Feedback Thread: Weekly Spotlight: 2007-08-15

[Koete]

Great first episode, I'm looking forward to listening each week. Thanks for the kind words as well John, hopefully you'll be able to come on again when the Brand New Day numbers are released.

[JohnMayo]

Glad you enjoyed the episode. I've love to be on your show again, particularly once the initial numbers are in on the thrice monthly Amazing Spider-Man with Brand New Day. I'm really curious how that change will pan out for Marvel in terms of sales.

[Lobo]

It's notable how early on you pointed out that some people order the first issue when deciding whether to order a trade, and later on pointed out the severe drop off on Foxwood Falcons.

How should publishers know when a severe drop off indicates lack of interest vs waiting for the trade?

Do you think this affected Foxwood Falcons?

Direct to trade probably sounds good to everyone except the artist who has to produce all of the pages. Unless comic publishers start offering creators an advance against royalties, like book publishers do with authors, we'd probably see a lot fewer independent titles.

[JohnMayo]

It's notable how early on you pointed out that some people order the first issue when deciding whether to order a trade, and later on pointed out the severe drop off on Foxwood Falcons.

How should publishers know when a severe drop off indicates lack of interest vs waiting for the trade?

Do you think this affected Foxwood Falcons?

Direct to trade probably sounds good to everyone except the artist who has to produce all of the pages. Unless comic publishers start offering creators an advance against royalties, like book publishers do with authors, we'd probably see a lot fewer independent titles.

That is the core problem for both the publishers and the retailers: When is a drop in sales or simply a lack of sales an indication of lack of interest versus waiting for the material in some other format?

And, really, there is no easy answer for this. The only real option is to see how the collected edition sells.

This is one of the many sales factors that has been a growing force for years. It used to be either the issues sold or they didn't. And if they didn't it was clearly a lack of interest since there was no other format for the readers to be waiting for.

The growth of the collected edition market has completely removed that connection between interest in a title and the sales of the periodical issues of it.

As for Foxwood Falcons, we made no mention of a severe drop off in sales. What we said was that the second issue had been cancelled by Diamond due to low sales. A subtle difference but an important one. Now, obviously enough of a drop to cancel a title does count as "severe" in terms of consequences. It may well have only been a few hundred units difference.

I won't know for sure until the August numbers from Diamond are released next month (and possibly not even then) how the first issue did. But, it wouldn't suprise me if the orders for the first and second issues were just far enough apart for Diamond to cancel the title. Most likely the first issue won't show up in the top 300 so we won't know for sure how it sold through Diamond.

While I understand that Diamond needs to make enough money on each item to justify the costs involved in distributing it, it is unforunate that it is Diamond and not the publisher that is making the decision to cancel some titles these days.

I suspect that most people that were actually interested in Foxwood Falcons probably preordered it. While it might have made a number of sales on the rack, I have a hard time imagining that many copies would have been on the rack to begin with. And that really stinks since it is hard for impulse buy a cool comic if you never see it at a store to flip through.

I think that the bigger factor with Foxwood Falcons was more likely to be a lack of faith on the part retailers and readers that the series would finish. And I say that simply because it was from a smaller press publisher and not as any sort of slight on the specific publisher or creators. And each time something like this happens, it reinforced that lack of faith. It is a downward death spiral that has been building for far too long and one that is virutally impossible to combat.

Direct to trade is one of those ideas that probably sounds better than it really is. Not only is there the increased upfront costs involved for production but the sad reality is that trades simply don't sell anyway near the numbers the periodical comics typically sell. For a title like Foxwood Falcons, assuming the price per page ratio remained about the same, I suspect that it would have sold well enough if it had originally been released as a trade for Diamond to carry it. And that is more than can be said for the second issue.

And, yeah, it really doesn't make sense for an artist on an indy property to spend all of the time to draw a trade in the hopes that it might sell and make enough money to justify the time spent on it. I completely agree that a shift to trades would probably result in fewer indy titles due to the increased risks and production costs. But titles like Sentinels from Drumfish Productions have shown that it can be done which is encouraging.

[leftcoastlove]

Another great episode guys. I have this podcast as part of my must listen list. This week I hadn't read any of the books you were covering but it was interesting non the less. Keep up this format please.

Sean