I’d probably state that as “These are, in all categories, comics SHIPPED, not sold” if only because books that shipped in weeks #1 & 2 (at least) are also showing reorder velocity in tandem with initials, which is (maybe) a stronger indicator of “sales” (or maybe not)

I’m splitting hairs, I know!

Also: these are all, of course, “sold”… just not necessarily to CONSUMERS…

-B

When sales increases are mostly at the wider macro levels, as they are this year, they could be practically invisible just looking at the shelf. A flat year overall, as 2008 is beginning to look (just $6 million more in orders this year over the first 10 months), finds the same dollars spread across more items — since the number of backlist items increases every year. And this year, we’re seeing the number of comics offered going up, too.

When we had the years when we were up overall around 8% or 10%, we were seeing unit sales increases, too. I tend to think we need to get into that range or higher before the overall picture and the more local pictures start to square up.

>>

This doesn’t line up with what I’m hearing (from people who handle ordering at large stores).

http://blog.comichron.com/2008/11/average-retail-prices-for-comic-books.html

I agree with Mark that many of the orders were placed in August — although with the changes to the order-cutoff model, it’s hard to say how much came from August. If, say, distress in later weeks caused a slackening in late orders, that’d require the initial orders to have been stronger still to give us the figures we’ve got. It’s possible, but that would be a bigger jump from where things were this summer.