Reflecting
Last year we tried to bulk ship and market our new titles via a curated book bundle called ‘Big Ticket’. Pre-orders opened up in October of 2022 for Big Ticket 1, then shipping them in the spring of 2023.
—Compact Magazine ed. Stephen Z Hayes, Raighne | $24.99 print | $9.99 ebook
—frozengirl by Iku Kawaguchi | $21.99 print | $9.99 ebook
—Parc by Jul Gordon | $23.99 print | $9.99 ebook
—The Necrophilic Landscape by Morgan Vogel | $19.99 print | $9.99 ebook
Being a smaller label I tried to find ways to save money without compromising the quality of the work itself. I requested print quotes from various printers in the US, Canada, China and then negotiated with them to provide us with a discount were they granted the job to print all 4 titles simultaneously. Ultimately I went with a printer in China for an approximate cost of $15,000, printing 2,000 copies of each book. This had the additional benefit of saving us $10,000 in bulk shipping them to our new warehouse in NJ1.
The plan was to have 2 main financing periods in a calendar year via pre-orders. November and July, or thereabouts. Each one for another Big Ticket, featuring 4 new titles. The rest of the year would largely be in support of these titles via touring, events, press outreach, etc. The thinking was that by producing a larger amount of titles that the label could sustain itself by sales and that I could then put away more of the money I was raising via clinical trials2 — which could go towards past due debts to artists. This was broadly misguided.
There is a minimum sales target we would have to reach for this to work financially. 8-9 book length works with print runs of 2,000 units and up is a tall order for a calendar year. At least for a label of our size, which is increasingly smaller. We did not meet that minimum and as a consequence we took some time in the back half of 2023 and well into this year to reassess.
Thinking about if it were possible to go back to 2016, 2017 purely from a financial perspective, what would I change to try and make it sustainable. Halving or quartering production, focusing on a strong balance of lead titles in every season, and changing how we advertise and market completely (also paying advances on every title). But what does that mean?
In 2016, 2017 there were 12 book titles with spines each year; a quarterly magazine that honestly came out closer to 2.5 issues a year; and maybe 3-5 zines a year on top of that. All while touring 9-13 cities each year, focusing on comic festivals and zine fairs with our Altcomics event series. Insane and clearly unsustainable for our largely unpaid 5 person team.
Halving or quartering production is pretty straightforward and I believe that is more or less where we are at today. 4 titles a year at the higher end, or 1 seasons worth of titles.
Lead titles. Each year we should have a clear lead title. Someone with a large audience and or something that is more clearly marketable. Audience size on social media and press coverage are two metrics to measure that. Anything outside of that is conjecture. Which doesn't mean it can't find an audience, sell, or achieve wide press coverage. But it does mean the onus is 100% on our small team.
In addition, it wasn’t until 2022 / 2023 that we began paying advances on titles.
Big Ticket 1 didn’t have a clear lead title and this was reflected in our 2023 sales. Some of the authors and artists in Compact Magazine have reach, prestige, or have had significant press coverage. But without their active participation it is up to the label to fill that gap. We didn’t do as good of a job on that front as I would have liked. Maybe that is something we can change deeper into 2024. We’ll see.
I think touring should be cut almost 100%, except in circumstances where it is in our own backyard (Chicago or Minneapolis for example), or something where we are focused more on personal enjoyment than capital gain. Otherwise returns are just so meager. And maybe there are smaller style events we can do in partnership with retail. Something to look into this year and next.
At Bookworm in LA last year, there were no new titles. Big Ticket NY, and TCAF in 2023, sales were softer than I would have liked. LA Art Book Fair we performed better. The table was $800. Theoretically, travel and lodging could bring that to $2K, easily. We kept costs as minimal as we could, but I was left wanting. The most we have made tabling in the past was $5K at TCAF in 2016.
We did manage to publish 4 new books. And it was nice to have events in LA, NY, Toronto. Some writing on our blog. An ad shot on 8mm. I’m happy with that.
For 2024 and beyond, I don’t know how many titles we will publish. But I would say it will be a smaller amount than we have aimed for in the past. As such, 2024 should see the release of the following titles:
Related to these changes, we cannot publish books with budgets of $17,000, which was our print budget for Grand Electric Thought Power Mother by Lale Westvind3 — $15,000 for the printing and $2,000 for an advance to the author. It’s just beyond our scope. For those that have placed pre-orders for this book, you have already been refunded or given an opportunity to be provided a different title in its place. By now you may be aware that Perfectly Acceptable is publishing that title with Lale.
Additionally, we are changing the format for how we offer these books for sale. ‘Big Ticket’ was our pre-order mechanism. Ultimately it proved to be a distraction in terms of marketing the books as individuals works. We’re doing away with that now and will offer these titles individually for pre-order closer to release date, or skip the pre-sale format altogether.
This year will be one of restructure and transition. If I’m financially able, I’d like to see us getting caught up on the last bits of our long overdue debts to artists and printers, and possibly figuring out a more sustainable solution to our inventory and warehousing woes. Some of that is outside my hands. But I think we will be able to make significant progress on that this year as I am presently in a 60 day clinical trial and should see a fair chunk of change once I am out.
At the start of 2022 we lost our distributor. The move to a new warehouse cost us around $11,000. This was financed by doing a clinical trial in Baltimore for $13,000.
In 2020 I started providing funding for the company by participating in clinical trials. What that entails typically is taking non-FDA approved drug products provided by pharmaceutical companies — which is how new drugs are brought to market. Generally you’re in a hospital-like setting, shared rooms, hospital quality food, sleeping on a narrow cot, getting regular blood draws, ecgs, urine tests, physicals. Depending on the type of study you’re participating in they could be taking stool samples, performing lumbar punctures (spinal taps), doing neurological tests, etc. With a lot of these, you are stuck in-house, meaning you cannot leave the facility for 20-40+ days at a time. Or, these are the general size study payouts that I seek.
The book had been plagued by too many set backs, and Lale was no longer comfortable with the rather dystopian way I was financing our operation by participating in clinical trials. I imagine there is more to it, but that is what I was told.