Worldwide Comic Pre-Orders vs. U.S. Sales
Posted: Mon Apr 15, 2013 6:42 am
ICv2 has an intersting article up about the differences in the Diamond estimates they calculate and the worldwide preorders provided by Image Comics for the 2013-03-15 releases:
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/25506.html:
As I've always stated, the Diamond data isn't the complete picture but it is the overwhelming majority and represents the core comic book reading audience.
http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/25506.html:
The Diamond data equates to as low as 82% for East of West #1 (with Diamond reducing the numbers for potential return of the overshipped copies) to as high as 99.62% on Peter Panzerfaust #10 with only 42 additional copies in the Image worldwide data. The average is 93.03% which is a little high than I would have expected.Image Comics provided us with worldwide (including Diamond UK) pre-order numbers for 15 March releases, so we could compare them to the ICv2 estimates for sales from U.S. Diamond locations in March, drawn from our over-all estimates of Diamond U.S. sales to comic stores (see "Top 300 Comics Actual--March 2013"). So the differences between the numbers reflect two things: the pre-order numbers include Diamond UK numbers, and the ICv2 estimates do not; and the ICv2 numbers include reorders, but the pre-orders do not. One other key difference on East of West #1 is that the pre-order numbers include over-ship numbers; the ICv2 numbers include a Diamond reserve for returns.
Typically, we've seen the Diamond UK numbers amount to about 10% of the total Diamond sales in the past, but that percentage can vary wildly depending on the title.
As I've always stated, the Diamond data isn't the complete picture but it is the overwhelming majority and represents the core comic book reading audience.