The Best of Comics-Pro26 Apr 1998 |
From time to time, a message posted to comics-pro is so useful that you want to keep it around. That's the intent of this page. If you'd like to nominate a message, please email me.
Mike Meyer, admin Comics-pro list.
| Understanding Printer Quotes | Jeff Mason ,editor, Alternative Press |
| How Many Copies Can I Sell? | Mike Meyer, publisher, Twist and Shout |
Note: this whole page is under construction, as I extract and format items. Bookmark this page.
Understanding Printer Quotes (Jeff Mason, Alternative Press)
Subject: COMICS-PRO: Printing - Understanding the Quote
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 11:46:16 -0500 (EST)
From: "Jeff Mason" <jrm@grove.ufl.edu>
To: comics-pro@netcom.com (comicpro)
Printing your comic - Understanding the price quotes:
Ok generally you will get a price quote for your comic book based on the number of pages, number of copies, the type of interior paper stock, the type of cover stock, the size of the comic, whether or not the interiors/exteriors are color or b&w, and in what format you are actually sending them your comic book from them to print.
Some printers also charge EXTRA for other stuff that may be included in the actual quote from other printers, and it is a VERY good idea to ask if these costs are in the price quote:
I am sure there are a few extras, but those are the major ones that may add $$$ to your bill. They key is to ask --IN ADVANCE-- about what they include in the quote and what they do not, and then to ask about each of these extras and how much they run.
Jeff
How Many
Copies can I sell of my Book? (Mike Meyer, Twist and Shout)
Subject: Re: COMICS-PRO: comics-pro: Order sizes
Date: Thu, 23 Jan 1997 21:43:22 -0700
From: Mike Meyer <twist@netgate.net>
To: "Samuel J. Steiner" <Samuel.J.Steiner-1@tc.umn.edu>
CC: comics-pro@netcom.com
Samuel J. Steiner wrote:
>
> My publishing company is getting ready to go to print with
our first comic
> book in the next few months. It's going to have a glossy
color cover,
> high-quality black and white inside, 32 pages, and retail
for about 2.95.
> My question is: does anybody know what I could expect in
the way of orders,
> on the average, for a book like that distributing through
Diamond?
Ah, Samuel, that's the magical question we all seek to answer. Sort of like Freud's 'What do women want?'
That said, I can authoritatively tell you that your book could sell anywhere between 60 and 7,100 copies. :-) And, I'm not being facetious. Amongst the folks here on this group, this is the actual range, unless someone published the next Spawn and is holding out on us.
Tell us more about yourself, your company and your book, and maybe we can be more specific:
1) Your company's location in the alphabet, for one, may help you. Twist and Shout Comics is right next to Topps in the catalog -- that put our listings for our book "The X Flies," right next to the top-selling book it was parodying. When we did another one of these books, emboldened by the success, our listing was in Diamond's late, not-lamented experiment called the "Select Comics"section, and we sold 1/4 of the first book's orders.
2) The type of material you are seeking to publish. The right kind of girl with gun book will sell anywhere from fairly well to spectacularly. Other books might be a harder sell. There's also some evidence that this wisdom could turn 180 degrees at any time. Note that I didn't say anything about how good the book is. Nobody's going to know about that until months after you send your solicitation in, however. Unless you tell them yourself, of course.
3) Not to sound rude, but who are you? Do you have a long track record on other popular titles? Even that isn't a guarantee, but store owners will peruse your ads and listings for some reason to buy your book, and it needn't be a long resume, but that can't hurt. Winning a Xeric Foundation Grant helps, but they only pay printing costs, and it's up to you to parlay this grant into something other than a stint at another publisher (Didya guys hear? Jessica Abel has gone to Fantagraphics...). Few have succeeded there, because there isn't much of an awareness of Xeric amongst the dealers we need to reach to achieve growth.
4) What is your business strategy? I know, that's kind of personal. Around here, we try to air that sort of dirty laundry -- it's how we learn. Tight-lipped silence, IMHO, is one of the reasons this segment of the industry bears the brunt of ill winds in the market.
If you plan to make back the money from printing the first book, and then sink it into the next book, perhaps we should talk about better ways to spend it. Lotto tickets. The little box on your tax form for donating to the Presidential Election Fund. If you have a budget which will allow you to print a few books, and which has some money set aside for personal appearances, some advertising appropriate to your book, and mailings to remind retailers not to miss the next issue here and there, you've got a fighting chance at building a viable business from publishing.
Your first book is an investment that you will be able to recoup over time. Count yourself lucky if you recoup the printing from initial sales, but don't count on it to fund your company. Don't try to fund your first book with borrowed money, unless you have a very patient lender.
5) Don't worry about your initial sales as the end in itself. Visibility and demand are what you are looking for. Bone #1 sold 900 copies the first time it was offered.
When you sign up to be a publisher, you sign up to tell at least 1,000 people about your book in order to break even. You can go fan-to-fan, you can convince one widely-read magazine you are great, you can get a news article touting your book as a great contribution to society in the local paper, you can write a letter begging every decent store in the company to order your book, or you can send Diamond a solicitation blurb, wait for the catalog to come out and pray. Mostly, you need to do all of these things, and keep doing the ones that work.
My point is, however, that you can't be an introvert and a publisher at the same time -- you have to communicate with a lot of people, and convince an adequate subset to buy your book. It's not easy. Your book's premise can help you, but it won't do all the work. Your creators' reputation can help, etc. All of these things will still add up to very little guarantee.
We can help you with the mailing stuff -- Jeff Mason has a great list of indy-friendly stores. See, we're good for more than glib pronouncements here...
6)The earlier you start promoting your book, the better chance you have for healthy sales. If you hand out copies to key retailers at APE, get early photocopies to the reviewers at a bunch of magazines, send press releases to any mainstream news outlets who might pick up the story, etc. you will improve your chances. Get the first issues of the book in the can, just like Diamond asks you to. You'll need artwork and stuff well in advance if you want to have effective ads, favorable pull quotes from reviewers and other publishers. (We can help there, too -- most of us love looking at other folks' work, and I'll gladly critique ad copy/layouts, etc. to help folks select the best ad for their work...) Figure that you are probably already behind on this, and get started ASAP. A six month lead time is not out of the question, though few of us actually do that. Few of us, however are selling as well as we could...
7) Distributor feedback. Diamond has no idea how well your book will sell. They've dropped or refused fairly good books, and the process of getting Spotlighted is kind of a political one. The Spotlights may or may not help you, anyway -- we've had Spotlighted listings that still got really low sales, on the order of 250 books.
8) Bottom line -- nobody can tell you exactly how your book is going to be received. You can eliminate much of the guesswork with advance promotion and effective networking, which should help. There are just too many variables to take into account. I'm all for eliminating the element of surprise in publishing, however.
Stick around, ask questions, add your opinions to the mix -- we're all trying to solve this same problem. Our charter here is to find a way that we can elevate the visibility of black and white work, and more effectively market our stuff. (I know, that's not all our charter is, but it's certainly an important part...) It's working, I believe; several of us are improving both our books and our bottom lines, and making a lot of friends in the process.
If you are planning to attend APE, stop by the Twist and Shout booth. There will be quite a few other comics pro folks here as well, and I'll be offering books from some of the folks who can't be there.
Good luck, and like I said, tell us a bit more about yourself...
Mike Meyer
Twist and Shout Comics
This compilation ©1998 Mike Meyer.
Individual answers are copyright the original authors. Every effort has been made to secure permission for excerpts used here, and content used without permission will be cheerfully removed upon request.
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