...and business is...well, just getting started.
Hello again, sportfans. I'm here to tell you about how Blind Alley Comics can change your life and make you a fortune.
Basically, you buy ten thousand comics; then, you get ten friends to buy a thousand comics each; and they each get ten friends to buy a hundred comics, and so on and so on. As the cash gets passed up the chain back to me, you magically become a millionaire! It's so simple, anyone can do it! Sign up now!
I call it, "ComicCo".
Kidding. What I'm really here to talk about is the real possibility, in the next couple of years, that Blind Alley Comics...will I jinx it...? Will become an actual company.
This ain't out of the blue, mind you; Joe and I have talked about this for ages, or at least since yesterday. My personal dream has been to eventually have a real up-and-running by-gosh comic book studio, complete with actual artists, not just pretend artists like me. Joe's thinking about it. Anyway, we're looking to set up a 2-member LLC, basically a partnership.
Now, I'm not in the business to get rich or famous necessarily, although that would be nice (personally I'd rather be rich than famous). I just want to do what I love and make a little income out of it. If the company is forced to expand past Joe and myself, I'd like to hire a business manager, while retaining all mydictatorial vice-presidential powers. Coast-to-coast distribution is part of the goal (at least in Michigan), hopefully with enough cash flow both to crank out regular stuff and to experiment on the side.
I have no doubt that it's feasible; it's just getting there that's the challenge. I personally have no instinctive knack for business, besides a weird fetish for making charts and spreadsheets; my bloodlust for the deal doesn't go much beyond "buy low, sell high". If we're really going to make it, I'll have to develop my business mind a little bit more.
I've found some great free classes with the Small Business Development Center, but I know they can only take me so far. I need to speak with other businesspersons, and figure out what they did. Not the cutthroat kind, either, or the ones who are only in for the bigg buxx; actual, real small business owners who thoughtfully develop their brand and their product.
My biggest problem right now: printing and distribution. Not because I don't have a great printer right now (Greko Printing out of Plymoth, MI); but because we're going to have to start doing mass printing - I'm talking 500 copies and up. It's the age-old problem of cost vs. quality. I love quality, and I think our comics are some of the toughest out there (they double as rain hats), but something's gotta give. One of the issues I have, too, is that printers are known to change paper on a whim, based on what's cheapest, and we've had problems with a different print-on-demand service I won't name because their quality took a nose-dive. We need to be very, very careful in that regard, because once you do a huge print-run, you're stuck with whatever comes out of the printer. Hope you've got a good warehouse somewhere.
Before you can print, of course, you need the customers; your biggest customers are going to be retailers (I'll talk about online sales in a bit). You have to come to an arrangement with retailers, and in some cases it's best to have a contract of varying time-frames. Once you get the retailers, you have to figure out distribution. This then feeds back into the scale of your printing operation, in terms of cost and time. You have to figure out how to get your title out in a reasonable time and for a reasonable price, because now people are depending on you. That's a lot of pressure. And behind all this is the problem of finding customers; in these troubled times, retailers aren't keen on taking a gamble. They want to know that your comic is a sure bet before they give you shelf-space.
Online sales can make things easier; you sell directly to the customer. But you still have to have enough stock, and a cost-effective method of shipping. So therein lies the question: do you set up a preorder system? That's a lot of time and organization. And of course, if you don't reach your sales goal, do you still go ahead with the printing? Ach, such questions you ask.
It seems like a lot, but I know we can do it. So long as we keep our priorities straight. The comics - the art - comes first. After that, the selling. We'll figure it out; for now, we just need to knuckle down and keep chugging away. We'll keep you posted.
Rick Out.
Hello again, sportfans. I'm here to tell you about how Blind Alley Comics can change your life and make you a fortune.
Basically, you buy ten thousand comics; then, you get ten friends to buy a thousand comics each; and they each get ten friends to buy a hundred comics, and so on and so on. As the cash gets passed up the chain back to me, you magically become a millionaire! It's so simple, anyone can do it! Sign up now!
I call it, "ComicCo".
Kidding. What I'm really here to talk about is the real possibility, in the next couple of years, that Blind Alley Comics...will I jinx it...? Will become an actual company.
This ain't out of the blue, mind you; Joe and I have talked about this for ages, or at least since yesterday. My personal dream has been to eventually have a real up-and-running by-gosh comic book studio, complete with actual artists, not just pretend artists like me. Joe's thinking about it. Anyway, we're looking to set up a 2-member LLC, basically a partnership.
Now, I'm not in the business to get rich or famous necessarily, although that would be nice (personally I'd rather be rich than famous). I just want to do what I love and make a little income out of it. If the company is forced to expand past Joe and myself, I'd like to hire a business manager, while retaining all my
I have no doubt that it's feasible; it's just getting there that's the challenge. I personally have no instinctive knack for business, besides a weird fetish for making charts and spreadsheets; my bloodlust for the deal doesn't go much beyond "buy low, sell high". If we're really going to make it, I'll have to develop my business mind a little bit more.
I've found some great free classes with the Small Business Development Center, but I know they can only take me so far. I need to speak with other businesspersons, and figure out what they did. Not the cutthroat kind, either, or the ones who are only in for the bigg buxx; actual, real small business owners who thoughtfully develop their brand and their product.
My biggest problem right now: printing and distribution. Not because I don't have a great printer right now (Greko Printing out of Plymoth, MI); but because we're going to have to start doing mass printing - I'm talking 500 copies and up. It's the age-old problem of cost vs. quality. I love quality, and I think our comics are some of the toughest out there (they double as rain hats), but something's gotta give. One of the issues I have, too, is that printers are known to change paper on a whim, based on what's cheapest, and we've had problems with a different print-on-demand service I won't name because their quality took a nose-dive. We need to be very, very careful in that regard, because once you do a huge print-run, you're stuck with whatever comes out of the printer. Hope you've got a good warehouse somewhere.
Before you can print, of course, you need the customers; your biggest customers are going to be retailers (I'll talk about online sales in a bit). You have to come to an arrangement with retailers, and in some cases it's best to have a contract of varying time-frames. Once you get the retailers, you have to figure out distribution. This then feeds back into the scale of your printing operation, in terms of cost and time. You have to figure out how to get your title out in a reasonable time and for a reasonable price, because now people are depending on you. That's a lot of pressure. And behind all this is the problem of finding customers; in these troubled times, retailers aren't keen on taking a gamble. They want to know that your comic is a sure bet before they give you shelf-space.
Online sales can make things easier; you sell directly to the customer. But you still have to have enough stock, and a cost-effective method of shipping. So therein lies the question: do you set up a preorder system? That's a lot of time and organization. And of course, if you don't reach your sales goal, do you still go ahead with the printing? Ach, such questions you ask.
It seems like a lot, but I know we can do it. So long as we keep our priorities straight. The comics - the art - comes first. After that, the selling. We'll figure it out; for now, we just need to knuckle down and keep chugging away. We'll keep you posted.
Rick Out.
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