1. The Bone One Volume Edition debuted at San Diego and in direct market stores SIMULTANEOUSLY.

2. It is always our intention to get books to retailers to stores in the weeks preceeding a convention. That way people are already talking about it at the beginning of the convention. It creates buzz. We ran into printing delays so stores got books the week of San Diego.

3. Cartoon Books did sell 500 copies at the convention. But retailers have sold 105,000 copies to date — I mean 104,500 copies. I think that is pretty good for everyone.

Thoughts? Comments?

Would retailers be happier if Fantagraphics, or Top Shelf, or SLG showed up at cons with their skid of freshly printed books, and then sold some (half?) to the retailers who were there at the usual discount? (Before the show begins!)

I mean, that way, if the retailer invested the time and money to show up at the con, they could reap the benefit?

Would this make life easier for publishers? Would cons expand in scope of material, or bring in more buying (instead of browsing) fans to the retailers who show up at the con? Wouldn’t this make cons more exciting for the fans?

Would retailers be happier if they could direct order from the publishers whenever the publishers were going to break street date, and have the new new stuff shipped direct via UPS? How about a bonus for retailers who can’t show up: returnability for books that broke street date?

That’s been the claim for over a decade. Evidence says no. If it were true, the bottom 2/3 of the DM top 300 would be selling far better.

Publishers generally feel entitled to the sales, especially when they get full cover instead of a % of cover. And in my experience here in San Diego it is rare thatg they make any attempt to actually work with retailers to actually help this supposed outreach effort actually work as outreach.

Hey, it’s their books and their money tied up in it so how can I complain about anything they choose to do with it? But they have to grant retailers the same respect, it’s our money being invested in their work. If they don’t want us screwing with their money, they need not screw with ours.

If we buy their book it is because we have an expectation that we can sell it for a profit. Anything they do that impinges on our ability to resell the book needs to be checked against something more than, “how much goes in their pocket, if they do it?”

It should also be pretty clear that if you’re a publisher and you’ve been doing this for 10+ years in the belief that it is outreach and your still selling the same #’s and still struggling to get your books to the printer in time to be overnighted to arrive before the con opens maybe your plans need some revision.

That and proactively working with retailers, who are also betting it all that they will be able to earn a living in the same marketplace as publishers, giving them hundreds if not thousands of motivated sales people to handsell their books is not a bad way to go about that.

Can you explain that?

I don’t think I get a better discount buying direct from you that I do from Diamond (although your fill rate would probably be better) am I misremembering?

I also don’t remember returnability thriugh you either. Stock balancing was a cool option from Alternative Comics, being able to exchange slow titles after 90 days for other titles that might sell better. I remember Dan offered a return guarantee on one title last year and I think free shipping on another but not full line returnability.

But to your point, if you have some specifics re:Diamond I’d love to hear them and I’m sure other retailers as well would be happy to lend support if common gorund could be found.

As a fan, I attend at least 2 big cons if not 4 a year (NY and Philly). I like the interaction with the writers and artists and publishers, and will buy direct from the table. I also want the newest material, whether it is in the comic store or not. I totally understand that sometimes publishing dates just make things available for the con before it hits the store. I am also very loyal to my LCS, and buy from him when I can get better BN or Amazon discounts though.

As a small con organizer, I do whatever I can to allow the indie publishers to make money. (www.midjerseycomicon.com). They coexist with the dealers, some of whom own stores, and make connections there that translate in the store. They may bring one for a signing, or make arrangements to carry their books which would have been lost in the Previews or never reach that dealers eyes. Support small shows and indie publishers to keep the creativity alive!

As a fan of the industry and a person who wants to see the industry grow, I want to note a few things.

In the case of books being sold at conventions, we’re talking a few thousand at most right?

1. Is a few thousand so significant to crush the DM? That’s a very sad fact for the industry if so… I’m looking at the greater industry as a whole and not just Brick and Mortar stores.

2. Won’t the 100 - 3000 or so people who buy the books spread the word to their friends, who will then seek out the book in stores?

Of course I realize I am probably being incredibly naive, I don’t work for stores or publishers, and I don’t have all the facts. Simply put though, shouldn’t BM stores worry more about expanding their customer base rather than complaining about publishers who are potentially doing something to expand their own customer base to keep them publishing?

Going off of Diamond’s numbers, the average #1 comic sells 120 - 250k copies a month. Let’s add another 50k copies from other various sources such as creators selling them and book stores and etc. That’s still 300k at most. I know these numbers are never accurate and to be taken with a grain of salt, but I added a generous number.

…

Shouldn’t the publishers, BM stores, Diamond and fellow fans worry more about getting new readership in? For each group individually but also for the industry itself.

It’s much easier for me to say that than for all of us to do it, I understand that. I do my part, I talk to friends about comics, I promote books that I’ve discovered that aren’t the biggest selling books, I read books on other people’s recommendation. I think if the infighting stopped and everyone focused on expansion, we wouldn’t have to gripe about the little things.

Of course, getting companies to eschew their established, successful business models for a bold, new expansionistic vision is harder than dealing with 20 children who need their tooth pulled simultaneously, but I think it could be done. There has to be some hope for the industry to continue on beyond what it is now. I’m 23 years old, soon to be 24, and I’m fully dedicated to being a part of this industry… I don’t want to be fighting for something that won’t be here when I’m 33. I would love if the medium was a widespread one in a few years, with people not only picking up superhero/mainstream books, but more books for individuals and smaller companies who are supported by retailers and distributors. It happened in the 80’s (so I’m told), why can’t it happen again?

I know I’m young and naive and idealistic, but this industry inspires idealism and creativity, so pardon me if I get swept up by it all.

I’m the ideal fan for retailers and publishers - MAKE MORE OF ME!!

I don’t know if there was a point to this comment besides that, just felt my voice needed to be heard. Egotistical much?

Publishers put a significant investment into getting these massive books produced and printed. Printers aren’t going to sit around and wait until Diamond pays the publisher for the books before getting paid. At best, a printer expects half to two-thirds of full payment by the time the books come off the presses. Can you imagine what the printing bill must have been for either of those books? In addition, such books need to go to press long before Diamond orders come in, so the publisher has to make a “best guess” of how many to print. Printing too many means having a bigger than necessary printing and storage bill, while printing too few means ending up with allocations to retailers (which happened with Bone). I’m sure that the San Diego sales on both of those books were very badly needed in order to pay big bucks to the printer, so we’re not just talking about using advance sales to offset the basic con expenses (booth, airfare, hotel, etc.) here. And we’re also talking about being able to sell a significant number of copies at list price rather than at 60% (or more) off through Diamond.

I’m (and I’m speaking for me, not as a company spokesperson) all for letting retailers know if we’re going to have a book earlier than they will at a convention, but most of the time, when that happens, it’s not on purpose. For example, we might have Nightmares and Fairy Tales #22 at WonderCon next month before it is in stores. I had every intention, for the issue to be out the Wednesday before the convention, but there was some delay in toning, and the lettering is still being finished up as I type. It will be impossible for me to send it to the printer in time to be in stores before WonderCon. However, we might be able to have them for the convention, which the writer and artist (who is making a trip from Vancouver) are attending. My loyalties are to our artists and readers — should I tell them that, no, they can’t have this comic we are perfectly capable of offering for sale because retailers, who didn’t pre-order this comic in any great number anyway, might get mad at us?

At the same time, is Brian Hibbs going to lose a sale of this issue because someone bought it at WonderCon? I hope not. But, at the same time, if there is a person or two buying Nightmares #22 there who might have otherwise bought it at Comix Experience, there might be ten people who wouldn’t have bought it at all, anywhere, if it hadn’t been at the convention. But everything is so highly speculative!

Personally, I think retailers and publishers should ban together and blame Diamond. Their discount and returnabillity structure discourages retailers from trying new, untested titles. We can be united in that, surely?

For instance, because of the Martin Luther King holiday, our new issue–Mavis #5– will not be in comics stores until February 6 instead of January 30, even though we got the book to the printer early in January with the expectation of January publication, as promised in PREVIEWS.

Jackie Estrada
www.exhibitapress.com

I’m a typical consumer. I used to go every Wednesday to my local shop and pick up my stuff, often before it was out of the boxes even. If I wanted to buy a book, I would buy one copy. I bought one copy of the complete Bone, I bought one copy of Lost Girls, I bought one copy of Amazing Spider-Man number whatever, and so on. So if I were to buy that copy from the publisher at a con, then I would not buy it from my local shop. That’s true no matter what the time frame.

Often books I buy from small publishers are NOT done as soon as they come out. In fact, that is my habit. The mainstream stuff, well I know what I like in that area so I’ll buy it the day that it’s released. The indie stuff, well that I’ve got no idea on so I need to flip through a preview copy, hear a friend’s review, maybe see some reviews online, etc. before I would ever buy it.

So it doesn’t matter what time it is when I buy it at a con, that’s a purchase not made at Oxford Comics. That’s my interpretation of this. Now if all anybody needs is a head’s up “hey, I’m selling this thing at my booth” (which I would always assume is the case if *I* were running a competing business), then that sounds like the answer.

Here’s the really interesting thing to me though: if I went to a con then there’s a large cost associated with it (gas, motel, food, maybe plane tickets, registration, etc. etc.), but if I pick up a copy of Blankets down the street next week, its going to cost me a flat $29.99. However, Amazon will ship it for free to my house (if I’m smart and don’t want it tomorrow) for $19.77, which they tell me right away is a 34% savings! THERE is your real problem. And that is why after going their routinely for over 14 years, I no longer buy from my local shop. If I want to rent a bootleg Captain America DVD, I’ll go there, but not for books. Oh, and I don’t buy pamphlets anymore at all.

– Jonathan

Yeah…I think that is the key. I think letting retailers know before final orders that you’re going to sell before street date prevents most legitimate criticism. Planning your project so the street date can be a week or two before your big convention eliminates the problem altogether.

I couldn’t fault a publisher choosing either of those options. I think saying, “I gotta make money somehow,” as a publisher forgets that the same is true for the retailer and you need to be more open with information exchange with your partners.

…isn’t this really an argument about the practices of a very few indie publishers and a handful of reasonably high volume retailers? Looking at the monthly sales numbers from ICV2 and John Mayo, we have a situation where most indie books are selling very few copies per retailer. How many retailers are there in the U.S….2,000 or 3,000? Considering only four non Marvel/DC books made the Diamond Top 100 in December, we’re talking about most indie books selling TOPS three or four copies, on average, per store.

…just a quick look at some of the indie books I read

*** Atomic Robo sold 2,947 copies through Diamond in December
*** Proof sold 2,990
*** Pax Romana sold 5,282

Isn’t that an indication that there are major problems with the way the direct market retailers and independent publishers collaborate? I would imagine virtually every LCS owner, in an honest moment, would admit that Marvel/DC aren’t putting out 96 of the 100 best comics month in, month out…yet that’s what the sales numbers indicate is happening in the direct channel.

*** From a financial perspective (I’m an asset manager by trade so my mind always thinks this way), it’s also hard not to look at some of the independent creators “guilty” of this pre-selling practice and not note that they also happen to be the most successful ones. Jeff Smith has become a wealthy man with Bone largely because he calls his own shots. Terry Moore has a true franchise without an inordinate amount of help from the direct market. Dave Sim built a 30-year long niche empire, even though Cerebus sold de minimous levels at most LCS’s for years on end.

From the outside, it seems like sour grapes and hostility for the sake of it. The real issue is the stranglehold that Diamond has on the direct market and the inability for retailers to return books they over-order. That’s fostered a systemic disconnect between indie publishers and the retailers who have almost no incentive to take chances on material from anyone that’s not a proven commodity.

Better planning on EVERYONE’S part would alleviate this

Is it not possible for the publisher to have the book get to retailers a week or two before the con and then still sell the book at the convention?

I’ve seen plenty of “we need to sell it at the convention to make some kinda money” responses, but I don’t know that I see anyone trying to find a compromise…just a lot of both sides being defensive.

The key is, the “little guy” has to get the stuff out there somehow, and an often effective way is con sales. Personally, as someone who has worked for both huge publishers and “little guys” I’d love to see those sales sucessfully supplement comic shop sales as Jackie says, because at the end of the day, we’re all interested in the long-term health of the biz, and to a lesser degree, there is a certain validity that comes with your “comic book” being available at a “comic book shop,” to boot.

Jackie Estrada is right - my regular people know that when they come home, the books they’ve asked for will be in their reserve boxes. They can therefore use their “con money” for other stuff. If Jackie and Batton have the latest Mavis out on their table and can meet and talk to people and make the connections that create SUBSEQUENT SALES - YAAAAYYYY! I don’t care if I miss one issue sales - the personal connection they achieve by having the book on hand while they talk to fans, new and old, is invaluable in creating the next gen readers. Obviously, it hurts a tad when it’s a graphic novel rather than an issue of a comic series, but you know what? Indie people have to do what they have to do in order to get their books into the hands of readers. What are they to do when Diamond has rejected the book for whatever reason, or they don’t get enough shops interested to make Diamond’s minimum?

Besides, mine is one of the only shops in driving distance that even bothers to carry ANY indie stuff, so it’s kind of baffling why other shop owners get so up in arms. I guess I can understand it when it’s DC or Marvel doing it - that does hurt us. But when the shops don’t carry their books for whatever reason, what can the indie guys do? They have to get their product out there in order to make their costs back plus any profit. I, for one, want to see indie books continue - I don’t want to be limited to the four big publishers. Comics need - and readers deserve - those infusions of ingenuity, quirkiness, cleverness, and fresh blood to keep coming in regular doses, and I support anything that supports them.

There’s plenty of business out there for everyone - we just have to keep churning the water to get people interested. I don’t feel entitled to profit from ANYone else’s work, particularly when that creator has spent his OWN money and has no backing from a big company. I sympathize - that’s MY situation, too - no big backer. If I was a member of ComicsPRO - and there are many good reasons to join, I just haven’t at this point yet - I would have disagreed with this position as it relates to indies. Indie creators/publishers, this is one retail shop owner who blesses you for spending your time, money, and effort on producing original works, and is completely okay with you promoting it any way you see fit.

Despite the resumes of the people involved, and work that we feel is professional, Diamond turned it down citing as their primary reason that the content of our series MECHA MANGA BIBLE HEROES (Old Testament bible stories drawn in manga style with their settings changed to a future world of robots, aliens and advanced technology) is too tough a sell in the direct market. Now, they are an independent, non-Christian company and they are certainly entitled to make such business decisions - we fully respect that and harbor no ill will toward them.

Despite this, I know from my years of experience that there will still be some comic shops out there who want to stock this title, and comic shop customers who want to purchase it. Our positioning is that yes, our creative team are all Christians, but we’re talking about stories - for example, our leadoff issue’s DAVID VS. GOLIATH - stories that have been told in many cultures and religions - it goes beyond Christianity. Heck we feel that even atheists or agnostics who consider the bible mere myths like the Roman and Greek legends may enjoy our series.

With Diamond out of the picture, the question for us now is how do we get it to direct sales comic shops in the first place, options of which we are currently exploring. Our backers wants to go ahead and print for our Christian bookstore customers since we are not set up with Diamond (they would have waited otherwise to coincide the Christian bookstore release with Diamond’s ship date), so we may have no choice but to actually have copies out and available before we can even get it into comic shops, including potential sales at conventions. It is just the situation we’re in without Diamond; so again, I would ask that each publisher’s specific situation be brought to light first before casting aspersions on anyone.

There are so many imponderables in this weird argument that I’m having a hard time pinning down what I actually think, having just explained it to my officemate, who nearly fell asleep halfway through. Would this issue simply go away if publishers were to state “Will premiere at (x, y, z) before available through Diamond”? Because I can get behind that, although the idea of REQUIRING anything from anybody is more than a little repugnant to me.

Also: why isn’t all of this Diamond’s fault? Aren’t they the de facto representative of the direct market on the publishing landscape? The direct market is for all intents and purposes a monopoly–if we accept that, okay, cool. But if we have all these problems being competitive, then isn’t that at least partly–or even mostly–the fault of Diamond? I guess that doesn’t have much to do with selling at conventions.

Lastly, considering my triple heritage as retailer (Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find), con organizer (HeroesCon and its Indie Island), and enormous fan of comics, specifically indies, I have to say that this whole argument is only interesting as a purely intellectual exercise. A largely semantic one, at that. Let’s face it: Chris Staros and Gary Groth are not going to stop preselling books at conventions. Period. To even think that they are is to give in to sheerest folly. Because the fact that they do is what makes me and fans like me hunt them down at shows–I’m genuinely excited to see what’s on the Top Shelf table at a show, and we carry their whole line of books in our store. As I mentioned on Johanna’s blog, buying the Blankets hardcover at HeroesCon years ago from Top Shelf led directly to me making what for us was a wildly aggressive order for the softcover, which shipped months later from Diamond.

Not to mention the growing portion of their bottom line that exists outside of the direct market entirely–how can retailers believe that our voices are becoming more important rather than less? And how can we, in debate of this issue that’s so obviously difficult to put into words–despite all these position papers and theses and stump speeches–allow ourselves to descend into these shrill excoriations?

Dustin Harbin
Creative Director
Heroes Aren’t Hard To Find

JIMMY PALMIOTTI

How do I buy my books now? From my LCS, out of the newest Previews catalog, two months ahead, with nothing to go on but a hunch. My city’s 3 LCS carry NO indies. And they carry VERY little product on spec, mostly acting like a Sears Catalog centre, without the Sears return policy.

This convention debate is largely irrelevant to me. I looked at attending NYCC this year, but it was going to cost my wife and I $3000 to fly there and stay in NYC for a few days. Unfortunately, that is out of my budget right now, so it’ll be back to the LCS for me, flipping through Previews again, ha ha.

Publisher presence at conventions is going to boost overall demand at comic shops and the publishers have to incur some costs for attending those conventions. Why not allow them some chance to profit from it as well?

This is a non-issue in traditional book publishing. In fact many of our printing schedules are based around events designed for pre-release sales. Rather than pressuring publishers to stop marketing their products at shows the retailers should be working with distributors to create a workable returns policy that removes some of the risk.

If you are publishing spandex-free comics, you will not turn a profit if you depend on the direct market. Comics/GNs for kids, minorities, women etc are generally not supported by American comic book stores.

Fans buy directly from the creator/publisher at cons to meet them and get the book signed. If the comic/GN is a quality product, it will help comic shops via word-of-mouth sales. If the comic/GN is poor quality it’s a null issue. Banning creators who successfully pre-sell quality products at a given con is bad business.

If a newly-debuted book sold well at a recent con, comic book stores can use this fact to market the given book to their customers.

Asking publishers/creators to not make money - to deny market forces - marks the beginning of the end of the direct market as we currently know it. Evolve or die, as they say.

How do you respond to an email without sending an email? Smoke signals?