Similarity of sales for RASL #1, Echo #1 and Glamourpuss #1

[Wood]

Many of us have been immeasurably excited by the return of arguably the three most successful self-publishers in the comics business over the last 20 years. Dave Sim is of course back with Glamourpuss and Judenhass. Terry Moore is back with Echo, and Jeff Smith has given us Rasl. While there have been plenty of review shows out there, not much discussion has gone into how their books have been received by the direct market (speaking of sales here).

What will be particularly interesting to me is whether Smith, Moore and Sim even care about what the monthly numbers are. Presumably they are financially secure enough to weather a slow and steady build; and all three are quite familiar with the power of the evergreen collected edition market.

So what do we know about sales so far?

*** Glamourpuss -- According to the April numbers from Diamond, Glamourpuss sold 16,515 copies giving it a ranking of 112th for the month. I would have to think this was a solid number given the avant garde subject matter. This number, in and of itself, isn't very telling b/c Dave's name and his aggressive promotion of that issue to retailers certainly helped maximize the orders for that first issue. It'll be fascinating to see how the 2nd issue does, to get a gauge of things. For what it's worth John and Bob discussed the book in the latest Mayo Report and expect the book is going to see a major decline issue to issue; because the subject matter was so unique that it likely to weed out a lot of the people who were jumping onboard that 1st issue purely out of curiosity. What say you?

*** Echo -- Issue #1 debuted with 16,360 copies (109th) and Issue #2 shipped 14,381 (131st). Those strike me as solid sales for a back of the Previews book; and seem about in line with what Strangers in Paradise was selling toward its end, right? The 12% drop from issue 1 to issue 2 is pretty standard based on what I've read from Mayo and John Jackson Miller, so as long as this settles into an audience in the 10K+ range, I would hope Terry will be set for a nice long run of story telling with this one.

*** RASL -- Issue #1 shipped 16,346 copies (119th) and we haven't seen a 2nd issue yet to gauge reader reaction to a book that is definitely a departure from Bone (but still intriguing to my mind).

Looking up these numbers, I'm actually far more intrigued by the collective comparison than I am each individual title. Compare the sales into the direct market for the #1 issues of each of these books:

• Glamourpuss = 16,515
• Echo = 16,360
• RASL = 16,346

Those are STUNNINGLY similar numbers and, to me, suggests this is much more a reflection of the subset of the direct market retailers who support books by these successful indie creators than indicative of true, end reader demand. What would be the odds that books by three such diverse creators would be separated by 1% in their first months!?!?!? That seems like more than a statistical coincidence.

Curious to hear others thoughts on this.

[JohnMayo]

I think you are on to something here. I wish we had information on the breakdown of those orders across retailers. There is a decent chance that you are right that there is a subset of retailers that support this sort of material. However, I would suggest that those retailers would be doing so because of a true end reader demand at those stores.

The numbers over the next few issues of each title will indicate if they are following a similar sales trend or not.

Out of the three titles, I've only read the first issue of RASL so far. (I've got Echo #1-3 but haven't gotten around to reading them yet.)

My expectation is that Echo will probably do the best over the long term once the sales level out. Glamourpuss has a really good chance of dropping hard (30% or more) over the next issue or two. I'm not sure about RASL yet. It will probably go down a bit with the second issue but could turnaround over the long term.

[Skyhawke]

I think Rasl being a quarterly book is really going to hurt it in the long run.

[JohnMayo]

I think Rasl being a quarterly book is really going to hurt it in the long run.

I hadn't realized it was quarterly. That could really hurt the sales of it. On the flip side, if the timing is done right, the new issue would be out right before it is time to order the next issue and that might work.

[Wood]

I get the sense that Jeff Smith is 100% comfortable with putting this out regardless of the sales numbers. Let's be honest, financially he's as well off as any comics creator in the business (save for maybe Alex Ross) and understands that as long as he tells a good story, he's got years and years of selling this stuff in a meaty collected edition down the road.

[Skyhawke]

I think Rasl being a quarterly book is really going to hurt it in the long run.

I hadn't realized it was quarterly. That could really hurt the sales of it. On the flip side, if the timing is done right, the new issue would be out right before it is time to order the next issue and that might work.

I didn't either until he talked about it on Indie Spinner Rack. He admitted he just isn't that fast so he settled for a schedule that he knew he could handle. I am paraphrasing of course so I might of forgotten a detail but that is the jist of it.

[JohnMayo]

The 12% drop from issue 1 to issue 2 is pretty standard based on what I've read from Mayo and John Jackson Miller, so as long as this settles into an audience in the 10K+ range, I would hope Terry will be set for a nice long run of story telling with this one.

The standard drop between issues 1 and 2 is about 21.8% last I checked. So in that regard, Echo did better than average.

The standard drop between issues 2 and 3 is around that 12% range.

I really need to find the time to read the first three issues of Echo...

[Wood]

The 12% drop from issue 1 to issue 2 is pretty standard based on what I've read from Mayo and John Jackson Miller, so as long as this settles into an audience in the 10K+ range, I would hope Terry will be set for a nice long run of story telling with this one.

The standard drop between issues 1 and 2 is about 21.8% last I checked. So in that regard, Echo did better than average.

The standard drop between issues 2 and 3 is around that 12% range.

I really need to find the time to read the first three issues of Echo...

Sorry for misquoting you John! I was going off memory and should've pinged your first for clarification.

[JohnMayo]

The 12% drop from issue 1 to issue 2 is pretty standard based on what I've read from Mayo and John Jackson Miller, so as long as this settles into an audience in the 10K+ range, I would hope Terry will be set for a nice long run of story telling with this one.

The standard drop between issues 1 and 2 is about 21.8% last I checked. So in that regard, Echo did better than average.

The standard drop between issues 2 and 3 is around that 12% range.

I really need to find the time to read the first three issues of Echo...

Sorry for misquoting you John! I was going off memory and should've pinged your first for clarification.

Not a problem. I just wanted to get the right numbers into the discussion.

[BobBretall]

Of the 3, I think Echo will do the best in the long run.


As stated previously, RASL will be hurt by the infrequent schedule & Glamourpuss is too "out there" to sustain the numbers.

[Skyhawke]

Based on the feedback I have heard on podcasts and message boards, I think Dave Sim and Jeff Smith future sells will be only from the faithful readership. And of course there will be those that are the "wait for the trade" crowd.

[Wood]

Based on the feedback I have heard on podcasts and message boards, I think Dave Sim and Jeff Smith future sells will be only from the faithful readership. And of course there will be those that are the "wait for the trade" crowd.

It's kind of hard for me to segment Jeff Smith and Dave Sim together. Smith's "faithful readership" is easily 20-30x the size of Sim. The guy has arguably made more $$$$ from comics in the last decade than anyone not named Alex Ross.