Thoughts About This Week's 40% off SPRING! Codeword Sale Howdy! As most of you who are this column are already aware, I began our annual 40% off SPRING! codeword sale today on all of our back issue comics and magazines. In all honesty, I have been more conflicted about putting this steep discount sale into effect than any other in recent memory. Simply put, our sales are already rising substantially, and 2013 is on track to be our best year since the Great Recession began. Steeply discounting even our best back issue comics at almost half off, many of which I just purchased during my arduous comics buying trips to the East Coast, is just about the last thing that I want to do right now. That having been said, why are we having our 40% off sale? A couple of reasons, the first of which is the fact that those of you who have shopped with us for many years have come to expect and anticipate these quarterly steep discount sales. As a direct result, we see a very pronounced slump in our online sales prior to the annual anniversary of past steep discount sales. I wish that I could ascribe these online sales reductions to some other cause, but the reality is that all of our other operating divisions are doing extremely well right now, to the point where our three company-owned comics shops are actually setting all-time sales records. With our online section of back issues now at its broadest in our entire history as a company, there is simply no other reason that I can find for our not experiencing similar record-setting sales via our website. The second reason for the 40% off sale is that we are still recovering from the debilitating effects of the past four years of economic decline and malaise. Like many other small businesses around the world, we have had to reinvent ourselves during this difficult economic period, finding new ways to provide great service, while simultaneously cutting costs. We have been most successful in this regard by opening our Jason St. Mega-Store, which allowed us to create an environment where our online clients visiting Denver could actually stop by to see our website inventory. The Mega-Store has been successful beyond our wildest dreams, and now makes a very significant contribution to covering all of our company operating costs. The other way in which I have reduced our costs is to restructure all of our company debt. As much as the Great Recession decreased sales and forced many businesses to make severe cutbacks, it also caused interest rates to drop to historically unprecedented lows. Business, such as ours, which retained some measure of borrowing ability, were able to obtain brand new low-cost loans which dropped their monthly payments substantially. In our case, just restructuring our loans knocked more than $10,000 per month (!) off of our operating costs. While banks have been offering very inexpensive loans to prospective borrowers, they have also raised their restrictions on loans to very conservative levels. What this means for us is that we have to tow the line as regards several restrictive covenants now placed on our balance sheet. These are not hard-and-fast restrictions, as none of our banks are going to throw us into default for simply not meeting one clause, or another. But a pattern of non-compliance over time simply is not a good idea, especially since most of our new loans have only five year terms. All of the above having been said, March 31st is the end of the first quarter, which marks the time when we have to report our first quarter operating results to all our lenders. As I mentioned earlier, our overall company sales are strong right now, our operating earnings are decent, and our balance sheet is steadily improving. Our liquidity is still weak, however, which basically means that we have too little cash on hand. The only area of the company which is not contributing substantially to our cash flow right now is our online back issues division, which makes a steep discount sale not only the right thing to do today, but also an imperative. Happy Collecting! Chuck Rozanski, President - Mile High Comics, Inc. March 18, 2013 Advance Previews of next weeks comics from Archie Comics 40% Off SPRING! Codeword Sale Begins One Week Only * Effective immediately, you can purchase any back issues listed on our website for a full 40% Off (!) of the price listed on our website when you type SPRING! Into the "Discount Code" box on our online order form. This has become an annual sale event for us, but this Year's sale will last for only a few days. Read my full column for today (which is posted on our website) for insights about this 40% off sale, and the current state of the comics market. Marvel Art of John Romita Jr. Thor: World Eaters Premiere X-Men: X-Tinction Agenda * In addition to our placing all of our back issue comics on sale, we also have 100+ different Marvel Hardback Comics Collections available to you today at 50%-60% off. These are newer Marvel titles that have never before been on steep discount sale. This book sale will end on Thursday. Batgirl #18 Batman #18 Detective Comics #18 * We also have three different BATMAN titles to offer you as free Bonus Book rewards from the new DC comics storyline about the young woman we think DC has chosen to be the new Robin. Place any $30 order and you can request one of the three, or you can request all three as a reward for placing any minimum $75 order. We were blessed to be able to receive a small reorder on these three issues, as they are now all completely sold out from DC. To receive your free comics, just ask for them in the "notes" section of our online order form. Guardians #1 Mile High * This is the last week for pre-orders on our upcoming GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2013) #1 Mile High Comics exclusive variant edition. Word must be getting around that Marvel making this new title the centerpiece of their editorial for the rest of this year, as our pre-sales are the highest of any exclusive variant title in our history. Contact Greg or Mario in our new comics subscription department before Friday to place your pre-order at only $6/copy. Write them at nice@milehighcomics.com, or call 303-455-2659 weekdays 9-5. Wolverine #1 Mile High * We have now nearly sold out of our copies of WOLVERINE (2013) #1 Mile High Comics exclusive variant edition that we budgeted to sell at $9.95 each. We will, as promised, continue to honor orders for the rest of this week at $9.95, but as of Saturday our remaining copies of this scarce variant will need to be priced at $14.95 each. Current Newsletter