Is this worth it?

The pitfalls of paper costs and printing and self-publishing.

It’s a click bait-y title sure, but it’s got some real weight behind it this time.

I just went to do a reprinting of issue 4 of SPAKOW! and I was hit with a cost increase that I just wasn’t prepared for and it’s got me questioning a ton about the future and feasibility of continued shelf published efforts.

If you are looking into doing anything like this I highly suggest really crunching the numbers. We are in a weird time and so much is in flux and I don’t want you in the same spot that I am in.

THE SPAKOW PUBLISHING PHILOSOPHY

I print this book in pretty small numbers and staple and trim the book myself. Why do that? Well, besides liking the control of having the exact paper and being able to do some cool things like poster inserts and the pure joy of making a book, foregoing the printer doing all of that for you can also cut the cost of the books pretty significantly. It also saves on space (an exceedingly limited commodity I have been facing.) Having books sent to me in flat files makes storage a lot easier to find. The dozens of boxes of The Baboon books already take up more space than I’d like to admit.

These smaller print runs are just more manageable for a guy doing all of this himself. Self publishing is a lot of work and anything that you can do to keep your sanity is a positive. Also, because I am paying for the printing myself on these books (Not raising money by crowdfunding) The smaller printing costs are more manageable on my pocketbook.

I am willing to pay a little bit of a premium on the printing costs so I am not breaking the bank every 3 months.

Before you chime in with all of your thoughts on this I want to say SPAKOW isn’t going anywhere… or at least I’m not planning on stopping it.

THE WEEDS

The printing cost of each book used to be just under $5. The “rule” is multiply the cost by four and you get your retail price. I didn’t want to have a $20 magazine (favoring a book that was lower than my hardcover Baboon books) so I made the comic $15. Issue one has, in the last year, gone from $10 to $15 just to keep up with the rising paper and printing costs. And this was all fine. Then the book got bigger. SPAKOW gained a full 16 pages in a year. Growing from 32 to 48 pages. More comics, interviews with other creators, longer stories. It was all good things until I just went to do a reorder of issue 4.

Guess how much it costs to print issue 4 today? Just under $10. That’s almost double my costs! it’s insane. I can’t sell the book for $40 no one would by it. I certainly wouldn’t. It’s insane.

Power Pulp, the creator owned distribution collective that I am a part of offers retailers a 50% wholesale price.

I sell SPAKOW! for $15 it’s wholesaled at $7.50 with this new cost of the book I am paying for people to read my comic. That’s not how this should work. At this price I’m not sure what I am going to do with ISSUES 3 and 4 which both have that bigger page count.

The plan moving forward.

SPAKOW has to go back to a 32 page magazine. There’s really no way around it. The unit costs at that length are manageable. I’m also playing around with making the book black and white and printing on ivory paper (so it have some kind of look to it.) That would help cut costs a lot! Or just having smaller colored sections (back to the beauty of binding it myself) If all of that works out then I could see getting a couple extra issues out a year. Maybe we go from quarterly to every other month? Who knows. I’m learning all of this about as fast as you are.

The other option is finding SPAKOW a home at a publisher. I love putting this book out myself, but boy howdy would a publisher make this a little easier on me.

We just hit a year I really don’t want to go anywhere!

I have grown so much as an artist, a creator and maker of things in this past year and I hate that this is getting in the way of all the fun I have been having. I had a big long post about how much fun Heroes Con was and what a smashing success it was. But this is what has to go out? What a bummer. If you’ve stuck around until the end, thank you! You are a real one.

I guess this is as good a time as any to say hey if you want to support my efforts this is the place to do so. You get little updates and process of the magazine and you’ll get to see what’s what moving forward before anyone else.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading this malarky

LONG LIVE COMICS, LONG LIVE SPAKOW!