Great Stories vs Great Sales

[mswood]

First off, please remember two very, very basic things.

DC will see every ounce of sales data. From online sales, overseas sales, trades, ect. We don't. They also know to the penny how much each title cost to produce, and they aren't the same. Various artists and writers earn in some cases very significant differences in page rates, to some that make minimum rates. That can have a significant impact as well on the profitability of a series.

One can't take, for example, the sales data from Diamond and use that as a 100% gauge of how a book is doing. There could be other factors that make enough difference in overall revenue to costs, that wouldn't make since just using Diamond (or any one) bit of sales data, and again you must have specific cost of each book as well.

[Jadenewt]

You might want to check your numbers on I, Vampire it's lost more 50% of it's initial eyes.

September 2011 Comic Book Sales Figures
78 I Vampire 35,715
May 2012 Comic Book Sales Figures
144 I Vampire 17,175

It has some time still so hopefully it will stabilize or increase.

[davidn15]

A business is always going to pick sales over quality if it comes down to that. It's the same thing with TV. If anything the fault lies with the fans who aren't willing to go beyond their comfort zone and give these things a shot.

[ArnoldoAAD]

You might want to check your numbers on I, Vampire it's lost more 50% of it's initial eyes.

September 2011 Comic Book Sales Figures
78 I Vampire 35,715
May 2012 Comic Book Sales Figures
144 I Vampire 17,175

It has some time still so hopefully it will stabilize or increase.

you are not taking into consideration that it started so low

yeah it lost a lot of readers but around the last chps have all sale around this numbers so whatever fanbase it has established at this point

[doordoor123]

I've only been keeping track of sales since the new 52 so I don't have much knowledge in the area. I hear a lot of people on this forum liking titles like OMAC and being sad that it was canceled, yet we still have titles like Red Lanterns going on. Has DC always opted to pick sales over story? I fear that with DC keeping only 52 titles at all times that we may see some good stories that have low sales get the axe a lot more.

Not necessarily; the people on the internet don't make up all of the readership. In fact, there is a large population of readers not on the board. I made that clear with a poll I made earlier.
There are other books with great story, but OMAC didn't have a lot of strong support behind it. While it was a "fun" book, it wasn't a "good" book. I mean it was good in its own way, but it didn't have the talent of low selling books like I,Vampire and All-Star Western. They keep low selling books, but they don't keep books that either continuously sell beneath their means or books that continuously drop sales from month to month. It makes sense. There are books that are right in the area of their means which is where great books like Jonah Hex stayed for over 70 issues before the relaunch.
There are low selling books and there are LOW selling books. While OMAC had good talk on the internet, it had bad sales because Didio was on it, some people didn't like the art and some people just didn't care for OMAC. I loved the book, but there are still tons of books with a cult following that are still part of the relaunch -- though books like Resurrection man and Captain Atom's cult followings have ended. I think Voodoo also had one until Marz left the book. I'm sure sales dropped because of that too.

[[Trigger]]

If anything the fault lies with the fans who aren't willing to go beyond their comfort zone and give these things a shot.

What if the product is just badly advertised or not advertised at all? For example Blue Beetle is in the cartoons right now so he's being put out there. Static hasn't been in cartoons for a long time.

[Conway]

Sales are the leading cause for these choices but other factors are included. I.E.:

Blue Beetle - Is literally their answer to Hispanic Spiderman. If they cancel him a large portion of their "diversity push" is canceled.

I Vampire - Is cashing in on the current craze for vampires, it is carrying their goth and female markets (I don't like vampires even if they don't sparkle).

[Harrison_Bergeron]

Whether or not a title is tied to other titles matters too.

I've seen a couple people put down Red Lanterns as being of questionable quality, although I like it I know that the reason it is safe for the foreseeable future is that it is tied to the greater "Third Army" Lantern arc. If they were to cancel it it would throw a wrench in the whole line. Books about characters that the mainstream doesn't know that have zero connections to the stories about characters people do know will always be the low hanging fruit, there is no incentive for people to give them a shot.

[Jadenewt]

Whether or not a title is tied to other titles matters too.

I've seen a couple people put down Red Lanterns as being of questionable quality, although I like it I know that the reason it is safe for the foreseeable future is that it is tied to the greater "Third Army" Lantern arc. If they were to cancel it it would throw a wrench in the whole line. Books about characters that the mainstream doesn't know that have zero connections to the stories about characters people do know will always be the low hanging fruit, there is no incentive for people to give them a shot.

Yeah I think that is why if a title isn't doing so well you'll see the character taking part in one of the group books and the book start doing crossovers just to hope that the title can grab a few more eyes.

[[Trigger]]

Yeah I think that is why if a title isn't doing so well you'll see the character taking part in one of the group books and the book start doing crossovers just to hope that the title can grab a few more eyes.

I wonder if static shock would have done better if he was also on teen titans.

[Jadenewt]

I wonder if static shock would have done better if he was also on teen titans.

I don't know if even that would have saved Static Shock. The book really bleed readers like crazy. It lost 20k readers between Sept and January and when you start with 34k that's really bad. I was going to start reading it when I came back to reading comics but they announced it's cancellation so I didn't figure there wasn't a point to adding it.