I hate to bring this up but the new US administration may enact a 60% tariff on goods from China in mid-January. DE is scheduled to be printed in China. Some planning for how to handle this situation may be needed.
They've been discussing it over on the Backerkit.
Short version: Atlas handled a similar issue during the supply crisis during COVID. John sounds confident he can deal with it
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We're aware of it and are taking account of it in our plans. Any impact on Definitive Edition would be on its ultimate price and availability in retail channels after we have fulfilled the crowdfunding campaign. I am confident we will be able to fulfill the BackerKit campaign as planned.
To expand on that: If a tariff of 60% to 100% is imposed, we would look at all sorts of alternatives. For example, it may be more economical to ship the finished books directly from China to US backers, to take advantage of the $800 de minimis exemption for each, rather than having everything come to the USA.
As for after the campaign is fulfilled -- we might simply cancel plans to make it available to retail distribution (except for those who back our campaign), at least as long as tariffs are in place, and only have a limited quantity available for direct sales with a higher MSRP. Generally, the manufacturing cost is proportional to the final MSRP, so a 60%-100% tariff implies a $240-$300 MSRP, which I don't think the market would accept.
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The more I think about it, the more likely it seems that we'll need to cancel distribution beyond the crowdfunding campaign, if the promise of tariffs is out there when we set our print run sometime this spring. We won't be able to afford the risk that sometime between placing our order and having a ship arrive at port, we'll be subject to a 100% tax on the entire production run.
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Could you look at supplying retailers from Canada or Europe in future?
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In the long term, we'll look at all options. In the nearer term, I don't see that helping Definitive Edition. Retailer sales are still primarily US for us, the books would still be subject to the tariff when imported, and an ongoing non-US warehouse would increase our overhead and administrative burden.
We'll have a lot else to worry about next year, so a lot of what I need to do strategically is reduce future complications set ourselves up for maximum flexibility. This may lead us to some big shifts in business direction in the next few years.
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