New Years Resolutions 2010

Aside from my standard "Lose 30 pounds", I figured I would make some for the store this year. Since I can no longer use "I am out of room, where could I put it?" as an excuse anymore, I figured it may be cathartic to actually write them down and in a place where I, and everyone else, can see if I am accomplishing them. So here it goes:

1. Get more organized
While I have always blamed this on space issues, it is really more of a "me" problem. I am not and organized person, and it kind of shows in the store. Things are usually where they should be, or close, but my space is a mess. If I can focus on this, I see lots of things improving. And this has a lot of sub-categories:

a) Get inventory in computer correct once and for all. It is mostly correct since I started using it in March 2009, but it does not have all of the inventory in the store prior to then. I have been adding it piecemeal since then, but it is still not correct and I know that is hurting me by not having the product on hand.
b) Get back issues organized. If I get this done, the new side will start paying for itself. It was strictly a space issue before (Why spend lots of time organizing and pricing stuff when i had no place to put it.) It is a huge time sink though, and that has been keeping me from really jumping into it. Plus you can only look at so many boxes of early 90s Image stuff before your eyes glaze over.
c) Better organized overstock will let me be able to keep the racks thinner and not falling over, while still having easy access to those books.

2. Get Online
Yes, I know I am there, but I need to do it better. I need to do this more often. I need to do more with the website than just print shipping lists. Facebook, Twitter. Ebay. Again it is more of a time issue than a lack of desire. I will work on it

3. Read more comics.
What? Don't I read enough already? No, not really. I need to read more of the oddball stuff, so I can promote it. I still need to read the biggies so I know what is going on, but I need to read more. A lot more. I can't remember the last Superman family book I read. And that is not good. If you can't ask me about a certain book, who can you ask?

4. More promotions
Now, I don't mean more sales. Who doesn't love a sale? The bank. I have lots of ideas, but I generally run out of time. I need to take one of these fancy Marvel calendars and mark it up. These 3 weeks, I will promote X. Then I will do Y. It will make things more interesting for the customers and will help me move product around, get more books in front of people. It worked well when I did Brian Wood month. I really need to do this more.

Well, that's all I have for now. If I can master those in the next 12 months, I think things will take a pronounced surge in the right direction.

Skip Week

I have to admit that I am kind of looking forward to a week without new books. There is a lot of work getting ready for the new shipment, from updating pull lists to moving the shelves to make new spaces for new titles and moving the new tags. Now, it is mostly routine for me now. Tuesday at 4pm, make the holes and move the shelves. 6pm start moving the new tags. But it is still a good bit of work that I have been doing every week for, gah! 165 straight weeks. So a week off is a bit of a break. Oh and the chaos that is New Comic Day. A week off of that will be nice too. I will be nice just to have a big ale. And it gives everybody a chance to get caught up on their reading.

Now don't get me wrong; I need new books every week to stay afloat. As of Saturday morning, over half of my sales for December were new comics. This is a trend the past few months. For the longest time New Comics were in the 40-45% range.

New comics are probably the hardest part of my business. Ordering correctly is a bit of a bear. Anticipating drop-offs or growth. Figuring out which new books are going to be hits and which are stinkers. I am doing the December order right now and it tough as well because for some DC books, the most recent data I have is for Blackest Night tie-ins. Will they sell at their higher level because of the cross-over or will they drop back down to their prior level? Or will it be somewhere in between. I guess somewhere in between and hope I'm not too far off. And Marvel now has all of the Siege tie-in issues. How much will this affect books like New Avengers and Thor? I'm sure there are some "Event" people who will pick them up because of Siege, but how many. They are (or were in the case of Thor. How do you NOT expect a drop-off when you title an issue Giant-Sized Finale? Kind of like yelling "Everybody Off!!!")

It is fun to read the comments on The Beat's Sales Chart analysis and see people commenting about retailers don't know how to order and that is the reason for the large drops in titles sales. I always laugh and want to reply, but I know it would be screaming into the wind. There are 2 Black Widow mini-series out right now. Exactly what sales data should I use in figuring out how to order them? I took a wild guess. Then you have the fun where one sells well and the other not at all. How do you plan for that?

Well, this went off on a bit of a tangent. All in all, next week should be a little more low key for me and I am looking forward to it.

Stress

I am ready and prepared for the stress of the holidays. Do I have the right product in the store? Will people come? Even the family stress. Will she like it? Will it come in time? The stress I was not prepared for was the "Not Being in the Store" stress.

I have to go to my Sister-in-Law's wedding in Texas this weekend. I did everything I could to get out of it, but family harmony prevailed. The stress comes from the fact that it is 3 weeks before X-Mas and I will not be in the store to: 1) let customers know that their special orders have come in, 2) let people know that I have something they are looking for coming, 3) make recommendations that go along with what they are buying and 4) various other things that only I can do. I am not the be all and end of comic retailing, but in my store, I am the only one who knows what is going on. There is no way I could leave notes that would make any sense.

"This guy, who likes Buffy books, asked about the Buffy lead figures that came out. If he comes in, show it to him. No, I don't know his name, but I'd recognize him if he came in."

So, my fear is how much am I going to lose in sales by being gone this weekend? I fear that it is a lot, especially in the unquantifiable way. No one who will be working here will have access to the Diamond site to see if something is available (I'm not giving anyone access to my account. That could be very very bad).

It is such a crucial time of year. And no one understands my concerns.

Gah. Hopefully it will all be ok.

Publishers, Why Do You Hate Yourselves?

This weeks shipment is a massive one. About double the number of titles shipping as usual. Now the months are usually heavy at the end. In order to not be late, the books must ship sometime during the calendar month, so the end of the month is normally heavier than the rest. This one just happens to be exceptionally heavy. The problem I have with this practice is that, while I can expect it, it really hurts the smaller titles.

Lets look at Marvel. Along with big books like X-Force, Hulk, Fantastic Four, New Avengers, Punisher and Secret Warriors, they are also shipping a bunch of their mid-level titles, like Nova, Incredible Hercules, Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers Initiative. And throw in 2 Dark Reign List one-shots (sure wouldn't want to space those out weekly...) 3 Wolverine books and the kick -off of the next X-Men storyline (X Necrosha). Plus 2 of the 3 Ultimate Comics titles. Then they think that the small titles like Spider-Man Clone Wars, Anti-Venom Models Inc and Marvel Holiday Spectacular will have a chance. Even the most devout Marvelite isn't going to be able to pick up all of their books this week. So what get dropped? Its easy to say people will just pick the books they can't this week during a slower week, but it doesn't work out that way. People will make a decision this week to stop getting certain books. Its going to be those books that they really aren't enjoying. Or that are in a storyline that they don't care about. Where they would normally keep getting it out of habit, Marvel has helped them make the decision to stop getting it. So, how does this help anyone involved? The head of Marvel sales, when confronted with this problem, continuously states that the schedule is set evenly, but some books get behind. Since it happens just about every month, you'd think they could adjust for that.

DC is no better, shipping both Blackest Night and Green Lantern the same week. The main story is going through 3 books. There is really no reason for 2 of them to come out the same week. Plus we are getting Detective, Batman and Superman all the same week. I remember back when I was getting ready to open and DC would schedule Superman, Action, Detective and Batman for separate weeks. 3 in one week is crazy. Space them out over the month, please.

The other thing that frustrates me from all of the publishers is late books. The last issue of Kick Ass was so late that people have given up. I sold 17 less copies of #7 than I did of #6. How can I plan for that? Had the book shipped on a regular schedule, that wouldn't have happened. And to make things more fun, Marvel has manipulated the system so that these books are not technically late, so I don't have the ability to return unsold books. DC, while playing with the same system, still makes late books returnable.

But late books really hurt the small publishers. I realize that they need the money and have to get the books out as soon as they are done, but I really wish that they would have all of the issues of a small series done before starting to ship. And this isn't necessarily just small guys. Image is notorious for late stuff. Bad Dog was at least 6 months late. I have no idea where Four Eyes is, but I doubt anyone that was reading it will care when the next issue comes out.

My only real requirement for telling if a book is good is "Do I want to read the next one?" Unfortunately, out of sight out of mind. I might be loving a book, but if I forget about it, I am less likely to grab the next issue when it comes out. And if it were to come out on a week like this one, it really wouldn't stand a chance. "Do I want to get the next (insert big event tie-in) or get this book that I think I liked but its been so long I really don't remember what is going on in it?" So they kill their own sales and wonder why the market won't support them. And for every small company title that gets abandoned and never finished, the entire industry loses the trust of a customer and store in ordering small company stuff. That is wasted time and money for all involved.

So, please, don't ship all of you books at once. And if you can't hit some sort of schedule, please wait until you have most of the work done before sending it out.

Your readers and buyers will thank you.

Buying Comics

While my main goal is to sell comics, another part of my business is buying comics. And I buy a lot of them. Many are attic finds, or from the basement of a relative. Many are just thinning a collection. Far too many are people looking to cash out of their vast fortune of early Image and late Valiant comics. "But I have 6 copies of Spawn #1?" To which I answer "And if I buy these I will now have 258." But lately I have gotten some very nice collections. And it is reassuring. For all the crap I have taken in, it is nice to finally get some stuff I can put up on the wall. And with the recent expansion, it is also nice to have a place to put these books out for sale.

So, here is a quick lesson on how I buy books. One of my favorite questions I get on the phone is what percentage of book do I pay. Not all books are created equal. In the card (sports and non-sports) there are many card that are just called commons. Nothing exciting and minimal value. Most comics fall into this category. While the price guide my list these at cover price or a little above, that is more a factor of the guide not wanting to show that a comic is ever worth less than cover price. At worst, it will say "Cover price or less". But, sadly, during the overproduction (and poor quality) of books in the early 90's to early 2000s, many books can easily be found in Quarter or Dollar boxes. For these books, I typically pay $20 a longbox and hope I can turn them at a quarter each. While I may profit on them, the goal is more to make them go away. It puts books into peoples hands, but not a real profit maker.

Getting back to the "What percentage of book to I pay?" question, even if you have great books, I don't think you'll like the answer. I am buying books at wholesale and hoping to sell them for a profit. At some time. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next year, maybe in ten years. Asking me to pay you $20 for a book that guides at $40 isn't going to happen. I sell most of my back issues when they are on sale. So buying a book for $20 that I am more likely than not to sell for $20 doesn't make a whole lot of sense. And if it doesn't sell for several years, I am really out. So unless it is a book I know I can sell right away, my offer is going to be less. I just took in a nice collection of Thor, but it may take me 10 years to sell all of those books, so my offer was much less than book value.

This all brings me to a situation that happened this week. I bought a large (19 box) collection of books that ranged from commons (a lot of them) to really really nice books. My problem was this. The commons aren't worth a lot. The really nice books may be too nice in that they are very valuable, but because of that I don't know when or if I will be able to sell them. And all of those concerns were factored into the buying decision.

Now is it all as easy as this. No. Each case is different. but the overriding thing that I have learned is that I am not going to pay too much for books. If the customer takes my offer, great. If not, oh well. Most people that refuse my offer are for books that I didn't want in the first place. If you really want good money for your books, sell them yourself. Put them on eBay or get a table at a flea market. I'm not here to help you get rich off of your books. I am buying them in the hopes of being able to resell them. Given that back issues are a very small part of my business, I am not going to overpay for anything. It just doesn't make sense.

And Away We Go!!!

Dear Brave Followers and people who have stumbled across this,

Since the beginning, my goal was to have a daily blog. How hard could it be, really? Something interesting or exciting had to happen daily. Right?

Well, maybe not. But I am sure that I can put something up here every day. At least more often than my semi-monthly dispersals of info.

So check back every couple days. Hopefully I will have put something up.

Almost Done

The "Mom/Girlfriend Waiting Area"
The big hole
Back of the old side
View from the counter
Much more open now.
From the back towards the front
The small opening in the back, into the new side
From the new side looking into the old side



I just took these Saturday. I will post more when everything is neat and tidy.