What I'm learning reading this thread: lots of armchair publishers discounting those with actual experience. Also, making assumptions based on their own individual needs/wants/desires over the realities of a business model they barely understand. But by all means! Have at it! Haha.
Here's the thing, many publishers, like TV and movie execs have their own selection biases and opinions but are still often reactionary in the short term. They should have the whole picture and all the data but if they were already inclined against a direction / book / style / ... They're less likely to give it a reasonable timeframe to find readers. More likely, they're going to use a basic mold to keep everything similar.
What I'm learning reading this thread: lots of armchair publishers discounting those with actual experience. Also, making assumptions based on their own individual needs/wants/desires over the realities of a business model they barely understand. But by all means! Have at it! Haha.
I admit, I've never worked in comics publishing, but I have worked in daytime television - and have seen execs make industry-killing decisions based upon faulty business models. You can't go by cold research, you have to go by your gut. You have to know your market. It does not seem like the comics publishers know their true market. Or, at least, it seems like they hate their true market.
As for @luckymustard's comment "Time marches on. Us older guys will die off, and if that's what you're going after, then you're dead anyway" - my reply is: we're not dying off tomorrow. Wouldn't DC and Marvel prefer to milk our wallets for another 30 or 40 years until we do die off, rather than to lose us now? The younger readers they so desperately want do not (and will never) spend their superhero dollars on print comic books; this demo gets its superheroes from videogames, TV, movies, even card gaming. Why must the printed comic book continue to suffocate and sacrifice itself trying to compete with these genres? It's like watching Advil go bankrupt because it'd rather make chewable vitamins shaped like Kim Kardashian.
Very interesting discussion. I'm someone who started reading comics late in the game. Didn't really start until I listened to CGS. But since I started I've been a trade person. It just comes across as a better value.
Very interesting discussion. I'm someone who started reading comics late in the game. Didn't really start until I listened to CGS. But since I started I've been a trade person. It just comes across as a better value.
Can I ask a quick question, why did you start listening to CGS?
but I will agree that this is not the norm and is the antithesis of the way the public at large shops.
Well yeah, of course, myself as well, but we are an ever-shrinking group who is so enthusiastic about something that we'll take a large amount of time and do a lot of planning for what is essentially throwaway entertainment. Most people are simply not devoted like this, entertainment is just entertainment. And so the industry should cater to the way people make purchases (impulse, mostly).
I think most comics publishers are doing exactly what you are asking for when it comes to making their content accessible for an on demand impulse buy.
They just aren't doing it on paper.
That's an excellent point, actually. They have done quite well in digital. I still think there's a long way to go though. Can you subscribe to a book digitally?
As a fellow retailer, reader, and nerdiest of the nerds, I would like to add this:
When I set foot into a grocery store (I am only 29) I look at the checkout lanes and see the pure dribble that is published and set there to be bought (Archie excluded). It pains me, almost physically, to think that issues of comics could be there - generating buzz and excitement. What are the two barriers to them being there? 1) Returnability and 2) The story arc.
#1 we have beaten to death in other forums and heard on numerous episodes, but #2 . . . that's a gotcha. When you are writing for an Arc, placing issues in highly visible places makes it hard to get and retain readers. You are expecting kids to be there every month to pick up the next book. What if they forget? What if they don't go with mom/pop to the store? Disjointed reading experiences can sour anyone.
Am I proposing any solutions here? No, just musing over the conversation and adding my thoughts.
What I'm learning reading this thread: lots of armchair publishers discounting those with actual experience. Also, making assumptions based on their own individual needs/wants/desires over the realities of a business model they barely understand. But by all means! Have at it! Haha.
Well yeah...that's the point of these forums and comment sections. Otherwise why have them?
TPB is another area where the industry makes it really difficult to buy their products. Try buying the 4 most recent Justice League trades without spending 30 minutes doing research. Why they can't just number TPBs in order and list them by date (even you, InStockTrades) is something I'll never understand. Then you have the fact that TPBs are often held back for many months so you wind up with, what, maybe 2 trades for an ongoing per year released?
DC and Marvel are the only places you run into these problems. And I think the reason DC and Marvel trades aren't more simply numbered is: 1) they can't afford to keep everything in print, and who wants to start buying trades with volume 12 of a series? True, we all started reading comics at some point that likely didn't start with a #1, but just as people treat book series and magazines differently, so too do I think people treat trade collections and individual issues differently.
And 2) it's about perception. Too many titles have multiple volumes. To properly number all their books, Marvel would potentially have six different series of Thor collections in print—six different “Vol. X, Book 1” books on a shelf. It's what I would prefer, but I don't know if new readers would be able to figure out the best place to start any better than they can now.
All I'm asking is a website that lists them, in order, with a searchable name and ISBN. Have 12 different volume one's if you want, but provide a real chronological list somewhere.
We don't know the demand for individual issues of comics because they have never been for sale. They only way to get individual issues (reliably) is to order them 3 months in advance. This greatly shrinks the pool of customers and gives us a false representation of their popularity.
We do know that in every other medium the product is available for sale for quite a while after production (often in perpetuity) and the publishers do make a profit on it.
The percentage of novels that stay in print in perpetuity is tiny, and even a sizeable number of those go in and out of print. And the book publishing business is having every bit as much trouble right now as the comic book industry.
The magazine industry keeps nothing in print (though some specialty magazines will keep their back stock available for purchase). And the magazine publishing business is arguably in worse trouble than the comic book industry.
The record industry has shrunk substantially over the past 10 years. Record stores are a thing of the past, and CD sections in big box stores tend to carry only top sellers and discount items. The industry is quickly moving to streaming services in an effort to survive, and it's projected that income from streaming will overtake individual sales within just a few years.
DVD sales dropped by 28% last year. It's projected that the movie/TV studios will make more from streaming services next year than from DVD sales.
It's not just the comic book industry. The demand for physical product is being overwhelmed by the demand for cheaper product across all entertainment mediums. Digital product is meeting that greater demand.
Ugh, I can't tell if you are trolling or not. If we can't agree that requiring pre-ordering is exponentially a worse buying experience than stuff like indie music not available in brick-and-mortar stores or non-popular books going out of print then I don't see a reason to even continue this conversation.
The fact is, you can easily acquire any book on the NYT best seller list for the foreseeable future but, sorry, you can't have the latest issue of Spider-Man or Justice League unless you planned out your purchases several months ago. If you can't see the difference between those two things, I don't know what else there is to say.
Great episode and some thought provoking comments. I think that floppies will continue as loss leaders. The numbers will continue to dwindle on the monthlies, and publishers will be forced to raise prices even more so. A vicious cycle for sure. (plus the threat of the never ending events, wherein each storyline is an Earth shattering event to drive sales). Really, the direct market will survive by relying more and more on the trades than anything else. The popularity of the movies translates more into trade sales than monthly sales, I would think as people seek out complete arcs rather than being dropped into a story line halfway through with no idea as to what is going on. Personally, I find myself dropping more and more of the monthly books to focus on collected editions. It used to be that my pull list consisted of more floppies than trades/hardcovers, now it can go the other way around at times. Digital and trades are the future.......for better or worse.
Ugh, I can't tell if you are trolling or not. If we can't agree that requiring pre-ordering is exponentially a worse buying experience than stuff like indie music not available in brick-and-mortar stores or non-popular books going out of print then I don't see a reason to even continue this conversation.
The fact is, you can easily acquire any book on the NYT best seller list for the foreseeable future but, sorry, you can't have the latest issue of Spider-Man or Justice League unless you planned out your purchases several months ago. If you can't see the difference between those two things, I don't know what else there is to say.
No, not trolling. But I'm curious about the stores in your area. Do they actually require you to preorder? Because none of the stores in my area (there are six within easy driving distance) do that, and the only time I ever have any problem getting any issue I want is in the rare case of the unexpected hit, like Chew #1 a few years back, or Saga #1 more recently.
Now, I do preorder most of my books, but I order a lot of esoteric items the store might not carry otherwise, and I don't preorder everything. Plus, based on the number of books I preorder, I get a 25% discount off everything I buy, including supplies and back issues. My store rewards people who preorder; it does not require people to preorder.
Yes, comic stores are required to order titles three months in advance—though they do have a window of time where they can adjust their orders somewhat and/or place advance reorders. But that's no different than any other industry. Bookstores place their initial orders six to nine months in advance. Remember when the Harry Potter books became popular, and every time a new book was released, the stores would sell out, and it would take a week or two, sometimes more for them to get more copies? Or the rush on video game stores when a new Call of Duty or whatever came out, and now video game stores take preorders on the hot games?
My point is, brick-and-mortar stores, be they comic shops, bookstores, or video game stores, have limited space. They can't keep everything in stock. I mean, an entire run of Amazing Spider-Man alone is going to fill a couple of long boxes by itself. And a store owner would rather have a space on the rack clear for that next issue which he knows he can sell X number of copies this week than keep that space filled with older issues that may or may not sell that week.
Having worked in a comic shop for five years, and still being good friends with the owner of that shop, I can tell you that some weeks it is a real struggle to be able to pay that Diamond bill. And I’ve seen many shops go under because of too much overordering. You have to constantly move product to stay in business, and as far as back issues, you never know what someone is going to come in looking for from week to week, but you do know what new issues they'll be wanting.
You have to constantly move product to stay in business, and as far as back issues, you never know what someone is going to come in looking for from week to week, but you do know what new issues they'll be wanting.
As a retailer who does the ordering, I can tell you that NO, you do not know what new issues people will want. You have to guess every time. Granted there are some tools you can use to make educated guesses, but you can never "know" what new people want unless the pre-order.
Also - we do not require pre-order, and if we sell out of something, or don't get a book in for someone, we will attempt a re-order or to acquire it while we are out at a Con. We encourage it, as it ensures people get what they want, but we would never require it.
You have to constantly move product to stay in business, and as far as back issues, you never know what someone is going to come in looking for from week to week, but you do know what new issues they'll be wanting.
As a retailer who does the ordering, I can tell you that NO, you do not know what new issues people will want. You have to guess every time. Granted there are some tools you can use to make educated guesses, but you can never "know" what new people want unless the pre-order.
Well, yes, you don't absolutely know, but the point is that you have a much better idea of how many copies of new issue of any particular title are going to sell each week than you do which back issues of that title are going to sell. I helped with the ordering for three years when I worked at my shop, and we rarely got burned by ordering way too many (five or more) or way too few copies of a book. But, again, we had a strong subscription base to go by, and we did a weekly inventory and used those records when ordering.
Well, yes, you don't absolutely know, but the point is that you have a much better idea of how many copies of new issue of any particular title are going to sell each week than you do which back issues of that title are going to sell. I helped with the ordering for three years when I worked at my shop, and we rarely got burned by ordering way too many (five or more) or way too few copies of a book. But, again, we had a strong subscription base to go by, and we did a weekly inventory and used those records when ordering.
True - and we use the same tools to gauge what to order. But, with the constant relaunching, the pooper that was Convergence, and all of the other hoops to jump through, you really don't ever know. You make an informed and educated guess. But, if you would have told me that we would order only 1 copy of and Spidey title and only 1 copy of Batman to put on the shelf - I would have said you were crazy. But, that is the case. No one wants Bat-Bot. No one seems to want so many Spidey titles that are starting and stopping quicker than they can track.
It's a flawed system, and @wildpigcomics has the only solution to know exactly how many to buy. Go off of pull lists only.
Well, yes, you don't absolutely know, but the point is that you have a much better idea of how many copies of new issue of any particular title are going to sell each week than you do which back issues of that title are going to sell. I helped with the ordering for three years when I worked at my shop, and we rarely got burned by ordering way too many (five or more) or way too few copies of a book. But, again, we had a strong subscription base to go by, and we did a weekly inventory and used those records when ordering.
True - and we use the same tools to gauge what to order. But, with the constant relaunching, the pooper that was Convergence, and all of the other hoops to jump through, you really don't ever know. You make an informed and educated guess. But, if you would have told me that we would order only 1 copy of and Spidey title and only 1 copy of Batman to put on the shelf - I would have said you were crazy. But, that is the case. No one wants Bat-Bot. No one seems to want so many Spidey titles that are starting and stopping quicker than they can track.
It's a flawed system, and @wildpigcomics has the only solution to know exactly how many to buy. Go off of pull lists only.
I've often wondered how many store owners would consider giving up that extra 10% discount and earlier release date in order to stock returnable product.
We would for sure, and I think customers would too, as there would be much greater variety for them tangibly at their fingertips.
Would there really be that much more variety? The potential is there to be sure, and I'm sure there are a lot of stores that would use that potential to try books they wouldn't have otherwise. But, to be quite frank, I think there is a large number of store owners who would only use returnability to go long on the event books and Marvel/DC #1s, and continue to ignore the “back of the book” publishers.
It's always great to hear you guys talking about comic books, conventions, and original art purchases, and shop talk. I'm very much looking forward to the spotlight episodes. :smile:
How could there not be? I only order books for the shelves on 10% or less of Previews. If I had better retainability options, I would be able to bring in more books for customers to try.
For example, Book of Death - if you ordered a certain amount (escapes me right now) let's say 100, its fully returnable. Alright, well, we got 25 of each the covers, and qualified for a chase variant. If we want to, after their time terms, we can send any unsold copies back. We would not have bought Book of Death, or at least nowhere near that many copies without the returnability option.
How could there not be? I only order books for the shelves on 10% or less of Previews. If I had better retainability options, I would be able to bring in more books for customers to try.
For example, Book of Death - if you ordered a certain amount (escapes me right now) let's say 100, its fully returnable. Alright, well, we got 25 of each the covers, and qualified for a chase variant. If we want to, after their time terms, we can send any unsold copies back. We would not have bought Book of Death, or at least nowhere near that many copies without the returnability option.
Well, I don't know how many other comic store owners you know, but I know quite a few who sell what they sell, and that's all they're interested in selling. I could relate stories of stores being offered free samples of professional level titles, and turning down the offer because either because they thought it was a waste of time and/or space, or because they didn't think their clientele would be interested in the material.
I could also see a lot of lesser known creators getting burned very badly if too many stores ordered too heavily on a book. At Image, the creators are the ones covering the printing bills, not the publisher. If a creative team has to pay for a print run that's significantly greater than the actual sales can cover, they may well think twice (if they even have that option financially) before trying another new series. And the same goes with a lot of the micro-publishers (though if you are one who thinks the Previews catalog is too crowded, this might not necessarily be a bad thing).
Bravo, Chris and Bill, for your decision. I, too, believe that the floppy will eventually go away in our lifetimes, with the common $3.99 selling price undeniably helping bring about its demise. If the Rubicon of $4.99 is ever crossed (and it will happen) then all bets are off.
I came back to comics around Identity Crisis, and after a few years of casual combined floppy and trade purchases, once the iPad arrived, I stopped buying monthlies, no exceptions. Any new issues are now strictly digital purchases, and I haven't looked back once. Trades fulfill my preference for longer-form storytelling, with a very contained number of monthly titles purchased through Comixology. The digital experience is just so nice.
Have to say that paying so much money for such a short reading time (most of the time I can finish a book in fifteen minutes) is probably what gives pause to most people even if they would be considering getting into comics. Buying the trade though, gives the buyer a significant return on their money.
Reading time is a valid point. How many of these funny books are re-readable? Fewer than most of us would care to admit. When you compare a $4.99 Marvel comic to something like a $4.99 issue of Popular Science, depending on your taste - or even a $9.95 copy of Back Issue Magazine, which I read and re-read and take several sittings to read through, which was the better value?
Comparing these magazines to the $4.99 issues of Howard the Duck #1 or All-New Wolverine #1 coming out in November, I just no longer see the value. Maybe because I am older and growing weary of the shenanigans and steeper pricing, but it is getting out of hand. And as for most of these new titles, it almost feels like we're paying $4 to $5 on a 22-page pamphlet, because nothing is resolved, it's all set-up, and promotion. (old gripe)
I've considered Marvel Unlimited, for $69 a year, where you get access to over 17,000 digital comics (new issues release about 6 months after their print release date), which isn't a big deal to me, since I'm so far behind now and have plenty of stuff to sort through and read now. But with marvel's newest slate of titles, I don't think it would save me that much.
I wish Image, Dynamite, and IDW would follow suit or Comixology would offer a deal to Amazon Prime members.
It's been said before at much lower price structures, but I do believe there is a tipping point to this pricing increase and it appears the comic industry is teetering on it.
Very interesting discussion. I'm someone who started reading comics late in the game. Didn't really start until I listened to CGS. But since I started I've been a trade person. It just comes across as a better value.
Can I ask a quick question, why did you start listening to CGS?
It was about 2010 and I was looking for a different type of podcast to listen to. And I thought it sounded interesting, yada yada I've been listening since
Lot of interesting stuff here. Some points I'd like to make:
This myth that the comics industry is dying, and that floppies are dying. People often begin and end their pontifications with "THIS is why the industry is dying" and "THIS is why floppies are dying."
Single-issue sales numbers are up about 11% so far this year (and that's BEFORE the Marvel relaunch happens, which is sure to spike sales up even higher). (Source: http://www.comichron.com/)
After a decade of middling numbers, sales of floppies have kept going up, year after year, ever since 2011. Variant covers are no longer a shocking, suddenly-returned thing that's "sure to wreck the industry all over again!". There is no growing problem of shops ordering 1000 copies of a Big Two comic just to get a few variants. How do I know there's not a growing problem of this? Because the recent back issue market is stronger than it's been in years. Sure there are retailers sitting on a bunch of Convergence issues, but those kinds of flubs are the exceptions, not the rule. Everything from Batman to Thor to Saga to Walking Dead to Spider-Man to Secret Wars to Harley Quinn all sell well in current releases, in variants, and as recent back issues.
I'm not saying that $4-$5 comics aren't a problem. As many others have stated, I'll be damned if I'm ever caught buying a stack of new releases at cover price. I get about 20 new comics per month, but I buy them via heavily discounted mail subscriptions, and some I get at my LCS after turning in some of my comics for trade-in credit. So personally I'm not a fan of $4-$5 comics. But someone is. Lots of people apparently are okay with paying that. Or there's enough people like me getting them at a discount.
I'm not saying any of this to disagree with Chris. I don't disagree with him. (1) I know that every store is different. (2) All the information I listed off above doesn't make sense to me either. I don't understand how the market can actually still be pretty strong and getting stronger, but apparently it is, overall.
All this stuff I still see online, with people talking about how "digital comics are the future" and that "floppies are going away any month now". Does the calendar still say 2006 or something? Digital sales SUPPLEMENT print sales of comics. Every study has shown this. I'm sure some older readers are switching to digital, but however much that's happening, evidently there's a MORE than equal number of other people buying print comics. Because print sales keep going up.
Tell me the numbers are wrong. Tell me that digital comics need to all be 99 cents on the day of release or else we're all doomed. Tell me that a $4 comic will kill the industry. All of these statements have been proven wrong. Marvel started pricing Avengers at $4 FIVE YEARS AGO.
I don't understand how comic shops can apparently sell so many new TPBs either -- because in my experience most LCS's understandably sell them for cover price, but meanwhile Amazon or IST can sell them for 30-50% off with free shipping -- but apparently that too is happening. Because the sales figures show that the TPB section of the direct market keeps going up as well.
Collected editions are "too complicated" in their numbering? "No one knows where to start reading"? The Big Two "need to make it easier for new fans to understand things"? Pffft. These are non-issues, non-problems. Think back to the '80s and '90s, before the internet. The Big Two barely put out any reprints and in order to understand continuity you had to hunt down official handbooks. And yet somehow several hundred thousand kids picked up the comic habit during those dark decades when the Big Two wasn't "making it easy" for them. Now, however, we have the internet and can look up basically anything.
Would Spider-Man or X-Men or Batman collections sell better if there was just a simple "Vol. 1" TPB for people to read? Sure. That's how Walking Dead vol. 1 and Saga vol. 1 have done so well. But guess what? Spider-Man, X-Men and Batman are franchises. There simply is no "Here's THE PLACE to start" with most legacy superhero franchises. So I'm not sure what the point is of bemoaning the fact that "unfortunately" super-heroes have a lot of history to them. Of course, there are "starting points" like the New 52 or Marvel Now "vol. 1" collections of each title, or whatever. But that's imperfect. Oh well! I don't see how this is anything fixable. Nor is it a pure disadvantage. Because: Yay for history to discover! There is no easy perfect starting point for most superhero franchises. There just isn't. There never was. And every attempt to wipe continuity clean is imperfect. Oh well!
The comics industry "makes it too hard for readers to get the product"? Uh, how is it hard? You can get comics online. You can go to a shop and just buy whatever looks good to you. You don't "need" to plan things out or order 3 months in advance if you don't want to. Do bookstores not have to order new book releases in advance? Do video game stores not have to order new game releases in advance? I'm pretty sure they do. Where is the problem here? How is going to a grocery store to get comics any easier than just going online?
Seriously, how is anything harder now than it was in the '80s, when you had to hunt for back issues and when there were few collected reprint editions of anything? Somehow sales of everything from X-Men to Batman to Cerebus managed to increase during that decade. It's easier now than ever. Kids and new readers are not as overwhelmed as us older guys assume. If a kid or a new reader wants to read a comic, they're going to read a comic. If the selection is "overwhelming" to them, then it's more a cultural problem of people feeling overwhelmed and too scared to try something new. What more can the industry do? They publish all sorts of chronologies and lists in the back of FCBD and $1 reprint issues. "If you like THIS FCBD Batman comic, try THESE collections!"
Maybe it'll all go bust tomorrow. But right now the industry isn't dying. Floppies aren't dinosaurs. The back issue market, for everything from last month's issue of Batman to 50-cent filler issues of '90s X-Men, is strong. The speculator market is more about story-based things like the first appearances of characters like Deadpool and Harley Quinn, or Fraction's Hawkeye and Snyder's Batman stories, than about flash-in-the-pan stunts. All of these things are GREAT signs, as far as I'm concerned. On the negative side, all I see is some hesitation about (old man voice) "When I was a boy comics didn't cost so much!". Yeah, I feel that way too. But I look at the actual comic shops I go to and I see a lot of enthusiasm on almost every level for every type of product being offered.
The insights Chris stated about cheap back issues and allowing things like Magic games in comic shops are great. Shops that stock EVERY back issue at cover price or higher are ridiculous. But, five or ten years ago, it used to be that recent back issues were worthless. They're not worthless anymore. Sure, a shop that prices every unsold issue of All-New X-Men at $4 or $4.25 is going to be sitting on them for a while. But price them at $2 each and they'll fly out of the bins. Price them at $1 each and you'll sell out of them almost instantly. And as far as '80s and '90s back issues go, there are a TON of people out there looking to complete their runs as long as they can do so for $1/issue or less. Sure, a lot of this is anecdotal evidence, but I've NEVER seen the back issue market this hot. And I'm not even getting into the higher-end stuff on eBay. The back issue market is up on every level.
My shop has been doing very well with back issues the past four or five years as well. And he doesn't have any $1 boxes except two weekends out of the year when he has a big sale. It seems to be mostly stuff from the past 20 years that moves the quickest. Stuff, like you said, that's relatively cheap for the most part.
But he isn't seeing that 11% increase in new single issue sales in his store. Sales have been holding fairly steady for him the past couple of years. But, like I said, we've got six shops within 30-minutes’ driving distance of each other in my area. Maybe other stores in the area are seeing that growth.
As for TPBs, he keeps a table of the big trade sellers by the front door—stuff like Saga, Ms. Marvel, East of West, etc. He tries to keep the Vol. 1s in stock as best he can. Now, my shop is right across the street from a large university, so that plays in heavily, I think, with the impulse buys of those first volumes. Also, he gives discounts on pre-ordered trades, just the same as pre-ordered comics, which lets me keep buying them from him rather than going to Amazon.
Interesting discussion. Chris and Bill's logic is pretty solid, but it saddens me to think of a comic shop without a new book wall. Just the state of the industry these days though. I place a huge amount of the blame with Diamond and their distribution monopoly. It seems inexcusable to me that the distributor of a product make significantly more money on a product than the company and creators who produce it. The greed of Diamond angers me, not too mention they are biting the hand that feeds them. Pure idiocy.
Comments
As for @luckymustard's comment "Time marches on. Us older guys will die off, and if that's what you're going after, then you're dead anyway" - my reply is: we're not dying off tomorrow. Wouldn't DC and Marvel prefer to milk our wallets for another 30 or 40 years until we do die off, rather than to lose us now? The younger readers they so desperately want do not (and will never) spend their superhero dollars on print comic books; this demo gets its superheroes from videogames, TV, movies, even card gaming. Why must the printed comic book continue to suffocate and sacrifice itself trying to compete with these genres? It's like watching Advil go bankrupt because it'd rather make chewable vitamins shaped like Kim Kardashian.
Very interesting discussion. I'm someone who started reading comics late in the game. Didn't really start until I listened to CGS. But since I started I've been a trade person. It just comes across as a better value.
When I set foot into a grocery store (I am only 29) I look at the checkout lanes and see the pure dribble that is published and set there to be bought (Archie excluded). It pains me, almost physically, to think that issues of comics could be there - generating buzz and excitement. What are the two barriers to them being there? 1) Returnability and 2) The story arc.
#1 we have beaten to death in other forums and heard on numerous episodes, but #2 . . . that's a gotcha. When you are writing for an Arc, placing issues in highly visible places makes it hard to get and retain readers. You are expecting kids to be there every month to pick up the next book. What if they forget? What if they don't go with mom/pop to the store? Disjointed reading experiences can sour anyone.
Am I proposing any solutions here? No, just musing over the conversation and adding my thoughts.
I'm not suggesting that as an answer, but more of thought.
The fact is, you can easily acquire any book on the NYT best seller list for the foreseeable future but, sorry, you can't have the latest issue of Spider-Man or Justice League unless you planned out your purchases several months ago. If you can't see the difference between those two things, I don't know what else there is to say.
Now, I do preorder most of my books, but I order a lot of esoteric items the store might not carry otherwise, and I don't preorder everything. Plus, based on the number of books I preorder, I get a 25% discount off everything I buy, including supplies and back issues. My store rewards people who preorder; it does not require people to preorder.
Yes, comic stores are required to order titles three months in advance—though they do have a window of time where they can adjust their orders somewhat and/or place advance reorders. But that's no different than any other industry. Bookstores place their initial orders six to nine months in advance. Remember when the Harry Potter books became popular, and every time a new book was released, the stores would sell out, and it would take a week or two, sometimes more for them to get more copies? Or the rush on video game stores when a new Call of Duty or whatever came out, and now video game stores take preorders on the hot games?
My point is, brick-and-mortar stores, be they comic shops, bookstores, or video game stores, have limited space. They can't keep everything in stock. I mean, an entire run of Amazing Spider-Man alone is going to fill a couple of long boxes by itself. And a store owner would rather have a space on the rack clear for that next issue which he knows he can sell X number of copies this week than keep that space filled with older issues that may or may not sell that week.
Having worked in a comic shop for five years, and still being good friends with the owner of that shop, I can tell you that some weeks it is a real struggle to be able to pay that Diamond bill. And I’ve seen many shops go under because of too much overordering. You have to constantly move product to stay in business, and as far as back issues, you never know what someone is going to come in looking for from week to week, but you do know what new issues they'll be wanting.
Also - we do not require pre-order, and if we sell out of something, or don't get a book in for someone, we will attempt a re-order or to acquire it while we are out at a Con. We encourage it, as it ensures people get what they want, but we would never require it.
It's a flawed system, and @wildpigcomics has the only solution to know exactly how many to buy. Go off of pull lists only.
For example, Book of Death - if you ordered a certain amount (escapes me right now) let's say 100, its fully returnable. Alright, well, we got 25 of each the covers, and qualified for a chase variant. If we want to, after their time terms, we can send any unsold copies back. We would not have bought Book of Death, or at least nowhere near that many copies without the returnability option.
I could also see a lot of lesser known creators getting burned very badly if too many stores ordered too heavily on a book. At Image, the creators are the ones covering the printing bills, not the publisher. If a creative team has to pay for a print run that's significantly greater than the actual sales can cover, they may well think twice (if they even have that option financially) before trying another new series. And the same goes with a lot of the micro-publishers (though if you are one who thinks the Previews catalog is too crowded, this might not necessarily be a bad thing).
I came back to comics around Identity Crisis, and after a few years of casual combined floppy and trade purchases, once the iPad arrived, I stopped buying monthlies, no exceptions. Any new issues are now strictly digital purchases, and I haven't looked back once. Trades fulfill my preference for longer-form storytelling, with a very contained number of monthly titles purchased through Comixology. The digital experience is just so nice.
Comparing these magazines to the $4.99 issues of Howard the Duck #1 or All-New Wolverine #1 coming out in November, I just no longer see the value. Maybe because I am older and growing weary of the shenanigans and steeper pricing, but it is getting out of hand. And as for most of these new titles, it almost feels like we're paying $4 to $5 on a 22-page pamphlet, because nothing is resolved, it's all set-up, and promotion. (old gripe)
I've considered Marvel Unlimited, for $69 a year, where you get access to over 17,000 digital comics (new issues release about 6 months after their print release date), which isn't a big deal to me, since I'm so far behind now and have plenty of stuff to sort through and read now. But with marvel's newest slate of titles, I don't think it would save me that much.
I wish Image, Dynamite, and IDW would follow suit or Comixology would offer a deal to Amazon Prime members.
It's been said before at much lower price structures, but I do believe there is a tipping point to this pricing increase and it appears the comic industry is teetering on it.
It was about 2010 and I was looking for a different type of podcast to listen to. And I thought it sounded interesting, yada yada I've been listening since
This myth that the comics industry is dying, and that floppies are dying. People often begin and end their pontifications with "THIS is why the industry is dying" and "THIS is why floppies are dying."
But adjusting for inflation, 2014 was the best year the comics industry had since 1995. And not adjusting for inflation, it was the best year since 1993. (Source: http://blog.comichron.com/2015/06/comics-and-graphic-novel-sales-hit-new.html)
Single-issue sales numbers are up about 11% so far this year (and that's BEFORE the Marvel relaunch happens, which is sure to spike sales up even higher). (Source: http://www.comichron.com/)
After a decade of middling numbers, sales of floppies have kept going up, year after year, ever since 2011. Variant covers are no longer a shocking, suddenly-returned thing that's "sure to wreck the industry all over again!". There is no growing problem of shops ordering 1000 copies of a Big Two comic just to get a few variants. How do I know there's not a growing problem of this? Because the recent back issue market is stronger than it's been in years. Sure there are retailers sitting on a bunch of Convergence issues, but those kinds of flubs are the exceptions, not the rule. Everything from Batman to Thor to Saga to Walking Dead to Spider-Man to Secret Wars to Harley Quinn all sell well in current releases, in variants, and as recent back issues.
I'm not saying that $4-$5 comics aren't a problem. As many others have stated, I'll be damned if I'm ever caught buying a stack of new releases at cover price. I get about 20 new comics per month, but I buy them via heavily discounted mail subscriptions, and some I get at my LCS after turning in some of my comics for trade-in credit. So personally I'm not a fan of $4-$5 comics. But someone is. Lots of people apparently are okay with paying that. Or there's enough people like me getting them at a discount.
I'm not saying any of this to disagree with Chris. I don't disagree with him. (1) I know that every store is different. (2) All the information I listed off above doesn't make sense to me either. I don't understand how the market can actually still be pretty strong and getting stronger, but apparently it is, overall.
All this stuff I still see online, with people talking about how "digital comics are the future" and that "floppies are going away any month now". Does the calendar still say 2006 or something? Digital sales SUPPLEMENT print sales of comics. Every study has shown this. I'm sure some older readers are switching to digital, but however much that's happening, evidently there's a MORE than equal number of other people buying print comics. Because print sales keep going up.
Tell me the numbers are wrong. Tell me that digital comics need to all be 99 cents on the day of release or else we're all doomed. Tell me that a $4 comic will kill the industry. All of these statements have been proven wrong. Marvel started pricing Avengers at $4 FIVE YEARS AGO.
I don't understand how comic shops can apparently sell so many new TPBs either -- because in my experience most LCS's understandably sell them for cover price, but meanwhile Amazon or IST can sell them for 30-50% off with free shipping -- but apparently that too is happening. Because the sales figures show that the TPB section of the direct market keeps going up as well.
Collected editions are "too complicated" in their numbering? "No one knows where to start reading"? The Big Two "need to make it easier for new fans to understand things"? Pffft. These are non-issues, non-problems. Think back to the '80s and '90s, before the internet. The Big Two barely put out any reprints and in order to understand continuity you had to hunt down official handbooks. And yet somehow several hundred thousand kids picked up the comic habit during those dark decades when the Big Two wasn't "making it easy" for them. Now, however, we have the internet and can look up basically anything.
Would Spider-Man or X-Men or Batman collections sell better if there was just a simple "Vol. 1" TPB for people to read? Sure. That's how Walking Dead vol. 1 and Saga vol. 1 have done so well. But guess what? Spider-Man, X-Men and Batman are franchises. There simply is no "Here's THE PLACE to start" with most legacy superhero franchises. So I'm not sure what the point is of bemoaning the fact that "unfortunately" super-heroes have a lot of history to them. Of course, there are "starting points" like the New 52 or Marvel Now "vol. 1" collections of each title, or whatever. But that's imperfect. Oh well! I don't see how this is anything fixable. Nor is it a pure disadvantage. Because: Yay for history to discover! There is no easy perfect starting point for most superhero franchises. There just isn't. There never was. And every attempt to wipe continuity clean is imperfect. Oh well!
The comics industry "makes it too hard for readers to get the product"? Uh, how is it hard? You can get comics online. You can go to a shop and just buy whatever looks good to you. You don't "need" to plan things out or order 3 months in advance if you don't want to. Do bookstores not have to order new book releases in advance? Do video game stores not have to order new game releases in advance? I'm pretty sure they do. Where is the problem here? How is going to a grocery store to get comics any easier than just going online?
Seriously, how is anything harder now than it was in the '80s, when you had to hunt for back issues and when there were few collected reprint editions of anything? Somehow sales of everything from X-Men to Batman to Cerebus managed to increase during that decade. It's easier now than ever. Kids and new readers are not as overwhelmed as us older guys assume. If a kid or a new reader wants to read a comic, they're going to read a comic. If the selection is "overwhelming" to them, then it's more a cultural problem of people feeling overwhelmed and too scared to try something new. What more can the industry do? They publish all sorts of chronologies and lists in the back of FCBD and $1 reprint issues. "If you like THIS FCBD Batman comic, try THESE collections!"
Maybe it'll all go bust tomorrow. But right now the industry isn't dying. Floppies aren't dinosaurs. The back issue market, for everything from last month's issue of Batman to 50-cent filler issues of '90s X-Men, is strong. The speculator market is more about story-based things like the first appearances of characters like Deadpool and Harley Quinn, or Fraction's Hawkeye and Snyder's Batman stories, than about flash-in-the-pan stunts. All of these things are GREAT signs, as far as I'm concerned. On the negative side, all I see is some hesitation about (old man voice) "When I was a boy comics didn't cost so much!". Yeah, I feel that way too. But I look at the actual comic shops I go to and I see a lot of enthusiasm on almost every level for every type of product being offered.
The insights Chris stated about cheap back issues and allowing things like Magic games in comic shops are great. Shops that stock EVERY back issue at cover price or higher are ridiculous. But, five or ten years ago, it used to be that recent back issues were worthless. They're not worthless anymore. Sure, a shop that prices every unsold issue of All-New X-Men at $4 or $4.25 is going to be sitting on them for a while. But price them at $2 each and they'll fly out of the bins. Price them at $1 each and you'll sell out of them almost instantly. And as far as '80s and '90s back issues go, there are a TON of people out there looking to complete their runs as long as they can do so for $1/issue or less. Sure, a lot of this is anecdotal evidence, but I've NEVER seen the back issue market this hot. And I'm not even getting into the higher-end stuff on eBay. The back issue market is up on every level.
But he isn't seeing that 11% increase in new single issue sales in his store. Sales have been holding fairly steady for him the past couple of years. But, like I said, we've got six shops within 30-minutes’ driving distance of each other in my area. Maybe other stores in the area are seeing that growth.
As for TPBs, he keeps a table of the big trade sellers by the front door—stuff like Saga, Ms. Marvel, East of West, etc. He tries to keep the Vol. 1s in stock as best he can. Now, my shop is right across the street from a large university, so that plays in heavily, I think, with the impulse buys of those first volumes. Also, he gives discounts on pre-ordered trades, just the same as pre-ordered comics, which lets me keep buying them from him rather than going to Amazon.