WLP's Schedule C on Tax Day...

[redneckgaijin]

Gross receipts or sales (not including donations): $12,598
Cost of goods sold: $7,180 (print costs plus/minus change in inventory)
Gross profit: $5,418

Car & Truck expenses (mileage deduction): $3,201
Office expenses: $571
Rent or lease other property (convention booths): $1,026
Misc. supplies: $124
Travel expenses: $520
Deductible meals and entertainment: $456
Utilities (phones, Internet, web hosting): $1,360
Other expenses (copyright royalties & license fees): $1,510
Total expenses: $8,768

Net loss: $3,350

Comments

[morphyloon.livejournal.com]

Well... um... if you don't count the milelage for the vehicles, you made a $150 profit.

Banzai! *^^*


(I'm tryin'. I'm tryin' real hard to look on the bright side...)

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Well, that mileage allowance includes gas, y'see.

Also, the royalties are only those actually -paid.- Royalties run up during the past year are another story- another significantly more expensive story.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Are you sure it's a good idea to have this kind of sensitive information on a publicly-accessible post?

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Well, I figure if George Bush and all other candidates and holders of elective office have to disclose, so should I...

Besides, if WLP were incorporated, that information would, I believe, be a matter of public record anyway.

Maybe it hurts my rep to come out and say, "Hey look! I'm losing money big time doing this!". That's pretty much the only harm I can see, though, and I'd rather be up-front about it.

[jinwicked.livejournal.com]

You should try using Lulu or one of the other PoDs for some of your less popular books or niche items you think you could sell via the web, but wouldn't warrant doing a huge print run for. Their base prices are pretty good. I just ordered a case of about 35 of each of my two books for Shiokazecon. They also handle shipping so it can save you the expense of packing and mailing things.

Just a suggestion. I won't disclose my figures but my net income from my business has almost doubled every year since 2001, and using services like CafePress and Lulu that let me sell items without any upfront cost is one way I managed to do that.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Print-on-demand doesn't get books into stores. The vast majority of my income, as listed above, is wholesale to distributors. Convention sales are at most a quarter of the total. My mail order sales are, right now, negligible. For the numbers necessary to make wholesale viable, Brenner Printing outdoes Lulu, Dreamweaver or any other PoD hands down.

And CafePress? I've tried it- no sales at all- and the prices were, and are, OUTRAGEOUS. If I sell only one out of every three shirts I print at bulk at $14.95 retail, I'm breaking even; if I sell one shirt through CafePress at $16.95, I have to pay CafePress money.

I may do print-on-demand for the conversion to TPBs, but it would be a last resort.

[jinwicked.livejournal.com]

Well, I was just trying to help. Books in stores or not, you posted that you are operating at a loss. If I was consistently operating at a loss I would have to re-evaluate my business model because that's not acceptable to me. Maybe you should stop going to cons if you are just wasting gas and not making enough money at them. Or maybe it would be good to reorganize your website so it's more intuitive, and do more online advertising to boost internet sales. I just know I have seen a lot of posts from you lamenting the state of your business and talking about having to possibly close shop if things do not improve.

However, I will refrain from making any business-related suggestions or comments in the future if you are not interested.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

No, I don't mind people making suggestions; it's just that I've already looked into those options.

Right now I'm making changes which are slow to show results.

(1) Get back on the convention circuit in a major way. My original business plan was based on a minimum of ten conventions per year. Auto trouble cut me back beginning in 2002, and that's hurt badly. I've got to invest the time and money to coax the machinery to and from these events, or find cheaper transport for myself and my goods.

(2) Diversify my stock. Adding the T-shirt line has helped a lot- in fact, without the shirts convention appearances wouldn't be possible anymore. I'm also looking into WLP mousepads and other merchandise that can be printed in small runs and sold profitably.

(3) Simplify ordering. I've just applied to begin accepting credit cards again, with a service I can integrate into the WLP website. I expect to find out if I'm accepted Monday or Tuesday.

(4) Convert WLP's comics from old format to TPB format. This began with converting Bootleg into a 64-page format and putting all WLP's comics projects into it; in the next year or two, this intermediate step will lead to straight TPB publishing.

As for advertising, I'm seriously considering that- if I can find webcomics willing to take ads for WLP. My experience, though, is that advertising is money thrown into the garbage in the hopes that the garbageman will bring more money back later. The best ads have ever done WLP is to bump up sales by just barely the cost of the ads.

And a website reorg is definitely in the works; I've dragged my feet on it for so long because of exploring one electronic payment option after another, only to have all of them fall through.

[jinwicked.livejournal.com]

I think if you can better the usability of your website you will probably see a noticable increase in your online sales. When I was looking through it at one point, it is kind of visually overwhelming (lots of text, busy background, confusing # of links) and difficult to navigate. When I redesigned the Lunch Break site last year to have the buttons in the left column with *pictures* and brief descriptions on them, where it was very clear exactly what it was I had to offer, my email inquiries and sales went up. The things I have for sale are readily visible above the fold.

My sites' traffic went up when I also stopped using things like dark backgrounds, patterned/tiling backgrounds, and went to simpler, more user-friendly designs. At the time it was kind of a "Why haven't I been doing this all along?" thing for me.

I think the TPB formats are a really good idea. I don't know anyone personally that buys comic books, but a lot of people (self included) that will buy the thicker trade paperback books and book-style mangas. It takes me about ten minutes ot read a comic book then I'm done with it, most people I know prefer to have more pages/story to read in one sitting and feel like they're a better value.

As for advertising, I've had really good luck advertising with Randy. It didn't translate to immediate income, but it did get a whole new set of people looking at my comics and art, and in the following months those people have bought books, original comics, and the other things I sell. I advertise (for free) my pet hammocks on some rat communities (NOT spam I'm a regular poster there), and I've sold a lot that way. I may experiment with advertising my Lulu bookstore directly when I finish my art book and the next volume of the comic. I think it can be great if you just know your audience.

Good luck with the cons — I'm just going to be sticking with A-Kon for the time being, and any in-town ones I feel like going to since it requires little effort. I don't enjoy them all that much even though Oni-Con did pretty well financially. The people at A-Kon have never even been direct contact with me (they must've seen I'm going on my website) and were bugging me to do panels for them. Ugh.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Agreed re: the number of links. Unfortunately, my efforts at tiled backgrounds suck even more, and I *LOATHE* black-background pages... and my tastes in other solid colors tend to turn other people off. (I -like- green. Green is a friendly, cozy color.)

I would LOVE to have picture-based navigation... but believe it or not, I have more luck getting people to draw full-length porn comics entirely on speculation than in offering actual cash to people to draw icon-usable images for website design. I give detailed ideas and lists of needed icons, negotiate a price, and the answer is, "I'll get back to you..." with the unspoken addendum, "... after my round-trip vacation to Mars."

As for conventions... consider this. I'm an avid gamer and a fan of anime-style artwork (plus whatever makes me laugh- laughter and happiness are too rare in this world). I live about a hundred driving miles out of downtown Houston. The nearest gas station is twenty miles away... but within a twenty-mile radius there are no fewer than a DOZEN fundamentalist churches. If there were no conventions or Internet, I'd go stark raving insane...r. So even if I spend every bit of my convention time behind a table, going slowly nuts from my agoraphobia, working or being bored for lack of business, it's still a lot more fun than staying home!

So I'd better make my sanity breaks pay, hm? }:-{D

[jinwicked.livejournal.com]

So even if I spend every bit of my convention time behind a table, going slowly nuts from my agoraphobia, working or being bored for lack of business, it's still a lot more fun than staying home!

Ha... I went to my parents' house for dinner on Sunday this past week and literally did not set food outside my front door again until Friday afternoon. You're talking to the wrong person to use that argument...

[morphyloon.livejournal.com]

Sounds like Knoxville, deep in the bible belt... (Tho I've yet to visit The Mouse's Ear club, heh) Lots of churches around here.

As for little images to go with a navagation menu, heck, grab a few off the multitudes of royalty-free image sites? They'll be kind of generic but having something now sounds better than waiting (as you have) forever for someone to draw custom images.

[jinwicked.livejournal.com]

Mine are photos of the end of my pencil, a T-shirt, two of my books... only one of them is a drawing clipped out of a comic.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I'm a bit surprised you admit to visiting the site. }:-{D Sticking to the gen-aud version of the page?

[jinwicked.livejournal.com]

I don't have a problem viewing porn or seeing sites with adult images. I am not offended by pornography. It doesn't do anything for me and I have no personal interest in it, but that's just my own taste and seeing a pornographic image is about as exciting to me as reading instructions on how to assemble a bookshelf in Chinese; i.e. not at all.

I just don't want my work/my image to be associated with pornography in any way lest it affect other people's opinions of me. I would not work a booth selling porn with someone even though it's not my material, as it gives the wrong idea about me and implies I have something to do with it. I have enough problems with people judging me by how I look and making rude comments and assumptions about my personal life. I don't want to give anyone more ammunition for people to find imaginary problems and faults with me or judge me in any way.

[redneckgaijin.livejournal.com]

Of course, I had intended to post this on the wlp community, not on my own LJ. Oops.

[wildcard9.livejournal.com]

I know that I am one of the people you owe money to. Let me state for the record: unless I get laid off or wind up in the hospital due to an accident/disease, I am to be paid LAST of all of your debtors. Pay the other people you owe first. Keep the talent happy. Hopefully that will help at least a little.