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Breaking news: Ralph Johnson and Bob the Dog have come out of retirement. Fantasy Books and Games front – The sign needs a brighter light! I wrote most of this back in September, and forgot to post until December after I had made up a whole page on Fantasy Books and Games. So [...]  One of Bill Johnson's ads for Comic College
One of our regulars, Bill Johnson, revealed himself to be in the advertising business. He wanted to use Comic College as the advertiser for a campaign he was already thinking of creating and entering into some sort of competition. It would be legit as long as I placed the ads and paid for them myself. He did get me a freebie with a HUGE poster in a bus stop, which I got to keep when it was done, but the main campaign had to be in print. So we place 5 ads in the Minnesota Daily (University of Minnesota) and then made 2 different sized posters of each one for displaying at conventions, in the store and the one bus stop giant.  Has this ever happened to you? Not if you ordered from Comic College! I quit my job at Extranomical Tours and have gotten serious about selling Bob the Human’s warehouse, and what remains of the stock I moved from Minnesota. I’ve gotten serious about eBay and done pretty well for a few months, but it’s time to get Serious about the Fun, and get the products up here at my own online store at Comicopolis.com For those of you who are thinking about eBay as a career, think on these things: 1) eBay is a huge marketplace so it’s easy to get “lost” and there are probably MANY people trying to sell things similar to yours, 2) eBay is the only game in town for SOME sellers to sell SOME products, and to aggravate both of the above 3) eBay is very protective of their profits. Therefore, it’s best to think of them as the big giant, and yourself like little Jack scurrying around on the floor of the giant’s house, living off the crumbs and the occasional morsel, and being very, very careful! I’m sure there are several, maybe even hundreds, of sellers on eBay that are making a a good living, or even tons of money, ON the eBay site, and if you want to liquidate your collection of Beanie Babies, but not make it a career, it’s a great place on the InternetS. But for someone who WANTS to make it a career, or just work at home, and by that I don’t mean a box in the park, I think most of us have to use it as only ONE outlet, but not THE ONLY outlet. You need to figure out how to sell some “where” else, use email marketing, and use eBay strategically to find customers and draw them into your own site or bricks and mortar shop or follow you to trade shows or whatever. The cut eBay takes out of your margin is big, when you count the cost of NOT selling one thing against the profit you make on SELLING the other thing, along with Paypal (which to be fair, charges in the same neighborhood of most credit card services). So that’s what I’m doing. The next few posts will therefore be about some of my best sellers on eBay, so search engines will find them here on this here blog. So there. Here’s my Jack and the BS view of eBay…. READ MORE about Fees? Fie! Foes, Funds. – Dodging eBay’s Giant Boots  Bob lands back in the Land of 10,000 Lakes We’ve been in California a little more than a month, with only the possessions that would fit in my car, but it’s time to finish the job. There is still a 10 by 30 foot storage unit filled to the door and ceiling with comics, furniture, a life’s worth of accumulated crap, all waiting for me OR the auctioneer if I stop paying the rent, and one more Minnesota Comic Book Convention to sell at. So I’ve been looking into whether I should take Bob with me on the plane to ride back across the country again in the giant rental truck? I’ll be gone almost 2 weeks, so my new roomies are only slightly more familiar with him than random strangers. I think he wants to come! He can help! He’s a super dog, after all. I would never put him in cargo, so I had to find an airline that would allow him in the cabin with me. He had to get certified by the vet that he’s disease free and healthy, so we visited our new local vet, the Grove Way Vet just a few blocks from home, near the 7-Eleven and Trader Joe’s. They also gave me a gentle sedative for the flight, and suggested I could give him only half a pill, since he is not typically a hyperactive, nervous, barky dog. I agree. Nice people, and a good place. In a fit of independence and frugality, I decided we could take the BART train all the way to SFO. READ MORE about Bob Flies Back to Minnesota to finish the move  Bob the human at Fantasy Books and Games I’ve been selling on eBay for quite a while now. Bob (the Human) has this large warehouse that has been dormant since the late 90′s. He started with 1 store in the early 80′s when I met him, and opened or bought 4 more into the early 90′s. He opened the warehouse in an Oakland suburb to house large quantities of merchandise for future distribution to his stores, and the rest of the country through mail orders. When the “collapse” of 94-95 happened, the market ended up with only one real distributor, Diamond Comic Distribution. Through a complex series of negotiations and conversations, his warehouse became the landing point for large air and truck shipments from Diamond to the entire region and Bob’s competitors became his customers as they met at his warehouse to pick up their weekly “fix” of new comics and everything else Diamond sold. They would pick up the new stuff and shop around this huge room of shelves stacked up to the ceiling with older stuff. Then, Diamond Distribution decreed that every store in America would be serviced by UPS, which ended the weekly conclave at the warehouse, and one day a few months later, the workers left, the fork lift was turned off, the doors closed, and time stopped. And the dust slowly started to settle. What used to be a bustling, thriving business began to be slowly covered up by dust and accumulated debris of a collapsing empire. Until I show up 5 years later. READ MORE about From Pompeii in the East Bay to eBay  Bob with my "oldest" friend Mike Z. This sort of summarizes a lot of posts that I actually wrote back in May, but this one is a LOT shorter! And Better. I just started “blogging” back in May during the eclipse, thinking I would just, y’know, write stuff. Right now I’m going through a major transition, moving to California, leaving friends and family behind because I think I will enjoy the physical, social, and economic environment out there more while I figure out how I will spend the rest of my life. So that’s what’s happened lately, and so that’s what I have to write about! It’s about 14 years of trying to run uphill. “The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some (my emphasis) reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.” Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942 READ MORE about Go West, Young Man! or… Californee is the place ya oughta be!  Spider-Man pushes aside the usual Monthly Monster and steals the show, and makes history. Scan of a copy I sold a year ago. Because I was born at the right time to make me just the right age to start reading comics at the best time since they were invented. It was kismet! But I had to fight an uphill battle against social stigma, economic hardship, and the most formidable enemy of all… My mom didn’t like comics. She had probably read the “news” stories before I was born connecting comics with juvenile delinquency. Both my parents were very simple, very frugal, and they were mildly disapproving of “worldly” influences of pop culture and such. She did not allow playing cards, you know, the kind with kings and queens on them. Neither of them drank. My mom’s worst vice was candy. She taught me to love circus peanuts, chocolate, those round pink mints with 4 x’s on them. It was against her wishes that I started to involve myself in training for my very future career. I was a pretty good student and went to a well-respected private college, took the pre-med program with a degree in Biology. Within a year of graduating, I was starting down the road to comic book “investing” and retailing. But, you may ask, how did it happen? Or why? Well, I’ll tell ya….. |
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