CBR: Tilting at Windmills - Dec 19, 2008

[morganagrom]

Yes, because the readers who wander in to get their fix of Hulk and can't get it won't buy *insert random non-superhero issue here*, they'll go to another shop that stocks Hulk and get it there, or order it online. So shop A loses the sale, and if this pattern continues and expands to non-Hulk superhero comics, they'll go to the other shop for everything INCLUDING their non-superhero comics. So the shop loses money and goes out of business.

You're (A) assuming that people want to go in and spend $X on "comics", rather than $X on the specific comics that they want, and (B) playing Simpsons Comic Book Guy, only sneering at slightly different stuff.

A shop can't afford to boycott their lead supplier, simple as that.

A shop that doesn't let Marvel become their lead supplier can.

Is it worth it to spend an extra $5-10 per month (per title) on shelf-copies just so the occasional passerby might purchase a random Hulk comic?

Also how often does that happen anyway? In this market, someone buying Hulk probably is already an existing comics customer and is already buying multiple titles. The random person off the street probably wouldn't know the difference between the main line and a random Marvel Adventures line pamphlet anyway.

[Somebody]

But they can only dictate who their lead supplier is by going against their client base - their customers dictate who their lead supplier will be by the books they choose to buy. And pull lists don't account for the majority of sales.

[Brian Hibbs]

"This is how we should do things because this is how we've always done things."

What would be so horrible about actively working to turn a customer base away from one dominant product line toward a diverse line. Being tied to a dominant product line puts the retailers at the mercy of that producer.

I'm not certain if you know at all whom you're speaking to? I've spend 20 years actively stocking the widest variety of comics that I possible can in a wildly diverse number of creators and genres. Guess what? Marvel & DC superhero comics still provide better cash flow.

For Comix Experience, Marvel and DC superhero books are, perhaps (I'm at home, not officially checking) 60% of our market share, as opposed to 85%-ish for the greater market. But guess what, they're still 60%.

I'm not trying to screw with you here, or to argue for the sake of arguing, but it is trivially easy to find a triple-digit audience for (say) SECRET INVASION, it is immensely difficult to find the same for (say) ANGRY YOUTH COMICS. And SI is going to be better advertised, come out more frequently, be easier to restock, and going to be available at a better price.

Sales charts are a reflection of the tastes of the audience. You seem to be suggesting that comics retailers everywhere are actively turning away custom, which is, on the face of it, a pretty irrational conclusion.

Skipping past the point that many of the pamphlet buyers may well have bought the book had they not already bought the pamphlets. It's hard to imagine that the "civilians" would have turned downt he book had it been a paperback.

There's also the sell-through issue.

Sell-through is easily checked by watching proportional monthly drops (or raises), as well as reorders. Clearly in the example of BUFFY as quoted, that first issue sold through just fine, as you can see by the fifty % rise in circ from initial orders to final sales the charts can track (the [bracketed] numbers). Issue #3 had HIGHER initial orders than #2 -- there's another sign of awesome sell-through.

Had the book NOT been a serialized periodical, that paperback sure wouldn't have been $15.95. It would have been AT LEAST $19.95. And, in fact, it probably would have had to have been a $29.99 HC first. There are economic realities of page rates and such that you don't appear to be taking into account.

LOEG BLACK DOSSIER and FABLES 1001 NIGHTS OF SNOWFALL - both expensive hardcovers which present a sticker shock. Perhaps if the numbers were combined with the paperback numbers, as well as the 6-month bookscan numbers.

You're moving the goalposts.

Also, how's the sell-through? Might it not be the case that the paperbacks could be more profitable because a retailer doesn't have to stock as deep as they do on the pamphlets?

It might be the case, but it probably isn't so -- retailers (for the most part) have a good control of their sell-through percentages... otherwise they go out of business rather fast.

If you wanted to reach a logical conclusion generally supported by on-the-ground anecdote, I do rather think you'd find that most stores are more likely to UNDER-order on periodical versions of LOEG or FABLES than OVER-order them.

What exactly makes the audiences distinct? If Vertigto were to only publish DMZ or Scalped as paperbacks, would those audiences just give up and go home? Really?

If I had the answer to that first question, I wouldn't be posting it on a message board -- I'd be selling it to DC for a million dollars (and that would be a bargain!); but you'll have to trust me when I tell you that the percentage of customers that buy a serialized work in periodical form and then ALSO buy the collected edition is vanishingly low, except for an extremely narrow band of products.

If Vertigo published DMZ or SCALPED exclusively as paperbacks, I very much doubt either would have made it to volume three. I also strongly believe that a much smaller percentage of the periodical readers would have become book readers than you do, based upon my actual sales patterns in a real live comics shop, as opposed to some theoretical construct.

So, getting back to 1, why do direct market retailers allow themselves to become so beholden to one or two main producers?

Also, how does one move toward a bookstore model while encouraging and celebrating the pamphlets model? They seem like conflicting goals.

For the first question, it's because those two publishers are producing material that the audience wants to read; and they're producing it on a regular basis, so the audience always has something that they want to read, and has a reason to continue coming in.

At Comix Experience, when an issue of EIGHTBALL is released, it roughly sells 200% of UNCANNY X-MEN in the initial 30 day period. On the other hand, there hasn't been an issue of EIGHTBALL in... 3 years? Something like that. There are twelve issues of UNCANNY X-MEN a year, every year (sometimes more)

For the second question, they're not at all conflicting goals. They're complementary ones.

I'll say it again, leaving it here at the end so you can possibly understand its weight better: Perennials provide the profits; periodicals provide the cash flow. Without that cash flow, there won't be perennials.

-B

[Paul Nolan]

Last Thursday I cut the remainder of my Marvel Comics except Captain Britain.

even though Nova, Ghost Rider and Guardians of the Galaxy are brilliant comic books I can not risk being dragged into another event.

With Marvel's price rises in conjunction with the weakness of the pound something like the Hulk will actually have increased by 50% in UK. This is just not sustainable.

I'm spending the majority of my money on the Indies now.

[Pennyforth]

From the article:

There’s also a third possibility, which is that this is being done in an effort to make Marvel’s digital initiative that much more attractive. With the price of a single new periodical now getting closer to an entire month’s “subscription” to everything they have on line, it certainly makes the digital program look a whole lot better.

Except for the fact that there's a minimum of six months' "lag" between when issues are published in print form and when they're made available online. For those of us who want to stay current--especially those who frequent message boards to discuss the latest issues--the digital option is a no go unless Marvel decides to completely commit to it and make the digital "copies" concurrent with their printed counterparts. I understand, of course, the pure financial reasons why they're unwilling to make that move--I'm just saying that I'm not about to sign up for Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited unless I can read this month's issues.


Chuck

[morganagrom]

I'm not certain if you know at all whom you're speaking to? I've spend 20 years actively stocking the widest variety of comics that I possible can in a wildly diverse number of creators and genres. Guess what? Marvel & DC superhero comics still provide better cash flow.

For Comix Experience, Marvel and DC superhero books are, perhaps (I'm at home, not officially checking) 60% of our market share, as opposed to 85%-ish for the greater market. But guess what, they're still 60%.

I'm not trying to screw with you here, or to argue for the sake of arguing, but it is trivially easy to find a triple-digit audience for (say) SECRET INVASION, it is immensely difficult to find the same for (say) ANGRY YOUTH COMICS. And SI is going to be better advertised, come out more frequently, be easier to restock, and going to be available at a better price.

Sales charts are a reflection of the tastes of the audience. You seem to be suggesting that comics retailers everywhere are actively turning away custom, which is, on the face of it, a pretty irrational conclusion.



Sell-through is easily checked by watching proportional monthly drops (or raises), as well as reorders. Clearly in the example of BUFFY as quoted, that first issue sold through just fine, as you can see by the fifty % rise in circ from initial orders to final sales the charts can track (the [bracketed] numbers). Issue #3 had HIGHER initial orders than #2 -- there's another sign of awesome sell-through.

Had the book NOT been a serialized periodical, that paperback sure wouldn't have been $15.95. It would have been AT LEAST $19.95. And, in fact, it probably would have had to have been a $29.99 HC first. There are economic realities of page rates and such that you don't appear to be taking into account.



You're moving the goalposts.



It might be the case, but it probably isn't so -- retailers (for the most part) have a good control of their sell-through percentages... otherwise they go out of business rather fast.

If you wanted to reach a logical conclusion generally supported by on-the-ground anecdote, I do rather think you'd find that most stores are more likely to UNDER-order on periodical versions of LOEG or FABLES than OVER-order them.



If I had the answer to that first question, I wouldn't be posting it on a message board -- I'd be selling it to DC for a million dollars (and that would be a bargain!); but you'll have to trust me when I tell you that the percentage of customers that buy a serialized work in periodical form and then ALSO buy the collected edition is vanishingly low, except for an extremely narrow band of products.

If Vertigo published DMZ or SCALPED exclusively as paperbacks, I very much doubt either would have made it to volume three. I also strongly believe that a much smaller percentage of the periodical readers would have become book readers than you do, based upon my actual sales patterns in a real live comics shop, as opposed to some theoretical construct.



For the first question, it's because those two publishers are producing material that the audience wants to read; and they're producing it on a regular basis, so the audience always has something that they want to read, and has a reason to continue coming in.

At Comix Experience, when an issue of EIGHTBALL is released, it roughly sells 200% of UNCANNY X-MEN in the initial 30 day period. On the other hand, there hasn't been an issue of EIGHTBALL in... 3 years? Something like that. There are twelve issues of UNCANNY X-MEN a year, every year (sometimes more)

For the second question, they're not at all conflicting goals. They're complementary ones.

I'll say it again, leaving it here at the end so you can possibly understand its weight better: Perennials provide the profits; periodicals provide the cash flow. Without that cash flow, there won't be perennials.

-B

It still sounds like "This is how we do things and this is how we should do things because this is how we've always done things and this is good and right."

[superfriend]

It still sounds like "This is how we do things and this is how we should do things because this is how we've always done things and this is good and right."

Please leave. It's clear you don't have the faintest idea of what you're talking about.

Hey Brian, great article as always. Very informative and thought provoking.

Question: How do online comic specialty shops sell comics and trades for 40% off and below on a regular basis? To the best of your ability, can you explain how the price of a standard periodical breaks down?

Thanks

[morganagrom]

Question: How do online comic specialty shops sell comics and trades for 40% off and below on a regular basis?

Low overhead + high volume.

Plus pre-orders are pre-paid, or at least payment is authorized, so risk of non-payment is low.

To the best of your ability, can you explain how the price of a standard periodical breaks down?

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/comics/general-faq/

Where Does The Money Go From Buying A Comic?

This rough guide was provided Matt High of Antarctic Press. Mileage may vary
slightly among different publishers. "Out of the cover price of our books
($2.75/2.95 usually):

* 40-45% goes to the retailer
* 20-25% goes to the distributor
* 13% goes to the printer
* 7-8% goes to the creators/artists
* 2% goes to shipping (UPS/USPS)
* the remainder (10-12%) goes to the publisher (salaries, rent,
utilities, supplies, advertising, etc).

Antarctic Press is at the second-highest discount level...We sell
distributors books at 65% off cover price, they turn around and resell them
for 35-50% off. Marvel and DC sell their books to the distributors at 59-62%
off, and they turn around and resell them to the stores at 40-57.5% off."

[Ryan Day]

Just FYI, morganagrom has been trolling the Vertigo board for a couple months now with his crusade of "publish everything exclusively in tpb format". He makes enough sensible points to be taken seriously, but ultimately just shifts his argument around and ignores any facts that might contradict his position.

I don't think he's ever made any posts that aren't about the wonders of trade paperbacks.

[ronnieramone]

I think arrogance is an appropriate assumption in the case of Marvel's reasoning for the price increase. Arrogance and greed. There's a little problem with that line of thinking, though.

In my store, a regular comics customer will come in, look through their folder and make two piles: a buy now pile and a buy later pile. They will tell me how much money they have to spend, and that's all I will get that week from them. Not a penny more because they just don't have it. It doesn't matter what Marvel does with regards to price increases, the increase will simply not help their bottom line. Like you said, Brian, people aren't going to miraculously have 33% more income to spend on comics. In fact, this move will probably cost people jobs (those that work on lower-selling titles whose readership will suddenly plummet) and ultimately damage our economy further.

It will funnel more money into to top-selling titles, for sure, but the other ones will get dropped quickly. Retailers that don't start cutting back their orders immediately will wind up with unsold paper, diminished profits and face increased weekly costs. Part of the plan is probably to hurt their chief competitor more than themselves with the price increase. Force the reader to spend all their dollars just to keep up with Marvel's numerous Avengers and X-Men titles or ASM 3x monthly, at the cost of maybe those few DC titles they might still have been picking up.

The problem for a lower-volume, rural-area retailer like myself is that I simply don't have the resources to endure being tortured like a guinea pig in these ongoing grand experiments by Marvel. The marketplace cannot endure this constant prodding by its number one publisher. Nothing makes us more money than Marvel comics, but then again nothing costs more than they do either. Nothing hurts as bad as when just about everybody takes Dark Reign: New Nation out of their hold folders because its nothing more than a glorified sampler of mostly lame titles to come. Nothing punishes us as hard as losing huge chunks of Spider-man readers to Quesada's humongous ego. Nothing stings worse than getting burned by yet another X-title that doesn't measure up (Ghost Boxes, for example) and we wind up getting stuck with. If I order too many Justice League tie-ins for example, I don't order WAY too many, like I might with Avengers or X-Men. Avengers/Invaders, for example, looked like a sure seller. Cap returns, it's got the New Avengers, the Mighty Avengers, The Invaders, Alex Ross. Turns out the interior art is nothing special, the story drags on pointlessly, there seems to be no villain in sight, and I have a dozen or more copies of issue #1 sitting unsold in my dollar bin. That one issue alone probably wiped out my entire profit margin the week it released.

The more market share Marvel has, the more eggs we put in one basket and the worse it hurts the industry as a whole when something bad happens. Yet it is impossible to tell them NO. They don't listen, they just don't care. Arrogance is the explanation, it has to be.

I don't know if you attended the Diamond/Alliance Retailer Summit in Las Vegas this past year, but Marvel hardly had a presence there. They snubbed the retailers almost completely. They did send a couple of Sales Communication Managers, who were standing near an empty booth for a while, but mostly they were just insulting. One of them even told me point-blank when I complained about the number of risky new titles and $3.99 one-shots recently, "We make them because you'll buy them." Are they serious? Do we have to put up with this? I'm telling my customers now to look in the Previews catalog and tell me what they want in advance if there's a new limited series or one-shot, because I'm done ordering huge numbers of anything just because its X-related. I won't contribute to this broken system anymore, I simply won't. It's stacked against us from the start, by the very people who stand to make the most profit when we do our jobs well.

[obii]

My guess is that it will push american comics lots more into the collectors corner.

For me it means I will scan all comics on torrents before I decide to buy them

My cut off point for 'simple' superheroes was at $3 and since then I get most Vertigo and interesting independent stuff.

[die_yng]

I will definitely cut down my marvel "get list", I already decided to not buy Dark Avengers and if the entire line will increase prices, than I'll probably cut down my order 50%. And that's only as long as the Euro stays strong, if the dollar becomes stronger again, then more titles will drop.

I'm perfectly willing to pay 3,99- for the 3 or 4 IDW or Boom books I buy or for any other small, independent Puplisher, but I'm not going to continue buying 15-25 books Marvel books per month with this pricetag.

And Quality is another point, most small Publisher give you 24 Pages on high Quality, glossy paper, while Marvel has the guts to give you 15-16 Pages of art plus 10 bonus pages of script for the same amount of money, on cheap thin paper, that would crumble to dust without backingboards. Yes I'm talking about Astonishing X-Men Ghostboxes 1 + 2, I would never have bought these books if I'd known what they contain.

[rhood]

Brian,

I have been a long time fan of your "Tilting" column. It is a great source of insight to the business. I realize the Marvel is publicly owned and will do what is best for their stockholders. I also realize that DC and others will have to raise thier prices if they wish to remain competitive with Marvel.

Also in Northern Ohio, Marvel has already raised the price on all of their titles sold at bookstores like Borders by $1.00.( including Marvel Adventures ) They started doing this as early as last summer.

I am one of those who has been buying comics for the last 30 years or so, and recently told my retailer that I have drawn "a line in the sand" at $3.99 for a 32 pg comicbook. I truly believe that the only way to cause "change" is to take a stand, and tell Marvel that it is not OK to charge $3.99 for a 32 pg comic and the only way to do this is to stop giving them my money. I know they will listen to this if enough people response in kind.

I have loved collecting comics for a long time and have over 15,000 to bring re-reading. I am also going to use that new comics money on older books and on new titles that the retailers will be dumping for half price at the local conventions.

RickH

[die_yng]

Or you could spend your money on smaller publishers, many of them carry books that are under 3,99- and even if they are 3,99- you get higher quality printing and paper. And most of the time they need to charge 3,99- per book, to make at least some money.

Anyway, you're certainly right in denying Marvel your money.

[Ranana_Nump]

just now i saw an uncle riding CBR 150 leh. he put a big black box on it and i think it looks kinda ok leh, compared to most sports bike which will look very off with a box. what do u guys think?