Mayo Report

[ctowner1]

The lack of an LCS that carries a full line of the stuff people want to read will either drive them out of the hobby or drive them to on-line retailers like DCBS where they can get ANYTHING that is published via Diamond & not be shackled by what shop-keepers like Hibbs deign to put on the racks. Sure, they can have a pull list with Hibbs and owners like him, but if I have to pre-order instead of browsing the racks, I'll take the discount I can get on-line.

That's essentially what broke a 40 yr LCS habit for me. I used to be able to go into a comic shop on new comics day, browse the racks, and get what I wanted. Then I moved to a town where the LCS had me fill out a monthly pull list, but they still ordered enough books that I didn't really need to pay close attention to what I was pulling, b/c if I didn't pull it, I could just see it on the racks and buy it then.

But then I move to a town where I had to preorder everything, and if I didn't preorder it, it almost certainly wasn't going to be on the racks if it wasn't a Big 2 book (and even if it was, there was a decent chance it wouldn't be there). and to add top it off, I wasn't even getting all the books on my pull list (b/c, evidently, he'd occasionally do late pulls for long time customers who didn't order books and short people who did order them!). That was the last straw for me - I've been w/DCBS ever since (for about 4.5 years now).

e
L nny

[fudd71]

That's the problem with averages. Some indie books sell WAY more than 5 copies. But that's only in stores that bother to carry them. Very strong "Chicken & Egg" thing going on. If an LCS does not carry an indie book then their customers won't know it exists and surely won't buy it. BUT some LCS customers are so entrenched in the Big 2 that it's a hard sell for any Indie book regardless of quality.

I think some shops tend to specialize in the Indies stuff, people who are into that stuff frequent those shops, and those shops that make up (at a guess I'd say between 10-20% of all shops) are the ones doing the majority of the Indie sales.

I agree with this completely. Averages are helpful to broad trends but not necessarily relatable to all or even any specific individual case.

There really are three major fallacies in the conclusions Mr. Hibbs came too:

Books selling fewer than 5 copies of an issue in your store are not profitable-the overhead costs of each store are different (local rents, taxes, and cost of labor). This will affect the profitably numbers from store to store. There may be some stores that feel it is worth it to carry anything they can sell 3 copies of or even fewer. To be fair there are stores that might find it unprofitable to carry books they sell less than 10 or 15 or even more copies of a title. This 5 copies limit maybe true for Mr. Hibbs’ store but not for any other store.

Books selling under 30K copies don’t sell 10 per store – these books do average less then 10 copies per store but that does mean any store that carries them sells less than 5 copies. If a only quarter of the stores (750) carry a book and sell 30 copies each the book will sell 22.5K copies. This is well bellow the 30K mark, but the book is still profitable for each store that carries it (and that excepts the false idea that less then 5 copies is unprofitable).

Books selling under 30K copies are unprofitable for the publisher – Again depending on the overhead cost, who knows if this is true. This assumes production cost on all books is the same, something that is most likely false. It assumes overhead cost for all or at least the big publishers is the same, most likely false.

Something I know John has mentioned before, a percentage of stores that order even a single copy of book would be useful. With the number of stores being indeterminate and no way of even guessing at a standard deviant for the averages, applying the average to any single store or group of stores is pointless.

[LA Rabbit]

I think some shops tend to specialize in the Indies stuff, people who are into that stuff frequent those shops, and those shops that make up (at a guess I'd say between 10-20% of all shops) are the ones doing the majority of the Indie sales.

So if 300 shops are selling 5,000 copies of an Indie book then they're each selling about 16 copies.

I have not been to as many stores as Bob, but I agree with this sentiment. I would probably think it is closer to 20%, but may be biased from living in big towns and college towns which may have more desire for unusual books.

While many are technically indy books, I think licensed books are a bit of a separate beast as they purportedly have a built in fan base. If you segregate them and discount the few indy books by big names (Kirkman, Brubaker, Vaughn), the pile of indy books making sales is small. If you want to own the thing, then I think you can't do Valiant, Zenescope, Bongo and those others that are owned by the company. I would guess your best bet is to go with Image. The only question is do you make up the difference in extra sales considering you have to pay the fee?

Great article by Jim Zub (recently updated) about indy comics publishing by the numbers. It pays to remember that Zub is going through Image so has a higher profile than some publisher in the back of previews.

http://www.jimzub.com/?p=1953

[BobBretall]

While many are technically indy books, I think licensed books are a bit of a separate beast as they purportedly have a built in fan base.

Agreed. That said, I think most comic shops really drop the ball on marketing/selling licensed books to their customers.

A Marvel fan is going to find the latest issue of X-Men or Avengers if they keep it under a rock at the back of the shop. These do not need to be merchandised right up front. I've only been to a couple of shops that have had Star Wars, Transformers, Simpsons, etc. right up front so that the casual consumer is going to see something they're familiar with right when they walk in the shop.
I talked to one of the owners who did that & he told me they did very well with the licensed books, people would say "Hey, I didn't know XX was done as a comic, let me check it out!"

Great article by Jim Zub (recently updated) about indy comics publishing by the numbers. It pays to remember that Zub is going through Image so has a higher profile than some publisher in the back of previews.

http://www.jimzub.com/?p=1953

Yes, I saw this article yesterday. I like how he also addresses the "digital comics" myth that creators somehow get more from a digital book down in the comments section:

Once Apple/Google, comiXology and the publisher take their cut, creators are left with almost the same percentage left over, even when their digital comics are priced on par with the printed versions.

[LA Rabbit]

I don't see digital yet adding significant dollars but it does seem like the webcomic route can raise your profile (Kickstarter - Order of the Stick example).

For those that skip the comments, you may want to to go down because Ryan Dunlavey goes through the particulars for Comic Book Comics #5 (their worst seller). Still important to remember that Fred and Ryan have both done work for Marvel and had their previous comic (Action Philosophers) so they had some name recognition. Also points out that convention sales are more profit to them. I frequently try to buy from the creators when possible there but that is just because I don't mind foregoing the discount. No one can complain about people paying the least possible as long as they don't steal. Comment copied below.

Ryan Dunlavey November 28, 2012 at 10:16 am
Nat’s right – your Diamond figure in particular is way, WAY off. I know the focus on your article is on how little money there is in creator-owned comics (very true) and not the numbers, but a lot of inexperienced people are going to come here and look at the math and think it’s correct when it really isn’t.

The books Fred Van Lente and I self-publish through our Evil Twin Comics imprint sell at a 60% discount to Diamond, which they then sell to shops at a 40% discount. So fDiamond would buy a $3 comic from us for $1.20, and then Diamond sells it to retailers for $1.80. (Any retailers reading this please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). So Diamond actually nets 60 cents per copy – NOT a dollar as you said in your breakdown. That’s a BIG difference. Multiply that difference by 2000, 3000, 5000 copies and that ads up to more money to the publisher & creators than what you’re saying.

Some of the other figures you threw out are similar skewed but rather than try and refute them one-by-one I dug up the hard numbers for one of my self-published comics. It’ anecdotal evidence that doesn’t paint quite as bleak a picture:

Comic Book Comics #5
$3.95 cover price, 32 pages, B&W interior, 4 color cover
Published February 2011
Wholesale price to Diamond – $1.58 per copy (60% discount)
Number of copies ordered – 2049
Diamond purchase total – $3237.42
Total printing & shipping costs – $1499.75*
Total operating costs of Evil Twin Comics – $0**
Money made from initial Diamond order – $1737.67

*(2500 copies from Morgan Printing http://www.morganprinting.com/ Great people, great prices and the only printer that I know of that specializes in comic books and offers newsprint paper stocks. Highly recommended!)

**(Fred & I don’t outsource ANYTHING – we do all the writing, artwork, lettering, design, editing, pre-press, marketing and bookkeeping ourselves all out of our tiny Brooklyn apartments).

Plus we sold a lot of the extra copies at conventions at cover price, and direct-to-retail at 50% of the cover with us paying for shipping, so about $1000 on top of the profit made from the DIamond order, and a few hundred from digital sales to-date. So our take home pay so far has been $3000 for this single issue, or $90 per page. Not great (especially when you factor in how many hours it takes to write and draw comics), but not terrible either. And this was our LOWEST selling single issue ever (it was a re solicitation and the 2nd to last issue of a series) – most of our single issues sold in the 2500-3000 range, which of course made more money. So still bleak, yes, but not as doom-and-gloom as your numbers and skewed percentages make it out to be, and when you factor in TPB sales (which have MUCH higher profit margins) and the fact that the digital editions will always be available for the indefinite future, it’s really not so terrible.

I’m not looking to pick a fight with you Jim, I agree with all your sentiments here, but the numbers you presented for your article are skewed. Even if you’re publishing color comics the printing costs only go up by a few cents per issue, and when you print 5000 or more you’re only gonna pay between 50 – 60 cents per copy in printing.

Publishing comics can be a pain in the butt and the profit margins are frustratingly low but figuring it out is actually pretty easily. It’s the writing and drawing that’s hard!

Reply
admin November 28, 2012 at 11:29 am
I’m not offended in the slightest, Ryan. I really appreciate you questioning and clarifying based on data you’ve got. I need to sit down and make it more exact so people aren’t mislead in thinking this is some perfect calculation they can use to build their business plan/budgets around.

I did mention that the percentages vary quite a bit based on which retailers are ordering the book, print costs and other factors. I obviously didn’t expect this blog post to go quite so crazy as it did, so my generalization/simplification is being quoted as sacrosanct, which wasn’t my intent.

I also was focused purely on the metrics for selling single issues via mainstream distribution. I’m going to do another post or two about convention sales, digital sales, trade sales and other sales avenues. I didn’t want things to come across as completely doom and gloom, just to spotlight that competing in a mainstream retail market with extremely low print runs/margins is difficult and what some of those challenges are because of the overall splits.

I really, really appreciate you taking the time to comment so thoroughly. You rock.

Reply
Ryan Dunlavey November 28, 2012 at 12:36 pm
Cool – and thank YOU for writing such a great article Jim!

admin November 28, 2012 at 1:10 pm
The breakdown and pie chart are now updated.

Reply
admin November 28, 2012 at 1:10 pm
Thanks for the input. I’ve updated the percentages, pie chart and breakdown to better reflect the real numbers.

[boshuda]

Where's the statement of ownership located? I kind of get it's some blurb in the comic, but is it smooshed in the regular copyright? Is it on the editorial page? Do you have any examples you could post? I would be happy to look for them, but I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for.

[JohnMayo]

Where's the statement of ownership located? I kind of get it's some blurb in the comic, but is it smooshed in the regular copyright? Is it on the editorial page? Do you have any examples you could post? I would be happy to look for them, but I'm not exactly sure what I'm looking for.

The Statement of Ownership is usually located on page of an ad page or editorial page in the comic. It often takes up a 1/3 column of the page but sometimes is the lower half or third of the page. Here is the 2011 Statement of Ownership from Invincible Iron Man #510:



As you can see, there is a ton of information in it including the total print run and total paid circulation.

[boshuda]

That does have a lot of useful information. I'll keep an eye out for them. Particularly in my weird titles or titles that I know you don't get (like Crossed).

[JohnMayo]

That does have a lot of useful information. I'll keep an eye out for them. Particularly in my weird titles or titles that I know you don't get (like Crossed).

Great. Thanks. Feel free to mention ones in titles I do get. Sometimes I forget to set those issues aside so I can scan in the Statement of Ownership data.

[BobBretall]

That does have a lot of useful information. I'll keep an eye out for them. Particularly in my weird titles or titles that I know you don't get (like Crossed).

I believe they are only required in books that are either newsstand distributed or offered via mail-order subs? Is that right, John?

[JohnMayo]

That does have a lot of useful information. I'll keep an eye out for them. Particularly in my weird titles or titles that I know you don't get (like Crossed).

I believe they are only required in books that are either newsstand distributed or offered via mail-order subs? Is that right, John?

My understanding is the Statement of Ownership is a United States Postal Service requirement for periodicals sent using First Class mail. DC got around this in the mid 1970s by switching to Second Class mail for subscriptions.

Bottom line, not all comics will have the Statement of Ownership. Even some required to do so sometimes skip a year.

Frankly, I've been so busy the last month or so I didn't even think about looking for them as I've been doing my reading so it entirely possible I just failed to notice them in the October/November Marvel issues this time around.

[Perry]

Bob - "I guess they figured the 'EDGE' sounds better than the bin"

[the1captain]

Just listened to the comics report. Job well done as always guys. COuple of thoughts.

John, near the start of the episode you mentioned Valiant making a push towards that mid-ter level of publisher. Could you please elaborate? Valiant for me is igniting my interest in a "shared universe" concept again. I have found the slow, almost grass roots, approach to marketing their books very interesting. I hope it pays off.

About increasing readers. Just my humble opinion but DC and Marvel have to get back on the local news stands. When any of the Marvel movies, Nolan's Batman, or other comic movies were out this was a chance, with the raised profile these movies bring, to interest someone to try the books. At the grocery and/or local corner store, a person may impulse buy a 3-4 dollar book. If not for them, perhaps for their child. One can not expect the same impulse driven purchase for a 15-20 dollar trade at Barnes & Noble. We all started with one comic. You never know where that first book will lead you.

I understand that the news stand market is very different than the direct market. The slice of the pie is more divided up. And unlike the direct market, the news stand expects the books to be returnable. Even if the books themselves sold on the stand didn't generate a lot of profit. Having them out there is great advertisement and reaches out to an audience that may not at first be willing to search out for a local comic shop until they try some books and want more.

[JohnMayo]

Just listened to the comics report. Job well done as always guys. COuple of thoughts.

John, near the start of the episode you mentioned Valiant making a push towards that mid-ter level of publisher. Could you please elaborate? Valiant for me is igniting my interest in a "shared universe" concept again. I have found the slow, almost grass roots, approach to marketing their books very interesting. I hope it pays off.

I see three very different levels of comic book publishers. You have the two big dogs of Marvel and DC. At the other end of the spectrum are the small publishers with as few as one up to half a dozen or so titles. Between those two extremes are publishers like Image, IDW, Dark Hose, Dynamite and Boom. These publishers can have as many as a few dozen titles but are clearly not the same scale or scope of Marvel or DC yet as clearly much larger operations than the smaller press publishers like Red 5 Comics or Abstract Studios.

I think that Valiant has the potential to move from that smaller size of publisher to that middle size of publisher. Valiant has very strong average sales and seems to be trying to grow in a slow but steady manner. Personally, I think that is the right approach to take.

Does that answer you question?

[the1captain]

Just listened to the comics report. Job well done as always guys. COuple of thoughts.

John, near the start of the episode you mentioned Valiant making a push towards that mid-ter level of publisher. Could you please elaborate? Valiant for me is igniting my interest in a "shared universe" concept again. I have found the slow, almost grass roots, approach to marketing their books very interesting. I hope it pays off.

I see three very different levels of comic book publishers. You have the two big dogs of Marvel and DC. At the other end of the spectrum are the small publishers with as few as one up to half a dozen or so titles. Between those two extremes are publishers like Image, IDW, Dark Hose, Dynamite and Boom. These publishers can have as many as a few dozen titles but are clearly not the same scale or scope of Marvel or DC yet as clearly much larger operations than the smaller press publishers like Red 5 Comics or Abstract Studios.

I think that Valiant has the potential to move from that smaller size of publisher to that middle size of publisher. Valiant has very strong average sales and seems to be trying to grow in a slow but steady manner. Personally, I think that is the right approach to take.

Does that answer you question?

That's how I see them doing. One thing Valiant has going for them is that they can sell consistency as a marketing tool for the whole line. Slowly rolling out their new titles and(so far) not expanding the line too large too fast makes it easy for new readers to try the books. Also makes it easy for current fans to continue buying the whole line as it is relatively easy and not too expensive. It's probably been close to 20 years since I tried to follow a whole line of particular books.