TILTING @ WINDMILLS v2 #13: MY MONTHLY DUES, PART DEUX

[MattBrady]

by Brian Hibbs

#129 – January 2005

“My Monthly Dues, Part Deux”

So, here comes the hard part.

Three months ago, I walked you through our Previews order for December shipping comics from the brokered publishers.

Ordering the comics is the easy part.

This month, I’m following up on that order with our results – what sold and how, and where it goes from there.

As a working comics retailer, I keep several months of data active in my head at one time – I’m just about to order March comics at the same time that I’m prepping our sub forms for April material. I also have to set up the paperwork for the February books while we’re receiving the January titles. And, of course, not everything ships when it is supposed to, so I also have to work with December titles, some November books, heck even some October material. Some stuff is even later than that – in the last 30 days we’ve received stuff as late as material that was meant to be shipping in June ’04. But, as a general rule, we’re always dealing with 4 months of material at once.

Click here for the full column.

[gredenko]

Fascinating, as always. This is certainly not a business I'd ever want to get into.

[Ryan Twombly]

Thanks for putting in the effort, Bri, I know this was a lot of work. I'm somewhat surprised (not really) by Marvel's dominance, but hey, the numbers don't lie. I hope your critics learn from the exercise.

[JusticeLeaguer]

I find articles like this particularly informative since I just recently opened my own store in September and am struggling with the ordering process as well. Some questions for Brian : When you order do you order to completely sell through? Do you not want at least one or two copies available for your back issues? Did you sell any of these numbers online or at local convention appearances or were they all strictly in-store? I still attend local conventions (which is where I started this crazy business years ago) in Ottawa, and even travel to Toronto and Montreal quarterly for shows there, and I find I actually end up moving alot of my excess product through there since many of the other dealers in attendance fail to stock current product. I've also made the mistake of ordering a little more on books I truly believed would be good reads, but just don't seem to have the selling strength I thought they would (Busiek's starting run on JLA, The Intimates and JLA Classified being prime examples). I'm actually going with the mindset of ordering more Marvel since it's not re-orderable, and less DC because it is and if I sell through I can usually get it back in stock. Also, I noticed the comment on the What if? clearance you may have to do and I have a question with regards to that as well. How do you draw the fine line between dumping new product in-store and not pissing off subscribers who are paying more for the book than what you may clear it out for later? I am a firm believer in when a book doesn't sell or it gets cancelled, dump it in clearance the quicker the better, but I would like to know if your customers (or other Newsarama posters for that matter) have ever given you a hard time about buying a book at just under cover and then finding it in 50% off or dollar bins a short time later. Great Article!
Rob Zedic
Myths, Legends & Heroes
www.mythslegendsandheroes.com

[AlterEgoComics]

When i was aspiring to open it read tons of your Tilting articles and they were extremely informative and insightful. It was great to read the break downs of your numbers and see some of the same patterns in my sales that you have.

My store being open less than a month is a challenge in my ordering (not as challenging as it was in november when i wasn't even open and having to predict how much sales i would do). I get a new file customer almost daily, which is terrific, and i have to go and edit my intial order to accomodate them. Just starting out i am keeping my orders really close to the cuff. I am dancing the fine line of keeping my customers happy and not having the book available for them. so goes the game we play.

Jason

[Christian Otte]

Very interesting stuff.

[Brian Hibbs]

Yikes, Rob, paragraph breaks -- they make reading much easier!

Originally posted by JusticeLeaguer
When you order do you order to completely sell through? Do you not want at least one or two copies available for your back issues?

Yeah, ultimately I'm ordering with the goal of 100% sell-out before a book comes off my rack (2-3 months after release)

This may be a function of being a heavily urban store with high square-footage rents, but I find ordering frontlist as back issue material is generally a waste of money.

Our back issue sales are a small fraction of our totals, and back issues consume far more floor space than they generate in gross sales.

If you have a large space and/or cheap rent this equation might be very different for you.

Originally posted by JusticeLeaguer
Did you sell any of these numbers online or at local convention appearances or were they all strictly in-store?

Strictly in store. I've never set up at any convention, and I doubt I ever will. To great of an expense (travel, shipping, hotel, food, labor, etc) for the benefit in sales.

Originally posted by JusticeLeaguer
I'm actually going with the mindset of ordering more Marvel since it's not re-orderable, and less DC because it is and if I sell through I can usually get it back in stock.

I'm sure Marvel likes that behaviour!

I think one should always try to order "right" the first time (though we only succeed sometimes!), and not low/highball numbers because of manufacturers.

Plus, there are more Marvel books available on reorder these days (as it should be!)

Originally posted by JusticeLeaguer
Also, I noticed the comment on the What if? clearance you may have to do and I have a question with regards to that as well. How do you draw the fine line between dumping new product in-store and not pissing off subscribers who are paying more for the book than what you may clear it out for later? I am a firm believer in when a book doesn't sell or it gets cancelled, dump it in clearance the quicker the better, but I would like to know if your customers (or other Newsarama posters for that matter) have ever given you a hard time about buying a book at just under cover and then finding it in 50% off or dollar bins a short time later.

Never been given a hard time, no.

Generally speaking we wait 3-6 months before doing clearance to avoid any problems. I process my "biffage" 3-4 times a year.

Also, WHAT ends up in the clearance bins changes from month to month, so no one could "depend" on it for buying new books. Further, I find that the more new books someone buys, the less likely they are to buy back issues, or, thus, to look through the clearance box in the first place.

-B

Brian Hibbs
Head Cheese, Comix Experience
305 Divisadero St.
San Francisco, CA, 94117
www.comixexperience.com
415-863-9258

[Rorshoq]

Great article, but I was disappointed by the small blurb about the X-Men sales. I wanted more info! How do they sell in general? How many did you order? Also, do the sales shift dramatically with creator changes on those titles?

[Ryan Twombly]

Originally posted by Rorshoq
do the sales shift dramatically with creator changes on those titles?

That's a question I'd like to see answered in general. It was an interesting note about the BRPD minis. I'd like some analysis of why the difference there as opposed to a continuing series.

[Not From Around]

Pretty impressive article, as always. These are highly informative pieces. It's mind-boggling to think about how thought and detail go into making orders for a comic shop. I've recently become involved in library collection development, and the issues in deciding what the public will want/need are in some ways similar. We don't have to worry about selling what we order, of course, but we do want to try to spend our budget on those items that will get the most use and do the most good.

[GeorgeG]

Great article. Don't know what to say about Image. I'm giving them a chance--but they don't ship their titles out on time. If it happens again, I'm dropping them. That's a good five books I'll be dropping, so I guess some other publisher can have my money.

[WayneLW]

The surprisingly low sales on the Byrne FF Visionaries might be because of the shockingly poor reproduction in the final annual reprinted therein. I ordered mine through a mail-order wservice, and would return it if I could.

[JusticeLeaguer]

Thanks Brian! It would be interesting to run a test with small, medium and large volume stores to not only compare the sell through but the sales trends on specific titles in general....Heck it might even turn a reader onto a new book if they saw strong sales (especially a new title) in each demographic.

[grphxkindaguy]

Originally posted by AlterEgoComics
When i was aspiring to open it read tons of your Tilting articles and they were extremely informative and insightful. It was great to read the break downs of your numbers and see some of the same patterns in my sales that you have.

Ditto! Great, great article. Very informative and an interesting look "behind the curtain".

Hope to see more articles like this in the future!

[Mark Katzoff]

As far as the Dark Horse trades go, for some time the scheduled shipping dates for the trades in their solicits are a month later than the floppies. For example, I just quickly looked at the solicitations for February 2005, and all of the trades solicited ship in March or in one case April. What gets more annoying is when Dark Horse still can't ship them one time with the extra month lead time.

[Bakema NL]

Interesting article to read. I think a lot of the numbers are something most Dutch shops can only dream of.

[dr_doomy]

Originally posted by Brian Hibbs
Yeah, ultimately I'm ordering with the goal of 100% sell-out before a book comes off my rack (2-3 months after release)
I think one should always try to order "right" the first time (though we only succeed sometimes!), and not low/highball numbers because of manufacturers.
-B

Interesting and informative as always; thanks for the read.

Have you ever estimated (I don't recall reading it) what percentage of an order is already spoken for (subscription or even the feeling that Little Jimmy is going to want one of those) versus how much you're expecting to sell (or not sell) to casual customers.

I was wondering how different an order might be without the assurance of subs and knowledge of predictable, regular customers.

[Brian Hibbs]

Originally posted by Rorshoq
Great article, but I was disappointed by the small blurb about the X-Men sales. I wanted more info! How do they sell in general? How many did you order? Also, do the sales shift dramatically with creator changes on those titles?

No, generally on the x-titles, they're, by and large, "creator proof" -- that is to say the audience would mostly buy them even if, say, I was writing them.

We sell about half as many copies of X-MEN and UNCANNY as we do of ASTONISHING.

We sell about half again the numbers of the next tier down (WOLVERINE, ACADEMY X, etc.)

We sell about half of THAT on the next tier down (DSITRICT X, MYSTIQUE, etc.)

and about half of THAT on the lowest group (GAMBIT, ROGUE, JUBILEE)

The percentages used to be more in the 2/3 range... and the BOTTOM tier didn't exist.

I'm a little embarrassed that there are x-books that sell in the single digits, frankly.

-B

[Brian Hibbs]

Originally posted by Ryan Twombly
That's a question I'd like to see answered in general. It was an interesting note about the BRPD minis. I'd like some analysis of why the difference there as opposed to a continuing series.

Because a new #1 is always as much of a chance to (Cleanly) "jump off" of a title as it is to "jump on"

-B

[Brian Hibbs]

Originally posted by dr_doomy
Have you ever estimated (I don't recall reading it) what percentage of an order is already spoken for (subscription or even the feeling that Little Jimmy is going to want one of those) versus how much you're expecting to sell (or not sell) to casual customers.

There's actually not, as far as I can tell, any ACTUAL correlation between subs and not-subs. I beleive Mel Thompson looked at the POS data coming through ComTrac and came to the same conclusion.

However, I'll (almost) always order "double subs" as a minimum starting position because it is relatively safe.

Some titles we sell have 5% or less preorders, while some are 100%.

-B

[some_bloke]

Hello Brian,

Did you find that the experience of airing your thought process in public led to any change in decisions?

You mention buying Elfquest out of loyalty. Would you have dropped the book at this point anyway, or was the decision helped by the thought that many people would be reading this?

[Bullrunner]

As a consumer, I try to work with my local shop when ordering. I spend an average of $100 per week, and about 40%-50% of that is composed of indies and oddball stuff from the brokered publishers.

I know they can't risk ordering multiple copies of something like Dark Horse's Irregulars, since there is a limited audience for that sort of thing. But, I hesitate to make the commitment of ordering the thing, knowing that the chance of the book arriving anywhere close to the advertised arrival date is pretty slim, and that there is a good chance I will have lost interest by the time it arrives, or will have found something else to spend my money on. I usually make it known that I am "interested" in the book, when and if it arrives. They know not to count on me actually buying the book, and therefore they don't have to spend the coin to order it for me, but they know to **try** to have one available from an affiliated shop in another city. I know this sounds complicated, and yes, my shop owner/staff are saints for doing this for me.

My rationale is thus: I have to budget for my comics habit and late-shipping books get replaced by toys or another book that actually made it into the shop on time. If I keep the late-shopping books on my pull list/order form, then it plays havoc with the budget.

I hate late-shipping books. If a creator or publisher has the balls to put a shipping date in their solicit, then I hold them to it. I do cut them some slack, depending on the creators' workloads and unexpected catastrophes, but not consistant lateness. Unadvertised 3-6 month gaps between issues or books that have to resolicit 6 months later are unacceptable. No TP, book or mini should be solicted unless it is at least 90% in the can. Ongoings are, of course, a different story.

Case in point: Astro City: Dark Age. Issue 1 was supposed to ship in December, IIRC. It not only hasn't shipped, not other issues have been solicited. Therefore, it comes off my pull list. I would have been buying the floppies, but now I will wait for the TPB, if and when it comes out.

Another case: Battle Hymn. Cool-sounding book: I was really pumped for this. Five issues have been solicted, and issue one has yet to show up. It's gone from the pull list. Maybe I'll take a look at it when it actually hits the shelves. Or maybe not.

My point is that there is so much product out there, that I don't have to tie up my comic cash waiting for one particular thing to arrive. I'll find somewhere else to spend that money. I'm not alone in this, and comics shops know it. If Battle Hymn or Astro City had arrived anywhere close to the advertised ship date, I would have grabbed them like they were D-cups. But now, I'll spend that money trying out Concrete and Ballad of Sleeping Beauty. It's just smart business to stock products from reliable publishers/creators with proven track records. Those products sell best because they arrive on the shelves on or close to the advertised date.

[cactusmaac]

Are all the multiple Bat-Family books really causing a problem?

When it comes to titles like Robin, Catwoman, Gotham Central, Birds of Prey and Nightwing, Bats is an infrequent guest star at best.

Why would someone looking for Batman books be buying those in the first place?

Gotham Knights really ought to go though. It serves no purpose at all.

[GeorgeG]

Originally posted by Bullrunner
As a consumer, I try to work with my local shop when ordering. I spend an average of $100 per week, and about 40%-50% of that is composed of indies and oddball stuff from the brokered publishers.

$100 A WEEK???? Damn. You might as well buy the shop.

[jacobi]

Yeah, I don't understand the bat-family comment either. I think the main books that are pointless would be Robin and Nightwing (since they star heavily in team books) and the Batman books that aren't detective (there should be only one Batman book). Gotham Central and BoP are better than all other bat books combined and I certainly would not want to see them go.