Broken Frontier

Read Part I here.

6. Solicitations

Even if you are self publishing or publishing through another company, the solicitation process is almost the same for everyone. Let's make up an in-store date and use Diamond Comics as the solicitation example. Let's say you wanted your comic to hit stores Wednesday, December 15th.That makes it a December release and that would be listed in the October Previews. Octobers Previews would come out the 3rd week in September. It takes all of September to print and ship that issue of Previews to retailers and because it takes almost a month to prep the content to be printed, solicitation copy is due in early August. In a nutshell, if you want your book to come out in December, you have to solicit your product early in August. That's a four month lead time.

When you solicit, you also need to know the details of your book so the distributor and retailers are informed.

You'll want to know:

The title and issue number of your book. - That should be self explanatory.

The credits on your book. - Most people list just writer, penciller and cover artist, but it's always nice to throw those hard working inkers, colorists and letterers a bone.

The intended audience for your book. - Is the content all ages? Is it for a mature reader crowd? Or is it a graphic adult book for people over the age of 17?

The format of your book. - This will be either black and white or full color. There are other formats for a book beside the color, like trade paperback, hard cover, and prestige to name a few. For the most part, you'll end up doing a traditional comic book periodical that we are all familiar with in size, shape and feel.

How many pages your comic will be. - The average comic is 32 interior pages, 22 page of which are art/story.

The cover price. - This is important. Most 32 page comics cost between 2.25 and 2.95. For independents, this cost may prove too inexpensive considering the production costs (talked about later) you have to endure. Of course, on the flip side, if you price your book TOO high, you will turn off retailers and customers. Despite it all, the REALLY important thing to remember is that you sell your book to distributors at wholesale. Yep, you don't get that 2.95. You get a percentage. For most companies, that is 40% of the retail price. So if you have a 2.95 book, you will only be getting 1.18 for each copy from the distributor. It may not sound like much, but consider that the distributor has to make money for their efforts, then the retailer has to make money after paying the distributor's price AND shipping to get the books. Retailers have it just as rough, my friends.

The shipping frequency of your book. - This all falls back on your long term plans for the title and your schedule. It could be monthly, bi-monthly (twice a month), quarterly (four times a year), and so forth.

Who will be printing your book. - This is so the distributor has an idea as to where the books will be coming from and how they will receive them, as most comic printers have established a delivery routine with the distributors.

Your country of origin... - Duh, self explanatory.

The concept. - This is the summary of what your book is about. Be brief and interesting. Think of the important details you'd hear in a 10 second commercial that introduces your product to people who've never heard of it. This is the "big picture" so-to-say of what makes your book unique.

The issue summary. - This is where you can dive into what this particular issue you are soliciting is about. My suggestion is to throw out a bite to hook fans, but don't give away any important details. Most comic solicitations are vague on purpose. You don't want to give away the meat and potatoes of your issue.

Who your book is recommended for. - If your book appeals to fans of, let's say, Spider-Man, then say that. That's important for people to know if they like similar concepts. Be honest. Don't just throw out a bunch of popular titles in hopes of snagging readers. People see through that crap.

Copyright info. - For the most part, your product is copy written when created, and especially when published. BUT, having a federal copyright and/or trademark (for your title/concept) is wise, especially if it takes off. You can't sue for damages in a court of law without a federal copyright and/or trademark. Copyrighting is relatively cheap. Trademarks, on the other hand, are not. If people want to know more about federal copyrights and trademarks, just ask and I'll type something up. In the meantime, you might as well slap a © and/or a ™ on there because you can legally do that.

DON'T slap a ® on there unless you have your trademark federally registered! You run the risk of being sued by someone who DOES have that trademark if you haven't actually researched it and filed it with the government.

Look at other solicitations in distributor catalogs to see how other companies do it.

7. Considering Printing Time / Returnable Books

So that's how you get your book out there.

What happens next in terms of distribution and sales is that you will receive your orders. For our December book example, retailers have all of October up until the beginning of November to submit their orders. The distributor will, in turn, get your order numbers to you pretty quickly, usually by the end of the first week in November/start of the 2nd week in November. That means you have to send your book to the printer immediately if you intend to have it in-stores on time. It can take printers two to three weeks to print and deliver your book, IF they aren't backed up. Then it takes another week to ship it out to retailers once it is received by distributors. So if it takes three to four weeks total to get your book into the hands retailers, you better have you printer lined up and expecting your book BEFORE you get your orders! Gah! And how do you do that without even knowing how many copies are ordered? Well, we'll talk more about printers later. Don't worry.

It's very important to note that if you wait a really long time to get your book printed and out to stores, you run the risk of having it become returnable. What does that mean? Let's start with what the comic book industry is.

For the most part, the comic book industry is a Direct Market. Remember when books would come with a barcode if you bought them in a grocery store but, if you got the same book in a comic shop it would have something like an illustration in the box where the barcode was supposed to be? The barcode was on returnable newsstand copies. The books with no barcode were non-returnable direct market copies. Over 20 years ago when comics started to become more collectible and in demand, distributors like Diamond and Capital (later bought out by Diamond) set up a direct market system. This system, for the most part, was for specialty stores that focused on comics. It allowed retailers to fine tune their orders and get exactly what they wanted for their store and their customers. The only catch is that the books were non-returnable. Which means, whatever a retailer buys they are stuck with. This system also helped publishers because they knew those sales were guaranteed and they could count on receiving that income.

Returnable books were the ones on newsstands, in places like grocery marts and drug stores. The newsstand distributor paid for the presence in these stores and profited from it through the sales of the books. Anything that was unsold had the cover ripped from it and returned to the publisher as proof of non-sale. And the publisher would be the one who would have to pay for the stocking of the comics and for the return of unsold comics. Those fees are a double whammy to a publisher's profit.

Prior to the late '80s/early '90s collectors' bubble, and especially during the collectors' bubble, newsstand sales were good. After the implosion, newsstand sales plummeted. And not only were the returns extremely high, often losing money for publishers, the profits from sales were often too dismal for newsstand distributors to even bother putting the books into stores. It was just a lot of trouble for too little profit.

Anyway, back to the point. Comics bought these days through the distributors I mentioned are non returnable. BUT, they can become returnable. How you ask? Late shipping. For most books, Diamond has a shipping window to help protect the interests of retailers and themselves. If a book is shipped late, it can potentially hurt the sales of the book and the profits of the distributor and the retailer. A retailer shouldn't get stuck with a book they can't sell because you took too long to ship it and customers lost interest. That isn't fair. This window is usually one month after the in-store month. Meaning, if you were supposed to have the book on the shelves by December 15th, but you are late, you still have to have the book delivered to Diamond before the end of January. If not, the book becomes returnable. Retailers have the option of returning the unsold copies, which will be deducted from your profit. So don't ship late!

A few returnable newsstand distributors still exist, by the way, if you are interested in pursuing that... but it's extremely risky.

8. Understanding Preorders vs Reorders

In terms of your sales, distributors break up comic orders in three categories:

Preorders

Advanced reorders

Reorders

Preorders and Advanced reorders are the initial order numbers the distributor will send to you. Preorders are the orders most retailers send in based on customer interest and their own expertise as store owners. Advanced reorders are sometimes sent in at the last minute by retailers who determine that they may not have preordered a sufficient amount of copies. This typically only happens on big buzz books, primarily from DC and Marvel, but it can happen to anyone. Reorders are what retailers will place if they sell out of their initial preorders. A lot of the time, reorders are around 5% to 10% of your initial preorders. Don't think too big and print huge thinking people will flock to your book with strong reorders after it hits stands. I hate to be a downer, but that rarely happens.

If reorders are really that strong, you could consider doing a 2nd printing (printing the book for a 2nd time at the printer) or just wait to do a collected trade of all the issues. But hey, it's your money! Don't say I didn't warn you, though. You may end up with a whole lot of expensive toilet paper if you don't heed my advice.

To be continued…

- Val Staples