Understanding print run calculations for ratio variants...

[valiantman]

Here's a little 101 for understanding variant print run calculations.

 

At first, it seems straight-forward. A 1:20 variant would be 1 copy for every 20 copies of the regular cover.

If the regular cover sells 10,000 copies, then the 1:20 variant would be estimated to be 500 copies.

 

That's where most people stop.

 

But...

 

When http://www.comichron.com reports 10,000 copies sold, they are reporting 10,000 copies sold including the variants.

As long as the book has the same ordering price, all of the variants (at that price) are combined to report the number of copies sold.

 

So, if there are only two versions of a book, a regular cover and a 1:20 variant, then the estimate should be like this:

1:20 is 5%. About 5% of the copies are the 1:20 variant.

In reality, it is 4.76%, because for every 21 copies printed, 1 is a variant. That's 1/21, which is 4.76%.

 

Since the number of copies sold was 10,000, and 4.76% are the 1:20 variant, the estimate is 476 copies, not the 500 originally estimated.

Additionally, the regular cover is 95.24% of the 10,000, which is 9,524 copies.

 

So, 476 is a better estimate than 500. They're very close, so it's not a big difference... but what if the book had other incentive variants?

 

What if the book had a 1:10, a 1:20, and a 1:50 variant? We've seen publishers have done these types of books before.

 

If the book sold 10,000 copies including the variants, we could estimate the 1:10 at 1,000 copies, the 1:20 at 500 copies, and the 1:50 at 200 copies.

That's what most people assume. But if that were true, it would mean that 1,700 of the 10,000 copies were variants.

If 1,700 of the 10,000 are variants, then there are only 8,300 copies of the regular edition.

So, the 1:10 should be 830 copies, not 1,000. The 1:20 should be 415 copies, not 500. The 1:50 should be 166 copies, not 200.

 

Is that enough? Should we stop?

8,300 regular

830 1:10 variant

415 1:20 variant

166 1:50 variant

 

Does that total 10,000? Nope. That's 9,711 copies. When we estimated the regular at 8,300 copies, we lowered the number of variants to 1,411, not the original 1,700.

 

As you can see, this estimate would go back and forth for a while to get the correct number of regular and variant copies to total 10,000 sold.

That would be trial-and-error.

 

We won't do that.

 

The correct way to work with the numbers is to estimate the percent of the 10,000 that belongs to each variant.

1:10 would be 10%

1:20 would be 5%

1:50 would be 2%

 

That's 17% for the variants... if you use 100% for the regular.

But, we can't have 117%. We need 100% for all of the books.

So, divide the 100 by 117 and you get 85.47.

 

What do we do with 85.47? We multiply it by each original percentage that added up to 117%.

 

So, 85.47 times 100% for the regular cover would be 8,547 copies of the regular cover (out of 10,000).

85.47 times 10% for the 1:10 variant would be 855 copies of the 1:10 variant (out of 10,000).

85.47 times 5% for the 1:20 variant would be 427 copies of the 1:20 variant (out of 10,000).

85.47 times 2% for the 1:50 variant would be 171 copies of the 1:50 variant (out of 10,000).

 

Though we would be tempted to say that a 1:20 variant for a book with 10,000 copies should be 500 copies of the 1:20, it would actually be 427 copies in a "best estimate" for this scenario.

 

8,547 plus 855 plus 427 plus 171 is the magic 10,000 that we are looking for... and those should be our "best estimates" for each variant.

If you read this far, you would have earned "one participation credit" with Dr. Valiantman if this was an online course at Comic Book University. :wink:

 

 

P.S. Never forget that the rules for retailers to receive variants are for retailers. There are no rules for publishers to receive variants. Publishers can print as many as they want. Any variant that is estimated to be 171 copies, for example, might be 171 or 200 or 300 or 2,000, if the publisher wishes. It might also be 140 copies, if that is the number of retailers who qualified. Not all 10,000 copies will be in 50 copy orders, so there will be many regular copies sold below the 1:50 requirement and there won't need to be 171 copies of the 1:50. At the end of the day, without the publisher making a specific statement about the specific print runs, we are left with the "best estimates" as described above.

 

EDIT: Common scenarios (examples) table added:

[Doktor]

Wouldn't it work better to work backwards a little & do some basic algebra?

 

X + 0.1X + 0.04X + 0.02X + 0.01X + 0.005X = Total Number Sold

 

(assuming there is a 1:10, 1:25, 1:50, 1:100 & 1:200 variants)

 

I'm just coming up with this off the top of my head though. I haven't bothered to plug in real numbers yet to see if it makes any bit of sense though.

 

*shrug* I don't know. Seems more of an exercise in futility to estimate anyway. But it's a fun little exercise. There's gotta be a single equation for figuring this out as long as you know how many of the ratios need to go into it.

 

*edit* I plugged in a 10K print run on this & it actually kinda works. It worked out to

 

X = 8510.63829... blah blah

So the 1:10 = ~851

1:25 = ~340

1:50 = ~170

1:100 = ~85

1:200 = ~42

 

Total added together worked out at around 9999 copies. So basically, it actually works. Now, that doesn't mean a bit when it comes to how many actually came out of the printer. It's more of a fun exercise.

[ygogolak]

IT'S ALL A GUESSTIMATE UNLESS YOU KNOW A PERSON AT THE PRINTER.

 

[luckroy]

So, to sum this up: all estimates are wrong because the publishers don't have to stick to the ratios when they do the actual printing.

 

All needling aside, some interesting food for thought. Makes me wonder if there is any way we can make the distinction between actual rarity and perceived rarity

[revat]

So, to sum this up: all estimates are wrong because the publishers don't have to stick to the ratios when they do the actual printing.

 

All needling aside, some interesting food for thought. Makes me wonder if there is any way we can make the distinction between actual rarity and perceived rarity

 

nearly impossible without some insider information. Too many variables.

[valiantman]

Wouldn't it work better to work backwards a little & do some basic algebra?

 

X + 0.1X + 0.04X + 0.02X + 0.01X + 0.005X = Total Number Sold

 

(assuming there is a 1:10, 1:25, 1:50, 1:100 & 1:200 variants)

 

I'm just coming up with this off the top of my head though. I haven't bothered to plug in real numbers yet to see if it makes any bit of sense though.

 

*shrug* I don't know. Seems more of an exercise in futility to estimate anyway. But it's a fun little exercise. There's gotta be a single equation for figuring this out as long as you know how many of the ratios need to go into it.

 

Yes, there would be an algebraic equation to do what I've described in the first post. However, this is a messageboard where people probably avoid algebraic anything.

 

The regular, 1:10, 1:20, and 1:50 variant scenario would be:

 

x + 0.1x + 0.05x + 0.02x = 1.17x

 

If 1.17x = 10,000 copies, then x = 8,547, 0.1x = 855, 0.05x = 427, 0.02x = 171.

 

That's what we got in the first post, but I didn't have use algebra to bore readers... as much.

[Jaydogrules]

Here's a little 101 for understanding variant print run calculations.

 

At first, it seems straight-forward. A 1:20 variant would be 1 copy for every 20 copies of the regular cover.

If the regular cover sells 10,000 copies, then the 1:20 variant would be estimated to be 500 copies.

 

That's where most people stop.

 

But...

 

When http://www.comichron.com reports 10,000 copies sold, they are reporting 10,000 copies sold including the variants.

As long as the book has the same ordering price, all of the variants (at that price) are combined to report the number of copies sold.

 

So, if there are only two versions of a book, a regular cover and a 1:20 variant, then the estimate should be like this:

1:20 is 5%. About 5% of the copies are the 1:20 variant.

In reality, it is 4.76%, because for every 21 copies printed, 1 is a variant. That's 1/21, which is 4.76%.

 

Since the number of copies sold was 10,000, and 4.76% are the 1:20 variant, the estimate is 476 copies, not the 500 originally estimated.

Additionally, the regular cover is 95.24% of the 10,000, which is 9,524 copies.

 

So, 476 is a better estimate than 500. They're very close, so it's not a big difference... but what if the book had other incentive variants?

 

What if the book had a 1:10, a 1:20, and a 1:50 variant? We've seen publishers have done these types of books before.

 

If the book sold 10,000 copies including the variants, we could estimate the 1:10 at 1,000 copies, the 1:20 at 500 copies, and the 1:50 at 200 copies.

That's what most people assume. But if that were true, it would mean that 1,700 of the 10,000 copies were variants.

If 1,700 of the 10,000 are variants, then there are only 8,300 copies of the regular edition.

So, the 1:10 should be 830 copies, not 1,000. The 1:20 should be 415 copies, not 500. The 1:50 should be 166 copies, not 200.

 

Is that enough? Should we stop?

8,300 regular

830 1:10 variant

415 1:20 variant

166 1:50 variant

 

Does that total 10,000? Nope. That's 9,711 copies. When we estimated the regular at 8,300 copies, we lowered the number of variants to 1,411, not the original 1,700.

 

As you can see, this estimate would go back and forth for a while to get the correct number of regular and variant copies to total 10,000 sold.

That would be trial-and-error.

 

We won't do that.

 

The correct way to work with the numbers is to estimate the percent of the 10,000 that belongs to each variant.

1:10 would be 10%

1:20 would be 5%

1:50 would be 2%

 

That's 17% for the variants... if you use 100% for the regular.

But, we can't have 117%. We need 100% for all of the books.

So, divide the 100 by 117 and you get 85.47.

 

What do we do with 85.47? We multiply it by each original percentage that added up to 117%.

 

So, 85.47 times 100% for the regular cover would be 8,547 copies of the regular cover (out of 10,000).

85.47 times 10% for the 1:10 variant would be 855 copies of the 1:10 variant (out of 10,000).

85.47 times 5% for the 1:20 variant would be 427 copies of the 1:20 variant (out of 10,000).

85.47 times 2% for the 1:50 variant would be 171 copies of the 1:50 variant (out of 10,000).

 

Though we would be tempted to say that a 1:20 variant for a book with 10,000 copies should be 500 copies of the 1:20, it would actually be 427 copies in a "best estimate" for this scenario.

 

8,547 plus 855 plus 427 plus 171 is the magic 10,000 that we are looking for... and those should be our "best estimates" for each variant.

If you read this far, you would have earned "one participation credit" with Dr. Valiantman if this was an online course at Comic Book University. :wink:

 

 

P.S. Never forget that the rules for retailers to receive variants are for retailers. There are no rules for publishers to receive variants. Publishers can print as many as they want. Any variant that is estimated to be 171 copies, for example, might be 171 or 200 or 300 or 2,000, if the publisher wishes. It might also be 140 copies, if that is the number of retailers who qualified. Not all 10,000 copies will be in 50 copy orders, so there will be many regular copies sold below the 1:50 requirement and there won't need to be 171 copies of the 1:50. At the end of the day, without the publisher making a specific statement about the specific print runs, we are left with the "best estimates" as described above.

 

This is great, I like this.

 

But remember, that the publisher almost always orders up to the nearest case pack no matter what, and will overprint for "event books" (hence why we see the occasional variant sell off of excess inventory after the fact in Diamond direct offerings and 5 below packs), and possibly extras for creators, VIP's, employees, etc. But then again, not all shops will realistically be ordering the books in quantity to get every variant.

 

Either way, this is a pretty reliable way to ballpark some print numbers.

 

-J.

[valiantman]

The fun part is AFTER you calculate there are 8,547 regular cover (and a total of 1,453 ratio variants), BUT, the regular cover (non-ratio) is actually three different "Order All" covers, A, B, and C.

 

So, what do you do with the 8,547 to get Cover A, Cover B, and Cover C estimates? 33% each?

Odds are Cover A is the most common. Many shops might only order Cover A (a copy or two).

 

40%, 30%, 30%?

50%, 25%, 25%?

60%, 20%, 20%?

 

Who knows.

 

[Doktor]

Wouldn't it work better to work backwards a little & do some basic algebra?

 

X + 0.1X + 0.04X + 0.02X + 0.01X + 0.005X = Total Number Sold

 

(assuming there is a 1:10, 1:25, 1:50, 1:100 & 1:200 variants)

 

I'm just coming up with this off the top of my head though. I haven't bothered to plug in real numbers yet to see if it makes any bit of sense though.

 

*shrug* I don't know. Seems more of an exercise in futility to estimate anyway. But it's a fun little exercise. There's gotta be a single equation for figuring this out as long as you know how many of the ratios need to go into it.

 

Yes, there would be an algebraic equation to do what I've described in the first post. However, this is a messageboard where people probably avoid algebraic anything.

 

The regular, 1:10, 1:20, and 1:50 variant scenario would be:

 

x + 0.1x + 0.05x + 0.02x = 1.17x

 

If 1.17x = 10,000 copies, then x = 8,547, 0.1x = 855, 0.05x = 427, 0.02x = 171.

 

That's what we got in the first post, but I didn't have use algebra to bore readers... as much.

 

Well dude, you're making people math either way. Might as well just make it as simple as possible & make it just an equation rather than a word problem. But then again, I hated word problems in school. Give me an equation any day.

[valiantman]

Wouldn't it work better to work backwards a little & do some basic algebra?

 

X + 0.1X + 0.04X + 0.02X + 0.01X + 0.005X = Total Number Sold

 

(assuming there is a 1:10, 1:25, 1:50, 1:100 & 1:200 variants)

 

I'm just coming up with this off the top of my head though. I haven't bothered to plug in real numbers yet to see if it makes any bit of sense though.

 

*shrug* I don't know. Seems more of an exercise in futility to estimate anyway. But it's a fun little exercise. There's gotta be a single equation for figuring this out as long as you know how many of the ratios need to go into it.

 

Yes, there would be an algebraic equation to do what I've described in the first post. However, this is a messageboard where people probably avoid algebraic anything.

 

The regular, 1:10, 1:20, and 1:50 variant scenario would be:

 

x + 0.1x + 0.05x + 0.02x = 1.17x

 

If 1.17x = 10,000 copies, then x = 8,547, 0.1x = 855, 0.05x = 427, 0.02x = 171.

 

That's what we got in the first post, but I didn't have use algebra to bore readers... as much.

 

Well dude, you're making people math either way. Might as well just make it as simple as possible & make it just an equation rather than a word problem. But then again, I hated word problems in school. Give me an equation any day.

We could probably make a table with the answers for all the common scenarios, then no one would have to do (much) math.

[valiantman]

We could probably make a table with the answers for all the common scenarios, then no one would have to do (much) math.

What a great idea!

 

[Aweandlorder]

X + 0.1X + 0.04X + 0.02X + 0.01X + 0.005X + 20% Five below overprints = Total Number Sold

 

Fixed

[drotto]

I have another potential wrinkle to add to this. If a comic is reported as 10,000 copies sold, does that truely indicate the number actually printed. I know companies have been much tighter on their print runs the last few years, but it is likely the number printed still exceeds the number purchased in most cases.

[Kyle R.]

I have another potential wrinkle to add to this. If a comic is reported as 10,000 copies sold, does that truely indicate the number actually printed. I know companies have been much tighter on their print runs the last few years, but it is likely the number printed still exceeds the number purchased in most cases.

 

Copies SOLD is NOT copies PRINTED.

 

 

[Jaydogrules]

I have another potential wrinkle to add to this. If a comic is reported as 10,000 copies sold, does that truely indicate the number actually printed. I know companies have been much tighter on their print runs the last few years, but it is likely the number printed still exceeds the number purchased in most cases.

 

Copies SOLD is NOT copies PRINTED.

 

 

Indeed.

 

And the incentive ratio is based on regular cover copies SOLD, not printed.

 

Valiantman's formula is a perfectly reasonable way to estimate.

 

-J

 

[UltraMaximus]

good show old chap.

[valiantman]

We all use www.comichron.com with the understanding that it is the estimate of total copies sold in the first month for the North American market.

 

They're not the absolute final number of copies printed for the world, for the publisher, or anything guaranteed. But comichron is so much better than NOT having the numbers.

 

Given that understanding of comichron, we can calculate the ratio variants as described here.

 

If comichron is worth having, then better ratio estimates are worth doing.

[bababooey]

 

 

 

 

[Doktor]

X + 0.1X + 0.04X + 0.02X + 0.01X + 0.005X + 20% Five below overprints = Total Number Sold

 

Fixed

 

As I said, it's a fun thought exercise but nothing more. I specifically pointed out that nothing in my original equation actually translates to what gets printed. Just how you can break down the numbers on Comichron. Those numbers are going to go way the heck up when you factor in overprinting, printing to the closest case pack & whatnot.

 

 

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

I have another potential wrinkle to add to this. If a comic is reported as 10,000 copies sold, does that truely indicate the number actually printed. I know companies have been much tighter on their print runs the last few years, but it is likely the number printed still exceeds the number purchased in most cases.

Look at it as a wall to get a ballpark figure on the numbers distributed, rather than the number printed.