Hey, Folks!
Let me start by thanking everyone who made our annual Black Friday sale the big hit I was hoping it would be this year. In fact, thanks to everyone who has helped make this Monarch Comics’ biggest year ever! It was a nice send off for Steve who, as I’m sure you all know, is retiring on December 31st. I was planning to have a big retirement party for him this month, but obviously things are not going to work out that way. I was thinking of having a wild and wooly, yet tasteful, bacchanal, but I do believe we will all have to settle for me and Hill taking Steve and Nanci out to dinner somewhere nice instead. Frankly, after years of talking about it, I am extremely interested in watching Steve eat a $60 steak. Maybe I’ll record it so everyone can watch on in amazement and wonder.
As I careen towards the beginning of my tenor as High Lord and Master of All I Survey, the final pieces are starting to come together. I’m finishing up the paperwork with Diamond Distributors this week as well as signing my first 5 year lease on the building. I’d say it was “exciting stuff”, but frankly it is more of a bore and rather anti-climactic. I’m also ordering in the new register and credit card machines in preparation for my triumphant January 2nd opening. I’m nervous, but focused, and looking forward to starting 2021 and putting the mess of 2020 behind me.
I’ve also been working on an ambitious schedule of remodeling the store once I take over the joint. The old girl has needed a facelift for years and I’m excited by the prospect of new floors and paint. If I have to spend the rest of my life in this place then I want a new view…lol. I’ve been consulting with someone who has a background in construction and she has worked up a nice floor plan of the store for me to play around with while I decide exactly where everything is going. Unfortunately, due to the big post-holiday sale, these changes won’t be starting until March at the earliest. This is because I will need to make space on the sales floor to move things around and as a result the back issue boxes will be taking up refuge in the back room during the remodel. I wish that I could just close down for two weeks and just get it all done, but that isn’t very feasible due to the weekly nature of The Biz. So my first step will be an invisible one….clearing out the backroom of all of the junk that has accumulated over the last 30 years and making room to store stuff for construction. That might be the most exciting prospect yet…lol.
Speaking of the Post-Holiday Sale, it will indeed be taking place between January 2nd and February 28th. The only difference this year is that the Hard Covers/Trade Paperbacks will be on sale for 25% cover price (or price marked) for the whole two month period as opposed to in the past when they’ve only been on sale the month of January. It’s an experiment that I’ve wanted to try in the past and now is my chance to see how it will work out. The back issue boxes will still be 50% off and the books displayed on the wall or showcase will be 25% off for the duration of the sale as per normal.
I’m noticing what may be a small issue this month with D.C. Comics releases. As you know, we are closing out our business relationship with UCS Distributors and switching over to Lunar Distributor for our D.C. titles. THAT particular kink is all worked out, but now another problem seems to be rearing its ugly head. I’ve noticed this week that UCS does not have much in the way of D.C. overstock available for reorder. This is after they have done an exemplary job of having some extra copies available. Also, they’re stock of backlist D.C. hard covers and trade paperbacks is shrinking as well…and anything Diamond has leftover from their stock is disappearing as well. This is making it rather difficult to secure reorders on both types of stock. Of course, this is possibly the worse time in the world for this to be happening, but there’s little I can do to work around it. I’m going to try and stay on top of the situation and make sure I have enough copies to go around, but there may be titles I fall short on. I’m going to expand my search for these items and start ordering from Lunar if I have to, but so far it doesn’t look like their stock situation is much better.
Well, that’s it for me this week. I’ve got a full load of work to get done today and tomorrow and these papers ain’t gonna shuffle themselves! Have a great week and I’ll talks at ya next Thursday!
Eddie