEW website....

Seems things are hotting up a little.........my thoughts are there if any one wants to join in...

but does anyone here have any comments to make on plan prices?

I believe in free enterprise but taking the p*ss is beyond a joke..

(Dons flack jacket.........)

They say knowledge is power....
So if I said to an earlier poster asking about using an external pot on his vfd, 'I'll sell you the info' how does that help the community?
Does DB ask for Royalties on his 'edu vids'? 

Discuss if you wish

[dsquire]

John

Could you please give me a link to the plans discussion. I don't follow things as close over there as I do on MadModder but I would like to see what they are about. I'll be back later to make a comment once I see what they are up too. 

Cheers 

Don

[Rob.Wilson]

Hi John


My thoughts ,,,,,,,,,  £50 for a set of traction engine or loco plans is about right , say 15 sheets thats £3.33 a sheet ,,,,,,,still cheaper than one copy of Model engineer ,(witch is just a load of crap now a days , more adds than out else ).   

Maybe if folk  are un happy at the price ,,,,,,,,,,,,maybe they should have ago at drawing there own plans ,there "only bits of paper"

Link for Don http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=85129

Rob

[doubleboost]

That about sums it up Rob
I bought some plans from "Ray Hasbruck" sadly he is no longer with us
The price I  was very little more than the cost of the printing
Personally I tend to build things from scetches and pictures
John

[Auskart]

Plans are like Computer Software..... Take the end user for as much as you can 

[doubleboost]

Plans for the sort of things we will be building
Are drawn by a old man in a small shop some where
Computer software is completely different
John

[dsquire]

Hi John


My thoughts ,,,,,,,,,  £50 for a set of traction engine or loco plans is about right , say 15 sheets thats £3.33 a sheet ,,,,,,,still cheaper than one copy of Model engineer ,(witch is just a load of crap now a days , more adds than out else ).   

Maybe if folk  are un happy at the price ,,,,,,,,,,,,maybe they should have ago at drawing there own plans ,there "only bits of paper"

Link for Don http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=85129

Rob

Rob

Thanks for the link. I thought John was talking about MEM. That is why I couldn't find it.

I was a draftsman/designer first on the board and later on AutoCad so I have a bit of experience in this field.

£50 for a set or £3.33 a sheet is a bargin if you stop and figure it all out. That £50 for a set all too often turns into £50 for 3 sets after the original purchaser makes a couple of copies and gives them to his friends or sells them on Evil Bay.

Some people design for fun and for some it is their bread and butter job. At £50 for a set they are going to have to sell an awfull lot of copies to make a living. Remember to factor in all the expenses incured in generating the plans in the first place. How much is a seat in AutoCad or SolidWorks costing right now? Then there is the printing machine and printing, storage, shipping supplies, time Etc.

I would say that spending £50 for a set of drawings and having it save me a couple of 1000 hours work is the bargin of a lifetime.

For anyone that thinks the plans or computer software are too expensive, remember that you don't have to buy them if you don't want to. They only make it available, they don't force you to buy.

Cheers 

Don

[kwackers]

A classic case of people overvaluing their own time and undervaluing other peoples.

I've worked on computer software projects that have taken a team of 60 people 4 years. What's a fair price? With 240 man years work in there you couldn't do it yourself. To make a living you have to divide the cost by the expected number of sales. Part of the problem is that some people just cant see beyond the cost of making a physical copy.

There's also the issue of freely available stuff (either genuine or pirated) devaluing commercial work. It's something that's bothered me ever since I made my indexing/rotary controller designs freely available.

[John Stevenson]

A classic case of people overvaluing their own time and undervaluing other peoples.

Steve,
That's the best statement I have seen on the subject and sums it up in a flash.

How may times have you seen a post "How much would you charge for this ?? " and a sketch or picture.
Then they all come out of the woodwork with statements like . I charge $60 to $80 per hour if I'm working from home, that will take me two hours so it will be $120 to $160.

Hang on it's a 15 minute job so why should I pay for your lack of decent machinery and incompetence.

[John Rudd]

Gawwddd......Wish I hadnt started this...........

[Mayhem]

quid pro quo goes a long way. 

Where possible, I try to help out others, as many have helped out me.  Of course, that being said, this is just a hobby for me...

[lordedmond]

My thought on this

I do not mind paying for a drawing set if the quality and accuracy of that said set is of the same quality as my money that I paid for them with

good money should give you a good set of drawing free from errors not as in some of LBSC drawing that still contain errors that have not been corrected

That where the rip off is uncorrected drawings , rant mode off

Stuart

[S. Heslop]

I think it depends on what the plans are for and maybe who's making them.

Plans for hobbyists by hobbyists shouldn't be riddiculously expensive. Just enough to cover costs of distribution. If the guy is desperate to make big bucks out of engineering then maybe it'd be worth his while to get a 'real' job.

But thats just the ideal. By the end of the day it's really up to the seller to decide how much he's going to charge, and it's up to the buyer if they're willing to pay as much.

I'd be interested to know how many copies the guy's managing to sell at £50 though.

[PeterE]

Another thing to add to the equation is that if a drawing is too cheap, someone else may think that there is a business opportunity simply by collecting cheap stuff from others and then re-sell as a collection of his own.

Which means that there is a fine balance between being too cheap, just right, and too expensive.

My 2 cents

/Peter

[Auskart]

Geeze some of you people bite like snapping turtles !!

[dsquire]

Geeze some of you people bite like snapping turtles !!

I guess that some of us have too much time on their hands (me). Some of our discussions do get kind of lively but we try to not let them get out of control. I'm glad to see you step in and give your comment. 

Cheers 

Don

[John Rudd]

Geeze some of you people bite like snapping turtles !!

I guess that some of us have too much time on their hands (me).
Don

.....yeah and me....like starting this thread........

[dsquire]

Geeze some of you people bite like snapping turtles !!

I guess that some of us have too much time on their hands (me).
Don

.....yeah and me....like starting this thread........

John

Nothing wrong with starting a thread that gets a lively discussion going as long as we don't let it get out of hand. It gives us all a chance to express our views on the subject. It may even help someone selling drawings to think about how to handle possible errors that are found after the drawing has been printed and sold.

I think that it has pretty well ran its course now. 

heers 

Don

[NeoTech]

You guys should check drawings and plan for parts that goes onto dragrace cars and engines.. They are mostly in "Will prob. fit if you alter the drawing alot." and can cost from 150-350 for a set of drawings for a specific engine / frame / model of car or bike for that matter.

Most of those plans are expensive cuz they are handdrawn and based upon years of experience of some gold geezer that owned a welding shop. And in some cases can be the difference between winning and not winning.  How would you say that is worth??

In the end its a craft, and well in this day and age of computers and cad, one should prob. appreciate more the dying handywork that is making blueprints by hand.

My 2 cents (or gallon of gasoline to the fire) ;)

[vtsteam]

Sometimes you give things away freely, sometimes you ask people to pay for things, and sometimes you keep things for yourself.

If you are provided for, charge nothing. If you must compete, charge as little and as few times as you need for your family to survive.

Charging money isn't an ideal human interaction.  Not my preference. It's just what is. So it has to be judged.

Often depends on the attitude of the person you are dealing with. You share with the generous, joust with the friendly bargain hunter. The disdainful and selfish ones get charged up the wazoo.

It's just money.  A convention and an idea.

[stevehuckss396]

but does anyone here have any comments to make on plan prices?

I believe in free enterprise but taking the p*ss is beyond a joke..

Discuss if you wish

If you think the prices are too expensive just draw up your own. There is nothing stopping you designing and documenting your own project. That way you can avoid the drawings with the errors and save some coin for materials.

[GordonL]

I have a different outlook on plans which I use for my hobby than I did when I was in business and time was money. As a hobby I am much more tolerant of mistakes in free and cheap plans than I am in plans for which I have paid a rather high price. Some of the plans and/or kits which I have paid a goodly price are the worse.

I have found that it usually pays to redraw plans using MY cad system. I not only pick up mistakes but I have a much better understanding of how the thing works and goes together.

[Pete49]

I happily pay a fair price for plans as I can't do it or because others more clever than me have drawn them. Why re-invent the wheel. Yes some people ask high prices for plans but if you can't draw what you want to build then buy them not get copies from a friend of a friends cousins uncle. I find most plans in our hobby reasonable priced an example is the Upshur farm engine plans I dealt with his daughter who couldn't have been nicer and happy to accept $Au20 cash mailed to her. She would deal with the change over to local currency. Another good set of plans was the hoglet. Cost me a little more with the purchase of the back issues that the full size plans where in. Its horses for courses and the value in what the buyer thinks is right.
my -02c worth.
Pete

[Davo J]

Hi,
I have spent many hours designing things over the years and just gave the ideas and pictures away to forum members friends etc. The now ex wife and a few others used to say you could patent them etc and make some money.

Maybe I am stupid, but I could not be bothered going down that road as it was something I needed at the time and if it helps someone else out down the track all well and good, by the time it was all working and tested I had moved onto thinking of something else to design and make because I enjoy that part of it.

For others making and selling plans it's up to them, and then up to the buyer to think what they want to pay for a plan. If it's too expensive don't buy it.
As for the designer it is really up to him, but taking the example above at $3.33 a sheet, he is not making much at all and like said above it's probably only covering costs.

Dave

[stevehuckss396]

Maybe the high cost of older plans is from not keeping up with the times. I sell plans for a V8 and there are 2 things I do to keep the cost down.

First I supply the 87 pages in PDF format. The drawings can be given on a memory stick or simply emailed to the purchaser. Saves all the printing. As said in other posts, printing is not cheap.

Second I send by email the electronic version. No postage. Postage can be more than the plans if sending out of the country.

I use Paypal for the transfer of money. Sure they get there cut but I don't have to deal with credit card numbers. I have had on more than one occasion received money and had plans to the new owner in just a few hours. Send me a check and it could be weeks.

Also the plans being electronic, the sheets can be printed by the user, used in the shop, and then tossed in the trash. Print as many or as few as you want and the originals stay on the computer in mint condition.

I also maintain a list so if your computer crashes and you loose the files just email me your name and email address you used when you bought them and i send out the latest version. If errors are found or an extra is added to the drawing, the updates are emailed to the entire list so you always have the latest set.

Those are some of the ways I have tried to address some of the problems mentioned earlier and keep costs down.