At one point your company had a few titles that sold extremely well. Newspapers were the main way people got the news, a large number of newstands existed. Your product was in every one of them.... You would add titles and although some would fail, the ones that succeeded sold very well.
Come forward in time, the comic shop is born, investors enter the market, sales boom like never before. You pull every trick in the book to increase sales, variant titles, "one shot specials", death of major characters. It works for awhile but eventually sales start to decline. In the background, newspapers are in a major decline, along with general purpose magazines. Less newstands, more and more people getting news from TV or the internet.
Technology comes into play, computers help with the production of comics, but in response to competition and technology the quality of the books increases even faster. You have a large number of titles, so much so that even your biggest fans have trouble keeping up with all of them (either financially or timewise). Your product is less available to people in book form, although you have diversified into video content and trade publications.
What do you do now? Cut titles? Expand the distribution system (and where)? Increase/decrease prices. More on-line distribution?
This is a business school case study (in an abbreviated form)... Since I have been listing to the discussions on the sales figures these questions keep running through my head... I haven't figured out the answer. Marvel is trying on-line (I don't know how it is working).. DC is trying videos every 6 months (and Marvel is also doing videos). I also don't know what the break-even point for monthly sales in a book is (I am sure it depends upon how well the associated trades sell among other things). I don't know if cutting 20% of your titles would translate into a 20% increase in sales for your other titles (I suspect not)... I am wondering if anyone else has any ideas in this area.
Frank
Put yourself in a comic managers spot
Moderator: JohnMayo
Personally, I think the answer is to tell "stickier" stories. By that, I mean that the stories need to have be more accessible and more entertaining for the readers so there is more incentive for them to both get the next issue and to tell others about the comics.
While there is room for major improvement in the areas of comic book formats, distribution and retailing, the core problem seems to be that the content isn't keeping readers coming back for more.
While there is room for major improvement in the areas of comic book formats, distribution and retailing, the core problem seems to be that the content isn't keeping readers coming back for more.
There is still a "head wind"
There was an announcement today that PC Magazine will stop producing a printed edition (going to all on-line)... ALthough comics are a graphic media that is better on paper than on-line (at least for me).. It seems that the industry has to contend with the trend which is negative
I don't disagree that better stories would go along way to solving that problem. I wonder how much emphasis is put on that. Do the deadlines have top priority, how much time do the editors spend on story content...
Are editors replaced if there titles are somehow not up to snuff. I read someplace that the old marvel execs were "too busy" to read their own products... You know that they weren't concerned with product quality, I don't know what the committment is by the current management
I don't disagree that better stories would go along way to solving that problem. I wonder how much emphasis is put on that. Do the deadlines have top priority, how much time do the editors spend on story content...
Are editors replaced if there titles are somehow not up to snuff. I read someplace that the old marvel execs were "too busy" to read their own products... You know that they weren't concerned with product quality, I don't know what the committment is by the current management
Re: There is still a "head wind"
You read about how at one point the Marvel executives were "too busy" to read their comics here.Frank wrote:There was an announcement today that PC Magazine will stop producing a printed edition (going to all on-line)... ALthough comics are a graphic media that is better on paper than on-line (at least for me).. It seems that the industry has to contend with the trend which is negative
I don't disagree that better stories would go along way to solving that problem. I wonder how much emphasis is put on that. Do the deadlines have top priority, how much time do the editors spend on story content...
Are editors replaced if there titles are somehow not up to snuff. I read someplace that the old marvel execs were "too busy" to read their own products... You know that they weren't concerned with product quality, I don't know what the committment is by the current management
I went to the trade only Expo that used to precede the San Diego Comic-Con every year. Around the time of the bankruptcy, I think right after but I'm not positive on that, I asked the person then in charge of Marvel as a company (ie the president of the company, not the editor-in-chief) how many comic books he read. He answered that he read none as he was too busy running the company.
On the one hand, there is some logic to that and there was major work that needed to happen on the business of Marvel at the time. On the other hand, how can someone expect to run a comic book publishing company without being somewhat familiar with the comic books they are publishing.
As for deadlines having any sort of priority, given how late some titles are I can't see how deadlines could be remotely considered any kind of high priority at some of these publishing companies.