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Dc comics definitely announced Diamond sell outs of all 14th Sept releases AND 2nd prints BEFORE release

(as reported on 12th september on Newsarama - http://www.newsarama.com/comics/dc-tout ... 10912.html )

I don't know how you think they could've pre-empted THIS much demand.

fudd71 wrote:

Danscomics wrote:I'm not sure consignment is an option due to the way distribution occurs. Sure, if DC sold directly to the comic shops they could do that without a problem. However, DC sells the books to Diamond who then sells them to the comic shops. Diamonds system isn't set up to do consignment, they invoice and charge as soon as they ship the books to me. It would require an overhaul of their whole system to allow for consignment which would be pricey and quite frankly, what is in it for Diamond to do that? Anything that doesn't sell they don't get paid for and all of the man hours to pack and ship those books have to be eaten by Diamond because DC screwed up. While I think it would be great to do, I can see why it isn't possible with the current distribution structure that is in place.

While Diamond might not be set up to sell on consignment we know DC is, they did it for book sellers on the Watchman TPB around the time the film was coming out. Again this was a time to be innovative and think outside the current system. DC could have gone outside the current system and done for shops what they did for bookseller then.

Both of these points illustrate my point that everyone is to stuck in their old way of thinking. DC said they wanted to revolutionize the current comic market. True innovation and change will only come by thinking outside the box a little, and it would have been nice to see a little more of that type of thinking.

Comic book stores and Book Stores are two different beasts. I don't know anything about their consignment deal but there is more than 1 distribution option for book stores. Sadly Diamond is the only option to get DC Comics for comic book shops due to exclusivity deals. In fact, depending on how it is written, that exclusivity deal may prevent them from even distributing items themselves if they had the infrastructure (which I'm sure they don't).

No arguments that the current system is flawed. The biggest one is that Diamond is effectively a monopoly with their exclusive deals with the 5 biggest companies. Unfortunately, until a way is found to break that monopoly, there is very little that can be changed about how it operates.

Paul Nolan wrote:Dc comics definitely announced Diamond sell outs of all 14th Sept releases AND 2nd prints BEFORE release

(as reported on 12th september on Newsarama - http://www.newsarama.com/comics/dc-tout ... 10912.html )

I don't know how you think they could've pre-empted THIS much demand.

DC has emailed retailers on the 13th, 20th, and 27th that the current week is a sell out and the order codes for 2nd printings. I'm assuming this was them waiting to make sure that even the overprints are gone due to advance reordering. For the first full week, the email didn't actually come until the 8th if I remember correctly. Based on that they probably the earliest they could have reasonably been expected to know there might be an issue with the print quantities was on the 8th. If we assume a 3 week print time (based on the FOC dates) the 2nd printings couldn't have come out before the 28th. And if I got hit with all the 2nd printings on the same week, that would have killed me financially so I'm much better off with them coming out across multiple weeks.

Short of being psychic or being willing to risk having a ton of extra copies that they can't sell, I don't think there is anyway DC could have gotten us 2nd printings faster. It's a much better business model to play it safe and end up like they did then it is to take a lot of wild guesses and losing tons of money. Am I kicking myself for not ordering more copies of the #1s? A bit. Would I be kicking myself harder if I had 100's of unsold comics lying around because I over did it? Definitely, all the way to the unemployment line.

Danscomics wrote: Short of being psychic or being willing to risk having a ton of extra copies that they can't sell, I don't think there is anyway DC could have gotten us 2nd printings faster. It's a much better business model to play it safe and end up like they did then it is to take a lot of wild guesses and losing tons of money. Am I kicking myself for not ordering more copies of the #1s? A bit. Would I be kicking myself harder if I had 100's of unsold comics lying around because I over did it? Definitely, all the way to the unemployment line.

Playing it safe is fine, but if you really want to succeed you have to take a risk. Especially a well-reasoned and calculated one. While you might not have wanted to order a second printing early some retailers might have. It wouldn’t have even been a huge risk, by 8/12 it was fairly obvious this was a huge hit and announcing second printing of the 8/21 and 8/28 books would not have been a huge risk. The point is as a reader particularly a new reader you don’t care about the excuses you just want to buy the books. If a new reader walks into a shop and is told they are sold out once or twice they will simply not go back and move onto something else.

I will tell you a quick story about a co-worker and friend. One of my co-workers is a huge Superman fan, but has never read a comic book, or at least not on a regular basis. He has Superman mugs, paper weights, neck ties, and art work in his office. To be honest I have no idea how he came to consider himself a Superman fan but he does. I have even asked him about why he is fan and he can’t give a clear answer, he just knows he likes Superman. So a few weeks ago he saw a news story about the new Justice League. He came to me the Monday after the release of Justice League and told me he had gone into a comic shop near his home on Saturday wanting to buy the new Justice League but they were sold out. I was more than happy to spread the comic love and the next morning had brought in my copy and gave it to him. I also told him that the books were available digitally, long story short, he doesn’t own a tablet and isn’t interested in reading a comic book sitting at his desk off a computer screen. Fast-forward to yesterday, I went into to my local shop during lunch and bought an extra copy of Superman #1 specifically to give to Brian. When I got back to the office I gave that comic to him and he thanked me. Today he came into my office and told me he had read it last night and how much he loved it. The most interesting part was a quick comment he made afterwards. He said, “After not being able to buy a copy of Justice League, and there not being much Superman in the one you gave me, I had just assumed I wasn’t interested in the comic books.” He then asked me about Action Comics. I told him that there should be new copies of Action Comics in the stores by now. He also asked about if there was a way he could get a subscription to Superman and where the shop near the office was that I bought my books at. The point is he is the type of fan DC claims to want, however the broken system almost made it so he never even bothered to walk into a shop again. Something needs to change because not all people like him will have a friend or co-worker as dedicated to getting the books in his hand as I was.

After looking at my last post I want to clear up the fact that I don’t think retailers for the most part did anything wrong, most that I’m aware of took a reasonable risk. It is DC a larger company with more capital and the one claiming to want to attract new readers and revelation the industry that could have done more and taken a few more risks taking that burden off the shop owners.

fudd71 wrote:

Danscomics wrote: Short of being psychic or being willing to risk having a ton of extra copies that they can't sell, I don't think there is anyway DC could have gotten us 2nd printings faster. It's a much better business model to play it safe and end up like they did then it is to take a lot of wild guesses and losing tons of money. Am I kicking myself for not ordering more copies of the #1s? A bit. Would I be kicking myself harder if I had 100's of unsold comics lying around because I over did it? Definitely, all the way to the unemployment line.

Playing it safe is fine, but if you really want to succeed you have to take a risk. Especially a well-reasoned and calculated one. While you might not have wanted to order a second printing early some retailers might have. It wouldn’t have even been a huge risk, by 8/12 it was fairly obvious this was a huge hit and announcing second printing of the 8/21 and 8/28 books would not have been a huge risk. The point is as a reader particularly a new reader you don’t care about the excuses you just want to buy the books. If a new reader walks into a shop and is told they are sold out once or twice they will simply not go back and move onto something else.

Do you mean 9/12? My statements were based on the fact that you originally said that DC should have solicited the 2nd printings on 8/12, which is almost a full month before the first full week of new 52 hit shelves. 9/12 is a completely different story.

You are correct; I made a mistake and did mean 9/12.

here's a question for sean: Do you regret the deal you made to pass on all 52 #1s for 25% of cover given what you've seen on ebay?

Trev wrote:here's a question for sean: Do you regret the deal you made to pass on all 52 #1s for 25% of cover given what you've seen on ebay?

I live life with no regrets!

In all seriousness, I don't mind at all. Yeah, I could have made an extra $100 to $200 on the deal, but the flipside is the extra risk I would have taken on.

When I made the deal to sell all the books for half of my cost, I was happy with the deal, because I was getting the value I wanted out of the deal.

I'm still happy with the value I am getting from the deal, regardless of the fact that I could now be getting more. The flipside is that I could have gotten about the same, or even less, and had to do the work of selling on ebay to do that.

Based on the information I had at the time, I liked my decision. The fact that new information is available now doesn't change the fact that I made the right decision in the past.

Plus, when I make deals, I stick to them. Just the way I roll.