Mirror Travel - Cruise Deal

Let's travel through the mirror and look at it from the inside, show you what happens when you step through reality into the Imaginarium. Don't worry, the escalator of doom knows the difference, and you can ride right back up it when we're done. 

We need a soundtrack, though. Well, would you look at that, i have the Cruise Deal EP by Mirror Travel. Pouty post-punk on a pretty sea-foam platter. Poyfect. 

Hi, i'm Bottle, welcome to my media empire. I am a publisher. I publish music, videos, and books. In terms of actual work, i get the material, make sure it looks and/or tastes the way i want it to, then shove it in the innertubenetweb and go do something else. I have some big advantages, like no employees to pay, buildings to rent, licenses or fees, we call that stuff overhead. I let all that stuff sail over my head; we're in the basement, after all. Sure, i have corporate functions like any other schmuck (you've met Sandra and Skip and Gladys and Compilerson and possibly caught a glimpse or two of GREGORY or Bridbrad or p(nmi)t), but they qualify as imaginary minions; all they cost is a little bit of brain power. 

What does cost money is the book i recently published. Real things cost real money. On this occasion, i borrowed some money from this super nice guy named Paul. I eventually have to pay him back, but there's no time frame or trickery. He paid to make 14 real copies of my year of album reviews, but he set the exit strategy at $250 no time limit. I kept notes, so i know it cost him just shy of 200. He'll make $50 profit from lending it to me. Certainly can't complain about 25% when i've got eternity to accomplish it. Truth be told, it doesn't have to come from actually selling the book. If i made some money some other way, i could divert that to Paul and he wouldn't care, our deal was a pure money exchange and he isn't morally or legally responsible for what i do to pay it back. 

How to price this thing? Well, there's the physical cost of each book, the cost of shipping it, and some profit. If i charge less than the cost of making it, i'll lose money. If i charge too much, nobody will buy it. This book looks and feels like all the other 15 to 20 dollar books in my library, and it would cost about $32 to buy 1 copy from the printing company, so that's my target range, more than 15, less than 32. Ok, 200/14 = 14.29, so far so good. Should cost less than $10 to ship it 2-3 day ups, but i could use the post office for less if i needed to. I want it in your hand as quick as possible, so we'll say $10 for shipping and go with $25 total cost. The discerning amongst you will notice that my actual profit is only a couple dollars. That's ok, no time frame or restrictions on that loan; i have to hand Paul $250 at some point, but he agreed not to speculate on that $250 until i actually hand it to him. He's pretending that he got whatever he paid for, and that deal is done. Did i mention what a nice guy he is? 

Alrighty, sloppy thinking 101: some of your brains might say "sell 10 of the books at 25 and pay Paul back, easy peasy." No, you forgot all the internal expenses, books don't teleport. My transaction fee on 25 is 1.30, and the real cost of shipping so far is 8.58. So, 25 - 9.88 = 15.12. I get to keep 15.12 out of every book i sell. Grab your calculators, that means i have to actually sell 16 books to have the 250. I only have 14 books, so i'll either have to buy more books to do it, or find a way to keep more money from each sale. My sales model has some gremlins, but at least i'm not losing any money. Sell a bunch more books, find cheaper shipping, eventually it will get there as long as nothing actually changes. I can still fail, but i'm not doomed from the start. As long as someone finds $25 a fair price and i don't spend any extra money, that is. 

Oh, i almost forgot, i kept a copy for myself and i sent a copy to my mom. I'm 38.82 behind on this first case. Let's try to use the real numbers to figure out how many books i have to sell. 

15.12 x 12 = 181.44. The next 14 will cost 143. 181.44 - 143 = 38.44. That's how much i could pay Paul from the first 14 books. No silly stuff on the next round. 14 x 15.12 = 211.68 + 38.44 = 250.12. 

There you have it, if i can sell 26 copies, i can pay Paul his money and make 12 cents for myself. I think i'm still under the radar of having to collect and document sales/income tax, but that would certainly throw a huge monkey wrench in my calculations, considering i actually made 12 cents on this whole kerfuffle. 

That's enough for today. Time to shovel some chicken poop.

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