I thought this article by Vaneta Rogers over at Newsarama was quite interesting.
http://www.newsarama.com/19937-comic-bo ... rowth.html
Oh and hello, it's fucking essay time.
Over the last year, I was amazed at how comic sales were, from memory, either up around 10% each month on the year before, or stable against the previous year. This is in deep contrast to the other print products, newspapers and magazines. Magazines, in the UK atleast, I know are around 7-10% down each month on the previous year.
The above linked article offers up observations as to why comic sales are doing well. The writer, Vaneta Rogers, doesn't offer up these reasons as definitive answers, which I can understand, since without being able to survey hundreds of stores with the same probing questions and customer sales data, there's no sure fire way of testing whether the observations offered by the retailers she interviewed are right and to what extent they are right. But, they are certainly interesting, seem plausible, and worth discussing!
My key interest here is to what extent is the sales serge due to new comics customers. Not, say, existing Marvel comics buyers buying DC books, but truly new comics buyers.
When we hear about comics doing well and they are better accepted by everyone, I don't know about you, but I often immediately think this must mean new customers. Thinking about it more carefully, and perhaps cynically, I really think that although some new customers will explain the sales serge, existing comics customers buying more new books and being giving more than 12 books a year to buy will likely be the biggest reasons for sales increases.
Before I summarise the five factors Newsarama gave for why comics are selling well, I want to outline some basic sales truths of any product.
There are a few basic ways in which sales of any product goes up. These are:
1. Number of customers increase
2. Same customers buy more
The basic reasons for how revenue increases are the same as the sales ones, but also include the following:
3. Cover price increase
Also worth mentioning, there is one basic marketing manoeuvre that helps and more than likely it has the biggest effect on existing customers:
4. Special covers / Annuals / Increased print run / Crossovers
In summary, the five factors mentioned by Newsarama:
- In-store Tech
Point of Sale (POS) tech.
Order monitoring software that will give you a better and quicker grasp of what is selling off of your shelves and what is not. So, still up to you the retailer to adjust orders for next month, but you should have a clearer picture than you would do without POS.
Final Order Cut-Off.
I understood this as being able to order much closer to last minute than previously. Thus being able to delay a risky re-order while you look over your POS to inform you of what best to do.
Now, both these items seem to be ways of maximising sales you should already have and reducing waste you shouldn't have. The point about in-store tech isn't so much that it's sales revolutionising as much as it's better tech to help the store more quickly bring in more of the books that were selling well and reduce stock waste of books that aren't selling well by simply not re-ordering them as much.
It's actually amazing how much more sales you can have by simply having the 'right' range and listings of products. I’ve seen this from colleagues who work on store range and listings. Just getting your product into more stores and making it available for customers does make a difference to the titles annual sale.
However, this is all unlikely to be what drives new customers into the store, but could have some influence on getting existing customers to buy more books.
- Building Community
Charity events / Social Media / Free Comic Book Day.
Newsarama didn't mention it specifically, I'm adding comic signings to this point.
This, like the above point seems to have its best effect on existing customers. I know FCBD does get new people into stores, but the manager at Kevin Smith's Secret Stash shop in New Jersey, Walt Flanagan mentioned on one of the Tell'En Steve-Dave podcast shows that for The Stash, FCBD got people into the store, but didn't get them buying things. I know this is true for my local store as well. I don't thing any of the points under Building Community really drives much new customers into the store, again, I think it's biggest effect is keeping existing customers happy (which is certainly good) and getting them to spend more money.
- Acceptance Media
Related; Films, TV Shows, Cartoons, Video Games, Geek culture.
I would also say that the medium is more accepted. Still stigmatised, but more accepted.
I can see this point driving new customers into the store. As mentioned though, and I wouldn't find it surprising, only The Walking Dead was noted as a book that appears to get sales increases directly because of having a TV show.
Injustice is also another book that is cited as having new customer sales, this I could also believe.
But again, all this acceptance, to me, would seem to still have a greater effect on existing comics customers who also play video games and watch the branded TV shows and films being the ones who buy most of the related comics material
- Publisher Improvements
New 52, Marvel NOW, More returnable launch books.
This point seems to be cited as a big reason for new customers. I just don't buy it myself. I think it's still existing customers who are responsible for responding to the latest marketing plan and buying everything i.e. New 52, all the crossovers etc.
It's all very well having these new jumping on points, the new issue #1s, but how do you explain the sales boost as new customers buying these jumping on point comics? How did they know there was a jumping on point? Existing customers knew and existing customers bought them all. I really think that the Publisher Improvements point is still largely a point about existing customers.
Returnable launch books seems to me to be a practice that should be standard. I would hope it would be the case for every launch going forward, but I do wonder if that would hurt smaller publishers? I don’t know.
- Diversity
More female customers, more books covering different genres other than superheros, or superhero books with an exploration of superheroics.
Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if we've got more women coming into stores. I've seen this. These would be new customers. Cool. Girls are geeks too, after all.
While Image books might not sell as much as the big two, their huge variety of new books covering a wide range of non super heroic material are selling even if they aren't selling spectacularly, which indicates there is some space for the medium to sell a wider genre of material. Hell, TWD and Saga should be proof of this alone.
However, I'd still make the case that all these new Image books are, for the most part, selling to Image customers buying more Image books rather than new comic customers enticed by the non superhero books of Image.
It's a comforting thing that in the world of digital, one print media is doing really well. However, whilst I'm sure some truly new customers are responsible for some of the sales lift and also that a young audience are coming in to replace existing, long-term and ageing customers, it's still the case that the bulk of the sales increase comes from existing customers buying more – I would think.
In some cases, it's not an intentional increase in purchases, it's simply the 13th, or 14th issue sale factor. The slightly unnoticed increase in your purchases because you go in each week and buy the same titles, not always noticing that you've bought more than 12 issues of the title this year than last and on top of which you bought crossover books related to what you normally read.
I am positive about everything I’ve mentioned above and in the article, but largely the reason for comic sales increase in my mind, is existing customers buying more books due to; publishers extending the issue run in a year, crossover madness, special covers, Annuals, and existing customers trying out new types of books.
And, let's not forget what a price increase can do for revenue, in isolation of all the other points, as an alone factor for revenue increases.
What do you guys think?
