Yesterday, we finished paying for the Ebin & May trade and went over the blueline proof. Everything looks nice, can't wait for the finished books now.

Then, we stopped at Target to get a couple of household items, and discovered that Target's Halloween stuff is in stock and looks adorable- and it's cheap, cheap, cheap. So, to all the fellow spooks on my flist, get to Target! Maybe it's the fact that I grew up watching The Munsters and The Addams Family, but for some reason, I think Halloween items can be used all year round if they are not too orange. Yep, closet goth, that's me. I'm going to have to go back after Halloween and pick over the remains when it all gets reduced to 50%-75% off. ^_^

Meanwhile, the discussion of the elephant in the living room that is the whole TokyoPop contract thing continues at matthigh's journal. You can read it here. I should say, I am not advocating that people not work there at all, just that they go in with their eyes open. I am just categorically opposed to companies taking the rights to people's creations, coming up as I did in the early 1990's, and having read all the history of the industry before that. The very idea is abhorrent to me, on every level. A creation is like a child, and why would you sell your child to the highest bidder to get a brand name stamped into its cheek?

At any rate, I am kind of happy this is coming to light either way. When friends of ours first got these contracts full of ownership clauses and first-refusal rights clauses and royalty caps, we tried to warn them- not to get them to quit, but because we were worried and concerned. We were pretty much ignored until things started to go south. So in a way, it's kind of interesting to see other people talking about this subject and being open about it.

EDIT: A wonderful dear friend of mine made an excellent, though locked, post where they broke down some of the math involved. This person has been pitched to by TPop to submit, and has friends who have books there, so they do not want to cause distress to anyone, and thus are remaining anonymous. However, I have been given permission to repost their mathematics breakdown publically. So, under the cut, we will have "Fun With Math!":

I have to say this again in big letters because people are thinking I am some kind of math whiz here or something- I DID NOT COME UP WITH THIS FUN WITH MATH THING. I am just reposting it with kind permission from a friends-locked post.

Let's have some Fun with Math!

I'll be conservative and only talk about the first printing while upscaling the production costs.
The first printing of a book is 20,000 books @ 10.00 each retail. Let's say that 50% of the retail goes to the retailer/wholesale house/distributor. That means that 5 dollars of every book goes back to the publisher. You've been distributed, now you have to pay for the books. When you're printing such large runs, your books are much less expensive. Especially little black and white books with color covers on standard/cheap stock. Let's say that 1 dollar of this money goes to the print house to produce the book (this is a gross overstatement of the price of their little books, but it makes the math easier). That leaves 4 dollars from the original ten that goes back to the publisher.

Here's where the big scary math happens: 4 dollars per book with a run of 20,000 = $80,000 that goes back to the publisher. I was pitched that most young creators start out being paid $4,000 -$10,000 per book. Let's be generous and say that our mock-up creator was paid $7,000 for the book. That leaves $70,000 (minus $3,000 for editorial/design/company dealings as each editor manages many many books and the design is cookie cutter) profit for the publisher on a $20,000 investment. Over three times the investment rate- pretty good. Most of their books are reprinted at least twice (again, direct from the pitch) So why are they pitching themselves as a creator friendly company that stands to lose money every time that they publish something new?

Here's some more Fun with Math!

If you're young and hungry (or even if you're not so young and pretty poor), $7,000 sounds like a nice chunk of change for a 120 page book outlay. Especially if you go by the standard 'produce a page a day'. The hypothesis is that you can then put out three books a year and make $21,000 . You can live on $21,000 if you're in a small apartment in a less expensive city (or buy lots of toys if you're in your parent's basement, cough cough). So what's the problem?

Let's go further into this. If you're paid $7,000 for 120 pages, you're making $58.33 a page. You have to produce 7 pages a week. That means 7 fully inked, toned, lettered pages a week (no weekend, no time off, no mercy because you have to produce or you don't eat!). Most people working for TP don't letter or tone their own pages. That means you have to split your profits down. Let's say that you contract out to your friend Bernie to tone and letter your pages at $12 a page (he's a good friend and is cool with working for peanuts to get his name in the credits). That knocks your daily take down to $46.33. This is the point where you'd make more money working at Burger King, for those keeping track. What happens if you break your foot while out running? You don't have insurance, but you can't ignore your injury. That's (about) $2,000 and a week away from your work- a total $2,324.31 loss. That puts you down to $18,675.69 a year.

The scary part:

Okay, that still seems like a lot of money, right? What if TokyoPop decides that they only want to publish two of your books this year? That drops you down to $14,000 and after your injury adventure, you're down to 11,675,69. Look at basic rent $3,600 (300 a month which is assuming that you have a roommate) Basic food: $1,800 (150 a month, assuming you like ramen a lot and drink coffee a good deal), basic transportation $2,400 ($200 a month, assuming you have a crummy car or take the bus everywhere and fly to conventions) and art supplies $1000 (paper and good ink isn't cheap, neither are the new programs you'll need to scan and produce your pages)... You're down to $2,875.69 Buy yourself a couple of toys, a tablet, and eat out a couple of times. You're at a dead run with no margin of savings. One paycheck away from homeless.

The really scary part:

What happens when TokyoPop decides that they only want to publish one of your books? Even without the foot adventure (which I've added just because unexpected costs do come up. I could have easily added in a pet injury or a problem with family), you're in debt and can't do a thing to get out of it because you've signed away your rights to complain or go to another company. Why isn't this being talked about? Right to first publish isn't a guarantee that they will publish everything you produce.

One more time: I, Elin, did not write everything you see there in italics. It's nice that it is being credited to me, but all I did was hit the copy and paste. ^_^ No, I can't reveal the name of the person who did write it. Sorry, they asked me not to.


That is some damn scary math. Considering if you were working full-time, full-bore on comic pages, you would not have time to work another job to make ends meet. And you would really need to, because last time I checked, trying to live like an independent adult on less than or around $10k a year is nigh-on impossible. You would be required to either live with your parents, or live with a very understanding boy/girlfriend or spouse who is willing to foot the bills while you work on comics all day, every day, with no breaks. Retail wageslave register jockey jobs pay more, and you get benefits and don't have to worry about paying self-employment taxes.