I believe that Justin Savages point about charging for the catalogue was to show that Diamond's "break even" point would be much lower than Fantagraphic's.

Diamond sells those catalogues, so they recover a portion of the printing cost that way. If they were to charge for the listings, they would recover that much more. They already charge for ads, so the actual cost for them to print PREVIEWS is likely pretty close to zero.

Diamond charges as little as $800 for a full page ad in PREVIEWS. When you figure that a tight page has about 10 listings, in theory they could sell the listing space on a page for $80 a shot, and they'd make as much as they would had they sold a full page ad. Surely nobody would claim that Diamond sells ads at below "cost", so why would anyone claim that a $100 listing would make Diamond lose money?

As for the cost of distribution itself, I am told by Diamond that $2500 retail is about as low as a book can sell for them to be interested. That's $250 for Diamond. So again, by saying that they'd be "losing their shirt" at $200 seems way off. It's probably a little below their comfortable profit margins, but it's almost CERTAINLY profitable to a certain extent.

Having said all that, I'd have to agree that it's silly to think that Diamond should carry everything. Even as a publisher that came *this close* (holds fingers two millimeters apart) to not being in their catalogues (they initially turned me down, but then changed their mind when the retailer board said they wanted the book), I'd have to agree with Steve and Kim that they have every right to drop anyone whom they don't think will make them enough money.


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Marc Fleury
Go to the John & Cori website right now you doofus!
www.panel1.com/abdo/jnc

I basically agree with what Kim Thompson said regarding Diamond's right to drop a book. I liked Steve Lieber's little essay even better ... mainly because of the minicomics/web-publishing suggestion.

Frankly, the only real problem I have with what Kim said is the phrase "amateur doofus." From my many discussions with self-publishers trying to get a leg up, a more appropriate phrase might be "competent but not compelling creator who could have drawn FISH POLICE or worked for Aircel during the black and white boom." In other words, I see a lot of work from people who look like they COULD be another Brian Bendis or Evan Dorkin or Jessica Abel who are not quite there yet. The people I've been talking to with concerns aren't exactly the grade-Z superhero crowd.

This really doesn't change the basic truth of what Kim said though. Some of these comics, while not downright inept, are in fact unsaleable. Frankly, there are a lot of DC and Marvel comics out there that aren't saleable. (I've been noticing lots of quarter bins loaded with mainstream titles from the last two years lately.)

I would also add that someone who wants to be another self-publishing success story like Teri S. Wood (WANDERING STAR) faces much more adversity than they would have 4 or 5 years. Orders for newbie b&w indies seem to be running about A THIRD of what they were when Teri was getting started. (Whether this is a good or bad thing is really debatable, I think.) When Steve says that well-regarded creators are getting orders of 600, he's very right.

When people ask me for advice on how to self-publish in this market, I flat out recommend that they go the XENO'S ARROW/GALAXION/BOX OFFICE POISON route -- i.e., publish minicomics for a year or so to build support and then go full size. (Frankly, I sometimes wonder why people even ask me. Even though Tony Isabella called me "a promising new comics writer" and even though Cliff Biggers, Rob Walton, and Joe Zabel have said some very nice things about my work, I've had a heck of a time getting any sales volume.)

Using a known creator to help an unknown creator (Kim gave an example with Chris Ware) is, I think, a great idea too. It seems to me this is an Oni Press strategy to help unknowns get a head start too.

Marc, could you explain a little bit more about the retailer board and how it works? How do you get a hearing before the retailer board?

Actually, can anyone offer any insight on what exactly it is that retailers want these days? What really rocks their world? Exactly what do they need from a comic to sell it with great enthusiasm? Why is it that so many comics getting good reviews aren't also getting good orders?

Also, does anyone know how things have been going with Joe Chiappetta now that Diamond doesn't carry his work?

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Ben Adams
Read PRISONOPOLIS and discuss MURDER BY CROWQUILL online at http://www.mediawarpcomics.com .

"Also, does anyone know how things have been going with Joe Chiappetta now that Diamond doesn't carry his work?"

I picked up a copy of the SILLY DADDY: A DEATH IN THE FAMILY trade through Diamond last month. I don't know if they still carry his pamphlets though, but I don't see why they wouldn't.

Milo --

The last I heard he was on the outs with them. I know he did get a Xeric Foundation grant to publish the new GN. Is that perhaps what got him on good terms with them again?

It's definitely reassuring to me if he is indeed in the catalog again.

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Ben Adams
Read PRISONOPOLIS and discuss MURDER BY CROWQUILL online at www.mediawarpcomics.com .







[This message has been edited by Ben Adams (edited 07-02-99).]

As a retailer, I’m fascinated by this thread. As a long-time critic of Diamond, I have to confess that anything that makes retailers angry (or even skeptical of ) Diamond fills my heart with joy.

That said, I have to admit that I can’t see how Next Planet Over can be a bad thing for retailers, publishers, creators, or readers. Their prospects for success in the marketplace are clearly in question, but assuming that they can manage to find a way to profitably sell new comics and graphic novels, etc. via the web I’m hard-pressed to believe that they will steal any discernable amount of business from anyone.

Mel Thompson has told a story for years about calling a comics store in Alaska for a survey about some damn thing. As soon as his survey person identified herself as being from San Francisco, the guy on the other end went nuts. “You’re from San Francisco, where that Comics & Comix chain is! You’re just asking me how graphic novels (or some such) are selling because they’re going to open a store in Fairbanks!”

Of course, C&C has never grown any larger than they were that day ten or more years ago. And no chain (such as there have been) has ever opened a store in Anchorage, but comics retailers are a paranoid bunch. Especially when confronted by the prospect of someone with more money than they can imagine and the foolhardy idea that there’s money to be made at this.

On the other hand, it’s been next to impossible to make retailers understand the
inherent problem with depending on a rapacious greedy company as your main supplier. I’ve often expressed the opinion that the ubiquity of discounting among comics retailers indicates that these were the guys who spent their high-school years complaining that they were never going to need algebra. The relative calm at Diamond’s ascendancy has only served to prove that point.

Based upon comments from their senior management, it seems that Diamond takes offense at my characterization of them as the high-priced supplier of the comics business. All I can say is that the truth sometimes hurts. I’m in the position to see the products that I used to buy at 52% discounts from Heroes World, then 50% from Capital, and now 35% from Diamond. Now, the typical comics retailer would think that that’s a 17% spread because comics distributors have always focused attention on retail values. However the more appropriate way to look at it is that for
a $1 retail product, I used to pay .48, then .50, now .65. That’s 35% (.17/.48) more to buy the exact same product. Now that’s something to get upset about. Instead, we
see store owners throwing chairs (figuratively) at the thought that their customers will order comics they don’t even carry from NPO and that Diamond will give them to UPS for delivery.

So I’m filled with glee at the whining about NPO, but I realize that this is a case of being angry at the right company for the wrong reasons.

On the more recent subject of a pay-per-listing service from Diamond, I’m again a contrarian. The point that has been only obliquely referred to is that noboby reads all those listings. How could they? The process of ordering comics that Phil Seuling
devised in 1973 made sense when the monthly order form took up all of three pages. Double spaced. With big chunks of boiler-plate at the top & bottom. We’re talking about 50 items a month, tops. As the years passed more and more publishers, self-publishers, doofus publishers came along. There just isn’t enough time to read every listing in Previews, much less make sense of the descriptions & postage-stamp art samples, look up sales histories for previous issues, look up sales histories for previous work by the same creator(s), look up sales histories for things you think might sell similarly, look up advance orders from you customers, search around for the promotional preview packs (that so many beginning publishers seem to think help), and (oh yeah) search around for ads in Previews. Just ordering comics is a career in itself. The typical retailer performs a couple of those actions for the things they order, but no one does all of them for all of the (literally)thousands of items in Previews every single month.

Dave Sim has argued that a successful self-published or other small press comic can depend on 300 stores making some kind of effort to sell it. And no two comics will
have the same 300 stores. Is he right? It would seem so to me, though it might be 150 stores or 400. And what constitutes some kind of effort? Am I making an effort when I order 5 copies of something that seems like it could sell those 5 copies? How about 3? Just 1?

I just looked up Johnny the Homicidal Maniac #1 (JUN950774F). I ordered 10. For 4 stores. One of which was among the higher grossing stores in the world. We’ve since sold at least 190 more and I’m sure that many stores have sold more than we have. But I can’t fault my guess during that late-night ordering session 4 years ago. I glanced through the information I had at the time, made my best guess, and moved on to item #775.

So I can’t get excited by the idea of increasing the line-count in Previews by any appreciable number, not just out of concern for my own sanity, but for the demonstrable likelyhood that the only difference would be to increase the number of product descriptions that will never be read.

Marc pretty much nailed my point.

Yes, I do realize that it's unrealistic for Diamond to carry everything, but I'd love to see the Feds make them do it. [img]http://207.69.158.95/ubb/smile.gif[/img]

The clearest argument against it is the retailer argument. My question to that is:

If Previews is more of an obstacle to ordering a book, then how would you suggest people bring a book to your attention? You've stated that promotional packets are a waste of time. A lot of retailers won't order from anybody other than Diamond. If a book isn't in there, it's not even going to be glanced at by those storeowners. I suppose this is sort of off topic....oh well.



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Justin Savage
President/Editor/Web-bozo
Sabre's Edge
www.sabresedge.com

I've got a question about NPO (and other mail-order comic stores). Don't they charge shipping? I would think that the extra charge would discourage people from ordering on-line unless there wasn't a comic shop nearby.

As for the question of what Previews should list, some of the books I've seen described on these boards have sounded absolutely horrid. When their creators rail about the "Diamond nazis", I just shake my head.

One last question: I understand that Diamond has to at least break even to carry a book. It takes sales of around a thousand copies or so do so, right? So, back when there were different distributors, didn't each one have to sell a thousand copies of a book to keep carrying it, therefore making it so that a comic would have to sell two thousand or more to stay viable? I suppose that was easier to do a few years ago though.

All that being said, monopolies DO suck.

A reply to Justin Savage - you seem like a nice guy, so I hope you don't take this as a personal criticism, but I've been chilled for two days at one of your posts suggesting someone "force" Diamond to do something (like carry books they don't want to carry). Believe me, as one of the guys who once gave Diamond a public finger by signing an exclusive with their largest competitor, I don't look for opportunities to defend them, but your choice of words is a bit unnnerving.

If the justice department could do something with the current monopoly, it would be to loosen up the exclusives so that the lion's share of product would be availible to any up and coming distributor who wanted to compete - a completely untenable situation now. Forcing the monopoly to carry more product against it's will would impose unreasonable constraints on their business and set up a long term situation impossible to police. After all, it's a distribution monopoly, not a publishing one.

To make a book fly in comics, monopoly or otherwise, it's got to have quality and/or salability. Lots of books that suck, also happen to sell - conversely, lots of great books don't sell a lick. But there are a lot of books that suck, and won't sell to save their creator's life - and there are too many of both of the other kind to squeeze any of these into an already overloaded catalog.

I have a book in the Studio now that we keep around because it's so terrible it's charming. The guy had a dead on earnestness that translated into his work, but that's about it. He's not likely to ever win an Eisner, and if he ever raises the production values above mimeograph he'll never get his money back. I'd like to see it again, but not in the catalogs - and neither would Diamond, even with a fee, because they're not in business to "break even", they're in business to make money. And his love of the medium, devotion to the form, and all around good guyness will not translate into sales on a book that's not going to sell as it stood and will not likely improve in quality.

The retailer board is there to pick the books that may have been overlooked or rejected - and fulfill one of the two criteria: aesthetic quality, or the potential for profit. Sometimes, they miss too. If the creator (or book) truly has the chops,they'll keep at it until either the quality is good enough to be indisputable, or until they sell enough in other venues to embarass Diamond into a mea culpa.

Or, they don't have it, at least to make the work successful commercially, and they keep at it for the love of it or they simply go away.

I got a book a few months ago that I loved - I thought it was fantastic. I couldn't believe that such a mature work had come from someone I'd never heard of before...until, slowly, I realized that I had.

More, I realized to my growing horror and shame, I not only knew him, but had hosted him as a guest in my own studio when Dave Sim's Spirits tour came to Arizona a few years ago...

...Where he had given me a copy of his earlier work...

...Which I hated. Absolutely hated.

If I'd been Diamond, It'd have been a coin toss on BOTH quality and salability. I don't remember what the earlier effort sold, but his new work, released quarterly, is holding its own; and as to quality - it practically IS the definition of cool Science Fiction.

Steve Conley, man - I hated Avant Guard; LOVE Thrilling Space Adventures. I'm glad you're doing comics - and comicon.com.

There are a LOT of problems with the current situation, but lack of product isn't one of them. Suffocating diversity is a big potential problem with a lot of contributing factors, but I don't think we'll solve anything by "forcing" Diamond to carry something they'd rather not, even with a payment to make sure they break even.

They're not the only way to sell to the market - just the most streamlined; and until the situation changes, if you want them to carry your book, you have to demonstrate its value - one way or another.

I see a lot of folks focused on the trees in this thread while missing the forest. I would suggest that the issue facing the non-exclusives in this Diamond monopoly situation isn't whether or not Diamond is or isn't carrying any particular book, but rather the market dynamics created by the differences between the exclusive and non-exclusive terms they offer. Jim Hanley is the first person I've seen who pointed out the dollars and cents reality that the monopoly has created on the retailer level. While I am not privy to the terms of the excluisve contracts, I'm concerned that a retailer can get a $2.95 exclusive book at a better discount than a $2.95 non-exclusive book. Am I right in assuming this is the case?

It seems to me that over the course of a few years, such inequities might kill off all the non-exclusives.

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Rick Veitch
Invites You To Read THE DAILY RARE BIT FIENDS
updated every day along with news of the world's most popular artform!
THE COMICON.COM DAILY SPLASHis always refreshing!
www.comicon.com/splash

Rick Veitch said:



I talked to Rob Walton on the phone about the various financial issues surrouding RAGMOP. One of his complaints was in fact the Veitch complaint about inequitable discounting. I'm not pretending to be Rob's spokesperson, but, y'know, his general tone during the call was not all that different than Steve Bissette's tone in the first "Two. Years." thread.

Here are a couple of depressing quotes I heard during my first year of publishing:

"It's easier to get work writing television than it is to sell a couple thousand copies in this market." - Marc Hempel, TUG & BUSTER

"It's a lot easier to get an independent film off the ground than an independent comic." - Kevin Smith, CLERKS, DAREDEVIL

I know a market like this is going to kill off a lot of crap (good), but it's also going to make it rough for the next generation of Teri Woods and Steve Conleys that will inevitably come around (bad as far as I'm concerned).

One big pet peeve of mine is that PREVIEWS doesn't seem to work as any kind of an outreach tool. It has "sell-the-same-old-stuff-to-the-same-old-people" and "teenage-superhero-dementia" written all over it. I show PREVIEWS to people I know in Minneapolis interested in independent film and alternative rock ... you know, people who you would hope would like alternative comics ... and it's a complete and utter joke to them .... as are WIZARD and, frankly, a lot of the WILDSTORM titles.

Somehow getting someone to put together a better catalog would be a big help. I'm not so sure that busting the exclusives would help bring that about, but it would at least make it more likely.

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Ben Adams
Read PRISONOPOLIS and discuss MURDER BY CROWQUILL online at www.mediawarpcomics.com .


[This message has been edited by Ben Adams (edited 07-03-99).]