Comic Livings

[ultimatevenom]

How many of you on this board actually make a living from selling comic books?

 

How many of you get 4 figure or more income from selling comic books?

 

I am still in school and was wondering what it is like to work in your hobby. I would love to have a part-time or full-time business selling comics, but was wondering what it was like and what the income and so on was like?

 

Thanks

 

Danny

[uclapeterg]

You're in school and buying high grade FF's???

 

I don't even make a 4 figure income

[sterlingcomics]

If someone is making a living soley on comics, I assure you it must be modest (unless they are already self-made and can afford to invest/flip 100,000 books for larger gains). Someone tell me if you are a stinkin rich doing this. For me, it's the love, not the $$$ (but I won't remember saying this when I'm selling )

[NewtSamson]

It'd be cool to make a living only on comicbooks

[ultimatevenom]

You're in school and buying high grade FF's???

 

Not quite yet, but be patient.

 

[ultimatevenom]

I know there are a few people on here that make flips for profit, to name one: , i mean greggy

 

So greggy how do you do it?

[comicmankev]

I love collecting them, but if theres a quick buck to be made, I'm also there! The best one was an Amaing Fantasy 15, bought in the UK ungraded (pence copy), got it slabbed, then sold it to another Brit for £3250. Quite a deal, and yes, we would all be rich if you could do that every day

 

Unfortunately, the reality is, I have lost on most of my sales recently But if I need to get cash quick for another purchase, then so be it

[sterlingcomics]

It'd be cool to make a living only on comicbooks

 

No arguments from me there

[FFB]

The high end dealers make a very nice living selling funnybooks. It's hard to get enough start-up capital to get to that level, however. And then there's the area of expertise. When you talk to most of the high-end dealers, these guys have levels of expertise and knowledge that are absolutely awesome in many cases.

 

If someone is making a living soley on comics, I assure you it must be modest (unless they are already self-made and can afford to invest/flip 100,000 books for larger gains). Someone tell me if you are a stinkin rich doing this. For me, it's the love, not the $$$ (but I won't remember saying this when I'm selling )

[Calamerica]

A very tough way to earn a living. Remember, most shops that have survived here in the US have HAD to offer other items for sale such as action figures, cards, other publications, games, etc. To sell ONLY comics is probably the hardest. I know all about Showcase-New-England( SNE), Jay Parrino, Heritage, Harlee Yee, Mile High, and many others. I have bought from almost every major Dealer around( US and Canada). And of course most everyone knows me on eBay. Why do I mention this? Because as a buyer it is first-hand experience on the customer side. For me, it is the best way I learned HOW to do things with Comic Books. Taking something this guy does this way, the other guy does that, and you get the picture.

 

On a local note I know of a shop here in the County I live in - he sold all his comics and devotes the remaining resources he has to figurines/cards, etc of sports only. He told me he does not miss the comics and that is not the first time I had someone tell me this. And these conversations have been recent: within the last year. The one Q I like to ask Dealers and Shops: "What do YOU think the future of Comic Books are and what is marketable?". The answer they give you is information you can determine for yourself. If they don't answer at all, that is not a good sign. But most will.Take whatever information you can get and decide from there.

 

Bottom line: to earn a living at comics like any other business: it takes Capital and there is no such thing as an "easy" business. If there ever is such a thing as an "easy" business PM me and I will bankroll anyone in said easy business. Legitimate and genuine of course.

 

I also think having a passion about Comic Books helps, but ultimately the Comic Book lover needs to be a businessperson to survive. Parts of said businessperson needs to PROPERLY evaluate market conditions, location of business, cost structures, licensing, labor issues, taxes, advertising, resale permits, etc. More to it than hanging up a sign "ABCD Comics - come on in!" Remember, it is an unregulated market and success is highly dependent on each individual trying to make it in the Comic Book business. Hope this helps.

 

CAL

[Calamerica]

I forgot to add on every IMPORTANT detail to consider re: Comics for a living: like it or not, the Internet has changed the way comics are changing hands, and a reversal reverting to the local shops only is not in my crytal ball. Years ago, yes, they had a few Mail Order shops that were advertised in the Silver age comics, but mostly you had to take what was offered at your LCS. If they did not have, let's say FF # 48 - you had to find someone else( a non-shop owner) or travel to a place that had one. Not anymore. eBay, Yahoo, and the dealers who advertise in Overstreet and CBG and a few other publications - you can get a lot of FF #48's. Sure, the argument was thrown at me about the CBG and ways to get comics back in the 1960's as a kid but I did not know of these ways and certainly could not afford to do such.

 

CAL

[Rob]

I enjoy flipping for a $10-$50 profit. It adds up, then I can use that money to purchase a larger flipping book, or one for myself. But when I read about the people dealing in $500-$5000 comics, it kind of deflates my enthusiasm. I'm excited about my Action 812's potential in the upcoming months.

[Ze-man]

I am always reminded of a Comic Store owner I used to frequent about 12-15 years ago.

 

I would always pick his brain about comic stuff, ask him questions, what comics did he think would be popular etc...ya know basic total newbie stuff(as compared to my upgraded kinda newbie, currently)

 

And the one thing he would always say to me , and others was .

"If I could get rich selling comics, then I would be a millionare, but as you can see I just sell comics"

 

Now grant you this was before Ebay, and other online outlets.

But his point was , he does it because he loves it, and while he would love to make a bundle of money.. owning a comic shop just aint the fasttrack to the top of Forbes Fortune 500 list.

 

He was though a very happy, and extremely nice guy.

 

Zeman

[FlyingDonut]

Good news:

I grossed approximately $50K last year selling books on eBay. My business model is that I sell OTHER peoples books and take a commission (25%), so note that a great deal of that $50K comes right off the top. Then there are fees, etc. I figure I netted between $12-14K, which, for a second job, makes me happy. That $14K is the official "Donut Play Money" fund, and allows me to have totally discretionary income, AND allows me to save an extra $14K a year into my kids college funds and savings (last clause is for Gene's benefit).

 

Bad news:

I figure I work between 25-30 hours a week on comics. That's what, ten bucks an hour? Everything is reported on my Schedule A, so I have to pay taxes on it. You can make money doing this, but it takes a LOT of work. I could easily double or triple my income selling books, but again, it would require me to massively ramp up my time. Also, my "real" job does actually require me to do some work, and in the past year I was averaging 60-70 hour weeks doing that. Not a whole lot of sleep in the Donut household.

[Calamerica]

That case of yours is a good one for those who want to do Comic Books for a living. You outlined the HOURS put in the "second job" and that winnows out the weak.

 

CAL

[BassGMan]

How many of you on this board actually make a living from selling comic books?

 

How many of you get 4 figure or more income from selling comic books?

 

I am still in school and was wondering what it is like to work in your hobby. I would love to have a part-time or full-time business selling comics, but was wondering what it was like and what the income and so on was like?

 

Thanks

 

Danny

 

Hi guys. UltimateVenom did not ask about opening a comic store, he asked about making a living in comics. You certainly don't need a store to do that. I had a store once long ago, a big failure. Don't ask. It was a big learning experience. Anyway, I believe making a living in comics through Ebay can be easy. Yes, I said easy. But #1 - you need to know what you are doing and how to buy your inventory for cheap. And #2 - you need to start out with a large enough inventory so that you can make enough to pay your bills (mortgage, insruance, food, utilities, etc.) right from the start. So, it would take alot of time and not be much fun to have to sell hundreds to thousands of small dollar books each month in order to make enough money to "make a living". The easy part is if you have enough money and expertise to find lots of high-dollar nice raw books which CAN be done (although it gets harder each year) that you can slab and resell individually. I am talking about books that can be sold for a couple hundred to several thousand each. If you can do this, then the profit potential can be very nice and not take alot of work. If your monthly sales on Ebay, for example are $15,000 but you purchased that inventory for $5,000, take out slabbing fees, Ebay and PayPal fees, odds and ends fees and so on, you can end up with say...... $7,500. Take $2,500 off of that for tax (maybe less depending on how much you can write off from working out of your garage) and you have maybe $5,000 as after tax income. This is a REAL example. This does not mean you cannot have a bad month or have a bad deal though. But if you are good, smart, have a respectable amount of good reputation... you can do it. I have done this myself but on a slightly smaller scale several times. And the smaller scale only has to do with the fact that my average books sold for $200-$300 or so rather than higher dollar books. Anyway, it CAN be done and I may go this route myself in a couple years as I have been thinking about it for a while now. -----Sid

[ultimatevenom]

How many of you on this board actually make a living from selling comic books?

 

How many of you get 4 figure or more income from selling comic books?

 

I am still in school and was wondering what it is like to work in your hobby. I would love to have a part-time or full-time business selling comics, but was wondering what it was like and what the income and so on was like?

 

Thanks

 

Danny

 

Hi guys. UltimateVenom did not ask about opening a comic store, he asked about making a living in comics. You certainly don't need a store to do that. I had a store once long ago, a big failure. Don't ask. It was a big learning experience. Anyway, I believe making a living in comics through Ebay can be easy. Yes, I said easy. But #1 - you need to know what you are doing and how to buy your inventory for cheap. And #2 - you need to start out with a large enough inventory so that you can make enough to pay your bills (mortgage, insruance, food, utilities, etc.) right from the start. So, it would take alot of time and not be much fun to have to sell hundreds to thousands of small dollar books each month in order to make enough money to "make a living". The easy part is if you have enough money and expertise to find lots of high-dollar nice raw books which CAN be done (although it gets harder each year) that you can slab and resell individually. I am talking about books that can be sold for a couple hundred to several thousand each. If you can do this, then the profit potential can be very nice and not take alot of work. If your monthly sales on Ebay, for example are $15,000 but you purchased that inventory for $5,000, take out slabbing fees, Ebay and PayPal fees, odds and ends fees and so on, you can end up with say...... $7,500. Take $2,500 off of that for tax (maybe less depending on how much you can write off from working out of your garage) and you have maybe $5,000 as after tax income. This is a REAL example. This does not mean you cannot have a bad month or have a bad deal though. But if you are good, smart, have a respectable amount of good reputation... you can do it. I have done this myself but on a slightly smaller scale several times. And the smaller scale only has to do with the fact that my average books sold for $200-$300 or so rather than higher dollar books. Anyway, it CAN be done and I may go this route myself in a couple years as I have been thinking about it for a while now. -----Sid

 

Great Stuff, the more i think about it now the more i think it could be a secondary income like flyingdonut.

[goldust40]

How many of you on this board actually make a living from selling comic books?

 

How many of you get 4 figure or more income from selling comic books?

 

I am still in school and was wondering what it is like to work in your hobby. I would love to have a part-time or full-time business selling comics, but was wondering what it was like and what the income and so on was like?

 

Thanks

 

Danny

 

Hi guys. UltimateVenom did not ask about opening a comic store, he asked about making a living in comics. You certainly don't need a store to do that. I had a store once long ago, a big failure. Don't ask. It was a big learning experience. Anyway, I believe making a living in comics through Ebay can be easy. Yes, I said easy. But #1 - you need to know what you are doing and how to buy your inventory for cheap. And #2 - you need to start out with a large enough inventory so that you can make enough to pay your bills (mortgage, insruance, food, utilities, etc.) right from the start. So, it would take alot of time and not be much fun to have to sell hundreds to thousands of small dollar books each month in order to make enough money to "make a living". The easy part is if you have enough money and expertise to find lots of high-dollar nice raw books which CAN be done (although it gets harder each year) that you can slab and resell individually. I am talking about books that can be sold for a couple hundred to several thousand each. If you can do this, then the profit potential can be very nice and not take alot of work. If your monthly sales on Ebay, for example are $15,000 but you purchased that inventory for $5,000, take out slabbing fees, Ebay and PayPal fees, odds and ends fees and so on, you can end up with say...... $7,500. Take $2,500 off of that for tax (maybe less depending on how much you can write off from working out of your garage) and you have maybe $5,000 as after tax income. This is a REAL example. This does not mean you cannot have a bad month or have a bad deal though. But if you are good, smart, have a respectable amount of good reputation... you can do it. I have done this myself but on a slightly smaller scale several times. And the smaller scale only has to do with the fact that my average books sold for $200-$300 or so rather than higher dollar books. Anyway, it CAN be done and I may go this route myself in a couple years as I have been thinking about it for a while now. -----Sid

 

Great Stuff, the more i think about it now the more i think it could be a secondary income like flyingdonut.

 

Yep. One crucial point here, however. You've got to have access to books that most ebay sellers don't have.

[FlyingDonut]

That's not entirely true - the key, in my opinion, is continually having new inventory, and having repeat customers. I have lots of long time customers who don't buy from anybody else. Just like a brick and mortar store.

[goldust40]

That's not entirely true - the key, in my opinion, is continually having new inventory, and having repeat customers. I have lots of long time customers who don't buy from anybody else. Just like a brick and mortar store.

 

Sorry, should have added that it's about accessing the books on a regular basis at the right price. For non-U.S. sellers, the well is running dry.

 

You consistently get the books, and as long as you know how to grade, describe condition, know how to pack items properly and have large, detailed scans, and you're halfway there. The rest is perseverance and customer service.