Comments on: Comic Retailer Economics

By: Tim Bird

Tim Bird — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:35:46 +0000

There’s a good used bookstore near me who’s graphic novel/trade paperback section has grown, over the past three or so years, from about 5-6 shelves on one 8 shelf bookcase to overflowing four entire bookcases.

It also went from being mostly DC/Marvel (Batman, Superman, Spiderman) and Newspaper collections (Garfield, Peanuts, Far Side, etc.) along with some Manga to having just about a little of everything, including lots from small press and independent publishers. Japanese and European stuff too.

It’s nice to be able to pick up something cheap, give it a read, then turn it back in for store credit and grab something else. Especially on my budget!

By: Johanna

Johanna — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:06:57 +0000

We were talking about that just the other night — the question of whether everything should be collected, or whether it should be more a measure of what deserves to be collected.

I wish I had a good used bookstore around here… it would be nice to see that kind of secondary market. Just for selfish reasons. :)

By: Jer

Jer — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:35:53 +0000

why some perennial format books needed to be treated like periodicals.

Yup. The move towards “collecting everything” into trade pushed story decompression. And story decompression pushed a large group of us to stop bothering with monthly periodicals and towards “waiting for the trade”. It makes perfect sense to me that the books would begin to have sales patterns closer to periodicals than to older-style books because older collections were mainly things that you knew you wanted to keep on the shelf and re-read over and over again. Nowadays I can often find collections at the local Half-Price Books 1-2 weeks after the collection hits the shelves – meaning that people are buying them to read once and then dumping them.

This is mainly superhero stuff, though. I wonder if non-superhero stuff from the Big Two has a different pattern than the superhero stuff. I guess mainly I mean Vertigo here – Marvel doesn’t really have enough “non-superhero stuff” to gauge any kind of significance these days.

By: Alan Coil

Alan Coil — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:30:46 +0000

Jarrett—

Ooops. Forgot FOC. Final Order Cutoff is a great tool for saving money every week, or for making more money every week.

Let’s say you order 15 Robin comics every month. You forget that Robin is crossing over with Batman RIP. You have to re-order 5 more copies. Just a week or two later, the FOC date will let you order the addition 5 copies before the book is printed.

The same is true if you forget to lower that order back to 15. You then have the chance to lower it for the following issue.

If you just wait until the next Previews order is due to go in, you may have lost sales by not having enough copies, or lost profit by having too many extra copies.

By: Alan Coil

Alan Coil — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 02:23:19 +0000

Marvel is putting out around 100 comics each month, plus all the trades, hardcovers, etc. That’s why they dominate the market. More product = more exposure = more sales.

My LCS usually prices recent back issues at 25 or 50 cents above cover.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:21:20 +0000

Yes, but Brian has also talked about how more direct market retailers are taking advantage of distributors other than Diamond, such as Ingram. Those are the distributors I’m referring to, the ones used by progressive comic shops.

By: Nat Gertler

Nat Gertler — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:06:19 +0000

When Brian is talking about “The Market”, he seems clearly to be talking about the Direct Market, which is the market where Marvel and DC have FOCs.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 12:02:32 +0000

Nat, thanks for the data — but I think you’ve left out the most significant other form of distribution, especially when it comes to non-DC/Marvel work, bookstore/returnable distribution. I appreciate seeing another source for that figure, thanks.

By: Jarrett

Jarrett — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 07:12:55 +0000

I didn’t really object to the 80%, more that FOC is the reason for this. Our store has never actually taken advantage of the system, and I’d say we’re easily selling 70-80% Marvel/DC. I think it is because of that high volume that Marvel and DC are able to offer FOC, and not the other way around.

By: Nat Gertler

Nat Gertler — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 06:50:51 +0000

Diamond releases their market share data every month. Admittedly, this does not include other forms of distribution to the direct market (Haven, direct-from-publisher sales), which would benefit the non-big-two paths of distribution… but not by that much. As you’ll see in this recent month – http://www.newsarama.com/comics/080721-diamond-june-sales.html -their unit share combine to around 78%, although their dollar share is only around 71%