Pat has a good point about ghetto-izing, but it cuts both ways. Borders has a better selection of graphic novels than my comic shop, so I go there and browse the section. If they were spread among all the books, they'd be harder for fans like me to find.

(As a matter of fact, maybe the rise of GNs in bookstores is linked with the slump in the Comic Book Store industry; Borders is picking up the customers that the DS market couldn't afford and wasn't inclined to pursue.)

Ghettoization may be linked to size; the size of graphic novels makes it difficult to shelve them with regular books.

And-- most graphic novels are either in the superhero/fantasy category, or some kind of postmodern literary genre. The literature section of Borders has low traffic, so putting comics there may not be a good move; superheroes adjacent to the SF section seems logical, though.

Borders has done some scattering of GNs; the City of Glass book was in the mystery section; I think humor books are still put in their own humor section.

My location, by the way, is Cleveland Hts., OH.

Rick, The person responsible for the very nice g.n./trade sections at Virgin stores was headhunted out of Comic Relief. Carson Hall is his name, and a person more knowledgable,hardworking and dedicated to comics would be hard to find. We were very sorry to see him go, but happy comics would benefit from his hard work. DC still has a massmarket sales force by the way, Rich Johnson is in charge of their efforts in the expansion of sales to the bookstores.

Day One is the right answer. The direct market is a direct outgrowth of collectors' demand, and was never designed to become the dominant factor in the market, much less the market itself.
Some time in the early 80s, publishers stopped saying (as a reason not to publish a proposed project) "That'll never sell on the newsstands". It took a couple more years for them to go to the inverse--that something wouldn't sell on the direct market, but we all knew it was coming.

Pat: Most of the larger (and probably more corrupt) IDs in those pre-UPC days did their returns by affidavit rather than returning cut logos. (and even those with cut logos often sold the half-cover copies out the back door for sale by jobbers who bagged a few together and put 'em in liquor stores and the like--but that's a different story).

The ID system (and national distributor system above it in the food chain) was mind-bogglingly inefficient in a lot of ways. While corruption existed, it isn't necessary to assume that it was so widespread or so great in volume as to destroy the comics industry--the way sales were structured did a good job on its own. Here's an example--Beerbohm says he'll use this story in his third installment:

At the time OMAC #1 came out, I was getting DC Comics from the ID in Grand Rapids, MI. This company (Shaw News, no longer in existence) was pretty good--make that very good--as IDs went (they took my checks, let me give them advance orders, gave me 40% off, took my returns--though I promised to keep the volume of returned to a minimum--and got comics out on their customers' racks within about a week of delivery from the printer, compared to the 2-3 weeks more typical from other IDs).
I placed an advance order for, I think, 5000 copies of OMAC #1. This exceeded the draw for Grand Rapids set by Independent News, DC's national distributor. Shaw obtained the additional copies I needed from a sister distributor in the Chicago area.
Shaw therefore reported a 100% sale on OMAC #1 to Independent News. The Chicago distributor's percentage sale was also bumped up from its "natural" figure. Independent therefore increased their draws for subsequent issues (probably begining with #3) by a substantial margin. Of course, my orders for later issues were much lower, and therefore the sales percentage for both companies on those issues dropped sharply.
It's important to understand that while we in the direct market expect to see high sales on #1 issues, much lower figures on #2 and #3, and a rebound around #6 or so (if a book is going to be a success), the newsstand market always expected a slow increase from low #1 sales. Any decline from #1's numbers was taken as a red flag.
While he was glad to get my money, the guy in charge of my Shaw account told me I'd screwed up this book's draws in two cities for the next six months.
If this happened a dozen places in the country, it could well explain why the book only lasted six issues.

Bookstores that order direct from Warner Books now receive a DC Comic catalog as part of their solicitation. I don't think it includes all the in-print trades, but there's a lot of stuff there. It's a good start.

>>quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is actually a reply to you, Johanna, and Nat.
It's all too little and too late.

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Too little and too late for what? Too late to increase DC's bookstore sales by hundreds of percent? No, it's already done that. To late to make such sales significant to DC? Again, it's already done.
But since you showed no sign of knowing what they have done, perhaps you should reconsider assuming what it is they haven't done or judging the quality or effect of their efforts.<<

I know what DC has done, Nat, and I discount it because it has meant next to nothing for both DC and the industry in terms of getting the medium before the general public in any real sense.

Putting a new kind of product in a new market without any kind of promotional effort, except for the exact same kind of
effort given to the old product in exactly the same venues (read "Wizard, CBG, the Journal"), is like opening a store in center city and putting the sign on the outskirts.

Where are the ads for these projects in mainstream media? Where are the promotional efforts in the stores themselves?

Best, Pat

Excuse me? It has vastly increased sales of DC book-format comics. If you're looking for some other "real sense" besides significantly increased sales, well, then you're looking at your own form of reality.
Not that I've actually seen anything from you that actually indicates you know anything about what DC has done. Saying you know what you're talking about and knowing what you're talking about are two different things.

>>

quote:

I know what DC has done, Nat, and I discount it because it has meant next to nothing
for both DC and the industry in terms of getting the medium before the general public in
any real sense.

Excuse me? It has vastly increased sales of DC book-format comics. If you're looking for some other
"real sense" besides significantly increased sales, well, then you're looking at your own form of
reality.
Not that I've actually seen anything from you that actually indicates you know anything about what
DC has done. Saying you know what you're talking about and knowing what you're talking about are
two different things.<<

You oughtta know.

"Vastly increasing" sales of book-format projects from non-existent to a blip on the publishing screen (from the perspective of all book publishing, not from the interior perspective of DC Comics) isn't all that much, Nat.

The premise here is what can make the comics form AS A WHOLE a real presence in the general public's mind; what can make a graphic novel as likely to be picked up in a bookstore as a prose novel.

DC's increased sales have done next to nothing to change that situation. And the reason is the reason I keep giving: No promotion to the non-comics readership.

Best, Pat

Getting back to the first topic, Industry Risk.

When the Direct Market started it could be looked at as a shifting or risk. The new comic stores accepted the risk that the comics were unreturnable, that they were stuck with whatever didn't sell. That was OK for one simple reason: the stores felt that almost anything they overordered on would sell someday, probably within the next year, probably for twice cover (after all the cover price was very low). Most stores ordered at least one more Batman than they felt they needed for the four weeks before the next issue shipped. And if they really messed up and nobody wants the new Marvel comic, mark it half cover (roughly their cost) and those stinkers are gone.

Fast forward to today:
Stores have trimed orders to the bone. Many store owners would tell you that they are underordering. Why? Because that left over comic is a bad risk. Fans find all their money spent on new comics and spin-off products like t-shirts. Back issues sales for recent comics have dropped way off (with a few exceptions, but most of those are reprinted anyway in a nice trade format which some people prefer and therefore sell their "rare" first prints to get the trade with the three extra pages of story.). Most month-old comics don't sell briskly at half cover anymore, and few year old comic guide for twice cover. Twenty five cents over cover doesn't mean anything percentage-wise like it used to. Back then you could sell one comic at a quarter over cover and throw one away and break even. Today, it would take six comics to break even.

Getting to my point:
The solution does not come from shifting this risk from the stores to the publishers. (Didn't Now and First both tank because they tried to do newstand returnables?) What we need to do is get the risk-to-gain ratio back where it belongs. Simply put, comic books should be worth, on average, cover price or a little more. I don't think that's true today.

Rik Spruitenburg

Rik:

Your analysis is faulty in the details, but maybe not in the broad strokes. Initially, comics were shipped directly from the printer's warehouse in Sparta. Because this and the low prices, retailers had to order in fixed increments. Usually these were 25 or 50 copies per item. Additionally, everything had to be paid for in advance.

What this meant for retailers, was that in order to carry Lois Lane, they had to order 25. If they couldn't sell 25, they couldn't carry it. If they needed 30, they ordered 50 or disappionted 5 customers. Everybody got the same 40% discount.

There was no ordering one extra of anything (unless you needed 24, 49, etc.) Now, the majority of stores could depend on selling back issues of Marvel's but those Superman Familys were a problem. And remember that in those days, the entire monthly order form listed fewer than 40 items a month. Backlist was limited to a few fanzines and undergrounds and a (later) couple of "ground-level" books like Star*Reach.

The back issue business was the dominant portion of comics store sales because back issues were the only things they really had to sell. No compilations, no graphic novels, no T-Shirts, no nuthin'.

It's not that left-overs are a worse risk than they ever were, it's that there are a lot more Our Army at Wars and Marvel Triple Actions (and much worse sales-wise) than there were then. And there are essentially two or three X-Men ongoing titles. (And the big back issue boom in X-Men didn't even start until 1980.) Adding insult to injury, publishers keep restarting titles, which makes the previous titles instant orphans. Relatively few comics get compiled, but those are usually the better potential back-issue sellers. (Marvel excepted. They so rarely collect anything that the vast majority of their line remains available only seperately.)

Meanwhile, as you mentioned, comics stores have a much wider selection of products available than ever before. Not that most stores carry very much. The pre-order model and the vast proliferation of titles have turned comics stores into catalogue showrooms.

I agree that there will be no shifting risk to publishers. they don't have the money either.

Now and First failed for numerous reasons, the least of which were newsstand sales. Comico and Continuity, on the other hand, lost small fortunes on the newsstands. During the '80s, an announcement of newsstand sales was the early warning system for publisher failure.

Arriving at a solution to your conclusion evades me. Prices are too high, but publishers can't afford to sell cheaper.

"That's some catch, that Catch 22."
"It's the best there is."
Joseph Heller

Gee, it sure seems like a lot to make them part of the expected part of the bookstore scene. It sure seems like achievement to be continually growing the market. Maybe you don't understand this, Pat, but when you grow something, it gets larger. If you continue to grow it, it gets larger and larger. DC TPB sales now seem to be at least on par with other reasonably successful book publishing efforts. Books of comics have earned their place in the mainstream store, and a very strong place in the counterculture store. Are they about to wipe out prose? Nah. But they are a visible part of the mix.
And comics in book form has many huge successes... but people in the pamphlet industry are too eager to dismiss those that tell their stories 3-4 panels at a time.