Try 'n' Save Fantagraphics
Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books, publisher of countless comics you know by heart (including Hate, the early masterpiece of Reason's own Peter Bagge), is having money troubles which I'd describe if I could understand the explanation on the front page of their site. The upshot is that the company has big steaming piles of books sitting in silos somewhere in North America, and is looking to sell through its inventory. They don't want you to organize a bailout, just an old-fashioned buying spree:
If this was a standard pitch, we'd offer you some extra incentive—a discount or free books or knicknacks or whatnot. But, it's not. We're asking those of you who believe we've contributed something worthwhile and meaningful to help us continue to do so, that's all. We need the full retail value of our books. But we can offer something that won't cost us any money: anyone (individually or collectively) who buys $500 worth of books from us will get a personal phone call from Gary Groth thanking you for saving Fantagraphics' ass. Think how much fun this could be at a party!
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I bet Harlan Ellison ponies up $500 just so he can have the pleasure of Gary Groth having to thank him.
As a bookseller, I can explain their statement on their financial problems. Many publishers, especially small presses, contract with wholesale distributors to supply their books to stores & other retailers.
The margins in retail bookselling are reasonable, and in publishing also.But the margines in wholesale distribution are pretty slim, and a number of wholesalers have gone into bankruptcy over the last 20 years.
When the wholesaler goes belly up, they often still owe money to publishers for books that have been sold to retailers, and Fantagraphics lost $700,000 because of this.
The distribution system cannot work without the publisher providing books on credit, so there is no real solution to the problem.
I just hope he uses 1-800-call-att, that Carrot Top cracks me up.
Surely you jest.
Hello; my name is Dirk Deppey, and I'm catalog editor for Fantagraphics.
One quick correction: our previous distributor went down owing us $70,000, not $700,000.
Fantagraphics spent 25 years trying to survive in the comic-book shop market, which actively despises anything that doesn't contain superheroes. The debts were taken on in order to survive in that market after Seven Hills Distributing, which had represented us in bookstores, went under, leaving us stuck with nothing more than a market which by and large refused to stock even obvious choices like R. Crumb. Provided we manage to get out from under the current cloud, we should be okay; our contract with W.W. Norton has finally provided us with access to the people most likely to buy our works. The tricky part is simply surviving the debtload long enough to do so.
where can i get the zappa box set?
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