DBM evolves into a “1901 French Law Association”

After 10 years of existence, Dragon Ball Multiverse has become a very large structure. At its infancy, back in 2008, there were three authors, a few thousand readers, no translators, no festivals, no or very little communication.

Today, several hundreds of members have participated in DBM, a good sixty are currently active, over a million readers throughout the world, three to four booths are organized each year in France and Belgium (ok, to be fair less these last two years)...

All this takes a lot of work. Maybe too much, sometimes. Because next to that, we have our day jobs to fill our refrigerators, our families, our friends (minus the last one, we don’t have time for that :-| ), our problems… We’re like most of you, actually :)

Therefore, to manage and perform our tasks, be they administrative, accountant, communication, media-related, festival-related, logistical, etc, but also to book our expenses properly (web server, booths at conventions, etc), we have decided to declare DBM a “association 1901” (french link for further info).

What it will really bring us

Responsibilities: DBM will from now on have a judicial status

Until now, everything that belongs to DBM (the website, the books, the gear for the conventions, etc) and the responsibilities (accidents…) directly depended on the DBM’s members (Salagir, Asura), etc. And we don’t exactly want to have these responsibilities indefinitely. In the event of a judicial problem, and accident or otherwise… the fact that DBM is now a declared association makes everyone safer. For example, we took an insurance.

A better cost management

DBM pays many fees to exist.

These fees include the likes of:

- The web server: just this entry costs close to 1.800€/year. Yup, such a large site, with many functionalities, and roughly 100.000 visits/day without crashing, it’s expensive.

- All the costs related to DBM booths in Manga festivals: space rental, vehicles, travel fares, book printing, lodging, etc.

- Soon: an administrative manager for the association.

Of course, thanks to the sales on our booths (and thanks to you, and thank you once more), we can afford these fees.

In addition, we are able to have a bank account that belongs solely to the association, which will vastly simplify our bookkeeping for expenditures and reimbursements, and bring transparency and simplicity to our financial management.

What should change

More festivals

In this new context, we should be able to organize more than 3-4 booths a year like we’ve done until now, and aiming towards going to new countries, with books translated in english by our dedicated translators.

A more dynamic website

For now these are just ongoing projects on hold, but it is highly likely we’ll evolve dragonball-multiverse.com!
More interactive features and more options for you… We won’t reveal everything just now, we’ll come back to it when it’s closer at hand!

Otherwise, there won’t be much of a difference for you, if only the guarantee you’ll see DBM stronger than ever. You’ll still read DBM for free, of course.

New revenues… and a manager

It won’t happen straight away, but it is possible the association will need new sources of income: an ad banner on the website, or a donation request, or another system to help finance the association, in addition to the revenues generated by the sales of books during festivals.

Why this need? As said earlier, it’s highly likely the association will require the services of a manager to… manage it. Manage its administration, accounting, legal obligations… Different tasks we don’t know how to do, or that we don’t have the time to do (properly) for such a large association; however they are absolutely essential to ensure the survival of the association. What’s more, the manager will surely be able to help us in other tasks: communication within the team, with our readers, contact festivals, artists, etc...

The services of this manager will not be free. Just like for the server of our website, our booths, our printed books, our drawing material, in short, everything that has allowed us to propose DBM for 10 years… well, it has a cost ;)

Therefore, in layman’s terms, it will help us cover these extra costs. At least, that’s the idea :P

More time for the art

Delegating these tasks will also allow certain members to DBM to focus their time on their art. Notably Salagir, who, instead of doing the accounting, administration, and handling conflicts between moderators or readers, will be able to spend more time on what he initially wanted from DBM: the scenario!!

There, now you know absolutely everything! You can comment below and leave your opinions, we’ll answer.