So many new D&D books are coming in 2024, no printing company can handle them all

polygon.com:

Earlier this month, Dungeons & Dragons publisher Wizards of the Coast revealed its roadmap for 2024. It plans to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the seminal tabletop role-playing game with a revision of all three of the best-selling 5th edition core rulebooks — the Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide, and Monster Manual. Trouble is, the publishing giant can’t seem to find a printing partner to make them all in a timely fashion.

“We haven’t actually talked publicly about the release schedule yet,” said rules architect Jeremy Crawford earlier this month during a press briefing in Seattle. “We’re having conversations about what that will be, leaning toward a staggered release. Because [...] there are a number of challenges in releasing all three of those at the same time, and they don’t all have to do with just staffing or time.”

The 5th edition Player’s Handbook in particular is a hot commodity in the publishing world. It has ranked among the top 100 best-selling books of any kind on Amazon since 2016 — two years after it was first released. Given the ever larger footprint that D&D has in popular culture, it’s destined to sell quickly again in its glossy new revised 2024 edition. That sales velocity, apparently, is giving Wizards’ traditional printing partners pause.

“Our print runs are pretty darn big,” Crawford said, “and printers are telling us you can’t give us these three books at the same time.”

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“The print runs we’re talking about are massive,” added rules architect Chris Perkins. “That’s been not only true of the core books, but also Tasha’s Cauldron [of Everything]. It’s what we call a high-end problem.”

Crawford said that his team isn’t all that worried about the staggered rollout of the revised