Diamond: Comics sales up 40% from a year ago and DC sells nearly half of them

1. An interesting note about Marvel’s Civil War…
   A major character, one of the original members of the Avengers, was killed, and there was almost no reaction from regular media.

   Darth was on the New York Times bestseller week for one week, charting below “March”.

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2. Aren’t most of those REBIRTH issues returnable?

   And thus vastly inflating numbers shipped vs. numbers sold?

   Meaning months before hard numbers based on sell-through?

   How come this isn’t adressed in your chirpy narrative?

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3. She’s chirpy because this is how it’s done each month so it’s comparable accross time. So any overstating of numbers, if it exists, happens *every* time.

   Am I correct that Dark Horse is way down in unit sales and dollars share?

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4. Simon, Iain is exactly right. Diamond always reports returnable comic issues in a reduced account and note the issue with an asterisk on their full monthly rundown. John Jackson Miller and other industry analysts estimate this reduction of reported sales to comic stores about 10 to 20 percent of sales. Miller recently posted some research on this site which showed that many returnable books actually sell around the full number of shipped issues one the year’s numbers are finalized. This is because retailers with extras sell them over time, trade with stores who need extra copies, or because returned copies are offset by 2nd or more printings. So there is good reason to believe that the Rebirth orders by comic shops will be sold to readers the same as any other comic would. As to why DC offered so many books as returnable, they had to in order to get retailers to take a risk on ordering their books again. Many retailers have reported that they were hardly selling any DC books this last year. Presumably standard sales attrition will occur to the DC titles over time as readers move to other titles or figure out which books they don’t like, but DC used returnability to encourage a risk free expansion of their market share and to reach more potential readers. Even with returns, Rebirth is undoubtedly a better sales expansion for DC than the New 52 was. The market for comic books is much better than 5 years ago. Thankfully all publishers are benefiting from the expanding market.

   As to other marketing gimmicks and strategies, publishers have many at their disposal (returnability, retailer incentive variants, Loot Crate inclusion, price incentives). Marvel for example uses variant covers to boost sales to retailers especially on first or key issues, with no way of accounting for how many of those issues were sold to readers either. What can be said though, is that retailers have businesses to run and bills to pay. They are not in the habit of wasting money, and any books they buy with the expectation they’ll be able to sell them through to readers. Anything less is wasted money.

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5. Thanks Nick.

   If y’all think the comics industry as regards sales can be depressing, consider the classical music industry. So far in 2016, not a single new music release in the States has sold a hundred copies, physical and downloaded combined. That’s why many of the classical music powerhouses such as ECM are developing all you can hear streaming services.

   (I’m beta testing several of them but for obvious reasons I can’t say which.)

   so I consider the sales for both DC and Marvel to healthy as even ten thousand units is more than enough to cover all their costs if their piece of the pie is roughly the same as the book and music corporations.. Though to be honest, neither needs to be profitable unlike say Dark Horse as they exist in part to mine for video, film and series, and gaming content.

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6. Nick, that “Ignore the asterisks” from Miller was interesting. Makes one wonder why they don’t leverage returnability more, though.

   I think Heidi’s articles could have used something to the tune of, “These numbers include a lot of returnable Rebirth comics, but considering that “Most returnable comics improve on their reported monthly sales figures” (link), one could be cautiously optimistic.”

   Mainstream readers reject Disney-Warner comics because of such impenetrable continuity. Isn’t it meta-amusing that even articles about them could exhibit some of it too? (Mandelbrot would love it!)

   More seriously, isn’t it Hibbs who used to include a boilerplate list of such caveats in his statfests, so that each one could be someone’s first? (Shooter would love it!)

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7. There’s no money in being truthful or honest. Heidi, like any industry insider has a vested interest to make things look better than they are, otherwise she’s out of a job, and you, out of a comics blog.

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8. Mike says ‘There’s no money in being truthful or honest.’

   It isn’t that not being truthful or honest, it’s that their success isn’t measured on whether they’re profitable or not, but how well their intellectual content has been used by other divisions of the parent company.

   Somewhere I read that Warner Animation didn’t do a third season of the Young Justice series because the action figure license wasn’t renewed by the company doing those figures and that license fee paid for the costs of producing another season.

   Please note that Cartoon Network is a wholly owned fivision of the Warner Brothers which is where Young Justice aired.

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9. Simon: Where is this” Rebirth was returnable so these numbers are bogus?” narrative coming from?

   DC You was returnable. Convergence was returnable. New 52 was returnable.

   Diamond always UNDERREPORTS numbers on returnable books.

   BUT thanks for the mansplain.

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10. Also, Saber Tooth Tiger MIke, I’ve just about had it with your trolling that’s wasting the time of people who have actual facts at their disposal.

    BTW, talking to ACTUAL PEOPLE in the ACTUAL COMICS INDUSTRY including ACTUAL CREATORS and there are a lot of problems in this business. They are not the ones STTM is talking about!

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11. Saber Tooth Tiger Mike is now officially on a time out. Not because he disagreed with me but because his fact-free postings are clearly designed to troll.

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12. “BUT thanks for the mansplain.”

    Heidi, if you disagree with a frank comment made by one person to another person, do you need to use this word? And isn’t it going to sound like a reverse-sexist personal attack? Whether it’s as a shield or a sword, playing the gender card isn’t helpful.

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