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$53,000 profit in 3 months--from books? Insights gained from xkcd: volume 0
- fragmede 17y agoCould someone help me parse this differently? ...generated $30,000 in profits (for charity, but profits nonetheless). We donated $15,000 to the SF/SPCA that December of 08 and the rest went back into Breadpig, Inc... I'm reading that as only 50% of the money actually made it an actual charitable organization? I realize Breadpig is probably not running a not-for-profit 501c(3) charity, but that doesn't sound quite right. (edited to reflect Kliment's statement)
- Kliment 17y agoThey donated 50% to charity and financed their next project with the rest. They didn't get cash money out of it, so it's profit quoted. Also, breadpig != xkcd. Their next project, the xkcd book, gave them a lot more profit, all of which they did donate.
- fragmede 17y agoEdited re: xkcd != breadpig, thanks :)
- aaronz3 17y agoIt said the rest went toward production of the xkcd book. I don't know if that means solely inventory and production costs, or if it includes administrative overhead as well (I would assume some)
- kn0thing 17y agoCosts were for inventory & production (we don't have any employee salaries): Book production (cost of printing, binding, shipping to xkcd fulfillment center) - by far the most expensive thing Contracted design work ISBN registration A few FEDEX shipments for prototypes [Ultimately, we agreed with xkcd to share the costs and deduct those from the total revenue before splitting the profits, but I needed to put a hefty downpayment and it helped to have the $ in the bank.]
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- noodle 17y ago"We donated $15,000 to the SF/SPCA that December of 08 and the rest went back into Breadpig, Inc. to purchase more inventory and fund our next project"
- shpxnvz 17y agoWell, they say overhead as well as investment in more inventory/next project. It probably could be worded more clearly, but unless they gave the impression initially that the proceeds were solely for charity I wouldn't consider it a problem.
- fragmede 17y agoa signficant portion of the profits go toward non-profit causes (the rest funds future breadpig projects). We're donating a chunk of all the LOLmagnetz revenue to the San Francisco SPCA (http://lolmagnetz.com/instructions#help http://lolmagnetz.com/instructions#help) So, you're right, upvoted :)
- skolor 17y agoFTA: the rest went back into Breadpig, Inc. to purchase more inventory and fund our next project, the xkcd book, xkcd: volume 0. From the recent kerfuffle over Amazon eBooks, it seems that an average book takes about $10,000-15,000 to get from a basic idea to a published copy (at least that was a number that was quoted more than once). Its not an administrative overhead, its re-investing 50% so they can do it again.
- kn0thing 17y agoSorry about the misunderstanding, yes, at the end of 2008 we donated $15,000 of LOLmagnetz sales to the SF/SPCA (keeping the other $15,000 to cover cost of inventory. At the end of 2009, we donated $22,000 to the SF/SPCA to cover the $15,000 we 'owed' along with some more gravy gained from LOLsales during the year. Breadpig is indeed a for-profit corporation (for reasons best left to another post) but I'd like to be more transparent about this to the point of real-time reporting. I'll publish our financial statements as soon as our accountant is done with them. edit: account->accountant
- bricestacey 17y agoI still don't think the sentence adds up. $30,000 profits which require "$15,000 to cover cost of inventory" is not really $30,000 profit. That'd be revenue, right? As the reader, I'm left figuring out which part is wrong and it looks good or bad depending on which way I choose...
- albertsun 17y agoIt reads as cost of future inventory to me. The $15,000 was kept to cover the cost of printing of more inventory to sell.
- kn0thing 17y agoAh, I see, I counted it as 'profits' in 2008 because it wasn't a cost until 2009 (when we put a downpayment on the books).
- lambda 17y agoOK, say it costs $5000 up front to do the initial print run. Then you earn $35,000 in revenues, leading to $30,000 in profit. You could simply pay out the $30,000 to the charity you provide the profit to, and end there. Or, you could pay $15,000 to the charity, and use the rest of the money as an investment in a future print run, allowing you to then later donate $22,000 to the charity. Many of the profits that a corporation makes aren't directly paid back to the stockholder in the form of dividends. Instead, the company keeps the cash on hand, essentially investing it in itself, in order to use it to create larger profits later. That's the way I read it anyhow. I could be wrong.
- mdg 17y agokn0thing++
- mdg 17y agokn0thing-- ?
- prakash 17y agoCongrats, Alexis!
- kn0thing 17y agoThanks! BTW, did that shipment ever make it to India? :)
- prakash 17y agoShipment made it safely to Dubai from Atlanta. next leg of the journey is on march 3, from Dubai to India. will keep you posted :-)
- scorpion032 17y agoThanks for the concern about it. I am still waiting to receive my xkcd book! :)
- JacobAldridge 17y agoMine took about 5 weeks to arrive in Australia. It's worth the wait.
- ohashi 17y agoHow do you deal with worldwide audience and shipping? I suspect in many cases it costs more to ship than to actually even sell the product (this is where those economies of scale might help a lot)? That's been my experience so far living in Sweden and wanting a few things from back in the US.
- kn0thing 17y agoThat's the magic of xkcd's fulfillment center. Without it, we'd probably be using Amazon (or shopping indies). Davean can speak better about just how it works, but there's one facility in Virginia that serves the USA and another in N. Ireland that serves Europe. Unfortunately, shipping to places like Australia (because of theft/loss, which apparently happens very often) requires a significant markup to compensate for shipments that go missing. If you know anyone who works at the Australia mail service and has a disproportionate amount of xkcd schwag - let us know. Most traditional publishers will broker deals with publishers abroad, who get the rights in exchange for distributing in their territory. We're working on such an agreement right now, so it's fairly reasonable for an upstart to work out such a deal - especially if it's popular in the USA.
- whatusername 17y agoReally? This is the first I've heard that shipping stuff to those 3rd world countries like Australia means that lots is stolen. Our country can't seem to do anything right lately.