True Cost
What you paid is the first line. Acquisition, prep, and grading are the rest of it.
The Card Business Playbooks
Build a better card business.
The hobby has no shortage of advice about what to buy, what to grade, and what might go up next.
Card Business Playbooks is about the business underneath the cards: what a card really costs, what a sale really makes, and whether the thing you built can last.
The launch date, early-access pricing, and new sections as they publish.
The problem
Knowing cards isn’t the same as knowing your business.
This industry has real talent in it. Dealers who read a collection in thirty seconds. Shop owners who know who will buy a card before the customer does. What almost nobody was handed is a plain way to see the economics underneath that expertise.
What that looks like
- Valuable inventory sitting unprocessed
- No real understanding of cost basis
- The owner acting as the database
- Revenue treated like profit
- Asking price treated like value
- Inventory treated like cash
- Marketplace choice treated as automatic
- Labor treated as free because the owner performed it
- Growth pursued without understanding the constraint
- A great buy celebrated without asking how long the money will be gone
Revenue tells you how much money passed through the business. It doesn’t tell you how much stayed.
Coming Fall 2026
Profit Aware
Build a Better Trading Card Business Without Losing the Hobby
For the collector, vendor, online seller, or shop owner who wants more than a stack of sales receipts.
True Cost. Net Proceeds. Contribution. Buying, inventory, workflow, channels, and growth, in the terms a card business actually uses.
- Fifteen chapters in four parts
- A what-I’d-do list and one exercise at the end of every chapter
- The Profit-Aware Business Audit, free with the book
- Written by an operator who vendors, sells, and collects
Inside the playbook
What you’ll learn
Net Proceeds and Contribution
Sale price is vanity. Contribution is what a transaction gave the business to work with.
The Profit-Aware Decision
Cost, Channel, Time, Labor, Risk, Expected Profit. Six questions before you say yes.
The Owner Tax
What a business pays because too much of the work still requires the owner.
Inventory as capital
Every card on the shelf is money you deployed and have not got back yet.
Minimum Profitable Touch
Work should scale with the economic consequence of getting it wrong.
Channels
The channel should earn the card. Reach is something you buy, not something you owe.
Growth
Scale does not fix the business. Scale reveals it.
Free tools
Start before the book ships.
Eight worksheets and calculators. They run on the page. No email, no download.
Companion worksheet01
Profit-Aware Business Audit
The companion worksheet from the book. Write down where your business stands before you start moving things around.
Worksheet02
Inventory Worksheet
Cost, list price, age, and a next move for every row.
Calculator03
Contribution$62.38
Net $187Contribution Calculator
Sale price minus selling costs is Net Proceeds. Net Proceeds minus True Cost is Contribution.
Calculator04
eBayTCGGoldin
Marketplace Fee Calculator
Compare published seller fees on eBay, TCGplayer, and other card marketplaces.
Assessment05
65Health
Inventory Health Check
Score age, concentration, sell-through, and cash exposure.
Assessment06
Card Business Stage Assessment
Five questions. See if you are selling, operating, managing, or scaling.
Find your starting point
For people running this like a business and still enjoying it.
01
The Side Hustle
You are selling enough that guessing is getting expensive.
→02The Vendor
Turn show weekends into a business you can read.
→03The Online Seller
More listings demand better operating discipline.
→04The Local Card Shop
A healthy shop is built one clear decision at a time.
→05The Future Shop Owner
Understand the business before you sign the lease.
→
Card Business Playbooks + Pulltrader
The writing and the software.
Card Business Playbooks is where the thinking gets published. Pulltrader is where it runs: inventory, cost basis, research, listings, and the decisions that change what you keep.
Explore PulltraderFrom the book
Read a section
Six sections from Profit Aware, published in full.
Revenue Is a Terrible Scoreboard
Revenue tells you how much money passed through the business. It doesn’t tell you how much stayed.
The Comp Is Not the Value
A comp is evidence that a transaction happened. It is not a price tag on your copy.
What Does This Card Actually Cost You?
The invoice is the first line of the cost. It is rarely more than two thirds of it.
The launch list
Profit Aware is out Fall 2026.
Early access, launch pricing, new sections as they publish, and the worksheets as they open.