1997 circulation numbers

[the blob]

I picked 1997 because I sort of dropped out of new comics around that time. Have been fishing stuff out of bins from that era and always felt that they weren't nearly as plentifull as comics from 3 years earlier and the numbers cited here confirm that impression. in fact, not terribly different than today.

 

people sometimes toss around statements like "overprinted 90's dreck" when really that starts becoming less applicable around 1996 or so and thereafter.

 

anyway, as for the other comment, if half the print run does, in fact, wind up in a 50 cent bin, shops will go out of business right and left. they can't lose almost a buck each on all those books and make enough profit on the other stuff to survive. personally, i don't see that so much at my local shop though. they overorder some titles, misjudging demand on some new series, for example, but most stuff doesn't wind up having been overordered so much that it goes in the bin, or they toss copies that got beat up on the racks in the bin.

[Psylocke Smythe-migration]

anyway, as for the other comment, if half the print run does, in fact, wind up in a 50 cent bin, shops will go out of business right and left. they can't lose almost a buck each on all those books and make enough profit on the other stuff to survive. personally, i don't see that so much at my local shop though. they overorder some titles, misjudging demand on some new series, for example, but most stuff doesn't wind up having been overordered so much that it goes in the bin, or they toss copies that got beat up on the racks in the bin.

 

Which is why I feel that a lot of LCS's have gone to providing pull services and giving a discount to their customers who use that service, so the store can use the data for their ordering. This way by using this data, they can refine their ordering so they do not get stuck with a lot of extra issues that do not sell. I think that this is one of the reasons we are seeing lower print runs, since they are now ordering for what they can sell instead of what they think they will sell.

 

Psy

[Kevin Boyd]

Which is why I feel that a lot of LCS's have gone to providing pull services and giving a discount to their customers who use that service, so the store can use the data for their ordering. This way by using this data, they can refine their ordering so they do not get stuck with a lot of extra issues that do not sell. I think that this is one of the reasons we are seeing lower print runs, since they are now ordering for what they can sell instead of what they think they will sell.

 

You don't have to worry about feeling or thinking anything, you are correct. Pull lists and order forms are a way for a store to judge interest for ordering purposes.

 

Since the late 1990's stores have had to order "smarter" than before. Aside from two stores that I know of that rely heavily on walk-in traffic (and therefore "guesstimate" for ordering purposes based on off-the-rack sales as opposed to pull files), the majority of stores I know of use a formula of "pull files plus" to determine their ordering. For X-Men titles, as an example, it might be pull file orders = 100 plus 25% = 25 for walk-in = 125 total order.

 

For many small press titles and graphic novels it is pretty much done to order - no additional copies ordered beyong the 1-10 copies ordered by customers for their pull files. Unless the retailer likes the look of something and decides to gamble on ordering a couple of extra copies to test it out.

 

Some retailers take the risk of over-ordering certain books to receive the incentive covers. Other retailers I know also gauge convention appearances for their orders so they can have store copies available for creator signings.

 

Brian Hibbs has provided a lot of excellent information in his Tilting at Windmills column at Newsarama (and the accompanying book of columns from when he wrote the column for a retailing mag) on how he orders for his store Comix Experience in San Francisco.

[awe4one]

interesting comparison between 1997 and 2004. But why 1997? Wasnt the low point AFTER 1997?

 

 

First sales chart after Marvel went back to Diamond for distribution. While the company was self-distributing through Heroes World, their announced circulation numbers were widely believed to be inflated...

 

Jim