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What fee/percentage of profit should I ask for?
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14 posts in this topic

Hi, I'm going to start selling my partner's early edition Marvel and DC comics he's had in his family but doesn't have the time to do it himself. He wants me to take a percentage of what is sold and for me to make up that amount but I have no idea what to ask for. It's about 1-2k comics he has in boxes and boxes so it is going to take up a lot of my time. Anyone have thoughts? I don't want to upset him for asking for too much (and take from the split of what him and his siblings will get after my cut) but don't want to ask for too little either.

Thanks in advance!

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I'll start by saying that your partner has plenty of options.  He could go to the trouble of selling them himself, he could hire a stranger to put in the legwork, he could give the lot to MyComicShop for one of their auctions, or he could let you do the thing he doesn't want to be bothered with.  Every one of those options has a cost to it.  Financial dealings between friends and family can be complicated because there are feelings involved.  It's never "just business."  Tell him you'll calculate a "just business" cost, maybe cut that by a little bit as a favor.  Then acknowledge that if he doesn't like that cost, he's welcome to try a different option and there will be no hard feelings.

To avoid hard feelings, come up with a justifiable formula for what you want.  If he doesn't like the figure, he's welcome to go elsewhere, but he can't get mad at you for doing math that shows you're coming from a very reasonable position.

To present a justifiable formula, I'd recommend starting with really good estimates of how much time it will take, and how much your time is worth. 

How much is your time worth?

Perhaps the time you'll spend is time that you'd otherwise be sitting on the sofa watching Netflix.  Maybe it's worth $5 an hour to you to work on selling comics at the same time.  If so, $5/hour times the number of hours is the amount you want to make out of the deal.

Will you be turning down consulting jobs that pay $150/hour just so you can sell his comics?  If so, you'll probably want to net $150/hour for your time.  

I suspect you'd really be okay with a figure >$5/hour and <$150/hour, but that's entirely up to you. 

Will you be giving up free time that you'd rather spend doing something you love?  Calculate how much it's worth to you to give up that free time.

Then calculate how many hours it'll take.  You could estimate that, but doing some trial sales would give you the most accurate, supportable data.  Perhaps you want to take a stack of 40 books and offer to sell those.  Tell him you'll sell them and take only a nominal cut (10%).  Sell them for him, and track every moment you spend.  Include all the time you spend with online listings (if that's how you're selling), buying packaging, weighing, shipping, etc.  Calculate all the time it takes to sell 40 books (or 40 lots, if you're making multi-book lots, which you'll probably want to do with some of the common items), and use that to extrapolate how much time you'll spend on the whole collection.

Number of hours times $ per hour = How much you want to net.  

That's what I'd do, anyway.

Edited by SOTIcollector
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1) Where will the books be? Are you leaving them with him or working from your house

2) If you have the books, are they insured?

3) I'd charge him a set price per hour for organizing the books, bagging those that need bagging and doing market research for them.

4) When step 3 is done, then decide how to sell them and what you will recieve.

It's a lot of work, and very time consuming

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4 hours ago, brute1933 said:

Hi, I'm going to start selling my partner's early edition Marvel and DC comics he's had in his family but doesn't have the time to do it himself. He wants me to take a percentage of what is sold and for me to make up that amount but I have no idea what to ask for. It's about 1-2k comics he has in boxes and boxes so it is going to take up a lot of my time. Anyone have thoughts? I don't want to upset him for asking for too much (and take from the split of what him and his siblings will get after my cut) but don't want to ask for too little either.

Thanks in advance!

20% same as what auction houses that offer a specialized service take.

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Don't underestimate how much work it will be.  

I have undertaken similar projects for coworkers and friends and I'm always amazed at how days melt away. 

10 - 20% is pretty reasonable for a friend in my opinion.

As @SOTIcollector mentioned it can get tricky when working with friends.  Keep a detailed record of expenses (shipping materials, bags and boards, ect...) And make sure you guys are in the same page every step up of the way. Communication and transparency often cuts out disputes. 

Good luck! It should be fun! 

 

 

 

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when I was evaluating my collection, it took one year to get it organized to the point where I knew value for most raw books. If they had been slabbed, it would have been far easier, 

Hot books sell faster and slow books wait for the right person unless you want to dump the load. It's an enormous amount of work. I sold about 40 of the 950 books for nice money and the rest went for $3.75 each. raw but 6.0 or better.  They were all silver age, mostly pre 1970. It included things like the AF15. 

I wouldn't do it for 20%, knowing what I know now. I wouldn't do it for someone else  at all.  Your friend will still have cap gains to pay regardless of what you get. That's another 10%. 

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9 minutes ago, Glassman10 said:

when I was evaluating my collection, it took one year to get it organized to the point where I knew value for most raw books. If they had been slabbed, it would have been far easier, 

Hot books sell faster and slow books wait for the right person unless you want to dump the load. It's an enormous amount of work. I sold about 40 of the 950 books for nice money and the rest went for $3.75 each. raw but 6.0 or better.  They were all silver age, mostly pre 1970. It included things like the AF15. 

I wouldn't do it for 20%, knowing what I know now. I wouldn't do it for someone else  at all.  Your friend will still have cap gains to pay regardless of what you get. That's another 10%. 

I agree. 

That's why I don't like the idea of hourly. To many hours lol. 

I did a 500+ book collection for a coworker.  Her father had passed and the family didn't know what to do with it.  It was mostly GA, nothing bagged or boarded,  some missing pieces. So if took allot of work to research,  organize and decide what to do. 

I ended up selling everything over about $20 individually and taking all the low grade classic illustrateds and Dell funny animal books to a local comic shop for $2 a book.  I probably could have done better,  but at some point the work to list, photograph,  and ship isn't worth the reward. 

I would do it again. It was a labor of love and its not often you get to go through a bunch of books from the 40s and 50s. 

 

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A lot will depend on the average dollar value of the books. 10% for making images, comping, listing, packing and shipping a $50 book, is going to feel like not nearly enough once you add up the time spent. 10% for doing the same with a $2000 book might seem well worth the effort. Depending on the volume, I'd ask for a minimum per book or lot sold as a floor against any percentage. 

Also find out if he is okay with everything starting at a guaranteed to sell price at auction, or if he expects you to get a minimum FMV out of each book, and as importantly, does it make sense to slab some of the more expensive books, and who pays for that up front.

 

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