How to open a comic book store. Hobbies that bring money Sell art with comic book characters in electronic form

14.12.17 40 890 1

Andrey started doing comics in 2014 - then he opened a small island in a shopping center.

Now he has two stores of 150 m² in Stavropol and Krasnodar, in October 2017 he opened another store, and by the end of 2018 he plans to launch a franchise.

Asya Chelovan

talked to the owner of the comic book store

Andrey brought the idea to open a store for geeks from America. He went there in 2013 and was inspired by the popularity of Think Geek and Newbury Comics. Sink Geek specializes in geeky cultural merchandise, selling Doctor Who and Big Bang Theory T-shirts, Star Wars figurines, gaming mice and keyboards, and office supplies. The Newbury Comics range is centered around vinyl and CDs, but they also sell posters, t-shirts, action figures, and accessories featuring popular characters.

Andrey himself has been fond of computer games and comics since childhood. In the US, he looked at the comic book industry and decided that this was a chance to turn his hobby into a source of income. I tried it and this is what happened.

room

Andrey rents premises in popular shopping centers with cinemas due to high traffic.

This has its drawbacks: repairs in such shopping centers can only be done at night, and goods can be delivered at night too. And even a video for his own YouTube channel, he can shoot only after the closing of the shopping center. These are the terms of the lease: all work at night.

The cost of renting the premises is pegged to the dollar, but with the proviso that the price cannot be indexed by more than one and a half rubles a year. Now in the shopping center one dollar costs about 45 R. The landlord also takes an annual advertising fee - about 90,000 R.

Utility costs for one store - 30-50 thousand rubles, depending on the season. 80% of this amount is electricity: the store must have good lighting.

Premises for rent

Rent per month

320 000 R

640 000 R

90 000 R

Utilities per month

40 000 R

900 000 R

Equipment

As in any store, you need a cash register and merchant acquiring. About 30% of purchases in the store are made with cards.

To equip the store, you need stands for any small items such as stickers and key rings, as well as racks for clothes.

For larger souvenirs and comics, a different type of display case is needed. In total, Andrey ordered 103 racks of various types. They cost 472,520 R.

For rare collectible figurines, special closed display cases are needed. Without them, the action figures quickly become unmarketable as visitors can't help but toy with the rare collectible Batman figurine.

Store equipment

Shelving, 103 pieces

472 520 Р

Seller's place

6350 R

Cash desk, acquiring

15 000 R

Staff

Now 22 people work for Andrey: sellers, logisticians, merchandisers, SMM managers, an auditor, an accountant-economist. The fixed minimum salary of the seller is 20,000 R, then - interest. In the high season, on New Year's Eve, "star" sellers receive more than 100,000 R.

In August 2017, Andrei paid salaries for 1.4 million rubles for all stores - this is without taxes. But these are not all expenses: for employees of the Krasnodar store who come from small towns, Andrey rents a private house near the store.

Such concern is due to the fact that, according to Andrey, the staff is his biggest headache. The job of a comic book salesman looks deceptively simple. From the outside - you just chat and take a selfie with Thor's hammer, in fact - you spend 10 hours on your feet. You also need to be able to talk to people, select an interesting product for them and, no matter how ridiculous, sell.

Andrey is looking for new employees in several stages. First, he makes an advertising post on social networks. This post on Vkontakte is shown to people who are in thematic groups and publics about comics.

Everyone who responded and wrote a letter is sent a task. As a rule, you need to record a short video with a short self-presentation - tell a funny story from life, sing an excerpt from your favorite song. The video allows you to evaluate how sociable and charming a person is.

After completing the task, the applicant is invited to a personal meeting; if all is well, they are issued for a three-month internship. If everyone is satisfied with everything, then the contract is extended.

Store assortment

Now in Andrey's stores you can find any souvenirs related to the heroes of comics or games. The most marginal - cheap goods: stickers, calendars and badges. The margin on them is 300%.

Notebooks, mugs and clothes bring 150-200%. For comics and collectible figurines markup from 30 to 100%.

There are topics that do not lose popularity: Star Wars, Star Trek, Back to the Future, Warcraft, heroes of Marvel comics and DC. The popularity of goods with characters grows slightly when a movie about them comes out. At the same time, there are always trends that you need to guess in order to earn money - for example, Minecraft.

Andrey monitors marginality, so he tries to order exceptionally large consignments of goods. In order not to be mistaken, he communicates with gamers and bloggers - people who have the opportunity to see the new product before the premiere. So far they have never been wrong.

For example, Andrei did not buy a crazy amount of goods with Pokemon - he settled on standard positions such as Pokeballs. There are no spinners in the store either. But there are attributes of "Minecraft" and "Far-edge".

Goods are brought from all over the world: from other cities of Russia, from the USA, China, Turkey. Andrey makes some of the goods himself: he has a small foundry - silver figurines of comic book characters. They also make wooden and plastic badges, mugs and some T-shirts on their own.

New lines of business

The peculiarity of working with comics made Andrey think about his own publishing house.

The fact is that the first volumes of comics are always in short supply, and the next ones, on the contrary, are too many. This is due to the fact that all volumes of comics are published in equal editions. Let's say 100 people buy the first volume of the comic book. Of these, only 70 will like the story and buy the next volume. Another 30 will want to know how it ends, and they will buy the third, and only 15 fans will reach the fourth volume.

Andrey would like to make a publishing house with a more flexible circulation system.

Exhibitions

We talked with Andrey at the Igromir and Comic-Con exhibitions in the fall of 2017. This is Andrey's third trip to such an event. For the first time, he was looking for partners. The second and third time I came with the Lootcase project.

Andrey bought the Lutcase project from his partners in 2016. "Lutcase" is a box that contains a random set of geek paraphernalia - t-shirts, mugs, badges, posters. The color and composition of the box depends on the price.

The simplest box is green - it contains 6-8 items, it costs 1099 rubles. A cooler box - blue, 8-9 items, 1599 rubles. Purple - 10-12 items, 2199 rubles. The coolest is orange, 12-16 items for 2599 rubles.

According to Andrei, at the last Comic-Con, he brought a truckload of boxes every day - that's about 1,500 pieces a day. This year the boxes also went well: in 4 days he sold more than 5,000 pieces. Some of the goods in the box are made at Andrey's own production.

This year, Andrey shared a booth with friends who sell furniture for gamers, so he was able to sit in the main hall for reasonable money. For each of the four days of the exhibition, Andrei earned up to 1 million rubles, and spent only 714 thousand on the event.

According to Andrey, "Comic-Con" for him is an opportunity to show his goods, especially since he brings an unusual thing for Moscow. You can buy a box of "Lutcase" only on the Internet or directly in a Krasnodar store.

If you collect comics, then you probably have some that you would like to sell in order to buy something new in their place or just to free up some shelf space. Therefore, we are pleased to provide you with our store as a platform for the sale of your products. To sell comics through the Comic Street store, you simply need to bring what you want to sell to our store at the Central House of Artists and hand it over to our employee. Then we will do everything ourselves: we will put your goods in a special cabinet with used comics, add a website to the site in the “Used comics” section and try to find a new home for your comics as soon as possible.

GREAT BONUS! When returning comics to the store, we will give you a one-time 10% discount on the entire range!

ATTENTION! We do not buy your comics, but take them for sale. This means we will transfer the money to you when the comic is sold.

- What is the course of action?

Bring your comics to the Comic Street store in the Central Children's House (Teatralny proezd 5/1, 4th floor) and hand it over to the employee. As soon as your comics are sold, we will transfer the money to your bank card.

How much money will I get for a comic?

40% of its value in Comic Street. Tax fees and transaction fees are covered by us.

When will I receive money for my comics?

When your comics are sold, we will transfer the money to your bank card. Payments for sold comics are made from the 1st to the 10th day of each month.

How fast will my comics sell?

Depends on the comic itself and its condition.

Where will my comics be sold?

Your comics will be sold in our store at the Central House of Artists in the used comics section, and will also be available for ordering online on the website

- Is it possible to give you something other than comics for sale, for example, figurines?

Currently no. So far, we are ready to sell only comics in Russian and other languages.

Do you accept any comics?

Yes, any, except BUBBLE singles.

Write to us if you have any questions:

Alexander Arkhangelov opened the city's first comic book store Time to be a Hero more than four years ago. Since then, competitors have appeared, disappeared and reappeared, and the businessman himself has increased the assortment by forty times. He now has three stores open 363 days a year.

The formula "read and sell" did not work

It all started very spontaneously. I myself loved comics, read a lot, ordered from abroad. Faced with the fact that they stopped delivering Russian-language comics from one publishing house to us. There was an urgent need for new ones, and I thought that I should open my own store. I invested two and a half thousand dollars, opened a small point. I started by selling original English-language comics, but gradually, through trial and error, I realized that I needed to sell in Russian. I brought the first batch, and comics began to sell better, more people came. But still it was very slow, because for Belarus it was a novelty. No one wanted to read comics at point-blank range, mostly a bunch of people who had previously communicated with each other on the SpiderMedia forum came in.

We started with about 80 titles, and they were all in a single copy: one Batman comic, one Deadpool, and so on. I then imagined it very strangely and was guided strictly by my own taste: they say, I will bring it, I will read it, then I will sell it - someone else will read it. But it turned out that this business does not work that way.

Now we have about three thousand titles, some popular books can have twenty copies. About half of them I can freely carry on a conversation. If you haven’t read it in its entirety, then at least read it, I definitely read the abstract.

We employ five people. Weekends - only January 1 and 2, on all other days we are open from 10 am to 8 pm. We have two stores in Minsk, and one more in Gomel. Unfortunately, experience has shown that it is too early to open branches in the regions - perhaps the Gomel one will have to be closed.

We have little competition. We opened our first Time to be a Hero store in early 2013 in the basement of the Silhouette Shopping Center. Three years later, right in front of us, very arrogant guys opened a Comics Point store: they thought that the tactic would work. We import comics from Russia, we have to pay VAT, so the markup was a little higher. And the guys from Comic Point made the price almost the same as in Russia in online stores. They started with a very serious dumping, and this greatly shattered the entire comics business in the country. But now their point has closed: they got involved in the Unicon comic convention, got into debt and still haven't paid off. And how did the comic book come about? Former salesmen from Comic Point decided to do the same as before, found an investor, and now opened a new point. We welcome competition, it is an incentive to grow and develop. Loyalty in our business cannot be called high, but still there are buyers who, according to some moral and ethical principles, come to us, the founders.

Photos

Alexander Obukhovich

It's not funny

Why do people buy comics? This question is easy to answer if you pick up a comic and read it. If it's a really good story, you'll understand. In the book, imagination works 100%; in a movie, on the contrary, the point of view of the director and cameraman is imposed on you - nothing can be changed here. A comic book is something in between: you see how the characters look, you understand what drives them. The story, in principle, is told, but between the frames there is an empty space, uncovered periods of time, where the imagination turns on and the reader begins to think: but that character - did he die or not die? What happened there?

Comics have long gone from their origins: if in the century before last they were really comical stories, then for eighty years their genre has changed radically. In the late thirties and forties, cartoon superheroes appeared, and now up to 90% of all comics are superheroes. But such a stereotype is still alive: they say, all these comics of yours are children's reading, funny fables. It is very easy to destroy it by giving a skeptic a couple of our books.

Once a woman came to us: she just saw a sign and decided to look in, to see something for her son. I saw the comic "Photographer" - this is a story about the trip of the Red Cross mission to Afghanistan. The comic is a mix of documentary photography with hand-drawn footage. This woman's father served in Afghanistan, and she gave him this book. Then she returned to thank me, saying that my father read with tears in his eyes. This story suggests that comics are a universal genre.

Our average customer is a graduate student or just starting a graduate of about 22-25 years old. That is, these are people who are able to earn money to satisfy their interest. After all, comics are a hobby, an industry, and the prices here are comparable to the prices of going to the movies. If you want to watch a movie, you pay money; if you want to know the continuation of a cartoon story, you pay money. Many of our customers are collectors, others, on the contrary, will read the book and immediately sell it at a flea market or change it.

Most of the money the store receives from the sale of Russian-language comics: they account for 90-93% of the profits. We also sell English-language comics, but for the last two years they have hardly been in demand, well, we stopped importing them. Figurines, statues, busts are now also sold less and less. A few years ago, Russian comics accounted for about 65% of the profits, and 35% for everything else.

The main raids of buyers with us are on weekends and days when new items arrive. On a good day, up to fifty people leave with a purchase. And on some rainy day, a couple of people will come in and buy nothing. The average check is most likely equal to the cost of one comic (laughs): Many take one book at a time. But there are also collectors who buy almost everything that comes out. Although, of course, with such an abundance, you have to somehow moderate your appetites. Forty new products arrived this week - and these are only those that have come out in the last three weeks. The buyer has to be more selective. We have about 40% of our female customers.

From Tintin to same-sex love

The price of an average Marvel comic book in softcover is 12 rubles; books from DC Comics in Russian are published only by Azbuka publishing house and only in hardcover. But "singles" - short completed stories - are also printed in paperback, they cost 4 rubles in our country. And the cheapest comics - singles from the Bubble publishing house - cost 2 rubles, there are about six episodes of them, and they come out every month. The biggest comic we have for sale is Baby Nemo, a reprint of an 1896 comic. He is the largest (about a meter per meter and a hundred pages), and the most expensive - 170 rubles. There are about a dozen of these throughout Belarus. The thickest comics are omnibus-type collections, where the whole story is collected under one cover from beginning to end. We have them for sale in Russian: A4 format, hard cover, up to 500 pages - and only 50–54 rubles. Omnibuses up to 1,400 pages are published in English.

Now the standard circulation is five thousand, and if it is a very popular series - Batman, Deadpool, Spiderman - then it can reach up to ten thousand. Rare author's comics are printed in an edition of three hundred to seven hundred pieces. A novice author can be advised to contact the St. Petersburg publishing house KomFederation: it just prints small series of comics, over the past six months they have published a lot of books, and we have nowhere to put them.

Classic comics in Belarus are much less popular than in Russia. For example, 22 volumes of the comic book about Tintin were published in Russian, and I made a collection for myself. Now the complete collection of comics about Asterix is ​​being prepared for release, two books have already been published. In Russia, there are directly crowds of fans of the genre. We also have a layer of readers who would like to see such cult publications on sale.

Occasionally they ask for hand-drawn adaptations of classics. These are completely unpopular issues - they are like small seeds that are planted in fertile soil. We had Pushkin's The Bronze Horseman, a manga adaptation of The Brothers Karamazov, Tolstoy's thousand-page Ibicus for sale.

All the most popular series for today continue to be updated. About the same Spiderman came out more than seven hundred numbers. A global event is the release of comics with characters from different series and even from different publishers, such books are very popular. In the Daredevil series you can meet the Punisher and Spider-Man, in the X-Men you can meet the Avengers, and vice versa. In the cinema, all these meetings are limited by the copyright holders, and on the pages of comics such series - "crossovers" - come out quite often.

We have several erotic collections, they are all in an opaque film, they are marked “18+”, and you can’t even just see what’s inside before buying. This, for example, "Click" by Milo Manara - the publishing house released all the series under one cover. And the female audience is more attracted to such a genre of manga as yaoi - when people of the same sex love each other. We have some volumes, but the readers themselves are better guided in them.

Belarusians without a mat

We haven't seen Belarusian comics yet. At the beginning of 2014, the Polotsk studio released the DreadCore: Anamnesis comic, but it was some kind of overhype. Like a Belarusian comic, but with a hodgepodge team from Russia and Canada. They made one issue - they disappeared for a year, they made the second - they disappeared completely. I would not say that this is a Belarusian comic - rather, they simply inflated the situation. But at the end of the summer, one interesting project should be launched, and if the guys succeed, they will loudly declare themselves. I did not try to create my own comics: we have no artists, no authors, no one is interested. All hope is on this secret project. We want to open a coffee shop in the world of Harry Potter on the basis of our second store on Internatsionalnaya. There you can buy your favorite comic book and read it over coffee.

There are at least two publishing houses in Belarus that print comics. One of them is Smart Owl, which has been releasing Italian comics since 2013. There are already 17 issues of the Dylan Dog series, one of the most massive and popular in the world. The second - Alden Comics - appeared as a result of cooperation between Smart Owl and our store. The book “Diabolik. Your own boss” and failed completely: they were able to sell about 450 pieces. Now Alden Comics publishes Marvel comics: we buy a license, localize, translate and try to distribute. Little has been released so far: three volumes of The Punisher, two volumes of Iron Fist and Fury. No one except us has the right to print them in Russian. Our comics are highly valued in Russia because we have no mistakes and no obscenities. Although we put the mark “18+”, however, we replace mats with rude, but permissible words. This is also welcome, because the law is strict with this. Unlike other publishers, we print comics with a matte cover.

In Russia, comics published by Azbuka, Komilfo, Bubble are popular. The Major Thunder series is well known and ended at issue 50; now a sequel is being printed - "Igor Grom", it is written by our fellow countryman and my good friend Alexei Zamsky. In general, Russian publishing houses are closer to reality: they rarely have other worlds, but they do have spy series and detective stories. Today we have a significant day: the comics of the last publishing house that prints comics and which we have not yet been presented with have arrived - this is Mann, Ivanov and Ferber. In total, we cooperate with approximately 25-30 publishing houses from Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Kazakhs print "Mask", "Fantastic Four", "Dup".

You can download a huge number of comics on torrents. But it's about the same as with regular books. Whatever electronic technologies and formats are invented, the rustling of pages and tactile sensations, the smell of printing ink cannot be replaced by anything. In comics, like in any other business, piracy is rampant. Some Ukrainian pseudo-publishing houses download manga comics from the Internet, print them out in large numbers and sell them. This comes to both Russia and Belarus. Many publishing houses are trying to deal with this: if pirated products are seen in the store, the publishing house ceases to cooperate with such a store.

Comic as a gold bar

At one time, we tried to develop comic bookcrossing: he came to us, took a comic book from a special shelf, then returned it or left another issue instead. But in the end, it came down to the fact that the comics were stolen, and nothing was brought in return. We do not plan to create a used department.

On the Internet flea markets you can find a lot of comics in both paperback and hardcover. I believe that a used comic book should lose at least 50% of its value, but sometimes the price at flea markets is the same as in the store, or even higher. It is not clear whether they sell it because of ignorance, or for other reasons.

In principle, comics can be seen as a store of value. I don’t know if this will ever happen with Russian-language comics, but as for English-language ones, everything is serious here. There is such an appraisal company CGC, which evaluates the condition of comics on a scale from 1 to 10, assigns a rating, seals it in a plastic case. These comics are not just going up in price, I think this is the best investment. "Siggissies" can be found on eBay for fifty dollars or more. If some series shoots, then after some time it can cost three hundred and fifty.

Help The Village Belarus

A 1938 Action Comics edition of Superman, which CGC scored an 8.5, sold in 2010 for $1.5 million. Another copy of the same issue, rated at 9.0 points, was sold in the summer of 2014 for $3,207,852.

On Belarusian Internet flea markets, the most expensive English-language comic book The digedags and the Indians (1982) is sold for 450 rubles.

Shoemaker with boots

Everyone probably thinks that if you work in a comic book store, then you read them all day long. But this is not entirely true: there is so little time that sometimes after work you want to come home and just sleep. If five years ago I read five to ten issues a day, and it was very interesting, now I can afford to read two or three issues before going to bed, and it is precisely those series that are of great interest to me. Plus, of course, what you have to do at work: our publishing house has very strict proofreading, three people do this, so you have to re-read the same comic all the time.

If someone saw my personal collection, they would laugh at me: I keep it on the mezzanine. There may be two hundred collections of what I once read and then put there. Of the valuable, perhaps, only rare Russian-language covers. I am a collector of a different plan: I collect statues of Star Wars characters, I have over four hundred of them. The most expensive of them costs about one and a half thousand dollars. And on sale the most expensive one is 750 rubles, not counting that huge bust of the Hulk for two and a half thousand. However, no one tried to buy it.

What's in the future? I cannot say that I will have a network with a hundred branches. No, I see two of my branches in the future, but each will have some kind of zest. The coffee shop is open. I am also going to develop my line of T-shirts, I am collaborating with Belarusian designers. My dream is to open an analogue of the cantina from the fourth episode of Star Wars. There is something to show, I hope someday it will all shoot.

Helpful Hints

Hobbies are a great way to relax at the end of the day, have fun, develop your creativity and get in shape. But have you thought about what your enthusiasm may well become the main source of income?

How can a hobby become a lifelong business and generate income? Of course, you must work hard for this, constantly develop and turn on fantasy. If you still don’t know where to start, we offer you a few hobbies that you can make good money on.

How to make money blogging

Start blogging

In order to embark on the path of a blogger, you must know that there is a topic that you are well versed in and that you are genuinely interested in. Start writing. It is impossible to earn in this way without the presence of subscribers and readers, therefore, in the beginning, of course, the blog will not bring any money.

However, don't think about it. Focus on the quality of the information, because there are a lot of blogs on the Internet, and you need to stand out among them all. Look for interesting topics, work on improving the author's language. And be sure to read various popular blogs.

How to earn money:

- take part in affiliate programs

- create a subscription service for readers

Make additional paid content that will be available only to those readers who have paid a subscription.

- place contextual advertising on your blog

Earnings as an editor

Get Proofreading

Do you constantly notice typos and errors in books and newspapers? Do you correct mistakes in the speech of friends? Do you know Russian very well? Why don't you try yourself as a corrector in this case?

To get started, you need to do a lot. Arm yourself with a reference book and start reading, reading and reading again. Find courses to improve your skills and get a paper. Review the editorial policies of various publications.

How to earn money:

Search the Internet for tasks for proofreaders, leave your data on sites for freelancers;

Read online content, contact the publisher, show them your skills with specific examples and offer your services;

Find the owners of small sites and in exchange for your help, offer them to advertise their services.

how to make money baking

Take up baking

Maybe you cook well, and all your friends admire your cakes and pastries? Perhaps it's time to please a wider range of people with your goodies? First, you need to decide on a specialization.

For example, will you make fancy birthday cakes or stick to gluten-free baking. The next step is to consider technology. With the advent of orders, you will probably have to work in emergency mode, so you should always have a blender, mixer and other useful tools at hand.

To get to know about your products, you need to start a group on social networks, distribute your business cards to the organizers of the holidays, and, of course, use the services of word of mouth.

How to earn money:

Post photos of your creations in various groups on social networks;

It is worth starting your own blog in which you will write about baking, in this case, the advice from the first paragraph of this article will come in handy;

Make a list of local cafes and offer them cooperation, it is best to cook something to try and take with you to the meeting.

How to make money on video games

Play video games

By playing video games you have a very real opportunity to earn money. However, such a hobby will ask you for an initial investment. You will also need to upgrade your computer, it needs a video card, a powerful processor and a large system memory.

You have probably already chosen the game, now you need to develop your reaction, attentiveness and strategic skills. Watch more lestplays to learn the technique of other players.

How to earn money:

Take part in beta tests, which are regularly held by game development companies;

Create a YouTube channel with let's play for other players. You can also make money on the channel with the help of advertising. However, in this case, you also need to be a good storyteller, because watching the game, which is accompanied by original comments, is much more interesting;

After acquiring certain skills, you will be able to take part in eSports competitions. Of course, it is difficult to get into serious championships, but the winnings there in case of victory are impressive.

how to make money from comics

draw comics

Practice is important in this matter. Constantly improve your skills, learn new techniques, watch video tutorials. To take up such a hobby, you will also need investments, because you will need a tablet and a good drawing program.

Muscovites Vasily Shevchenko and Ivan Chernyavsky on borrowed 30 thousand rubles. in 2011, they opened a comic book store. Now two points bring them about 0.5 million rubles. profit monthly

Vasily Shevchenko (left) and Ivan Chernyavsky, co-owners of the Chuk and Geek comic book store

RSUH graduates Vasily Shevchenko and Ivan Chernyavsky were never fans of comics, but they loved to read. In 2010, Shevchenko, who worked as an editor at the Komiks publishing house for four years, decided to change the type of activity. “I was just tired, just like Vanya, I was tired of working in the record label (music studio) Snegiri,” Shevchenko recalls in an interview with RBC. During a joint trip to India, the guys came up with the idea to open their own bookstore. “Some at the age of 18 dream of opening a bar, but we dreamed of our own bookstore,” Shevchenko explains.

Two racks at the start

Preparations for the opening took two months. Shevchenko's former employer managed to get a significant discount on a batch of comics, which were purchased with 30,000 rubles borrowed from friends. The shop itself was decided to open on the territory of the Novodel gallery in Bolshoy Palashevsky Lane. “This is a very old gift gallery that has long felt like it takes up a little more space than it wants,” Shevchenko explains the choice. “Before us, Pangloss sold foreign books here. So this place has always been sympathetic towards live book projects.” To get started, the gallery offered aspiring entrepreneurs two shelves and three free weeks of rental: from the opening on December 8, 2010 until the new year.

The meaningless name of the shop "Chuk and Geek", Shevchenko admits, was born in communication with friends: "It caused the most emotions and disputes." Friends of friends who learned about the store from social networks came to the opening of the store. A tiny note about the new bookstore appeared in Time Out and on some specialized sites. Shevchenko admits that at the start of the project, the partners used their acquaintances with might and main.

Figures "Chuk and Geek"

30 thousand rubles- initial investment in the first shop

1.5 thousand comics are presented in stores of the network

From 100 pages- volume of modern comics

3.5 million rubles per month - the revenue of two shops "Chuk and Gik"

800-900 rub.— average check

Near 5 thousand purchases per month are made in two shops

Source: company data

Already in December, sales amounted to 60 thousand rubles, which made it possible to return the debt taken at the start. In January, "Chuk and Geek" already had three racks, in March - four, and by the summer it occupied a separate room of 20 square meters. m, to which a warehouse of 50 sq. “Then comics were sold mainly by bookstores that made fantastic margins, and with a normal discount and the absence of insane greed, we managed to set prices much lower than book prices,” Shevchenko explains the rapid growth in sales. For the first three months, the guys themselves stood behind the counter, but then they hired a salesman. “I still remember how in the spring of 2011 I received a symbolic salary of 5 thousand rubles. in his shop,” Shevchenko recalls. “We invested everything we earned in expanding the range, living on what we earned freelancing as journalists. I was saved by the fact that I love three things: kefir, buckwheat and seaweed.

Comic book store economy

The increased interest of the metropolitan public in comics prompted Shevchenko and Chernyavsky to open a second point. “The opening of the first shop next door to the gallery allowed us to avoid many of the mistakes that we made when creating the new Chuk and Geek,” says Shevchenko. Maxim Andrianov, a new partner of Chuk and Geek, was looking for premises for a new shop. “The requirements were simple: central location, more space, adequate rent,” Shevchenko recalls. 80 sq. m was found in Klimentovsky lane near the Novokuznetskaya metro station.

Investments in the launch of the second point amounted to about 1.2 million rubles, of which 300 thousand rubles. went for repairs, 350 thousand for the purchase of furniture and commercial equipment, and 550 thousand for rent payments before opening. “We were offered bookcases from 350,000 to 2 million rubles,” Shevchenko says. “I didn’t understand the difference, but we learned that money can be invested in a project endlessly.” About 1.1 million rubles. required for the purchase of the first batch of goods. Already in the third month of operation, the new point reached breakeven. This is largely due to the fact that on a large area of ​​the second "Chook and Geek" not only comics are sold, but also ordinary books in the genre of science fiction, fantasy, children's books, related products, such as designers and key rings.

Now both shops bring about 3.5 million rubles. revenue per month. The average check in a store in the Novodel gallery is 900 rubles, on Novokuznetskaya - 800 rubles. The total number of checks is about 5,000 per month, of which 15% comes from an online store opened in 2012. The backbone of the Chuk and Geek audience is young people aged 14 to 25 (60%). “There are slightly more boys than girls,” Shevchenko says. “There are some super-weird characters, but they’re cool—once two big, bearded men in kangaroo costumes showed up.”

Vasily Shevchenko (above) and Ivan Chernyavsky, co-owners of the Chuk and Geek comic book store. (Photo: Vlad Shatilo for RBC)

Chuk and Geek has many regular visitors whom Shevchenko knows by face and by name. “I have always admired the family business in Europe where the buyer knows the seller. Yes, we are small shopkeepers, but I am not ashamed of it,” Shevchenko smiles. Good personal relationships with the buyer and within the team, according to him, help the business more than advertising and various motivational programs.

Chuk i Gik is the oldest comic book store in Moscow and the most hospitable,” says Artem Gabrelyanov, co-owner and editor-in-chief of Bubble publishing house, the largest producer of original Russian comics, to RBC. “You can often see a situation where the owners bake a cake for their regular customers or treat them to hot coffee in the winter cold. Chuk i Gik is more than just a store. It has become a second home for many comic book lovers."

The average markup at Chuk and Geek is 50% versus 100% at ordinary bookstores, Shevchenko says: “Now we buy comics directly from publishers who ask us not to dump. We can put a price of 880 rubles, but the publisher asks for 920 rubles. The business operates as an individual entrepreneur Ivan Chernyavsky and pays tax under the simplified taxation system (15% of the difference between income and expenses).

An average of 2.2 million rubles is spent on the purchase of goods. per month. Comics are bought into the store every week, at least once a month a large supply is made. Unlike the book market, where payment is based on the fact of sales, comic book publishers ask for a 100% advance payment. “We usually try to keep 500 thousand rubles in reserve in order to be able to buy something suddenly,” Shevchenko says. About 320 thousand rubles are spent on rent. per month, for the wages of four salespeople, an accountant - 200 thousand rubles. About 30 thousand rubles are spent on advertising. Taxes and sales tax - up to 90 thousand rubles. per month. Of the average profit of 500 thousand rubles. per month, Shevchenko and Chernyavsky keep half for themselves, and invest the other in business development.

The interior of the ​Chook and Geek comic book store. (Photo: Vlad Shatilo for RBC)

Not only sales

Back in 2014, up to 35% of the assortment of Chuk and Geek were comics in foreign languages. But due to the devaluation, the price for them has more than doubled, so now the assortment is almost 100% made up of domestic products (including translated ones). At the end of 2015, the co-owners of Chuk and Geek became partners and investors in the new Jellyfish Jam comics publishing house, which was organized by Beata Kotashevskaya, a former employee of Chuk and Geek. “So far, only three people work in it: me and Beata as editors and translators, and a technical director,” Shevchenko says. The main advantage of the new publishing house is the partnership with Marvel. “We managed to grab some good licenses,” Shevchenko boasts, without revealing how he did it. According to him, in 2015, Jellyfish Jam released several comics - Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy - with a total circulation of 50 thousand copies, of which 30 thousand have already been sold. Shevchenko estimates investments in the launch of the project at 1.5 million rubles.

“The tandem of the store and the publishing house gives greater independence and stability: sometimes the publisher feeds the store, sometimes the store feeds the publisher,” Mikhail Bogdanov, director of the St. Petersburg comics publishing house Komilfo and the twenty-eighth store, tells RBC. “Some comic publishing projects require so much investment that you have to take out loans until the project is completed - the store becomes the only source of income that helps the company stay afloat.”