I DON'T FEEL "GREAT AGAIN..."

Woof! Looks like Dumb Donald’s Tariffs have started to hit mom and pop printing companies. That means they’ve hit Nix Comics as I get ready to do a second print run of the Nix Comics TPBs Undead Ballads, Living With Explosions, and the Sheriff and the Gunsel. I’m going to have to boost the prices from $25, $20 and $20 to $30, $25, and $25 (each respectfully.)

I suppose I’m just speculating on the reason, but there was an approximately 30% price hike between the first print run and the quote given to me by the automated form on their website. Also notable, my preferred paper weight for the TPBs (#70 matte) is no longer an option. While they are a US (Columbus) based shop, I suspect that the cost of supplies and maintenance have gone through the roof. I can ask to find out for sure, but I’m not sure what else could account for such a jarring increase.

• Examining My Options:

  • Quit the project and don’t do a second print run.

  • Hunt up a cheaper printing option.

  • Eat the cost myself

  • Jack my price up by 30%

  • Jack my price up, but by something less than 30%

Quit The Project and Don’t Do A Second Print Run: OK. I think you all know I’m too obstinate to do this in all but the most dire of situations. The printing price hike sucks, but I wouldn’t call it dire. Yet.

Hunt Up A Cheaper Printing Option: There is some appeal to this, but honestly… I like my printer. As I said, they’re local. They have done a terrific job on the six publications I’ve used them for. (Beautiful books!) They are friendly. And, maybe most of all, the pricing has been competitive to date. Jumping ship on them would likely just be a lot of work and likely not yield a better deal. You know? I’m gonna dance with the one what brought me.

Eat The Cost Myself: This was my first blush response. I was already on the low end of marking these books up. The first print run of Undead Ballads, for instance, had a cover price of $25 and a print cost of $15.99. (That nine bucks is a 56% is mark-up.) 

Another way to look at it, for every 10 copies I print ($159.90), I need to sell seven copies at $25 to break even on the job. Well, 6.396 copies to be exact ($159.90/$25).

I didn’t really make these books with the intent of putting them in stores, but I did offer it to Lost Weekend Records at $20 when Kyle asked to carry them. No big math there, just $5 off cover. For context, in the past I’ve always offered wholesale copies to stores for ½ off cover. That was never an option for the TPBs even before the tariffs hit.

The 30% print cost increase puts me roughly at $21 a book. That’d be $4 (19%) profit per book sold at cover price and eliminate the ability to offer a wholesale option. I’d have to sell nine (8.4) of the ten copies at cover price to break even. Nuts to that. 

Jack The Price Up by 30%: My second blush response. You know why people don’t talk about second and other subsequent blushes? They usually suck. A 30% bump would be a $32.50 cover price. (I’m going to assume at this rate, or really anything higher than $20, there won’t be any takers on wholesale.)

I guess THIS joke has run it's course...

Now, I’ve learned some lessons over the years. Way back in my first year of publishing, I tried to bump the cover price of Nix Comics Quarterly #2 from five bucks to six. It seemed reasonable… Feedback for the first issue was great. Sales seemed OK, though I wasn’t quite breaking even on the large print runs I was ordering. The one dollar bump seemed like it would work fine. (NOPE.) the priice range was so poorly received that I knocked it back down for issue #3. I even made a joke about it with a “Still only 500 cents” campaign, spoofing the old Marvel “Still Only 35 Cents” logos I grew up with.  

I never made any money on an issue of Nix Comics Quarterly, so I don’t think the price increase was out of line. If anything I might’ve been better off just going to $10. I think something about the price of $6 just through people off. It was odd. It seemed random. It was a turn off. I think $32.50 for the TPBs would have the same effect

Jack The Price Up, But By Something Less Than 30%:So this is where I landed. I decided to up the price by five bucks per book.A nice round number where I make the same nine bucks per copy and  a little bit of a hit percentage wise. I would barely maintain the rate of needing to sell 7 copies for every ten printed to break even.   I honestly don’t know if this will turn away customers or not. I guess I’ll find out at the Columbus Library Book Festival.

Implications for Future Nix Titles:

Complexity in Establishing Pricing: So these new tariff-affected margins are going to really mess up my plans. The above number crunching only works on titles where I’ve already paid for the art. Undead Ballads, The Sheriff and the Gunsel, and Living With Explosions were all three reprint projects compiling work from individual issues where I never made my money back. It was done with the permission of the artists involved, who were paid for there work upon completion in whatever year the original comic was published. I really want to get back to working in collaboration with other artists again, but I was already having trouble computing a way to make new Nix projects worthwhile and minimally risky for those artists. After all, one of my basic tenets is “my stupid idea = my money down.” 

Not Available In Stores: Also, it looks like unless I come up with some sort of cunning plan, wholesale distribution is likely dead. There just isn’t enough meat on the bone to offer a rate that makes sense for the stores. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Wholesale is a weird thing. It always involves taking less money in exchange for a greater quantity sold. But the quantities that most stores order don’t really make up the difference. I only have one store (Lost Weekend) that actively asks for restocks when they sell out. Heck: Lost Weekend may be the only store that sells out. Kyle pays special attention to promoting the local Columbus scene in a way that few retailers are able to.