[...] Buenaventura Press having closed at the beginning of the year (they were the ones who published the $125 Kramer’s Ergot 7, and weird, isn’t it, that they waited five months to say they were no longer selling?) into [...]

[...] anthology series from editor Sammy Harkham and publisher Alvin Buenaventura — was a famously, even infamously, grand production. And now…it's a [...]

[...] Some people can’t really find agreement with the publisher’s decision to make the 7th issue of anthology Gramers Ergot a $125, 96-page hardcover book. Plenty has been said and written about it but the follow up blog post on comicsworthreading.com tries to tone down the debate a bit by giving some explanation to why the book is so darn expensive. Last, the final word on Kramer’s Ergot #7, the $125 anthology: Supporter Tom Spurgeon talks with editor Sammy Harkham about its contents, contributors, and the rationale behind the price point. Among the factors: due to its size, each copy has to be bound by hand. Custom shipping boxes had to be made. And the editor wanted to do an on-site press check, so he had to fly to Singapore. [...]

[...] to chat briefly with Kevin McShane about the future of Toupydoops and why people were talking about Kramer’s Ergot; Joanna Estep about a fascinating-sounding series she’s going to be doing for ComicMix; and [...]

[...] – Sean T. Collins playing on the regular name of Johanna Draper Carlson’s blog series which recently focused on KE [...]

[...] volume of the Kramer’s Ergot anthology, the high price and format of which have caused some consternation in the comics blogosphere: SPURGEON: Sammy, I know that you’re aware of some complaints about [...]

[...] the final word on Kramer’s Ergot #7, the $125 anthology: Supporter Tom Spurgeon talks with editor Sammy Harkham about its contents, [...]

http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/

Oh, what’s that got to do KE7, and its price? Nothing really, I just hadn’t griped about prices of stuff this week yet.:)

I’m sure some of us take PayPal.

Bill

sigh.

It doesn’t, else plus-sized escorts would cost more.

The real retail price of this book is $80 from Amazon.com. I think they are smart enough to realize that the majority of their sales will come from this. There would have to be a pretty damn good reason to drop an extra $50.

Looking at the distro price in that $50-$60 range, then factoring in the overhead of the books ridiculous print specs, shipping, and a payroll of 50 or so artists, the price is legit.

The real question is whether or not they should have done a book of this magnitude to begin with? Let’s say the book was 32 x 42 and 200 pages. The price would probably be over $500. Sure, it would be cool but there would be no markey for it, and these guys are smart enough to know that. They are flirting with the boundries of their market by releasing a $125 volume, but I think in the end they will sell through them. There couldn’t be that many copies in existence, I’m goin to guess around 2000-3000 (will the number be released at some point?)

I think the argument that they are hurting the books relevance by pricing out casual observers is possibly legitimate. Casual observers are necessary to relevance (imo) but like Tom mentioned who are we to set this projects goals. Maybe it just wants to be a luxury item. There is always a market for luxury items in any business.