Eat Sleep Geek

Although we weren’t always friends, (more on that another day perhaps) our good buddy Byron at comicbookgivaway.com sent us a message asking if it would be alright to tell our readers here at eatsleepgeek.com about the project he’s working on. We hope you’ll take the time to read Byron’s story and check out his website, it’s an interesting and creative solution to an age old problem that any comic collector is faced with at some point. In an internet full of scam artists and deceptive snake oil salesman, Byron is a an entrepreneur and a class act (wish I could say the same for myself) so please give him a listen, you’ll be glad you did.

A year ago my wife and I contemplated  some ways we could help our finances.  I pulled four boxes of comic books I had collected as a boy from storage and considered selling the collection to raise some extra money.  ebay seemed to be the way to go.  I could have auctioned the collection sight-unseen, but I felt an inventoried collection might do better, so I set off on the task of inventorying my collection with my oldest son.

We found a site that offered a six month subscription and a convenient means to enter a collection.  Additionally, the site kept a running tally of the collection’s value as you added to the collection.  However, the site defaulted to a mint condition value for each comic and we were simply inventorying the collection – not grading it.  I tried to tell my son that the final $12,000 value assigned to the collection was an overstated figure (few if any in our collection are mint condition) and that we would be lucky to get $1,000 for the collection on ebay.  But he had dollar signs in his eyes and wanted that $12,000.  Nevermind that the collection was dad’s and not his – Dad can take us to Disney World with that much money!

Always the entrepreneur and trying to instill a sense of entrpreneurialism in my kids, I set my son to the task of trying to come up with a creative way that we could turn a $1,000 comic book collection into the $12,000 he wanted.  I encouraged him – “Don’t ask IF it can be done.  Ask HOW can it be done” to set his mind thinking the right way.

He came up with the idea I expected him to – Let’s raffle them off!  It’s a great idea, but having worked for a 501C3 I already knew that raffles of items over a certain amount are governed by law and can only be conducted by a 501C3 (charitable entity) holding a license for a charitable purpose.  We were not a 501C3 and a Disney vacation for the family did not constitute a charitable purpose.

Around the same time, I was also studying concepts of internet marketing, so I suggested that the law didn’t preclude us from offering giveaways with free chances – just from selling the chances.  My son knows free means no money, so I explained that the giveaways could generate traffic and we could monetize the traffic by advertising and offering products that might appeal to the audience.  And as great a draw as the giveaway might be, we also know we need to develop a sense of community to keep traffic coming.

We explored the idea more and came up with additional ideas.  We now also offer a premium service that enters members in giveaways automatically (note we are charging for the service – NOT the chances).  Business is always a risk.  Is the ad revenue from a giveaway site worth more than the auction value of the collection being given away?  Time will tell.  In the meantime, a wild-eyed thirteen year old (and his brothers) are learning business lessons giving their dad’s comic book collection away one comic at a time.  And dad is learning a lot of lessons too (like there is no such thing as an “easy” website and no matter how carefully you plan things, business will throw you a constant stream of unanticipated challenges).

The first giveaway is May 2nd.  Conan the Barbarian #67 is the giveaway and it will be the last giveaway that is known ahead of time.  We are working on posting the inventory of comics (it may take a couple days of hand coding) so you can see what will potentially be given away (Check it out.  There are some awesome comic books in the collection), but the giveaway will be a surprise going forward after this week’s giveaway.  As I write, there is one member, so there is not currently a lot of competition for the giveaways.  Apparently, we need to work on marketing.

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