The history of the rise of graphic novels in the 21st century has not really been written about from a business standpoint. John Shableski was Sales Manager at Diamond Book Distributors from 2007 to 2011 and has shared some memories of those early days, along with a timeline for some of the developments. Diamond Book Distributors is the division that sells graphic novels into bookstores, and represented almost every major comics publisher at some point – and they still work with dozens of publishers.
2003: Diamond hires Kuo Yu Liang to launch DBD
2003: Librarians begin reporting that graphic novels are generating dramatic increases in circulation which is essentially a mechanism for tracking return on investment. Greater circulation of any category or subject usually equates to that library buying more copies of a book to meet the demand.
2004: ALA commissions the Great Graphic Novels for Teens committee (Kat Kan (chair), Eva Volin, Robin Brenner, Barbara Moon, Mike Pawuk, Todd Krueger et al)
2007: Ku hires Janna Morishima and then John Shableski
2008: Shableski joins the BEA advisory committee, Morishima creates the GN programming for BEA in Anaheim, Shableski writes programming for both ALA Annual in DC and for Miami Book Fair.
2009: Morishima fosters the launch of TOON Books at MidWinter ALA.
Committees and programming might not sound like thrilling news – and certainly wouldn’t have made an impact without the great books that were being created by the likes of Jeff Smith, Kazu Kibuishi and Raina Telgemeier – but as someone who was reporting on these events as they happened, trust me, they were huge developments that led to the current $2 billion North American market for comics.
Here’s John’s recollections in light of Diamond’s uncertain future.
–Heidi MacDonald
by John Shableski
It was sometime in August of 2007 when I got a call from Kuo-Yu Liang inviting me to join the recently formed Diamond Books Distribution division. He said they were building a team of people who “made things happen or knew where the next thing was about to happen.”
I’d met Ku a year earlier in the Diamond Books Division booth during the American Library Association’s annual conference. Rich Johnson, who was then SVP of Trade Sales for DC Comics, had instigated what was soon to become the Graphic Novels Pavilion at the annual conference. Rich had convinced Michael Martens and Dark Horse to exhibit at this particular show because, as Rich put it, “Librarians are what this industry needs right now.”
Later that summer I wound up on a call with Ku who said “We’ve got some pretty cool stuff going on with the books division and I think you are a good fit for the team.” He went on to explain that the Diamond Books division had a great opportunity to help shape the
market, work with librarians and indie retailers, and to help the comics publisher grow into markets that they’d never quite understood. He added “You speak library right now, but we also need some help with the independent book market” so this is where I would start for DBD.
My first sales conference at Diamond HQ was really quite amazing. The team was basically a NASA style skunk works: We had three great people come over from Borders/Walden Books: Emily Bottica, Josh Hayes, and Stu Carter. Scott Hatfil had come over from Ingram Distribution to develop our international markets. Doug White also came in from the traditional book market where he had been a buyer for Baker & Taylor. Cameron Drew represented the Canadian market via our partnership with the Manda Group while Simon Byrne represented us in the UK and other international markets.
Then there was Janna Morishima who had come over from Scholastic where she had co-founded the Graphix imprint. This was the person who brought floppies of Bone into the same building that had been ruled by Harry Potter. Janna’s Diamond gig was to develop the kids publishing program.
As I looked around the room for the first time at that meeting, I realized Ku had built something pretty amazing. Whenever we had an idea that might take us somewhere–to New York, Miami, Chicago, even west Texas – Ku would say “Go find out what we can do.”
On a brilliant October day in 2008 Janna and I were both in NYC for meetings. I was on the advisory board for Book Expo America and along with that meeting, Janna and I were working with Francoise Mouly on the launch event for her TOON Books imprint (which would take place at the Mid-Winter meetings for the American Library Association). In addition to the other meetings, Janna invited me to join in on a meeting at the Mayor’s office with Barbara Stripling who was then the director of Library Services for the NYC Dept of Education.
This meeting happened thanks to Janna’s friendship with Melissa Jacobs who worked for Barbara. Barbara brought her staff together for this meeting where Janna and I got to share with them how the market was growing and how the value of kids comics would soon be a great tool for early childhood literacy. Janna spoke from the editorial and development side while I emphasized the importance of the impact the public library was having on the category. The main point being: indie bookstores didn’t know what graphic novels were, comic book shops didn’t carry them, but the librarians knew that these books were driving their business in ways that hadn’t been seen since the arrival of videos. The original entry point of graphic novels was through the young adult section where you would find titles from First Second, Viz and Tokyopop.
During this meeting, Janna got to explain how comics works for early readers and challenged readers. I got to share market development information about the explosive impact graphic novels were having on public library circulation. Bear in mind, school libraries and public libraries have very different approaches to how they select and buy books, so this approach by the director and her team was not quite normal.
When we were done, Stripling simply stated that Janna and I would be giving in-service training sessions for the librarians of the NYC Dept of Education that following spring. She didn’t ask or request – she simply said it like it was meant to be.
When we walked out of the building it dawned on the both of us that we were going to speak to librarians who represented over 1 million students. Graphic novels soon became “a thing” in NYC Schools. That happened because of Janna.
So what happened with our Books Division? We were hamstrung by an antiquated operating system that was created for comics retailers and by financial terms that were designed to control the comic shops. Our ordering system and title database was all DOS. Yes, that odd green screen with gray lines that most companies left back in the late 90s. Diamond was still using it in 2007. And due to the incredibly inert system, libraries could not order directly from us.
The work around was to promote the publishers at the tradeshows and convince the librarians to order from places like Ingram, Baker and Taylor or Brodart. Even the process of loading title data into this system was driven by a “direct market staffer” who put titles into the system one title at a time and he did it using the direct market language. Which is like speaking Aramaic when the entire publishing and distribution world speaks English. When I asked him about this one time he simply shrugged and said “I dunno man, this is what I’m told to do.”
When it came to developing the indie bookstore market? There was no budging from the Diamond Direct Market terms of Cash on Delivery for comic shops. Indie bookstores get standard payment terms from traditional publishers that allow a store to try out new authors or publishers with the opportunity to return unsold titles and/or a delay in payment of up to 120 days. Again these kinds of terms allow for and encourage market development for any publisher.
At DBD, even the return policy was abusive. A store would get a box of crap that was not even related to their order and they would get stuck with it because the folks handling returns for retailers either didn’t care or didn’t have a clue. When I asked the woman in charge of our credit department about the policies – and bear in mind, she had been hired away from a major house – her reply was “If the direct market hears that you are doing this for bookstores, then everything will go sideways.”
We had a solid team in the books division, we had great partnerships with indie book rep companies, we had made inroads with library wholesalers who all said “This can work, we will help you but you have to adapt to the real world.”
So the recent news of Diamond’s financial demise are not really that much of a surprise. It is a sad thing in many ways. Our team had put a lot of work into everything we had. We had such a great team, a think tank where any idea could lead to a change in the industry. Ku gave us all kinds of room to run–as long as it grew the market for us and really, the industry as a whole. Some publishers listened and flourished while others did not. Had Diamond adapted and evolved, this would be an entirely different conversation.
Prior to joining the publishing industry John Shableski has led previous lives in radio broadcasting and cable television. Over the past 20 years John has been in book distribution, library wholesale, professional development, convention and conference development, he’s created industry awards and been a juror for the Eisner Awards. He’s consulted for the Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation, the Norman Rockwell Museum, Archie Comics, Heavy Metal Magazine, Udon Entertainment and several other houses. He currently manages the Otto Bookstore, one of the oldest independent bookstores in the country.
Great column. I would like to see more of these, if possible.
This article brought back many memories that I’d hidden away. Back in the early 2000’s when libraries were ‘discovering’ the power of Graphic Novels and I was in the process of wrapping up my retail store, I was invited to speak about GN’s at the local library, and word got aroubnd to other libraries in the local library system, and I made a number of presentations, culminating in one before a annual statwide conference of Wisconsin libraries. I didn’t know of the problems presented to libraries in getting the books, but they were certainly able to procure them. It was a heady time for me, and I like to think I helped out in some small way.
Well, I wrote a nice little piece and tapped the wrong button and it was gone. My point was, very well written piece, thank you. I didn’t have the facts you have, but in those days I also felt like Diamond did not understand the independent bookstore market. That was short-changing those comics publishers trying to penetrate it, which is why so many moved on to Ingram and Random House and Simon and Shuster, where they are today. Diamond did fine with comics and periodicals, however, I will never short them on that job well done.
I didn’t know about the computer issues, but giving stores net 30 and returns, that is iron clad must-do in the book trade, which is where I’ve always had one foot, the other in comics. We were offering net 30 terms in the 1980s to comic shops and independent bookstores.
However, I did get burned for $150K in bad debt, primarily from comic shops, when I sold my distribution to Diamond in ‘88. And in those days, Diamond had no Previews; they only did one liners for comics. My company (Bud Plant Inc in those days) had a developed catalog production department, which besides our customers, was what Diamond wanted from us. Marty Grosser, still editor of Previews right up to now, was my employee when they bought me out. They also took Steve Bond, who ran our catalog/marketing.
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