Death to floppies? Options

[MasonEasley]

Is there ANY scenario where an indy publisher should be utilizing the 22-page pamphlet format? From a purely economic standpoint it seems to be a huge waste of money and resources, and also not a terrific buy for your consumer. I mean charging someone 3-5 bucks for a floppy when they can buy a TPB with 6 times the content for $10 bucks more seems a little ridiculous.

[Ringtail Cafe]

Unless you're printing ~2500 or more, if doesn't make sense to print and distribute in the direct market. You'll lose money. But unless you're printing that many, you're probably not distributing in the direct market anyway, so it's probably not much of an issue.

That's why we do the high volumes.

I disagree that POD can't be profitable -- its all in how you go about it.

One thing that we found really useful, and I'm going to go ahead and share with everyone...is low cost, high profit items. When we were first doing books, and they cost us way more to make the actual books, we offset that, with our secondary items. Commissions and sketches (cost you nothing, really), buttons, prints, things that sell for a couple of bucks but you have almost no cost in. Yes, you're wanting to sell the book, but the bottom line is this is a business. Even if you create JUST for the love of creating, you still have to be able to afford to get to shows, set up, and make it home. You have to DO business, to do the creative stuff.

Prints, Commissions, Buttons, Trading cards, these are all low cost items that can help you turn a profit when your books cost you a lot to produce.

Now, as to the death of floppies, honestly, time will tell. I do think however, that no matter how much people want to get into digital reading of comics, you're always going to have that fanbase who want to hold a comic.

I think the reason so many people like online digital, or going to trades, is that the big companies have epic huge storylines, that you want to read all at once, keep collected together, or frankly, have waaay too many cross over events (or 20 X titles...or 10 Deadpool titles...) and it gets ludicrous trying to keep up with all of that, at 4 bucks a pop.

[MasonEasley]

Now, as to the death of floppies, honestly, time will tell. I do think however, that no matter how much people want to get into digital reading of comics, you're always going to have that fanbase who want to hold a comic.

I think the reason so many people like online digital, or going to trades, is that the big companies have epic huge storylines, that you want to read all at once, keep collected together, or frankly, have waaay too many cross over events (or 20 X titles...or 10 Deadpool titles...) and it gets ludicrous trying to keep up with all of that, at 4 bucks a pop.

Its just been my experience that the audience prefers trades to floppies, especially on the indie scene. I've been fortunate that my floppies have brought me profit, but I know that if I had a trade, I'd have even more profit, and none of the headache I'm currently experiencing trying to balance my floppy inventory.

Man, that sounded really dirty for some reason....

[Tyler James]

Its just been my experience that the audience prefers trades to floppies, especially on the indie scene. I've been fortunate that my floppies have brought me profit, but I know that if I had a trade, I'd have even more profit, and none of the headache I'm currently experiencing trying to balance my floppy inventory.

Man, that sounded really dirty for some reason....

Yeah...of course, people with multiple TRADES have the same exact issue that you're having with floppies. They have to decide whether it's worth keeping inventories leveled with BOOKS 2 and BOOKS 3...and most NEW people will want to buy the first TRADE. So, it's not a problem that goes away.

[MasonEasley]

Yeah...of course, people with multiple TRADES have the same exact issue that you're having with floppies. They have to decide whether it's worth keeping inventories leveled with BOOKS 2 and BOOKS 3...and most NEW people will want to buy the first TRADE. So, it's not a problem that goes away.

Maybe, but I don't see that as being much of a problem. Frankly I wouldn't mind that situation too much since the profit margin for trades is so much higher. If I sell 3 trades at $15, I would have made the same amount of profit as I would have from selling 30 floppies at $3. or even 15 floppies at $4. Yet those 3 trades were cheaper to produce than those 30 floppies (and probably easier to sell to boot). So its a win-win on both ends, unlike the floppy that just seems like a lose-lose. Not to mention that there seems to be a limit on how much you can sell a floppy for, unless its an artbook or something.

That's really the situation I'm running into; Having to produce a sizeable amount of floppies for a razor thin profit margin. I really can't wait to phase them out of my inventory.

[Ringtail Cafe]

Maybe, but I don't see that as being much of a problem. Frankly I wouldn't mind that situation too much since the profit margin for trades is so much higher. If I sell 3 trades at $15, I would have made the same amount of profit as I would have from selling 30 floppies at $3. or even 15 floppies at $4. Yet those 3 trades were cheaper to produce than those 30 floppies (and probably easier to sell to boot). So its a win-win on both ends, unlike the floppy that just seems like a lose-lose. Not to mention that there seems to be a limit on how much you can sell a floppy for, unless its an artbook or something.

That's really the situation I'm running into; Having to produce a sizeable amount of floppies for a razor thin profit margin. I really can't wait to phase them out of my inventory.

That's really true. I think the biggest problem with getting folks to pick up an indy trade however, is the commitment. Someone picking up a collected series from Marvel or DC kind of knows what they're getting into, or at least has a history to fall back on.

Picking up a trade from an indy creator, you don't really know what you're getting. You could be awesomely pleased, or sorely disappointed. Getting someone to give up that 15 bucks on one item is often harder (even if it is the better deal) than getting them to give up the 5, to try out your series.

That's why when we did The Confectionaries, we have issue 0 for 4 bucks, and then the trade. Don't know if you want to commit to the series yet? Try issue 0, it's cheap.