As we close in on the end of the week and my guide to releasing magic stuff we look at the dangers of your actions.
To be frank, distributor companies such as Murphy's have kinda fucked up the
magic marketplace. Very few companies or shops will go directly to the
artist when they can get huge amounts of stuff in the same place at
once. The problem is distributors ask for a jobber rate (which is usually 60-65% off retail). This is where it gets kinda funky.
In
the real world jobber rate is usually gotten when a gross or more of
something is ordered. Magic distributors will make a big order right at
first (anywhere from 200+ pieces give or take) and make the jobber rate
worthwhile. Later down the line they expect that same rate for a dozen
items. You are now making crap money on that and passing the savings on
to everyone else. It's kind of a raw deal.
However if you
just want fast cash to recoup costs and then go buy your crack rock
that's fine I guess. (Especially if you have a name and can keep
pumping out mediocre crap) There is a way for everyone to be happy though.
You can go the wholesale route THEN hit the distributors.
The
biggest issue with just wholesaling yourself is there is more work
involved but on the upside you make more money in the long run. You have to contact
the stores, you have to ship the items, you have to set aside time to
run a business. However wholesaling is 40-50% off retail. Do the math on
that for a second.
You have a 20$ item. Wholesale is around 10-12$ profit for you. Jobber is 8-6$ for your lonely pocketbook. I would rather take the little bit of time and effort to make that extra cash and build a client base than be another faceless item on a shelf. When the momentum dies down, you can then contact the distributors and let them pick up the slack, but as mentioned above, you will likely get less wholesale orders once they can get it with everything else.
The third option we discussed yesterday was letting someone else do the heavy lifting. Most of these companies (T11, Papercrane, Blue Crown, etc) look for something unique (usually anyway) that will hopefully turn a profit. Once you catch their eye the pros of this route are they do all the legwork. Advertising, packaging, producing, filming, etc. You will only get 25-30% of the profits but you just gotta sit back and do very little. This may sound appealing at first but you don't get as much control or say so as you would self-releasing (that sounded dirty). Again it's possible to release something, sell it wholesale yourself, and then be spotted by a bigger company and let them take it further than you ever could. One big negative point can be it will be anywhere from months to years before the item can be released for various reasons or another.
So while you chew on that I'll leave my wrap up for tomorrow...
