Goodbye June 2024
zine profits, oral surgery diary, and a secret playlist
Last month I talked about wanting to do something special to thank paid subscribers and I think I am finally getting the hang of it (voiceover: she was not, in fact, getting the hang of it). This month I have a section with some interesting reads in the chronic illness and art space as well as a spotlight on another artist. I thought instead of reading straight though you can read what seems interesting and skip what doesn’t, kind of like a monthly roundup.
Glue Babies Zine
My biggest takeaway from June is the Glue Babies Zine. The first print run of 55 copies (minus the 2 that I gave away) has sold out and I have just ordered the second printing of 55 copies. For anyone who is thinking of getting into zines, I thought it would be interesting to share the math.
Zine Expenses
$295 printing for 2 test prints and 55 copies
$38 approx. for transaction fees (approx. $0.72 per copy)
$65 approx. for 100 rigid mailers
$0 for taxes because I rolled all the profit into the second printing
Zine Income
$390 for 39 zine pre-order sales at $10 each
$182 for 14 zines sales at $13 each
Profit
Total profit from pre-order $2
Total profit from first print run $174
The second print run cost $285 ($10 more than the first for the same amount of zines), so I have already rolled all my profit into the second printing, but it will be a little bit before I need to re-order mailers. But, that being said, after 10 copies are sold it should be all profit (which I will keep rolling back into printing zines).
Some takeaways I have are …
1) my price was a too low for a 44 page full color zine (oopsie!), $15 would have been a much better price. It would also allow me to sell through zine distros/stores that do a 50/50 split. Right now with shipping costs, etc. any zines that sell through shops are essentially donations to that shop.
2) I didn’t anticipate the printer going through multiple price increases and should have had a buffer, see point 1. They went through a huge increase between the time I ordered my first proof and the first print run, for example. Now, to charge the price I want with no increase, I have to print in bulk (per zine printing costs go down the more you order).
3) the pre-order discount was a mistake though I love the idea of a pre-order bonus. I think next time I will go with pre-order bonus item(s) like stickers/postcards rather than a discount. This sounds way more fun to me too.
4) the vast majority of my zine sales were new buyers which means that the zines were most likely being bought by people who enjoy my art but have not yet been able to get a piece. That is a huge honor and very cool.
5) I didn’t lose any money, I love the zine, and I had so much fun making it.
Would I do it again? YES!
Unlisted Playlist on YouTube
Well, my phone is full again. I have so many videos in CapCut that my aging phone has told me it can’t take much more of this and isn’t synching to my iCloud, so I had to go through a bunch of my media this month.
I have a lot of longer edits of videos that none of the social media apps will push but that I personally like and don’t want to delete entirely. I decided to start putting them into an unlisted playlist on YouTube so I can still have an archive of them and thought it would be fun to share with you all. Think of them as the b-sides and deep cuts of the Glue Baby world.
I also heard that videos that flop on YouTube will impact the performance of subsequent videos, so if a Short does really poorly (like sub-1k views after a week or so) I am moving it into the unlisted playlist as well. There are videos that are only found there, so I hope you enjoy them!
Interesting Reads
It was published earlier this year but I just ready this Chandler Plante interview on People. I have been following Chandler’s story since earlier this year and she just recently made the decision to have her damaged eye removed. Eyes have been a big part of my own health journey and Chandler has been a really interesting person to keep up with online. The interview also goes over her stokes being misdiagnosed which is what lead to her ongoing issues. I’ve had so many people in my immediate circle impacted by strokes in the past few years. Ischemic strokes are much more easily missed but can have horrible consequences.
Governor DeSantis cut funding for the arts in Florida late in June. The AP covered it as well as The Guardian, ArtNet, and tons of others. The ArtNet article goes into specific reason that DeSantis cited for the cut, which is making sure that the Fringe Festival didn’t get any funding. However, a reporter from Politico did the math and the Fringe Festival was so far down the rankings that it’s unlikely that they even saw any of the money. Instead $32 million was cut from arts organizations across the state and a lot of that goes to funding education initiatives for schools. Going on field trips to theaters and museums was such a huge part of my childhood, so I hate to think of kids missing out. Also, if you’ve ever tried to go to a museum during “snowbird season” (when well-to-do people from the north relocate to their summer homes in Florida for the winter) you would know how much of the tourism industry in Florida is powered by the arts. Museums were already reeling from COVID (see also the relatively weaker slate of offerings and rise of virtual exhibits) and I shudder to think what these cuts will do. My husband just went on a tour of a historic theater and the director admitted that the majority of their offerings have to be musicals because traditional plays don’t sell out, and that was before the funding was cut. Hopefully something can be done about it.
Artist Spotlight: Linda Nguyen Lopez
When I saw Linda Lopez’ work I felt an immediate connection to it. Her pieces feel, in a way, like spiritual cousins of the Glue Babies with the same sort of tightly organized drips and gradient pastels. I believe she calls them “dust flurries.” If our art met in the wild, I feel like they would be friends.
Lopez works in porcelain to make her work and it looks like she started making her gorgeous creations in 2016. Some of them are small, about the size of an apple, while others are huge. I have wanted to try ceramic Glue Babies many times, but I am so stressed by the wet clay under my nails and the way it dries out my hands; it just triggers sensory issues for me.
From her website:
Linda Nguyen Lopez (b. Visalia, California) is a first generation American artist of Vietnamese and Mexican descent. Her abstract works explore the poetic potential of the everyday by imagining and articulating a vast emotional range embedded in the mundane objects that surround us.
Lopez also has an extremely impressive resume under her belt including multiple large grant awards (which, if you know anything about grants, they are wildly difficult to get).
We are so hung up on social media numbers, I love finding artists like Lopez that are thriving offline and have been living their lives creating gorgeous works of art without the pressure of the algorithm. A female abstract artist thriving? We love to see it.