Skullbearer
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OD Entertainment (Skullbearer's company)
Yo everyone... long time no post. I just wanted to tell everyone that I've had the barebones, just setup for recieving applications, website setup for my company up for a bit now.
If anyone is interested *cough* Joe *cough* in professionally writing and having published a graphic novel (we hook you up with an artist if you don't do the art or don't already have an artist to do it for you) of your own creation.
Our website url is www.otakusofdoom.com
I just have the basic info and stuff up, as well as application guidelines for authors and artists, and a bit of what you get in return for being an approved author/artist, even if you aren't actually working on a project with us at the moment.
Just so you know, we are holding very high standards to all writing and art, but you never know if you meet them unless you apply... I've only gotten 3 applications for writers so far that met the guidelines, but all three lacked the structure, character personalities, and general creativity to pass our quality requirements. So far, no artists have applied 'officially', but I have about 9 at my college trying to convince me to give them 'free ins' cause I know them... fat chance I told them, they gotta be held to the standards, although I think 2 would pass.
Ramble ramble, yatta yatta, check it out if you please!
P.S. Very nice perspective work on that last not-omake Dotty! I was quite impressed... and shamed. I'm taking a Cartooning class which was just added the week before school started, and perspective is one of the biggest things we're practicing... and that page made me feel very inadequate. 
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8/19/05, 3:47 pm
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cactuarsama
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Re: OD Entertainment (Skullbearer's company)
thank you very much, i perposly started doing it to 1) make the comic a little more professional looking 2) depict a large distance in a small space and 30 i'm sure people got sick of just seeing bun and mara and nina just standing next to each other in ll the shots.
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8/19/05, 6:18 pm
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Skullbearer
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Re: OD Entertainment (Skullbearer's company)
Actually, I've noticed you seem to be becoming more and more comfortable with the particular way you draw the comic since you started... I mean, it wasn't bad from the get go, but you've been showing more without having to draw more, and then you hit us with an excellent perspective shot that I couldn't find anything proportionally or perpectively wrong with, which is something even professional comic artists seem to have trouble with... (if there's anything they have trouble with, its perspective, but they get it just close enough it looks weird but you don't know why)
:ADDED ABOUT OD ENT:
I forgot to mention on our website (I need to update the info a bit) that we've decided on our payment goals for our author/artist teams, as well as some of our goals for once we setup a home production office:
- Authors, having the least amount of physical work (and thus less time consuming, physically) will be paid AT LEAST $40,000 in commission for completed and approved (gotta pass quality checks) writing, if they continue the project for a year. Our current goal is 1 volume each 3 months.
*Volume details are as follows:
+ Print size is 9x12" on 11x14" paper
+ Full color AND b&w versions, color obviiosly being far more expensive due to printing costs, as well as time for creation.
+ Each volume = 6 chapters, each of which are 20-30 pages (we want about 20-24 to be average, with a 6 'I need a couple extra pages for this battle/love scene/death scene/subliminalmessagetotakeovertheworld scene' page buffer) making 120-180 page volumes. This DOES NOT include title pages/images, omakes, 'about the author/artist', EXPLANATION PAGES (Detailing why/how a power works to prevent loads of 'thats not possible' geek mail... and yes, we want you to know how your own powers work authors), or anything other than straight comic. FLASHBACKS also do not count towards these pages... in all likelyhood, a major comic, with a particularly action packed or flashback heavy volume, could reach well into the 200 page range. Prices for comics beyond 200 pages will change, although how much depends on how significant an increase in costs are (probably only like a $2-$5 increase).
I think that's the key info you need for the volumes, to give you an idea why we give 3 months. Although we are considering extending that to 4 or 6 months, in order to maintain a year-round schedule, but give a comfortable enough schedule for the authors and artists to build up a buffer and take a vacation so often without a hiatus occurring (I hate hiatus so bad).
- Artists, we are currently thinking $40k as well for the year, but you will have a lot more gruntwork... and a lot more opportunities to shine and achieve special "Exceeded our Absurd Standards" bonuses, as I am calling them for the time being. For example, our only currently 'approved' artist, my friend David, is drawing our logo. I'm paying him $500, I provided the design, details about the appearance, positioning, and costume... he's basically just doing a standar commission, but on massive poster sized paper, then fully coloring on the computer. Each character is individually done, so we can use them seperate and together in any way. I think $500 is kind of cheap for what he's doing, but its twice what he asked. If he does the spectacular job his sketching are hinting at, I'm easily willing to TRIPLE that pay as a special bonus.
I believe in not just loving your work, but loving to blow people away with it... adding massive detail doesn't necessarily improve something, rather implying the most detail with the least actual drawing both makes you more productive, lets readers enjoy it more since it doesn't overload them, and doesn't detract from or confuse the scene.
Authors can also get bonuses, but since creativity is the main thing we'll be paying the authors for, rather than a massive level of novel writing skill (only the verbals, story, and basic motion/action/expressions will be taken from the writing... a great deal is still up to the artist), so room for exceptional work bonuses isn't as much...
Basically, excellent and hardworking artists who enjoy their work could easily hit $60k during a year, maybe even $80k.
On the flipside, we split the royalties based on the level of creative imput more than the level of physical work... so authors have a better chance of getting a larger royalty percentage than artists, unless the artist is left with a lot of decisions (costume not detailed, author doesn't take into account things like bed hair, background, any other details that MUST be put in visually to meet our standards). Current goal for royalties is to base them on declared profit... how our current construct of our 'expense before profit' formula works is basically like this:
- Commissions paid for this volume, not counting bonuses (so $40k for the author, $40k for the artist, $80k total) spread out over a nationwide printing*, + individual unit printing cost, + shipping cost per unit**, + advertising cost per unit***, + other employee and company expenses**** = expense per unit.
*Nationwide Printing: Even if the printing is not at the nationwide level, we will calculate the per unit cost as if it were, based on whatever we declare as the number of units for the first printing as a nationwide release. This is because printing cost per unit go down as total units printing goes up, encourages businesses to print more at one time, which is good for the printers. Also, commission cost is only the first printing... after the first, only shipping, 'Other' costs, and printing apply.
**Shipping Cost Per Unit: Cost on average to ship a box of the volumes to anywhere in the nation, divided by the number of volumes that fit in the box.
***Advertising Cost Per Unit: A pre-declared amount for a basic advertising campaign (not TV commercials, but internet advertising, manga/comic magazine advertising, convention advertising, etc) at the nationwide level, divided by however many units constitute a single nationwide print. This cost is only applied once, to the first printing of the particular volume, and even if additional amount is spent on advertising, it does not increase. However, if less is spent on advertising, it decreases to whatever amount that was. Advertising AFTER the first print is totally out of the company's own profits.
****Other Expenses: Of course, the company has to pay the managers, advertisers, accountants and such... but since we can, ideally, have no more than 2 quality check/manager personnel for ever 10 active projects, just 2 or 3 for website and web advertising, a couple for finance, a couple for non-web ads, and a few others (office maintenence, etc) this should be a very low amount as the number of projects we run goes up, since it is split among every project equally. For our startup, the company will mainly be taking a hit on these expenses, until we have at least 6 or more projects actively selling. We also take a "You don't need that much money just because you have a big title" attitude, so while higher ups will get paid more... it won't be significant. We want to enjoy our work, and work with those who enjoy it too... not those who just wanna be rich.
Ok, after all this, you got *Sale Price Per Unit* - *Declared/Static 'Expense' Per Unit* = *'Profit' Per Unit*. Likely, especially at our early times, the actual profit will be smaller than declared, but we intend for it to never be larger than declared. Obviously, on direct sales, we make more (we get retail price instead of wholesale price if purchased from us and not from a store), but that means the profit is higher, so both the company AND the author+artist bank from that.
Last edited by Skullbearer, 8/19/05, 7:17 pm
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8/19/05, 6:22 pm
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Skullbearer
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Re: OD Entertainment (Skullbearer's company)
Now, currently shooting for a massive 50% of the declared profit being split between the author and artist for each unit sold... lets say, the artist had quite a bit of creative input because the author was not particularly discriptive in his action scenes, which were frequent... so maybe for the 5th volume, which was all action, we award 30% to the artist, and the other 20% to the author.
But more often, if the author is doing his job right, the artist should be mainly just producing under the author's control, and so it would more likely be the reverse, 30% to the author, 20% to the artist. The artist should be able to get much more in commission, but it is primarily (or should be) the author's creative work, with the artist to represent it according to the author's own vision. The author will have a lot of creative control over the artist's work, so we want them to work together in person, which, until we achieve our goal of an entire author/artist community, around our main production office and an art/writing school run/founded by us, this is going to be somewhat hard to achieve.
Now, very likely, we're gonna have to cut that lofty goal of 50% down to, say, 40% in order to account for an almost certain actual expense > declared expense situation. I honestly believe that the company should not make LESS than the author's and artists, since we are providing the tools, location (in the future), guidance, opportunity, commission (so you can eat and stuff), and publishing/advertising costs for your work. Sure, as many angry artists have already pointed out to me, you made it, you think you should get, say, 90% of the profits hands down if you're a veteran, high quality worker. IF you're not at least close to being that, we probably won't even approve you in the first place! Secondly, we may not have a name now, but we should in the future, plus the services and goods we intend to provide to assist you and beyond what most artists can ever afford/obtain on their own. Plus few can self publish as well as cover their material/living costs, as well as advertising... etc.
Its kind of like a partnership, 'cept you don't own half my company, and while we have exclusive rights to print and sell your work that you do for us, you still technically own the copyright (although our contract includes the part where you can't stop us from selling the work we already paid you commission for, on the grounds we keep giving you your royalties... this prevents greedy authors/artists from messing with the company for more money, but also prevents the company from just making a fortune off your characters by using them outside the comic in things like shirts and stuff, without furthur contract)
Ok, I talked a lot... this should be going up pretty soon. I just wanted to blow off a bit of frustration... artists have been giving me a hard time. They want to know they can make a living off us even if we don't do well for a couple years... well, if we do well enough, you'll be hired full time for the promised commission + any bonuses. On top of that, if we're making a profit of the comic (and thus covering our expense, which includes/included your pay) then you'll be making a damn good amount extra in royalties! For anyone who even thinks more than 50% of the profit to the workers is what's fair... think of it this way... the company made an agreement with you. We'll do what you can't... pay you to do this, pay to publish and advertise it, and pay you to do the next one if the first is a success. We're offerring things (in the future) like an art studio for the artists that would make you pee your pants.
We're starting up, we're taking a huge risk of our own to do so, and those who start with us take the risk that their work just won't sell without a brand name on it. If its good work, we believe it will sell, and that's why we're fronting the costs. So more than 50%... you might cover your ass financially, but you'd completely cripple our progression, which would me very little chance we'd become a brand name, or continue the project, or start more projects.
Sorry again Joe and Dotty... I really have recieved lots of demanding/angry emails... 11 different artists so far, who think I'm trying to totally rip off people who just want to do art and live off it. What would happen though if the company was selling nationwide... so you make millions but we make what, a couple hundred thousand? Sure, we'd get lots of people who wanted to work for us, but the company itself would hardly grow.
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8/19/05, 7:17 pm
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Marachan
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Re: OD Entertainment (Skullbearer's company)
@_@
Lots to read again. ^_^;
I'm not sure what the sorry was for at the end either.
Not sure what to say in general about the whole thing. Right now "Mara-chan" isn't ready for any kind of printing. We've varied the sizes of comics that it makes a standardized page rather difficult. I'd probably have to do a bit of reformatting to about 1/2 of the comics. Not looking forward to that right now. So not really looking to print yet. And with Dot just starting school up again, she'll barely have time for the comic.
Sorry, been running behind on things (bad work schedule, been very sleep deprived lately).
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* Joe *
Writer/webmaster
www.marachan.com
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8/23/05, 7:56 pm
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Skullbearer
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Re: OD Entertainment (Skullbearer's company)
The sorry was for the excessively large counter-rant to the rants you guys didn't have to suffer through.
And, another sorry here... because Mara-chan doesn't come close to the standards we hold our projects against. Not even some of the best webcomics do... now, art wise, Applegeeks makes it, but so far they come lacking in writing.
I really can't think of maybe more than 3 webcomics where they put the work into the art that I'm satisfied with being at the level we want... and only 7 or so that I know of with writing at the level we want.
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8/23/05, 8:51 pm
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Marachan
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Re: OD Entertainment (Skullbearer's company)
The comic is a little hobby of Dot and myself, not our 'job'... If we were getting paid for it, I'm sure we'd put a lot more effort into it (reminds me... Gotta update a LOT of stuff). We're doing this for free.
Now if Dot and I had the time (and got paid) you'd see a much different comic. More updates. Color. Better web layout. You can see some of what happens when Dot has time in the color pics of Bunny and Mara that we put as Omakes a while back (Like Bunny laying down, or the GTA one).
So everyone send us at least $500 a week... ^_-
*flips thru Dot's 'Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidlines for illustrators'... Now if we could turn Mara-chan into a TV show... that's a nice $40k just for the designs...
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* Joe *
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www.marachan.com
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8/25/05, 12:50 am
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Skullbearer
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Re: OD Entertainment (Skullbearer's company)
Well, how we're working in OD for pay wise, is that the commission is basically a minimum living wage, since our royalty payments are very high.
50% of the profit after a declared static expense (which will often be less than the actual expense) is split between the authors and artists based on creative input.
This is for the comics though, we haven't even considered pay methods for future animations. However, in addition to the 40k minumum over a year of full time production (4 volumes per year) there are bonuses for exceeding expectations, as well as extra creative work, which means you can get 60k pretty easily as an artist, and nearly 100k if you are like the Artist God, and that's straight up salary + bonuses.
Starting out will be kind of rough because we can't afford to hire full time artists and authors, so they are working very-part time (1 volume in one year) and getting paid 10k for it. Of course, if the printing gives the company enough money between the pre-declared expence and the remaining 50% of the profit that goes to the company, then the artist already pulled in a pretty good sum... as our name becomes more known, our readers grow in numbers, and our printings become larger (which means the company will actually get closer to 50% of the profit... cause we'll be taking a 'small printing vs the declared mass printing' cost per unit, since mass printings are cheaper per unit, hit on our profits... which from what we've figured out, could cut the company's actual profits more than in half in the first few printings) then the authors and artists could easily be pulling in 10 times the base 40k commission/salary from royalties along if their project is even just fairly popular.
This is because we aren't selling small things frequently, but rather large comics (11x14 paper, 9x12 images) in full color and b&w shaded versions (which will be cheaper because b&w printing is dirt cheap compared to color). The color versions, being 6 chapters of 20-30 CONTENT pages each (Chapter page, omakes, recaps to previous pages, none of that counts toward the 'content' page amounts), meaning 120-180 content pages per volume. We want an average of about 24 pages per chapter, or 144 pages per volume, to give leeway on tricky chapters.
If it still manages to stay under a page count of 200, we're looking at a suggested retail of $45-50 per unit... considering we only plan on having each individual comic released at a rate of 1 volume each 6 months, with other projects on staggered release dates to fill the time between, an artist will usually have to be working on 2 projects to be working 'full time'.
We're considering making the 40k thing for just 2 volumes per year, since in comparison to how much profit we can make vs expense in this field, that's an almost negligable increase in pay (80k for full time 4/year base salary, 120k with fairly easy bonuses, max of nearly 200k if you = L33T 4rt M45t3r), but for our startout that would cripple us.
Anyhoo... the average print size for a nationwide printing would be around 60,000 units, which nearly thirds the per-unit printing cost over a printing with less than 4,000 units (which we'll be starting with, probably around 1,000 units), even with the increase in salary/commission, the expenses per unit on the FULL COLOR would be under $10 with shipping and basic nationwide advertising (in large consumer areas, no point in advertising big time in a town with 34 residents). So, if the wholesale price is $20 per unit (and when I talked to the local comic store, they said that they often pay up to 60% of the retail price per unit for the better comics) and the retail is $45-50, the company would be making around $10 in profit, $5 which would be split (not necessarily even, but lets say $2.50 each) between the author and artist... PER UNIT SOLD WHOLESALE.
Now, if this one printing is to be considered successful (covers its own costs) with the rather low wholesale price in comparison to cost, then we need a total sales of 45,00 units (75%) for the company to break even (the author and artist would get 45,000 x $2.50 each in royalties). Every sale after those 45,000 units is basically $15 profit for the company and $5 for the author and artist.
Now, if you think a little more realistically, if our costs were REALLY $10 per unit (even for full color, at a national print, I've been quoted as low as $1.47 per unit for that size of print) we'd have to sell several printings and most of those printings to really make it worth all the work that went into it... however, if we do as most printers can do now, and set up on demand printing for retailers, then we maintain a set low rate (not as low as doing a massive print, but about half the standard print cost) per unit, we ALWAYS sell them (at most, a store might end up sending a box back, although most comic stores just hold onto any extras cause they got bought eventually) so we will always be making a profit as long as enough sells to cover the cost of setting up the printing plates... which for something like this, can run around $5,000 or more.
Even so, if we we're to sell at just $5 more for our wholesale price, OR, even better for the company, do the bulk of our sales OURSELVES, we can get a rather significant increase in profit vs. expense.
The biggest problem is getting people to read it in the first place, which is why we will have the first chapter of every volume available online and in stores (as a sample) for free reading. The full volume will be vacuum sealed (which surprisingly only adds like 3 cents to the per-unit cost if the printer can do it at their facility)
I'm studying business management at the moment, and my teacher (who has a BBA and years and years of experience managing small, medium, and massive business, particularly the financial part) thinks that, if we can get regular readers, this sort of plan would setup excellent working conditions for our employees. It only benefits the company to spend its profits to expand and improve its workforce and working conditions... and artists and count on being supplied with top quality materials, and those who use the computer, you want Wacom? You drool at it, we buy it.
At least, granting we get off the ground first.
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8/26/05, 2:29 pm
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Marachan
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Re: OD Entertainment (Skullbearer's company)
If I read right (MAN you like to type!) you expect to sell 60,000 copies at $45 each, with a <200 pagecount. Potential revenue = $2,700,000.
At the rates in Dot's book, for a starting pro writer ($75/page) and artist ($100-400/page) that would be about $11,250 for the writer, $15,000-60,000 (for a 150 page book).
That gives artistic/writing costs of $26,250-71,250.
Printing costs $1.47-10/unit. So that gives you costs of $88,200-600,000.
Selling price is $45, 80% of which you said is 'wholesale'... so $36 is what you'd make per copy... that's closer to $2,160,000.
$2,160,000 (earned)
- 88,200 - 600,000 (printing costs)
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$2,071,800 - 1,560,000
- 26,250 - 71,250 ('artistic' costs)
----------------------
$2,045,550 - 1,488,750 Profit
So, if even 1/2 of that is taken up by taxes and other expenses, that's $750,000-1,000,000!!!
No wonder the artists and such are nervous. What you're offering the artists is about 1%.
Now here's the hard part... selling them at $45. Not gonna happen. Most manga sells for $10 each. If you kept expenses to a minimum (Say $1.50/unit) and total art costs at your minimum ($10k each)...
$480,000 (60,000 x $10 * 80%)
- 20,000 (Artist costs)
- 90,000 (printing costs, min)
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$370,000 (say 1/2 that after taxes)
$185,000 Profit. Still not bad.
But that's also 60,000 units... there's 7500 locations that Previews goes out to, theyd each have to sell 8 units. EVERY mom-n-pop comic shop would have to sell 8! I know for a start-up comic, my old comic shops wouldn't try to sell 8 at $10/each let alone $45!
Shonen Jump sells about 175,000 issues a month... The top graphic novel sales in July 2005 were 8,526 (for 'Y the last man') and 6406 for Xmen. Fruits Basket was the top manga with 4,247. To sell 60,000 issues, you'd have to AVERAGE 5000 a month for a year.
You'd have to outsell the most popular manga (that sells at $10) or as nearly as much at the top regular comics ($15 and 10). Inu Yasha only sold 3,442. Kenshin 3,448. Cromartie High School only 1,800. Full Metal Alchemist (one of the most popular ones out there!) sold only 3,691! You'd have to sell 1.35 TIMES FMA!!!
So, if the costs were low, the artists costs low... the price kept low... STILL how are you planning on selling that many?
http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/7376.html
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* Joe *
Writer/webmaster
www.marachan.com
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8/26/05, 11:59 pm
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Skullbearer
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Re: OD Entertainment (Skullbearer's company)
I was using 60k units as an example of the number of units in a single 'nationwide' printing.
Also, I forgot to mention that the 4 volumes per year for full time for artists doesn't apply to authors... we have yet to decide what is required for authors to be considered working full time, but currently the idea seems to be 8-12 volumes per year range...
And I don't seriously think we'll be selling 60k units RIGHT OFF, but I've done a large amount of polls through local comic shops, and after reading the description I offered for our average page count, size, and quality standards, 4 out of 5 customers checked "Yes, I would pay that at least once every 3 months for that kind of a comic." We didn't put a "I would pay that with even less time between" type option, but the general consensus of the store managers was that their customers wanted to know when our first releases were.
Although those same managers won't even consider what sort of wholesale price and retail price they'll go for until they see a completed and printed product.
Our biggest drive will be for online sales at first... since we can make the largest profit that way. Our goal is to make something not just a good read, but good to look at... something they can re-read again and again and enjoy it each time.
Kind of like a Dilbert collection book (its basically the same size and price).
I talked with a printer again today... he thinks he could arrange for a special 'startup' deal for 2 years of printing for us, where he could do a full color high quality on good acid free paper, plus a high quality cover with a good glue binding, for $1.15 per unit, if its between 150 and 200 pages.
If we have one that exceed 200 pages by a considerable amount (like 220 or more pages total) then we could, concievably, call it a 'special issue' and charge $5 more.
So lets see... lets say we go with a 5,000 unit printing, with the plate costs removed from the formula (the printer will give us our first plates free he says, part of the startup thing)
So:
Initialization(Plates): $0
Cost Per Unit: $1.15
Units: 5,000
Total: 5,000 x $1.15 = $5,750 printing cost.
Lets say, I distribute to the comic stores in Sacramento and the surrounding areas, a total of 500 units (that's kind of optimistic) myself.
Shipping = $0
We hold the rest and setup an online purchase option where the buyer pays shipping (we'd probably actually just do a 'free shipping' deal for promotional, but lets just say)
Artist wages: $10,000
Author wages: $3,500 (just to estimate the semi-mid of that 8-12 volumes per year for the 40k)
Total cost so far: $19,250
What we declare as expense: Printing($1.15/unit) + Wages[as if national print of 60,000 units]($13,500 / 60,000 = $0.225/unit) + Shipping($0) + Other wages/expenses($0... I worked for free, no office rental fees, the rest is tax refundable 'loss') + Advertising(Lets say $2,000 / 60,000 = $0.03/unit) = Declared Expense Per Unit($1.405)
Actual Expense Per Unit (at 5,000 units): $4.25
So, lets say we get each store to take one box of 50 (10 stores) and sell them for a special $30 promotional price, and they pay us $15 each:
Declared Profit Per Unit Sold in Store: $13.595/unit
Actual Profit/USS: $10.75
This is assuming none have to be returned to us (as in, they keep any extras or all are sold)
Income So Far: $7,500
Remaining Unpaid Expense: $11,750
So, in order to break even, we'd have to sell 392 comics via online or mail order. If they sold well enough at the stores, we could sell more through the stores, with 2 wholesale comics = the income of 1 direct sale, meaning we'd need to sell 784 additional comics via stores in order to break even if we didn't pay the royalties.
Lets figure out what we'd need to pay the royalties through the least profit sale method, at $15 wholesale through the stores.
The company declared expense + company profit (50% declared profit) = $8.203 (approx) being made by the company to counter expenses.
To make up the cost of $19,250 the company would have to sell: 2,347 units through stores (assuming 0 out of store sales) in order to break even. This means the author and artist would get a total of:
Royalty Per Unit($6.80 rounded up) x 2,347 = $15,959.60 in royalties. Lets say we give the artist (since they work on 1/3 as many comics for full time as the author) 65% of that, and the author 35%.
Artist income at 2,347 units sold: $10,373.74
Author income at 2,347 units sold: $5,585.86
Both are more than the original base income, on a very small sale amount. The company's actual profit would be: $1,734.60
On top of that acceptable profit (a profit is a profit, and the idea behind the 'declared expense' is basically all non-expansion/bonus expenses are already covered before the company starts hitting a 'profit'. So that should be $1,734.60 in actual profit, towards expansion. Not significant, but not only can the company now afford to pay for a second volume to be made, but they made a little something.
A thing to keep in mind is we basically have 3 years to become completely self-sufficient. This is because we can declare losses for 3 years. I'm not going to declare losses this year, but beginning next year (when we will begin paying the commissions and prepare for a November 2006 release) we will be setup to declare losses from that year forward for UP TO 3 years. We then need to make a profit for 4 years before we can again declare losses.
Declared Losses are essentially end of year tax refunds, and I've been informed by 2 different business owners and my Business teacher that the amount of declared loss can exceed actual taxes, meaning we can essentially be paid to run the business for 3 years, within limits based on the amount of money we move... something like no more than 20% over the actual taxed amount.
I can even declare taxes on my own personal wages (from Staples) as loss, and I get taxed nearly $60 EVERY WEEK between federal and state taxes. That's a lot of money!
Using declared loss, we can also rent a studio space, buy equipment, and pay utility bills and such and get a full return on all those at the end of the year, granting that we did not make a profit if those expenses were not refunded.
But if all goes well, by the end of the second year (End of 2007) we should be actually holding onto money made from the comics, although we probably wouldn't end up with an actual profit for the year. So, 2008 should end up being a profit year, and even if it isn't, that's one last year of practically expenseless expansion and advertising.
Plus, you have to think of one last thing... we can potentially sell these all over California right off, if we send a sample to stores all over, and are able to get a 'chapter one' freebie sample for customers to view, I think that seeing the level of art, the size, and any notes we put in about our company, should seriously help us to sell the product and advertise it much more quickly.
I'm considering this part of the $2,000 advertising, which should include at least a couple month long ads on high hitting sites with reasonable rates (ie, not Megatokyo)
We could even hit a large number of webcomics who offer ad space for very small prices, and who's readers would be right in our target audience.
I really do think this can work, and so does my Business teacher, who has a MBA and years of experience in running and starting businesses. But only time will tell... anything else you can point out can only help us improve our start!
--- "Only YOU can prevent forum fires."
-Geeky the Bear
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8/27/05, 8:25 pm
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