The New Previews Catalog Changes

[drew]

With DC getting its own catalog and Boom & Dynamite getting elevated to Premiere status, what do you think these change will mean (you can vote up to 3 selections)

[Kdunlop]

My other effect is a fear that sales will decrease for the publishers in the back of the catalog. I think as sales increase for the new premiere publishers, those on a budget might check out the non—premieres less.

[jrphoenix]

I think DC sales won't change and some slight uptick in Boom / Dynamite (especially if they price their material better).

I heard recently that a "page" in previews sells for $3,000 to a back half publisher. In the latest previews DC had 71 pages. I know they probably get a bulk purchase "deal" but, let's assume 3k. That is $213,000. They could print a nice magazine size book with more pages for way less than $213,000. Marvel has been saving a boatload by sticking with a comic size publication (I do think they should upgrade to the magazine size format).

I think previews may be a big loser in revenue, first marvel, then DC, who's next Image? They have a 700 page catalog which should generate over $2 million in revenue. I still don't understand why they charge retailers or comics purchasers for something they must be making a boat load from. $4 X how many copies do they sell?

[erickowabunga]

For me, I think there has been an indistinguishable difference between premier and non-premier publishers who use full page ads. If this was a smaller publisher being promoted to premier that was currently relegated to a small blurb, I think there would be a measurable uptick in sales. But as BOOM! and Dynamite are already publishing full page ads for their books - it hardly seems like a promotion.

I think DC being removed from the main Previews will also yield roughly the same outcome. Not a single Previews purchased in our store gets just Marvel. Now, that is not to say it won't change, and more importantly not to say it isn't different in other stores - just that for us, I don't believe we will see much, if any, change.

[drew]

My other effect is a fear that sales will decrease for the publishers in the back of the catalog. I think as sales increase for the new premiere publishers, those on a budget might check out the non—premieres less.

good point - i'll add those as options

[drew]

crap on a stick - i think i just reset all the votes when i edited the poll [WebWiz7] [WebWiz7]

[JohnMayo]

I heard recently that a "page" in previews sells for $3,000 to a back half publisher. In the latest previews DC had 71 pages. I know they probably get a bulk purchase "deal" but, let's assume 3k. That is $213,000. They could print a nice magazine size book with more pages for way less than $213,000.

That costs sounds like the cost of a full page ad in Previews. Being listed in Previews is free. I would be amazed if DC is paying anything remotely resembling the ad rates for Diamond to list their items.

DC and Marvel use Diamond as a sales agent, not as a distributor like the other publishers. The different is when Diamond acts as a distributor for the other publishers, it buys the material from them and sells it to the retailers. As a sales agent, Diamond brokers the deals for DC and Marvel but never takes ownership of the material. The result is Diamond sort of works for DC and Marvel and the relationship is different. DC and Marvel, and a number of other publishers, seem to create their pages for Previews themselves versus having Diamond do it for them. This is no doubt the result of contract negotiations when the publishers became exclusive.

Odds are the publishers like DC, Marvel, Image, etc which has a distinct look for their sections in Previews have a set page count which they provide to Diamond. This would act as a cost savings measure for Diamond since they don't have to produce those pages themselves.

The guideline I use to determine if something is an ad or not is if there is a different listing for the item or not. For instance, Hillbilly #11 by Albatross Funnybooks is listed on page 328 and there is a full page ad for it on page 329. So, page 329 is a full page ad. Pages 331 to 335 are the only listings for American Mythology so those don't seem to be full page ads but pages provided by the publisher for the listings.

[JohnMayo]

For me, I think there has been an indistinguishable difference between premier and non-premier publishers who use full page ads. If this was a smaller publisher being promoted to premier that was currently relegated to a small blurb, I think there would be a measurable uptick in sales. But as BOOM! and Dynamite are already publishing full page ads for their books - it hardly seems like a promotion.

I agree that being a premiere publisher seems insignificant. Moving forward in Previews might help BOOM! and Dynamite. I agree with your point that the look/feel of those sections is unchanged.

I disagree with your choice of terms of "full page ads" as I don't think that publisher provided Previews pages are technically full page ads. The difference is visually minor but I would be amazed and disappointed if Diamond is getting paid the full page ad rate (or any meaningful percentage of it) for all of the publisher provided Previews pages.

Number of publisher provided pages for Previews
Dark Hose: 37
DC: 75
IDW: 39
Image: 52
Marvel: 4 (Previews pages only, not counting Marvel Previews pages)
Dynamite: 28
BOOM!: 29
Aftershock: 10
American Mythology: 5
Antarctic Press: 2
Archie: 4
Aspen: 6
Avatar: 3
Black Mask: 2
Boundless: 6
Dynamic Forces: 2
EC Comics: 1
Fantagraphics: 2
Gemstone (Not counting since it is part of the Diamond Comics collection of companies)
Lion Force: 10
Oni: 10
Titan Comics: 19
Valiant: 8
Zenescope: 5

(Those are quick counts so I might be a little off on them.)

That is a total of 359 pages which works out to $1,077,000 if the publishers were paying that $3,000 full page ad rate. That is just for the comics section of Previews this month. Again, I would be amazed and disappointed if Diamond is getting paid the full page ad rate (or any meaningful percentage of it) for all of the publisher provided Previews pages.

I think DC being removed from the main Previews will also yield roughly the same outcome. Not a single Previews purchased in our store gets just Marvel. Now, that is not to say it won't change, and more importantly not to say it isn't different in other stores - just that for us, I don't believe we will see much, if any, change.

I hope you are right. Marvel and DC not being in Previews is a risk. We'll see how it plays out.

[erickowabunga]

I disagree with your choice of terms of "full page ads" as I don't think that publisher provided Previews pages are technically full page ads. The difference is visually minor but I would be amazed and disappointed if Diamond is getting paid the full page ad rate (or any meaningful percentage of it) for all of the publisher provided Previews pages.

I do think that there is a volume discount, as with almost any industry. But it has to be just as, or more cost efficient for DC to want to jump ship.

[drew]

https://www.previewsworld.com/catalog
so new catalog and order form (with page numbers) is out and the premiere publisher order is:

Image-
dark horse -
DC (ad i assume) -
IDW -
Marvel (ad i assume) -
Dynamite -
Boom -

ummmm, what?