One thing that has been a constant for some comic collectors is hot chicks in small outfits on covers sell well. No company does this better than Zenescope. They put out titles that are wrapped in beautifully rendered scantily clad women and the fans buy the books quickly. The racier the cover the better they sell. When you add in the covers are often very limited, you have a great money making opportunity on the secondary market.
Zenescope is releasing a slip cover edition art book with 200 pages of their hottest art by J Scott Campbell, Al Rio, ebas, and more. The book is titles ‘The Art of Zenescope’ and is limited to 2500 copies.
Now here is the flip idea. The book retails for $79.99 and is released September 1st. With so few copies it is sure to sell out fast. You can preorder it from amazon.com for $53.99 and resell it for cover once received making a 33% profit. If it ends up going for more than that is just icing on the cake.
The Art of Zenescope Limited Edition V1 can be ordered here.
Great idea – but 2 concerns. If any of those book sellers list it on ebay etc they might discount the price. Also resellers will pay ebay about 20 of the 33% in fees – sounds like a great book !
Not sure on where the 20 of the 33% comes in. Listing fees on US auctions (first 50) are free. Final Value fee, up to $250.00 is 10%. So a book purchased at $53.99 and sold for $79.99 makes a profit of $26.00. Minus final value fee on full sale price (not adding in shipping on this) is $79.99 – $7.99 = $72.00 – $53.99 = $18.01 in profit. There are 2500 copies of which Zenescope has held 750. I do not see many Zenescope initial releases being discounted, especially on a book that will be limited. Just my view on it though.
Comicflipper – I just use 20% as an average estimate. But a couple things to keep in mind is that ebay takes a commission on your shipping costs. This is a hidden cost most aren’t aware of and of course paypal on average takes 4% of the total and also taking profit from the shipping cost. So just beware that you pay ebay and paypal both part of your shipping cost amount. On an expensive book you might do ok but on cheap cover price comics this really can eat away most profit. Thanks
Oh I agree 100% with you. But for sake of argument I replied the alternative. I build in to my shipping costs the eBay and PayPal fee on the shipping. Even with the commissions on postage, these books are drying up fast and could be a great flip. If not, it’s still a great art book at a great price. With a print run of 2500 only 1750 being presold these could be sought after and valuable.
An excellent pick. I wasnt trying to be negative just point out that its not a guaranteed 33% profit margin for some people especially those who sell only a few books online won’t have all these extra expenses figured out.
I didn’t take it as negative and I know exactly where you were coming from with the fees. No worries.