Probably the most important lesson I’ve learned this year is about having a product lineup at a lot of different price points.

As I look over the sales data for Tall Poppy Press over the last five years, there is a very clear pattern: book sales have steadily grown, while in-person merch sales (a cheaper product for people to buy) have exploded.

The first time that this was clear was at LA Art Book Fair in 2025. There I brought with me some A4 prints - nothing major, just some old prints from an exhibition. Over the fair, I sold about $250 of prints - nothing major - but rivaling the sales of many of our titles. If I sell five $50 books that’s $250, or if I sell 10 $25 prints it’s the same.

Later that year, I experimented with the same thing - bringing some old prints, putting them at a cheap price, and just having them at the table. Again, $200-$300 of sales came from prints. At that fair, that was about 1/6 of the total sales.

At Tokyo Art Book Fair in 2025 I had caps, totes and prints - and these lower-priced items brought in about $500 of sales.

This year, I expanded the merch quite a bit, adding keychains, mugs and posters. At Melbourne Art Book Fair probably $1000 of sales came from items under $40. That was ¼ of the revenue from that fair.

Key here is to note that these things do NOT sell online, but would be sold at in-person events. I’d guess 97-98% of all merch sales (posters, caps, keychains, etc) have been at book fairs, book launches, pop ups and other in person events.

This month, I am enjoying doing a lot of business planning and strategy, and one of the big opportunities I want to build on is creating a product lineup that has four price points.

From $10-29: keychains, posters and zines

From $30-$50: mugs, caps and short books

From $51-$65: our main book pricing - soft covers, textural

From $70-80: our more premium books - larger, hard covers, deluxe

The key here is to not be reliant on any one type of product. In a smaller market, smaller items may carry the sales, in a larger/richer market, the more expensive items may have their hey day.

This reminds me of something my Dad said once, maybe while watching Walking with Dinosaurs or something like that. He said ‘over time small things have lasted. The huge animals of the past are gone, often outlasted by smaller, more nimble, less resource intense things.

I think that’s a good model for a small business too. It’s not the big massive expensive things that sustain us nearly as much as the small, charming, easy to buy things.

Matt