Welcome to the
The comic book industry has become increasingly complex over the years, and there are multitudes of tips, tricks, and resouces available that kind of appear, get lost, and reappear from time to time in various places. This wiki is an attempt to gather as many of these resource materials in one place as possible, so that we don’t have to keep on reinventing the wheel whenever a question arises.
The intent of the wiki is to provide resource data, not opinions on the state of the industry, but a certain amount of “user rating” is a natural part of the process. For example, if a low-cost supplier of (say) price tag labels happens to be XYZcorp, but they take a long time to deliver, both their pricing and their speed can be expected to be a part of the review.
This is a work in progress, and hopefully will always be a work in progress. The contributors are people whose primary concern is running their own businesses, and that business is selling comic books and related products. We do this as an act of goodwill to our brethren already in the industry, and as a mentoring device to those who want to become retailers.
-Paul Stock - Librairie Astro/Astro Books - Montreal
www.astrolib.com
Brave New World Comics - Newhall CA - www.bravenewworldcomics.com
Casablanca Comics - Portland ME - www.casablancacomics.com
Chapel Hill Comics - Chapel Hill NC - www.chapelhillcomics.com
Chris Powell - www.comicspro.org
Coliseum of Comics - Orlando FL - www.coliseumofcomics.com
Comic Relief - Berkeley CA - www.comicrelief.net
ComicsPRO: Comics Professional Retail Organization - www.comicspro.org
Flying Colors & Other Cool Stuff - Concord CA - www.flyingcolorscomics.com
Gary’s Comics and More - Morgantown WV -
Librairie Astro - Montreal PQ - www.astrolib.com
Perfect Books / Von Allan Studios - Ottawa ON - www.vonallan.com
Phoenix Comics - Herndon VA
Strange Adventures - Halifax NS - www.strangeadventures.com
Titan Games - Battle Creek MI - www.titangames.com
Want to be a contributor? E-mail paul@astrolib.com
Diamond Tips: Online & Human Resources
Distributors: Comics - Books - Accessories (T-Shirts, Toys etc.) - ...
Glossary: What’s a FOC? - An ISBN?
Organizations: Associations - Forums ...
Store Equipment: Supplies - Shelving ...
Software
Tips & Tricks
Searching For Items While Doing Online Reorders
I open two windows, each taking up about half the screen. One is the reorder entry page, the other is the tru in-stock list (Diamond page> Data Files> Scroll to Database files: All In-Stock List: Text> Open with your browser [I use Firefox]).
The in-stock list lists everything in-stock at Diamond at the moment that you open it. Control-F search the list, then copy and paste the code into the Item # field in your other window; this works a lot faster than searching from the reorder page.
For items which are not in stock, and that you want the code for or if you want to place a backorder, search those on the reorders page. You have to click the button next to “Search All” in order to include items that are not currently in stock. Unfortunately you do have to tab down to enter separate words in separate fields, though you can also separate two words with a hyphen because the search function automatically separates hyphenated words when you search them..
Here’s another hint that’s not 100% foolproof: on the reorders page, if you’re searching a comic issue, enter the # sign in one of the fields, and that’ll restrict it to items with an issue number. This works a little less consistently, but you can try including terms like GN, TP, or vol (for volume) to narrow it down to collections as opposed to issues.
Contributed by: Andrew Neal - Chapel Hill Comics - www.chapelhillcomics.com
FOC: The Final Order Cutoff
FOC stands for Final Order Cutoff, the date on which reductions may be made on DC and Marvel orders.
Technically, it isn’t “a” date, but a period of two days, running from Tuesday to Thursday afternoon each week.
Retailers receive several e-mails from Diamond every week, but these two messages should not be treated as spam: “DC COMICS DIRECT CHANNEL #...” and “Marvel Mailer #...”
Both contain information about new printings, incentives, special sales, and the weekly FOC list.
The weekly FOC list is a list of titles that are about to be printed. They will be in stores (typically) three weeks after the deadline/cutoff date, which is also shown on the e-mail.
While order increases (Diamond calls them “Advance Reorders”) can usually be done any time up until a book ships, reductions are only accepted during the time the FOC is “live”- between when the e-mails are received and the FOC deadline, and only for the titles listed on the e-mail.
The e-mail itself shows a “generic” listing of what’s being FOCd that week, but there’s also an attachment with it. The attachment shows the quantity you ordered, title by title, and includes price and extended cost information.
After checking against current needs, you can modify your quantities in one of three ways:
-By phone to any Diamond CSR (Customer Service Rep)
-By e-mail to your CSR (or to the generic service@diamondcomics.com)
-On line via the Diamond Retailer Services website. Buttons to bring up the FOC screen are on the “My Account” page. You’ll find a link to “My Account” on the sidebar of the main page.
The quantities on order may not be accurate on the Diamond e-mail or screen. Don’t worry about it. Diamond has an (unknown) cutoff for building these lists. If you placed an increase after Diamond’s cutoff, the quantity on the FOC e-mail won’t show it. However, the FOC asks for the total quantity you want, so if there is a discrepancy, just change the total it shows to the one you really need. They won’t duplicate- they overwrite.
CBIA: The Comic Book Industry Alliance www.thecbia.com
This entry will always remain at the top of the list, because it is perhaps the most important resource a comic retailer can have.
Founded in 1997 by retailer Robert Scott of Comikaze in San Diego and hosted on Delphi Forums, the CBIA is a community of hundreds upon hundreds of comics professionals- retailers, distributors, publishers, creators, and press. It’s a closed forum, available only to those who meet the forum host’s criteria.
It’s a place for people to shmooze, a place to find needed stock, a place to find a buyer for overstock. A place where creators run ideas up the flagpole, a place where industry problems are discussed, and often resolved.
It’s a place where people have gone for years to find out where to get things they need- from bags to POS software. In this respect, this wiki is an offshoot of the CBIA- it’s inspired by the hundreds of threads thst essentially start with “does anybody know...” These threads can get repetitive, and Delphi can be hard to search, so I figured that a wiki cataloguing some of them would be a handy thing to have.
If this wiki proves to be even only one tenth as useful as the CBIA, we can still be proud- the CBIA is that important to the industry. www.thecbia.com
ComicsPRO: Comics Professional Retail Organization www.comicspro.org
ComicsPRO is an organisation made up of comics retailers, and dedicated to furthering the interests of both retailers and the industry in general. The best description lies within Comicspro’s website itself, and here’s part of the preamble from their start page:
Presented by Joe Field, President of ComicsPRO:
ComicsPRO is the only trade organization dedicated to the progress of direct market comic book retailers, allowing us to move forward together. The goals of ComicsPRO are for direct market retailers to speak with a single, strong voice on important industry issues, providing educational and mentoring opportunities to current and future retailers, and offering opportunities for retailers to reduce some of the fixed costs that we all incur.
Membership in ComicsPRO gives retailers access to group rates for programs such as credit card processing and group health insurance. As ComicsPRO continues to grow, members will guide the organization to the services that will benefit them the most.
Advocacy is a vital and important cog in the ComicsPRO machine. Too often, the retail segment is absent when industry plans are formulated and partnerships are forged. As ComicsPRO grows, our goal is to give retailers an equal voice with our other industry partners, so we can take an active role in the decisions that affect all of us.
ComicsPRO is open to all store-front retailers willing to invest their money, time, skills, and industry experience. Together, we can provide a strong collective voice and a better future for direct market comic book retailers.
The Master List Of Comic Book & Trading Card Stores www.the-master-list.com
The Master List is a labour of love by Mark S.Adams that’s been on the web since around 1998. It’s a free service, used by the public, distributors, and publishers alike.
The name pretty much describes it. Mark’s trying to compile a directory of all the comic and card stores in the world -”brick & mortar” only, not web-based.
After a fashion it was a wiki before there were such things: A collection of information provided by a variety of people. Over the years I’ve heard as many (if not more) people say “I found you on the Master List” as I have “I found you on the CSLS”, but the Master List is free, while CSLS has a yearly fee.
It’s particularly useful if you’re in a town that gets tourists. People can just search by City (or state), and find all the stores in the area. It’s also more precise and detailed than search engines like Google, because it’s specific to comic and card stores, so consumers don’t get hits for other stores that may only carry comics or cards as a sideline.
The site isn’t overwhelmingly transparent when it comes to signing up:
-On the main page, there’s a drop-down menu at the top.
-”Corrections & Updates” drops “Online Update Forms”.
-”Online Update Forms” drops “Retailers Online Report Form”.
That’s the sign-up page.
www.the-master-list.com
Comic Conventions - What Should I Bring?
Promote Your Store
Bring flyers for your shop. Even at cons up to 300 miles away, we hand our flyers, and put them on the FREE STUFF TABLE and see them brought into the store.
FREE Food - a bowl of free individually wrapped candy is a winner every time!
Don’t forget thank you bags, especially if you have your store’s name on them. Shoppers will be thankful for them!
Business Cards. Sounds simple, but you would be surprised by how many people don’t take them to cons.
Selling Tips/Aids
Credit Card Signs. We hang a sign that says: WE ACCEPT VISA/MASTERCARD, AMX and DISCOVER! People always run short of cash at cons, and searching (and lining up for) an ATM is a drag. Showing that you take credit cards can be the difference between “maybe” and “yes”.
We also wear a name-badge sized, hand drawn, badge that advertises we accept the credit cards. Everyone wears one of these in the booth. This increases sales a lot. EVEN if you don’t have an old nuckle buster, just write down the CC information on one of the old slips (available free from most CC processors!) and call them in, you will take a fair amount MORE money this way.
Bring LOTS of change. 1’s, 5’s, and coins. I usually bring $200 in 1’s, $300 in 5’s, and 5 rolls of each coin for a 2 or 3 day small show.
Here’s some things most vendors won’t bring:
-A few empty short and long boxes to sell.
-Comic and magazine bags and boards to sell.
-Toploaders, price guides, magazine price guides.
Working Tools
Here’s some assorted stuff that’s always handy, often essential at cons. A lot of it is pretty obvious, but you’d be surprised at how often something’s forgotten. Creating a checklist is a good idea:
Pens Duct Tape Spare box for "stuff" Secure Cash Box Tape Calculator Knife/Box Cutter Paper Towels String Bulldog Clips Hand Dolly or 4-Wheel Cart Notepads
If you don’t have anything to cover the hideous con tables (let alone anything you may stash underneath them), a nice clean covering (blanket) of some kind, so that stuff you don’t want peeked at is safely out of sight.
Personal Notes
Have a strict buying list for yourself (otherwise, if you don’t show discipline, you can blow any money you make on-site).
If you are going to be alone in the booth: DO NOT BRING SOMETHING TO READ. A person in a booth reading is someone most people will NOT interrupt with a question or purchase. After all, if you are reading, you are too busy to be interrupted.
Antiseptic hand lotion so you don’t come back with one of the many con illnesses that always seem to be going around (cons are the only time I use those antiseptic things).
-O- Deodorant.
-O- Toothbrush and paste.
-O- A comb/brush.
-O- Nail clipper. There’s nothing like a chipped fingernail to drive you nuts!
-O- I carry a box of altiods, as I often have chili-dogs for lunch at cons, and - well, the breath can get pretty bad..... and not just my own!
-O- Take some snack-food type stuff, in case you get so busy you can’t get away to eat.
-O- Bottled water.
Contributions By:
Gary Loring - Gary’s Comics and More
Marcus King - Titan Games www.titangames.com
Sam Boswell - Von Allan Studios www.vonallan.com
A Competitor Is Going Out Of Business
-O- In buying a competitor’s closing inventory, I dropped in after hours and went through what he had left and we came to a deal. He asked if I would be interested in his subsciber list, free of charge, so the folks could get hopefully uninterrupted service.
A staffer and I spent two days calling all the folks on the list to check their contact info, see if they wanted to switch over to us and ensure we had their updated list of titles. About 60% switched, 20% had already made arrangements with another shop more convenient to their home or work, and about 20% decided not to continue.
-O- When my competition closed I hired their manager part-time and all of the customers followed him to our store. ALL OF THEM! The additional wages were offset by all of the new sales.
-O- In buying a competitor with decent inventory and customer base, we set up shop in their space for the last 2 months of their lease. Sold off their inventory and got to personally direct their subscribers to our store. If you have the staff and/or the time in the lease to do this it is THE most effective way we’re seen to migrate people from one store to another.
We also ended up turning a profit in those 2 months by liquidating the inventory of that store to it’s own customers and also using the time to clean up our own inventory. It’s a mechanism for liquidation that doesn’t annoy anyone who paid full price for something at your shop one week and seeing the same thing on sale at 50% off the next.
-O- See about getting the closing store’s subscription list. It’s worth something but probably not what they think it is. I’ve bought several subscriber lists, all for credit at the store as the store owners wanted to continue getting books after they closed. Average cost has been about $500 in credit for 100-150 subscribers.
We have hired bought out stores’ employees, but the problem we then faced every day from each of them was “OUR customers won’t like it that way” and we had to constantly fight back the things that caused the business to go south to begin with.
We ended up firing them. Before hiring anyone, even if they seem to be on board, I recommend interviewing them and asking the hard questions before offering them the job. Sure there’s a benefit to bringing someone in, securing the customer base, and then firing the former employee but I don’t see that as above-board dealing. When you bring in a former employee you also run the risk of bringing some of the cancer that killed the original store.
Contributions By:
Calum Johnson - Strange Adventures
www.strangeadventures.com
Gary Dills - Phoenix Comics
Phil Boyle - Coliseum of Comics
www.coliseumofcomics.com
Rick Lowell - Casablanca Comics
www.casablancacomics.com
In-Store Creator Signings - Things To Do:
You’re hosting a signing. Here’s some ideas and neccessities:
Suggest a reading list for your staff. Nothing gets them excited and pitching the event like having just reviewed the creators work (this goes for you, too).
Promote the event! No point in going to the effort (and expense) of bringing in a gueat if no-one knows about it. Besides in-store promotion, use your website, and those free PSA “what’s happening in town” things in newspapers and on radio.
Travel arrangements: Make sure everyone knows up front who is responsible for what- who pays for travel (and for how many people), who arranges it, and so on. You may need to help with hotel accomodations, car rentals, directions, maybe even a driver. Knowing what you’re expected to do (or what you can help with) makes things a lot less frantic.
Try to set up where your guest doesn’t have to run a gauntlet of fans if s/he has to use the washroom. It’s hard to be friendly and jiggle at the same time. For that matter, make sure they know where the washroom is!
Put together a checklist. Something is always forgotten.
Some things to have on-hand:
Sketch paper for artists. Most remember their favorite pen. But... It can be something as simple as printer paper, or backer boards, or even “real” Blue-Line, but give them something to draw on. You could even print off sheets that say “Joe Blow at (Store name - date)”. That way fans have a permanent memento of where and when they got the sketch!
Product! Make sure you have plenty of the creator’s work on hand to sell. Arrangements can be made with many creators to bring their own stock, to be sold on consignment.
Have at least two extra chairs behind the table for every creator signing. (For wife, tag-a-long friend, agent, etc.)
Your own camera and someone to man it. I always think I can and then get through the event without a single snapshot.
Have some refreshments available. Contact your guest beforehand to find out what s/he enjoys. Pepsi is no more expensive than bottled water, veggies are just as cheap as chips. This may not be as trivial as it seems- guests may have special dietary concerns due to allergies or diseases like diabetes.
Big-Name Guests:
If your guest is a star, you’ll probably want to use some sort of ticketed line. Here are a few ways to utilize one:
To finalize a line, say when only 200 people can be accommodated.
To time a line, so folks aren’t spending hours waiting in line when they could, oh say be shopping your store. I recommend no more than ten in the in-store line at a time.
You can prioritize contest winners or some other flavor of “Golden Ticket” holders.
One can issue a ticket with purchase of a featured item.
Of course common sense apples; prioritizing folk with disabilities or small children are a few of the exceptions we’ve done.
It will also give you a reliable count on just how may came and if the signing is a marathon it also allows you to tell folks in advance that a break will occur with number 201 so come back at 2pm, etc. etc.
Using the ticket stubs to gather an e-mail list and/or hold a raffle is also fun, and profitable too. For that reason we generally use doubled tickets.
Contributions by:
Atom! - Brave New World Comics www.bravenewworldcomics.com
Rory Root - Comic Relief www.comicrelief.net
Cheap (Free) Title Dividers
Diamond does a superb job of trying to protect comics in shipping. Unfortunately, this leads to a lot of one-use cardboard waste. You can make free title dividers out of those heavy weight 14”X10” cardboards that line every small Diamond (200ct) box, and save a bit of eco-waste:
1. Measure off a 3”X3” box at diagonally opposite corners of the cardboard.
2. Draw a line connecting the two boxes, corner to corner.
3. Cut along the lines with a pair of heavy-duty scissors.
You now have two 7”X11” title dividers. They’re good for backstock that isn’t bagged and boarded, being as wide as a comic, and about 1” taller.
You don’t have to measure each one- it’s relatively easy to make a template out of the first one, then just plop it on top of the next one, and draw the lines.
Frankly, after making thousands of these things (we sell them, too), this marking and chopping thing got a little old. We took them to our (Kinko’s-type) printer, and they now cut them for a nominal fee- cheap enough for us to sell them for a quarter a piece!
They’re quite durable, lasting at least as long as the plastic tabbed dividers. They’re certainly not as pretty, but they’re a lot more eco-friendly.
If UPS Delivers Late in the Day...
Here’s a nifty way to “trick” UPS into delivering early:
If your area is only serviced by one driver, ask that driver if he or she also delivers Next Day Air packages. If so, you might be able to send yourself an empty Next Day Air (before 8AM) envelope each week and see the driver first thing in the morning for less than $20 each week.
Note that it doesn’t work for everyone: Our warehouse has separate drivers for Air and Ground, but that differs by region. It may at least be worth an experiment one week to find out, as it works in some places and not others.
Early Next Business Day (Delivery as early as 8:00 a.m.):
www.ups.com/content/us/en/shipping/time/service/next_day_am.html
Next Business Day (Delivery typically by 10:30 a.m.):
http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/shipping/time/service/next_day.html
Thanks to ComicsPRO Board Member Chris Powell www.comicspro.org