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Tales from the Comic Box - Rookie Adventures in Buying/Selling/Cons
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809 posts in this topic

I did not know that prior to sending it in...I do think that outstanding bid is on the low side though which is why it has not been accepted...Mine has white pages making it the second best copy available so I can take some comfort in that.

 

 

Edited by Wall-Crawler
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Great thread-- I'm really digging it.

I'm not going to hijack it, so I'll keep this short; I've done shows as an invited artist, last year I did close to twenty five shows from East to West Coast.  All of these were big shows-- Heroes, Wizard, Rose, Emerald, etc. and once a year I help out a friend by driving his collection halfway across the country to Chicago and I spend the weekend working his booth-- so I get to see it from two perspectives. 

It's quite a world "behind the scenes"-- the biggest take I got from being a comic dealer is that if (at least at the big shows) you are a collector the thing to do is to somehow get in to help your dealer friends set up because THAT is the day that all the wheeling dealing is done.  Dealers run around buying from each other, and sometimes at crazy prices-- and then sell those very books at their own booths at the very same show.  There are lot of big collectors who are not dealers going around too.

Set up at the big shows is crazy when you compare setting up as an artist.  For dealers there is a load in time usually a dock area or they drive their trucks and vans right onto the show floor, it's pandemonium trying to get pallets of stuff through the aisles and you are very likely blocked in while you unload.  Then there is a mad scramble to get the vehicles off the floor.   Break down is almost the same but most of the trucks and vans are off the floor this time, and instead you have dealers dragging pallets to the loading zone area at a race to see who can get out first.

Contrast with setting up as an artist-- you don't arrive a day (or two!) early, you arrive about an hour before the show opens, you check in, they give you your meal passes, invitations to events, a heads up as to where the free food and refreshments will be set up off the show floor and most of the time an escort to your table and even an assigned staff member who will be your gopher for the weekend.  At various times promoters will come over to make sure you're doing well, and you're asked to donate art to the event auctions or charity projects.

Biggest thing for artists vs dealers-- an artist has a great weekend if he does $4-$8k a dealer five to ten times that.

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10 hours ago, AndyFish said:

Great thread-- I'm really digging it.

I'm not going to hijack it, so I'll keep this short; I've done shows as an invited artist, last year I did close to twenty five shows from East to West Coast.  All of these were big shows-- Heroes, Wizard, Rose, Emerald, etc. and once a year I help out a friend by driving his collection halfway across the country to Chicago and I spend the weekend working his booth-- so I get to see it from two perspectives. 

It's quite a world "behind the scenes"-- the biggest take I got from being a comic dealer is that if (at least at the big shows) you are a collector the thing to do is to somehow get in to help your dealer friends set up because THAT is the day that all the wheeling dealing is done.  Dealers run around buying from each other, and sometimes at crazy prices-- and then sell those very books at their own booths at the very same show.  There are lot of big collectors who are not dealers going around too.

Set up at the big shows is crazy when you compare setting up as an artist.  For dealers there is a load in time usually a dock area or they drive their trucks and vans right onto the show floor, it's pandemonium trying to get pallets of stuff through the aisles and you are very likely blocked in while you unload.  Then there is a mad scramble to get the vehicles off the floor.   Break down is almost the same but most of the trucks and vans are off the floor this time, and instead you have dealers dragging pallets to the loading zone area at a race to see who can get out first.

Contrast with setting up as an artist-- you don't arrive a day (or two!) early, you arrive about an hour before the show opens, you check in, they give you your meal passes, invitations to events, a heads up as to where the free food and refreshments will be set up off the show floor and most of the time an escort to your table and even an assigned staff member who will be your gopher for the weekend.  At various times promoters will come over to make sure you're doing well, and you're asked to donate art to the event auctions or charity projects.

Biggest thing for artists vs dealers-- an artist has a great weekend if he does $4-$8k a dealer five to ten times that.

I certainly appreciate the insight and account of a big show from someone who has been to and participated on "the other side of the table". I can imagine, as a collector, getting "in" first to such larger shows would also be pretty dang sweet, if nothing else to see all the great stuff "crowd free".

One thing this has taught me, even just doing these small local shows, is an appreciation the amount of work other sellers have to put in.  You can't really understand it I don't think unless you experience it and mine is just on a tiny, tiny scale.  I am sure the big guys have it down to a science, but it is still obviously a significant amount of work.

I am kind of using this larger show, Graphic Con as a bit of a litmus test for doing bigger shows.  Last year I think they had over 3,000 people. The previous local shows I do I have yet to crack $1 k in sales (nowhere near $4 - $8 K lol), but for the costs involved and size (and the shows being within 5 - 15 minutes of my house), I am personally happy with my results to date...I am interested to see how I do and how I "stack up" at this larger event.

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10 hours ago, Wall-Crawler said:

I certainly appreciate the insight and account of a big show from someone who has been to and participated on "the other side of the table". I can imagine, as a collector, getting "in" first to such larger shows would also be pretty dang sweet, if nothing else to see all the great stuff "crowd free".

One thing this has taught me, even just doing these small local shows, is an appreciation the amount of work other sellers have to put in.  You can't really understand it I don't think unless you experience it and mine is just on a tiny, tiny scale.  I am sure the big guys have it down to a science, but it is still obviously a significant amount of work.

I am kind of using this larger show, Graphic Con as a bit of a litmus test for doing bigger shows.  Last year I think they had over 3,000 people. The previous local shows I do I have yet to crack $1 k in sales (nowhere near $4 - $8 K lol), but for the costs involved and size (and the shows being within 5 - 15 minutes of my house), I am personally happy with my results to date...I am interested to see how I do and how I "stack up" at this larger event.

Don't feel bad - I split a booth last year at Baltimore and ended up selling 2k in books.  I think my best show was Cleveland Wizard and I made 5k.  Of course a wizard show is $1,100 to set up at so 5K is not very good.  Needless to say that is why I'm only doing a couple $100 and under booth fee shows this year.

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13 minutes ago, 1Cool said:

Don't feel bad - I split a booth last year at Baltimore and ended up selling 2k in books.  I think my best show was Cleveland Wizard and I made 5k.  Of course a wizard show is $1,100 to set up at so 5K is not very good.  Needless to say that is why I'm only doing a couple $100 and under booth fee shows this year.

Oh, I don't feel bad about my results at the small shows, considering books have long been paid off and no costs other than the booth which is pretty minimal.

Where I do get concerned if I were to pony up and do a bigger show with increased accommodation, booth and other travel costs that then it might not be worth it by the time all is said and done. I will never know unless I do one though.

But you raise an interesting point...Generally speaking, based on costs vs sales profit, what is considered a "successful" show? Or how would do other sellers 'calculate' a successful show outing?

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32 minutes ago, Wall-Crawler said:

Oh, I don't feel bad about my results at the small shows, considering books have long been paid off and no costs other than the booth which is pretty minimal.

Where I do get concerned if I were to pony up and do a bigger show with increased accommodation, booth and other travel costs that then it might not be worth it by the time all is said and done. I will never know unless I do one though.

But you raise an interesting point...Generally speaking, based on costs vs sales profit, what is considered a "successful" show? Or how would do other sellers 'calculate' a successful show outing?

I've heard 8-10x expenses is generally considered a good show.  I personally would not be mad a 5-6x myself but it would depend on how many big ticket books I needed to sell to make my number.  A show where I sell a ton of $1 books or semi keys which I have almost no money invested into would be a win a 5x but if I only sell big keys the 9-10x would be nice since that is the percentage E-Bay and Paypal would take anyhow (12%).  The problem I have is people seem to want 10-20% less then E-Bay and then I pay 10-15% in booth fees.  Cash is king but when I'm giving away 30% that doesn't make much sense in the long run unless I can move a ton of slow moving books.  But even a Cons who moves a ton of slow moving books unless they are in blow out $1 boxes?

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One of the benefits the artists have is we don't pay for our tables (well, the folks in Artist Alley do) or travel and hotel so in that regard we have it over the dealers.  The downside is you're drawing almost the entire time you're there, and that includes off times-- because you either have commissions due or you're participating in the drink and draw charity events, and even though if we stayed home and worked in our studios we'd be drawing all that time as well, it's much harder on the road because the conditions are not ideal.  You always forget a supply, the lighting is sometimes bad and you're sitting in a crummy folding chair.

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3 hours ago, 1Cool said:

I've heard 8-10x expenses is generally considered a good show.  I personally would not be mad a 5-6x myself but it would depend on how many big ticket books I needed to sell to make my number.  A show where I sell a ton of $1 books or semi keys which I have almost no money invested into would be a win a 5x but if I only sell big keys the 9-10x would be nice since that is the percentage E-Bay and Paypal would take anyhow (12%).  The problem I have is people seem to want 10-20% less then E-Bay and then I pay 10-15% in booth fees.  Cash is king but when I'm giving away 30% that doesn't make much sense in the long run unless I can move a ton of slow moving books.  But even a Cons who moves a ton of slow moving books unless they are in blow out $1 boxes?

Some of it is a matter of perspective, no? (and are you counting inventory in that expense total?) The big guys with the biggest books - would want that to be a high target. They have outlets to sell the books in other areas, but keeping an active presence helps them move the books at a show with ( hopefully ) better margins overall ( as you stated - lots of fees being tacked on in other locations).

Smaller fish - can easily live with that lower number.  I do not have  a storefront to support or the non show overhead ( not much anyway)  that would make me overly focused on margins.

With my family schedule, I have not been able to do anything other than the one medium local show I set up at every year. It is a lot bigger than a hotel or VFW show, but still has more of a comic feel to it overall. It is set in a nice fairgrounds layout - they get about 4000 ish people in over 2 days.

Over the past two years,  my overall profit is actually fairly low. BUT - that is including the physical expenses of set up that I do not actually need to worry about any longer. Signage, table covers, pipe/drape extra tables, magazine racks, shirts for my worker bees,   are all now "free" (ok - paid for).

So this year and beyond,  the margins get a real kick. In many ways, I have used this show to build up the infrastructure to do other shows....   With us kicking one kid on to college next year, I will actually have some more time to explore a couple of the smaller one day shows in the area.

I gauge my level of success on profit for sure - but in the shows I also want to MOVE the low cost books.  I can sell $20+ books all day on on the bay and be happy. BUT - buying collections to get those books also gets you the dollar bins that you need to move or they pile up.  I use this show ( and I will hopefully get into some other local ones soon) - to blow out the lower and stuff as much as I can.  I would honestly rather blow out $2000 in dollar books for 20% margin - then 4 $500 books for 60% margin - at a show!!! 

Other things to consider ---

Did you have fun? --- for me this is a side business for picking up some extra cash and keeper books. I like the social interaction at the cons. Count I Con is one of my favorite weekends of the year!

Did you make any new contacts? -  business or other - networking makes a huge difference

Did you get any good leads? See above - but also my best overall score came from a show connection (where I got that ASM 3 ) .... and I am waiting on another contact to be organized for me to make an offer on his collection ( I have first shot at it) . 

Did you score some cool books????? - always helps to pick something up you want

To summarize --- for me volume ( low dollar books)  is king! 

Edited by W16227
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11 hours ago, W16227 said:

Did you have fun? --- for me this is a side business for picking up some extra cash and keeper books. I like the social interaction at the cons. Count I Con is one of my favorite weekends of the year!

This is one of the more important things, having fun. If I didn't get some enjoyment out of it, I definitely wouldn't do it.

 

 

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11 hours ago, Wall-Crawler said:

This is one of the more important things, having fun. If I didn't get some enjoyment out of it, I definitely wouldn't do it.

 

 

It really really sounds like not enough profit for a LOT of work, if you don't really really enjoy it.  But for those who have the opportunity to do it and LOVE it, I salute you.

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48 minutes ago, revat said:

It really really sounds like not enough profit for a LOT of work, if you don't really really enjoy it.  But for those who have the opportunity to do it and LOVE it, I salute you.

Do you mean "in general" or referring to me specifically?

For me, one of the bigger issues is time. Time in that I still have not yet had the time to properly catalog and grade and price the 'hoard' I purchased a few years ago.  I am working on it bit by bit. I imagine, once I have it all sorted, I will be in a position to just grab the boxes off the shelf (with some updating for pricing) and go.  I have my "show bins" all set now too.  My little shows, to me anyways, are profitable enough. Once I got my initial supplies/set up  it has been getting "easier" with each show. I considered last show pretty successful for a show from 10 AM to 4 PM I made just over $900 bucks and my only expense was the table rental which was $120, so roughly $800 profit for a day's work is good for me. 

These "monster" shows and having bigger set ups, wait times, costs, travel, etc. I can only imagine and it is those factors combined with ensuring x amount of sales is what give me pause from trying one.

This next show I am doing is a one day show and only 2 hours away but will necessitate an overnight stay...I probably could drive down morning of but don't want to be completely knackered.   Apparently last year's gate was around 3,000 so a definite bump in terms of volume (last local  show I did gate was about 450). Will be interested to see how that all translates. I will definitively give a "cost breakdown" of it all though.

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Just now, Wall-Crawler said:

Do you mean "in general" or referring to me specifically?

For me, one of the bigger issues is time. Time in that I still have not yet had the time to properly catalog and grade and price the 'hoard' I purchased a few years ago.  I am working on it bit by bit. I imagine, once I have it all sorted, I will be in a position to just grab the boxes off the shelf (with some updating for pricing) and go.  I have my "show bins" all set now too.  My little shows, to me anyways, are profitable enough. Once I got my initial supplies/set up  it has been getting "easier" with each show. I considered last show pretty successful for a show from 10 AM to 4 PM I made just over $900 bucks and my only expense was the table rental which was $120, so roughly $800 profit for a day's work is good for me. 

These "monster" shows and having bigger set ups, wait times, costs, travel, etc. I can only imagine and it is those factors combined with ensuring x amount of sales is what give me pause from trying one.

This next show I am doing is a one day show and only 2 hours away but will necessitate an overnight stay...I probably could drive down morning of but don't want to be completely knackered.   Apparently last year's gate was around 3,000 so a definite bump in terms of volume (last local  show I did gate was about 450). Will be interested to see how that all translates. I will definitively give a "cost breakdown" of it all though.

generally, but your explanation is why I included 'time' as part of the equation.  it is for sure a huge factor.  I'm sure a lot of people love and have comics, would love a little bit of extra dough and love the comic con atmosphere, but burning a whole day (or weekend) + prep time and transportation time when you've got a job, wife, kids, house, pets, other family, friends, tv shows backed up on DVR, weather issues, sports you need to watch, hunting trips you need to take, beer you need to drink, messes you need to clean, cars you need to wash (or fix), its a big ask.  So for those who do it, I feel good that those people must really enjoy it.

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On 5/2/2017 at 6:51 AM, 1Cool said:

Don't feel bad - I split a booth last year at Baltimore and ended up selling 2k in books.  I think my best show was Cleveland Wizard and I made 5k.  Of course a wizard show is $1,100 to set up at so 5K is not very good.  Needless to say that is why I'm only doing a couple $100 and under booth fee shows this year.

If you're selling 2 to 5  times your cost you may as well just leave a box of good books for free  in the room and not set up.  Either way you're losing but at least you don't have to put in the work.

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19 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

If you're selling 2 to 5  times your cost you may as well just leave a box of good books for free  in the room and not set up.  Either way you're losing but at least you don't have to put in the work.

So Torch, I have kind of gone over my rough expenses for the upcoming show. I figure my estimated cost will be around $300.00

Note: I am not "counting" dinner the night before the show as my wife and I are going to check out Wonder Woman in theaters and likely would have spent money on a night out anyway. 

As the show is only an hour and a half away from home, driving home immediately after the show as it is done at 8 PM.  I will probably get home around 11 PM, but this will save on having to spend an extra night.

I am really not sure what to expect, but personally, I would be "satisfied" if I make $1,400 -1, 500.00 in profit/after all expenses. That is kind of the 'I did ok' zone and would likely sign on again. Anything less and I would really have to think about it.

 

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You are pretty much expecting what I found to be reality for me.  At bigger Cons - 5x booth fees was a good one and 3x was a bad one.  I did 10x at a small local show last year but it cost me $90 for booth fees and gas and I sold $900 in books (1 day con).  The 2 day show in Akron was $250 and I only sold $1,300 with most being to other dealers at bulk discounts.  Some people have the booth mentality and I'm finding this year I like maintaining a E-Bay store a lot better with only 12% in total fees.  Just way too much competition at the bigger shows for the few big buyers who make or break a Con for most dealers.  The novice guy who stops by and buys $100 in random impulse books either did not like my booth or they just were not at the Cons I set up at last year.  Live and learn.

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2 hours ago, Wall-Crawler said:

So Torch, I have kind of gone over my rough expenses for the upcoming show. I figure my estimated cost will be around $300.00

Note: I am not "counting" dinner the night before the show as my wife and I are going to check out Wonder Woman in theaters and likely would have spent money on a night out anyway. 

As the show is only an hour and a half away from home, driving home immediately after the show as it is done at 8 PM.  I will probably get home around 11 PM, but this will save on having to spend an extra night.

I am really not sure what to expect, but personally, I would be "satisfied" if I make $1,400 -1, 500.00 in profit/after all expenses. That is kind of the 'I did ok' zone and would likely sign on again. Anything less and I would really have to think about it.

 

It all comes down to how much you sell and your profit margin.  Some of my big books are selling at a 10% or 5% profit margin.  Puts a lot of money in my pocket but very little profit.  Sold a ASM 129 at the Calgary Expo and only made $100.  That's ok because I bought it the day before.  The real profit is the $1 books and $5 to $100, assuming I bought them right.  At the Calgary Expo I sold 10 shorts of sets.

Some of the smaller dealers who set up here are lucky to make enough to pay for their booth.  One guy drives 200 miles up to Edmonton and he sells anywhere from $200 to $500 each show.  I don't get it, they come year after year and when you back out the booth costs and other expenses and what they paid for the books they likely lost money.

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53 minutes ago, thehumantorch said:

It all comes down to how much you sell and your profit margin.  Some of my big books are selling at a 10% or 5% profit margin.  Puts a lot of money in my pocket but very little profit.  Sold a ASM 129 at the Calgary Expo and only made $100.  That's ok because I bought it the day before.  The real profit is the $1 books and $5 to $100, assuming I bought them right.  At the Calgary Expo I sold 10 shorts of sets.

Some of the smaller dealers who set up here are lucky to make enough to pay for their booth.  One guy drives 200 miles up to Edmonton and he sells anywhere from $200 to $500 each show.  I don't get it, they come year after year and when you back out the booth costs and other expenses and what they paid for the books they likely lost money.

For me, I am in profit generating mode at this point. I have paid off the collections I have purchased, despite not having all of my stock being organized yet.  I have bought all the stuff I need for they type of show I am doing.  Not having my stock fully organized though is something that is always on the back of my mind. I need to just buckle down and get it all done. My goal for 2017.  

Unfortunately new collections and/or books here are very hard to come by and the ones that do are usually on the small scale. If something big came around, that would change things.  The vast bulk of my sales are usually within $2 to $20 range.  I like the shows as I move books that might be harder to move online.  My big books I tend to reserve for online (or keep for myself:blush:). This upcoming show might be the first show I bring some of my "bigger" books.

I am happy to move the books that I move at the shows I do and I am happy with current profit margins, but with regards to the situation you describe above, I certainly DON'T want to be "that guy".  Not sure if you caught it but I reported at a guy who drove 3.5 hours (one way) north to attend a maple syrup festival to sell not so great comics and crappy toys. No way he made money or could have been close to being worth his time. THAT I do not get.

Edited by Wall-Crawler
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