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The Journey: Year Two By Brian Koscienski and Chris Pisano
Fortress Publishing, Inc. had hit its one-year anniversary. WOOOO-HOOOO!! Chris and I couldn't believe we could stay alive for one year let alone run a legitimate corporation for a year. Naturally, we went to our board room (Hooters) and enjoyed a brief celebration (got sloppy drunk until the waitresses pepper sprayed us). After we awoke in Tijuana, we stole some shoes, made a few bribes, and made our way home, we decided to sit down and figure out what we want to do for year two. Here are what a hung-over Sasquatch and Cro-Magnon man came up with: Play For a Tie Despite the fact that I look damn good in a suit and tie, I don't mean THAT kind of tie. I mean to fiscally break even. Since I'm a major accounting geek (who, incidentally, does not wear a tie on a regular basis-- which is probably why I look so damn good when I do wear one), I have all our products in separate inventory accounts on our books. I have whole shelves in my comic book room devoted to Fortress' supply of goods. And I regularly do actual inventory counts. Yes, I count and recount everything Fortress has. I know it sounds nit-picky, but it helps us avoid two major disasters: over-charging and under-charging. Sure, we give some things away for free for promotional purposes, but I've seen way too many people give way too many things away for free. If you can't pull in any money on one project, then it's highly unlikely you'll ever have enough to do a second project. Of course, if you price your items too high, you'll have a slower amount of income due to the customer's lack of incentive to open his wallet. Every time we make a sale or give something away, our break-even price changes for that product. By meticulously maintaining an up to date and accurate inventory, I know exactly what that break-even price is. Thusly, Fortress can be flexible about what we charge for our products, especially if all we want to do is truly break even. More Cons If you can't tell by our chronic geeking out in past articles about the three comic conventions we went to (two of which we participated in), we enjoy cons. As we stated before, we know very well we're not going to make enough money to retire. In fact, we did back flips because we made enough to cover table and gasoline costs. We go for the fun times and fun people we meet. Plus, at every one we have gone to so far, there's a Hooters nearby. So, if anyone wants to visit us during the 2006 season, hopefully we'll be in San Diego in July and Baltimore in September (9th and 10th)-- you all should know those dates by now. Side Work We have been so focused on comic books and Fortress, we have been rather lax in other areas of writing. So, we have been making a concerted effort to market our other talents (AH-hahahahahaha!!! I can't believe I implied that we have talent!) to other realms of writing. Recently, we worked with Aegis Studios, the creators of the role-playing game Contagion, and contributed a story to their Contagion-based anthology entitled War Stories available for sale at Lulu. Yes, this whole paragraph was a blatant plug. We're writers; we have NO shame, especially since we're no-talent hacks. Other Products Since we're a publishing company, we decided to publish more than just comics and kitschy promotional items. We decided to start our own quarterly literary magazine. We have yet to come up with a name, however we do have a theme-- genre fiction. Ya know, sci-fi, horror, fantasy, etc. And we're looking for writers! Yep, you read correctly. If you have a short story (less than 5,000 words) and it's a genre piece, send it to fortresspublishinginc@yahoo.com. If it's a story about a 13-year-old girl named Mary coping with the change to womanhood while poignantly reflecting the recent passing of her favorite Aunt Gertrude, we DON'T want it! Now, if Mary is the 13-year-old daughter of a vampire cowboy who stumbles upon a government conspiracy involving aliens and unicorns while investigating, hard-boiled style, the grizzly murder of her favorite aunt Gertrude, then we'll take a look at it. Well, one year down, 99 to go!
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