Broken Frontier

Just what exactly DOES it mean when a comic SELLS OUT? OTB takes a look at how the Direct Market works, how the language of other markets doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing in our little slice of the world and how the HYPE Machine turns a cute phrase into a fanfare that may not be justified!

First, my apology to all the loyal OTB fans out there… The very astute among you will have noticed this column has been noticeably absent the last couple weeks…yes, shocking isn’t it? It was nothing terribly major, just a traffic jam of life, backing up the calendar.  As you might remember from my intro column (and there will be a test later, so you better be remembering this stuff), I spend most of my time being President of a Youth and Family Services Agency in Maryland, which I launched in 1997. We provide a number of services, including mentoring, counseling, crisis intervention, etc. etc. The Agency is growing by leaps and bounds which has demanded a lot of time of late, not to mention a lot of things going on with the kids I actually personally mentor. My oldest just had surgery and several others have had…blips on the life radar. As a result: no time for OTB. Again, apologies, and I will try to keep that to a minimum, but in my life, it does happen!

So, it’s good to be back. Did you all miss me?

Anyway…

SELLING OUT!
It seems that in the comics media, a popular byline is the announcement of a title selling out, with all the accompanying fanfare that says that means the title is a major success. It seems some companies throw this out there much more than others. But does the phrase ‘SELL OUT’ really mean what most of us thinks it means? Is it really a sure marker of a title being commercially successful? Well, not really. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a BAD thing that a title sells out, but it does not necessarily mean the title is now golden for the future.

To understand what this is all about, let’s walk through the current Direct Market for a better understanding.

Making the Grade…
First and foremost, before a book even breaks into the Previews Catalog, it has to meet the approval of Diamond Distributors. This is a logical thing. See, if Diamond is going to provide valuable space in its catalog, they want to make sure every product on those pages has a decent shot at selling a minimal threshold in order to make it worth the time and effort, i.e. its going to make them some money.

A number of books are turned down by Diamond all the time. This is not an artistic judgment, but a commercial one. Diamond is saying, “in our opinion, this book will not sell enough copies in order to turn a profit on our end.” They are after all…a business. Obviously the book that does NOT get into Previews has already pretty much had its death warrant signed.

Now, if a book meets Diamond’s approval, this is also not a statement that they feel the book will sell 100,000+ copies. Diamond’s threshold to turn a profit is much lower than a publisher, who has more up front overhead. Diamond may be perfectly content to solicit a book whose order numbers are so low, the publisher is losing money just to get it out. So in and of itself, this first marker is in no way a measure of the book’s potential success. Heck, every month of Previews is filled with books, lines and companies who will not be heard from six months later.

Of course, its also true that established publishers pretty much breeze through the approval process because they’ve shown a track record of at the least, getting books out and having a cut off on sales more than high enough to meet Diamond’s needs.

So, Now What?
Once in, what exactly happens?

Let’s take an example and track it. I’m a new publisher with a book I want to get out. I submit to Diamond and get approved! Yay! I’m worthy, I’m worthy! Okay, now I want to ship the book in October, which means it has to be in the July Previews, which means I need to get solicitation information to Diamond by early June.

I accomplish this, it runs in the July Previews and retailers submit their orders prior to the end of the month. In other words, I KNOW how many copies have sold by the end of July. So, the next step is for me to get the book printed. I then give the number of copies I want printed to my printer and we begin the next step.

Print Runs
Now, if I sold a 100,000 copies, duh, I print at least a 100,000 copies to make sure those initial orders are filled. However, if I only sell 3,000 copies…well, I’m probably NOT going to have that 100,000 printed. Now, I might print a fair number of books OVER the number ordered. Maybe I intend to sell some at conventions, or through special offers, or giveaways. I might also overprint with the expectation that once people see my book, more are going to want it and new orders will start coming in. Or heck, maybe just my aunt Matilda wants 500 copies all for herself.
The point is, though, my print run is largely affected by the pre-orders that come in from Previews.

Obviously, the more I print, the cheaper the price per unit, the more money I make per unit sale, and it’s only even feasible to print if there is sufficient demand to make it worthwhile to print the book in the first place. Not to mention, once the book is printed, the money to get it printed is invested, so if I overprint by too much, I have money sitting in the form of unsold comics in a warehouse somewhere.

So, as a smart publisher, I’m going to print somewhere pretty near my retailer order numbers, with a healthy margin above to have copies for promotional purposes, cons, etc. If those orders are 100,000, I may print 110,000. If the sales are more around 3,000, I may print only about 3,600 copies.

A Side Note…
Just what exactly DOES it mean when a comic SELLS OUT? OTB takes a look at how the Direct Market works, how the language of other markets doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing in our little slice of the world and how the HYPE Machine turns a cute phrase into a fanfare that may not be justified!

This is also why there is a fundamental tension between certain ways to save money on the publisher’s end, and fans or retailers being disappointed with late books. If as a publisher, I’m printing overseas, with cheaper rates, but a longer turn around time to get the books printed and shipped to the US, it ultimately not only relies on my having the book ready on time, but pushing the edge between the time I get order number info, and the window I have to then print, ship, and deliver the finished product.

Publishers also get a discount, sometimes significantly so, for what is called ‘Gang Run Printing’. This is, basically, I print and ship multiple books at once, so in essence, my total run is multiplied. I get a cheaper per unit cost and save some money.

However, this saving my dime sometimes puts the burden on retailers who have to deal with late books, lost sales or a sudden influx of SPARKLING COMICS all in one week, and nothing from them the rest of the month.

The SELL OUT vs. the SELL THROUGH
Now, once all the pre-orders are filled, I have a stock of books left over. If I print real close to that margin, it may not be many at all, in fact, there may be negligible stock left over. Once the books hit the stands, a new wave of orders might come in. Technically, once the first retailer places a new order after the book is released and there are no stock copies left, the book has technically ‘sold-out’ at Diamond. That means the last copy for sales is gone from Diamond Distributors.

So, I then announce my book is a MAJOR success and I’ve hit the big time! Right? Well, have I really? The book that prints 100,000 copies and sells all but 5,000 hasn’t sold out, but my book that only got 3,600 copies printed sold out…which is more successful? Heck, it could very well be that I needed to hit the 5,000 mark just to break even, which means even though the book technically sold out, I lost money.

Weird, huh?

Oh, and let’s add another layer of confusion.

The comics industry is woefully lacking in any kind of comprehensive tracking which means, I could get my 3,600 orders, fill them with no extra copies left at Diamond. Then, that first retailer tries ordering two more copies (which my Aunt Matilda is trying to get out in Hoboken) and I’m SOLD OUT! But wait, it could mean that those two copies the dealer in Hoboken sold and is trying to replace could be the only bloody two copies that actually sold from the retailers, meaning, there is still 3,598 copies sitting on comic book stands around the country! But…I’m SOLD OUT!

Granted, this is an extreme that realistically would not happen, because so many retailers will only order the number of non-BIG company books that their customers have already subscribed to in their stores. But, it is a very valid point that books that have announced they have sold out can still easily be found on many stands. This as opposed to oh, say certain movie tickets that sold out for a week here in Annapolis!

If a book’s copies sell off the stands, and copies are no longer available on the commercial market, except for the stray copy here and there, this is considered a sell-thru, meaning, the retailers copies are now mostly all gone. Sell-thrus are not announced so often because there is no reasonable tracking data.

Tuning Out the Hype Machine…
Some companies do get on the Hype Machine bandwagon, and use sell-outs, even of low print run books, to make it sound like books are uber-success stories. There is a good way to measure if the book is sold-out with strong orders and re-orders, and it’s simple logic.

Going back to the printing and in this case re-printing is a better measure. If a book sells out, but there is not a second printing, chances are, at the least, the continued demand for the book after the initial orders is too low to justify going back to press. Come on, if a company sold 50,000 books, then got re-orders for 50,000 more, do you seriously think they would not go back and do a second printing? If not, it’s generally because, yes, technically, the book sold out, technically there is still demand, but not sufficient to justify another print run. So, when a book hits second-printing, or even a third-printing, that means there is growing interest in that book and a growing demand.

Also, if you really want to figure how well a book is doing, check the top 300 charts. You’ll find books that sold out low on those charts. While specific numbers of issues sold is a bit hard to come by, I know that many of the books on the lower half of that spectrum are oft-times NOT even bringing in enough money to pay their costs and are operating at a loss.

So, as always, if you like a book, support it, but don’t fall for the SELL OUT hype! Keep in mind that a book could sell ten times as many issues and not sell out, while a book that sells out may not even break even for its publisher, meaning it’s on the track to FADING OUT!