TILTING @ WINDMILLS #14: BOOKSCAN 2004

[MattBrady]

by Brian Hibbs

#130 – February 2005 – “Looking at BookScan, 2004"

Welcome to the second annual review of the bookstore market.

“Direct Market” stores (also known as “your Local Comics Shop”) buy much of their material for resale from Diamond Comics Distributors (though, not, by any means, all – and many DM stores are also buying from book distributors). DM stores seldom have Point-of-Sales (POS) systems, and, because we buy non-returnable, what we track is what sells-in to the store, not what sells-through to the eventual consumer.

The bookstore market, however, buys their material returnable, where they can send back titles that don’t sell. Because of this, sell-through is the data that is tracked and trended. Bookstores that have POS systems are able to report their sales to BookScan, a subsidiary of Nielsen.

Each week, BookScan generates a series of reports detailing the specific sales to consumers through its client stores. The category we are most interested in is “adult fiction overall graphic novels”. Provided here is the BookScan report from the last week of 2004.

Click here for the list and Brian's analysis.

[Alex Scott]

No other “cine-manga” (fumetti-style movie stills with comic balloons on top) ranks at all. I’m going to assume that “cine-manga” is more expensive to produce, as well, given the supposition of having to pay someone to actually assemble the book (virtually all manga only needs to be lettered when published here), as well as licensing fees that would have to be paid. Last year’s Lizzie success seems to be a fluke, unless there was some kind of categorization mix up (Maybe they’re all under “children’s books” now?)

I recall reading a while back that the Spongebob cinemanga sold a metric crapload of copies thanks mostly to Scholastic's book club, which lets kids order books directly through their schools. I understand Scholastic's also pushing the new colorized Bone through that catalog. Does Bookscan track that? If not, then it's possible that's where the majority of sales are.

I've also seen the cine-manga in the children's sections, but rarely in the actual manga sections, so your theory that they're not listed because they're technically in a different category may also be correct.

[S. Kurtz]

I wonder if my trades got listed under Humor or something else because I know I sold enough copies to make the list but I can't find my ranking.

Any idea on this, Brian?

[Ralf Haring]

Originally posted by Brian Hibbs
I truly don’t understand why we’re seeing such drastically different results in the DM than in the bookstores with manga. The other places on the list where BookScan shows great sales, I’m doing well with that work – but not manga. I can barely give manga away. Sales are compressed in the first weeks, then I never sell another copy again. I’m stuck with a disproportionate amount of unsalable stock, and more product is being released than I could possibly rack, even if the sales were there. This perplexes me.

I would think this is obviously tied to the main manga audience just not even considering going into a comic store (if they know they exist) to get their comics. They've been trained to get it from bookstores and that's the mental association they have. To get their dollars, I would think the comics store would need to in some way get their attention (advertising at schools?) and then offer them a reason to go out of their way to come to that store to buy it (sales or discounts?). Nowadays every "real" comics store should have people on staff who are knowledgable about manga and can discuss it intelligently and make recommendations to customers who are looking for something beyond "the manga shelves are over there".

Just like with traditional US comics, what the direct market store should be able to offer as a unique experience is knowledge of the specific market niche that the specialty store exploits and a greater selection of product.

[Alfonso]

Very interesting column and numbers. Excellent analysis.

[some_bloke]

Great article Brian, thanks.
You've clearly put a shedload of work and thought into this.

As a statistician, I have to say that the average units figures are dubious to the length of a bargepole unless the number of months on sale gets taken into account. Books released for the Christmas market will have a significant, possibly dramatic, deforming effect.

[Alex Scott]

Here are the two things that keep me from going to comic stores more often for manga:

1) Their stock just doesn't compare to the bookstores. In fact, of the three major comic stores in my town, none of them has enough manga to fill even one shelf at a bookstore. And what they do have is usually a couple Battle Royales here, a Yu-Gi-Oh there, and an occasional Nausicaa (which I'm sad to see isn't listed; maybe the anime can goose sales a bit after it comes out tomorrow).

2) Whatever manga they do have is bagged up just like all the rest of the comics. That's not very welcoming to people who may want to dip their toes in the water before getting too deep. At least a bookstore will let you try before you buy.

Now, let me close by saying that the single best manga stock--heck, not just manga, but trade paperbacks in general--I have ever seen, with virtually every title ever translated available right there on the shelf for you to pick up or read, was at a comic store: Oxford Comics in Atlanta. Not only that, but it's brightly lit and generally has a pleasant atmosphere. If it had a bench where I could sit down, it'd be heaven.

But it's two hundred miles away from here. I don't have the time or the gas money to make that sort of trip. I don't see why any comic store can't have the same kind of stock or accessibility. If I had a store like that in this town, I don't think I'd ever leave.

Its bootleg anime DVDs and CDs bug me, though.

[Franklin Harris]

I truly don’t understand why we’re seeing such drastically different results in the DM than in the bookstores with manga.

(Yoda)

That is why you fail.

(/Yoda)

[cleazer]

Originally posted by Brian Hibbs
And I’m surprised that none of DC’s Cartoon Network books showed on the chart at all, given they had at least token placement last year, and should be among the most “civilian-friendly” material they publish.

The two Teen Titans Go books placed at #456. Or did you mean the non-DC material from CN?


Thanks for sharing that list with us. Its probably about as accurate a look as we'll ever get. If you look down at the bottom of the list though, I think you'll see that there's still a large amount thats not being reported. For example, at #703, Ultimate Spiderman Vol 8 sold 9000 copies for $162K, but if you look at its previous positions, it wasn't even listed on last week's chart. Surely, there must be at least a small amount of $100K books that didn't get listed. And there's clearly an even larger amount of $50-100K books that didn't make the cut. I'd say your "wild stabbing guess" of about 20-50% not being reported is probably about right.

Originally posted by Brian Hibbs
I had hoped expanding the list would minimize the “The Watchmen effect” from here forward -- Watchmen placed at #23 for 2003 DM sales, yet had never appeared in any of 2003’s “Top 50” monthly lists -- however it appears it has not. Watchmen placed #18 for 2004, yet it only appears on 5 of the 12 month’s top list. 841 copies in February, 1067 in March, 946 in May, 1337 in August, and 1358 in December – that’s 5549 copies we can track throughout the year. However, three places down, at #21 for the year, is Ultimate Spider-Man v10, and we can show 7862 copies of that in July and 853 in August, or 8715 that have reported numbers. Thus, Watchmen must have sold more than 8716 copies in 2004 through Diamond, but we can only track 64% or less of its sales! It’s likely, in fact, that Watchmen sold closer to 2003’s 11k copies, but only a fraction of the sales appear on the charts.

If you look down one more spot, to #22, you'll see Astonishing X-Men Vol 1, which sold 10,901 copies in December, the only month it was on sale. This seems to prove that Watchmen sold slighltly over 11k copies.

Similarly, Dark Horse's Creatures of the Night HC placed at #48 on the year-end chart, selling 8,325 copies in the one month it was on sale. So we know everything between #22 and #48 sold somewhere in the 10901-8325 range. I think its safe to assume that #30 sold about 10K copies, and #40 sold about 9K. The #36 book, Ultimate Spiderman Vol 11, must have been somewhere beneath 9422 copies (it debuted in November, but didn't show up on the December chart), so that seems to hold true.

[adamcasey]

This is great, and confirms some of my suspicions.

For everyone who says that trade paperbacks are great way to get people into comics, and that they're not interested in 'being bogged down in continuity', and that the high sales numbers indicate this, this article proves all of that incorrect.

With the movies that were released, the 'known' comic book movies of Spider-Man and Catwoman, and then the 'if the review you read in the Times mentioned that it was based off a comic book' movies of Hellboy and Punisher, and the book sales not improving through book stores, that indicates that if 'civilians' are going to get into sequential art, it's going to be manga.

[Brian Hibbs]

Originally posted by Alex Scott
I recall reading a while back that the Spongebob cinemanga sold a metric crapload of copies thanks mostly to Scholastic's book club, which lets kids order books directly through their schools. I understand Scholastic's also pushing the new colorized Bone through that catalog. Does Bookscan track that? If not, then it's possible that's where the majority of sales are.

As far as I know, Scholastic's book club (and, in fact, any other type of book club, like the Sci-Fi/Fantasy one) doesn't report to BookScan -- these are purely retail sales through a select number of retail outlets.

Jeff Smith mentioned to me at WonderCon this weekend that Scolastic printed 150k of BONE v1 -- and that they've already gone back to press on the book. That's terrific news!

-B

[Brian Hibbs]

Originally posted by S. Kurtz
I wonder if my trades got listed under Humor or something else because I know I sold enough copies to make the list but I can't find my ranking.

Any idea on this, Brian?

None, sorry.

Are you sure that a) more than 98 copies sold b) during the last week of the month c) to venues that report to BookScan?

If you sold 100 copies, but 10 of them went to, say, Wal-Mart, it wouldn't appear on the charts....

I wouldn't think you'd be listed with children's fiction, though -- PVP clearly has "adult" content.

-B

[Brian Hibbs]

Originally posted by Ralf Haring
I would think this is obviously tied to the main manga audience just not even considering going into a comic store (if they know they exist) to get their comics. They've been trained to get it from bookstores and that's the mental association they have.

See, but here's my disconnect: BookScan shows a lot of IN THE SHADOW OF NO TOWERS sold. I sold a lot of ITSONT. BookScan shows a lot of PERSEPOLIS sold. I sold a lot of PERSEPOLIS. BookScan shows a lot of [something "literary"] sold. I, too, sold a lot of [something "literary"]

Yet, the market for Manga is clearly different in the DM than through BookScan venues -- not just in absolute quantities, but in specific titles, and "legs".

Why can I sell the fuck out of PERSEPOLIS, and I can't barely give Manga away -- unless it is the Manga that doesn't show on the BookScan charts, like LONE WOLF AND CUB or AKIRA? It's not like readers looking for "literary" material associate comic book shops with that material, right?

-B

[Brian Hibbs]

Originally posted by some_bloke
As a statistician, I have to say that the average units figures are dubious to the length of a bargepole unless the number of months on sale gets taken into account.

Yah, which I mentioned in passing.

So, want to take a smack at it, given the paucity of data we have? :) That's just not my training....

-B

[S. Kurtz]

Oh, okay. No. I doubt it sold 98 copies in the last week. I just thought maybe there was an overal listing for the year and I was missing my book on that said list.

I know that Barnes and Noble lists it under graphic novels and I want them to list it in Humor. It should be next to Garfield and the like.

Thanks, Brian.

Originally posted by Brian Hibbs
See, but here's my disconnect: BookScan shows a lot of IN THE SHADOW OF NO TOWERS sold. I sold a lot of ITSONT. BookScan shows a lot of PERSEPOLIS sold. I sold a lot of PERSEPOLIS. BookScan shows a lot of [something "literary"] sold. I, too, sold a lot of [something "literary"]

Yet, the market for Manga is clearly different in the DM than through BookScan venues -- not just in absolute quantities, but in specific titles, and "legs".

Why can I sell the fuck out of PERSEPOLIS, and I can't barely give Manga away -- unless it is the Manga that doesn't show on the BookScan charts, like LONE WOLF AND CUB or AKIRA? It's not like readers looking for "literary" material associate comic book shops with that material, right?

-B

[Brian Hibbs]

Originally posted by cleazer
The two Teen Titans Go books placed at #456. Or did you mean the non-DC material from CN?

Good eye -- no matter how much time I put into this, it is really easy to miss some things.

Originally posted by cleazer
Thanks for sharing that list with us. Its probably about as accurate a look as we'll ever get. If you look down at the bottom of the list though, I think you'll see that there's still a large amount thats not being reported. For example, at #703, Ultimate Spiderman Vol 8 sold 9000 copies for $162K, but if you look at its previous positions, it wasn't even listed on last week's chart. Surely, there must be at least a small amount of $100K books that didn't get listed. And there's clearly an even larger amount of $50-100K books that didn't make the cut. I'd say your "wild stabbing guess" of about 20-50% not being reported is probably about right.

Yah. The only possible reason I might say that the figure is more likely to be lower than higher is the general truism that 90% of your sales come from 10% of your stock. It's true for every retail business I am aware of, and it should be true for BookScan venues as well.

Originally posted by cleazer
If you look down one more spot, to #22, you'll see Astonishing X-Men Vol 1, which sold 10,901 copies in December, the only month it was on sale. This seems to prove that Watchmen sold slighltly over 11k copies.

Similarly, Dark Horse's Creatures of the Night HC placed at #48 on the year-end chart, selling 8,325 copies in the one month it was on sale. So we know everything between #22 and #48 sold somewhere in the 10901-8325 range. I think its safe to assume that #30 sold about 10K copies, and #40 sold about 9K. The #36 book, Ultimate Spiderman Vol 11, must have been somewhere beneath 9422 copies (it debuted in November, but didn't show up on the December chart), so that seems to hold true.

Again, thanks for picking those numbers out of the Diamond charts -- my focus was on the BookScan side, and I only gave really a passing amount of time trying to parse the Diamond numbers... because of the 2-step process involved.

However, don't forget that as you get to a smaller "OIN" (Order index number, or the relationship between a specific title and the latest issue of BATMAN), the more likely there is to be a big variation in ICv2 reports and reality...

Similarly, Diamond's numbers only show DM purchasing with any real accuracy for the brokered publishers. Other publishers have other DM venues to sell through. There are also some DM stores, I beleive, that buy even the brokered pubs works through Bookstore distributors when the terms work to thier advantage. Even if ICv2's numbers were 100% precise and accurate, they still wouldn't be 100% of the sales that DM retailers make to consumers....

-B

[Brian Hibbs]

Originally posted by S. Kurtz
Oh, okay. No. I doubt it sold 98 copies in the last week. I just thought maybe there was an overal listing for the year and I was missing my book on that said list.

I know that Barnes and Noble lists it under graphic novels and I want them to list it in Humor. It should be next to Garfield and the like.

Thanks, Brian.

Paragraphs 6 & 7 from the piece, Scott:

*****
It is important to remember a few things here. First and foremost, this isn’t directly a list of the “year’s best-sellers” – this is a report of what sold best in the last reporting week of 2004. In order to make this list, a book had to sell 98 copies in the last week of 2004. If a book sold 97 copies this week, and otherwise sold 10,000 copies throughout the year, it will not appear on this report.

This is also not a list of every book that sold through every book store – the report is limited to those stores that report through BookScan. According to BookScan, more than 7500 venues are now reporting to them, but this still leaves many venues that don’t.

*****

I'd LOVE to look at the REAL end-of-the-year list, but BookScan wanted a whole lot of money for that report -- like $1500 or more, if I recall right.

Brady doesn't pay me enough in six months to cover THAT charge -- let alone for a single column, though, that would be nice.

-B

[Ralf Haring]

Originally posted by Brian Hibbs
See, but here's my disconnect: BookScan shows a lot of IN THE SHADOW OF NO TOWERS sold. I sold a lot of ITSONT. BookScan shows a lot of PERSEPOLIS sold. I sold a lot of PERSEPOLIS. BookScan shows a lot of [something "literary"] sold. I, too, sold a lot of [something "literary"]

Yet, the market for Manga is clearly different in the DM than through BookScan venues -- not just in absolute quantities, but in specific titles, and "legs".

Why can I sell the fuck out of PERSEPOLIS, and I can't barely give Manga away -- unless it is the Manga that doesn't show on the BookScan charts, like LONE WOLF AND CUB or AKIRA? It's not like readers looking for "literary" material associate comic book shops with that material, right?

I would guess that those sales were to people who are already coming to your store for comics. Or are they to people off the street? The traditional US comics fan is notoriously conservative in his tastes. If they're going to read any manga, Dark Horse has the audience's tastes pegged perfectly and snapped up some of the manga crown jewels long ago. You're not going to be selling Love Hina in the same quantities to the people buying Akira. Most of the manga offerings just are not aimed at the people currently going into comic at all.

[Brian Hibbs]

Originally posted by Ralf Haring
I would guess that those sales were to people who are already coming to your store for comics. Or are they to people off the street?

Pretty much to civilians, man. Civs will buy "artcomix" from me in great numbers, but can't be arsed for manga.

-B

[Nat Gertler]

Just a quick note that there were probably a fair number more copies of The Complete Peanuts sold than what you see on that list, because there was a boxed set containing volumes 1 and 2 (at a nice price!) that presumably got tracked as it's own item.

This particular week to track, while interesting because it offers up the year-end total figures, is a bit problematic because the last week of the year is an odd week. With the holidays about, with people getting gift certificates or returning gifts for store credit, the purchasing patterns are apt to be skewed in various ways.

[Ralf Haring]

Originally posted by Brian Hibbs
Pretty much to civilians, man. Civs will buy "artcomix" from me in great numbers, but can't be arsed for manga.

But those same "civilians" aren't the target audience for most manga. The only thing I could think of that would differentiate that manga audience from the other two (artcomix and traditional) is age. They're too young to know that they can find comics in comics stores. If anything, I'd figure they'd be looking for manga stores and not having any luck finding those either.

[Alex Scott]

Originally posted by Ralf Haring
But those same "civilians" aren't the target audience for most manga. The only thing I could think of that would differentiate that manga audience from the other two (artcomix and traditional) is age. They're too young to know that they can find comics in comics stores. If anything, I'd figure they'd be looking for manga stores and not having any luck finding those either.

Or, if anything, they've been to comic stores, and didn't find what they want.

In fact, I imagine there are a lot of people like me who started out reading superheroes and going to comic stores, but eventually found manga to be more appealing. And comic stores (barring exceptions, like the one I mentioned above) simply aren't the best places to go for manga (especially stuff like Shonen Jump books and shoujo). Sure, back when it was mostly single issues and a Mixxzine here and there, comic stores were great, but once companies went exclusively with trade paperbacks, bookstores simply provided better access compared to stores whose primary focus was on monthlies.

And manga and anime fans have a very tightly-knit community, so word travels fast about what's coming out when, what's hot, and who has the best deals. And that typically isn't a comic store.

[Space Canuck]

If getting accurate numbers for "books sold" is so tough, why not try to get the "books printed" or "books ordered" numbers?

Space Canuck

[adamcasey]

Originally posted by Space Canuck
If getting accurate numbers for "books sold" is so tough, why not try to get the "books printed" or "books ordered" numbers?

Wouldn't that make it even more of a crapp shoot to divine any information out of?

[ME5]

I'm rather surprised that Marvel seemed to outsell DC in the book market. I always thought that DC had a strong hold on trades and hardcovers, and that Marvel was a paltry second. So, are Mr. Hibbs' numbers skewed to favour Marvel in some way, or is Marvel truly that much better at seling their trades and hardcovers than they used to be? Has Marvel now become the leading Publisher in bookstores as well as in the Direct Market, I guess is my question. Mr. Hibbs, if you are still there, can you reply to this, please.


For DC, 2003 had 74 spots, for 336,569 units and $6,151,258. The average DC book on the list sold 4,548 units.

In 2004, the company took 39 spots, for 179,440 units and $3,135,983. The average DC book on the list sold 4,601 units.

For Marvel, 2003 had 73 spots, for 455,553 units and $8,428,962. The average Marvel title on the list sold 6,240 units.

In 2004, the company took 50 spots, for 227,985 units and $3,756,764. The average Marvel title on the list sold 4,560 units.