Responding to Johanna Draper Carlson’s criticism of TwoMorrows’ charging to buy their Free Comic Book Day offering online (and the announcement to their offering digital editions of their mags), John Morrows offers an insight into retailer apathy:
With the exception of a handful of the top stores in the country who actually stock our stuff (and achieve pretty nice sales by doing so, thank you very much), our experience is stores, if they carry our magazines at all, only order enough for their pull lists, without a single extra copy on the shelf for a potential new reader/customer to discover.
Over the last three months, we did a mass mailing to over 1500 comics shops, offering a free TwoMorrows Sample Kit, with a free copy of each of our mags for them to display, to see how they sell. You’d think a lot of stores would jump at getting $40 worth of free stuff to sell, no strings attached. Exactly 60 of them took us up on the offer (that’s less than 4% of shops). In 2006, we did a similar offer by phone, calling 500 shops, and got 18 stores who wanted the freebies (3.6%).
Hopefully those will result in some new regular customers for them (and us). But if less than 4% of the country’s comic shops display our wares, we’re never going to increase our circulation that way. Diamond, with rare exceptions, won’t fill retailers’ reorders for our magazines, due to Diamond’s seemingly arbitrary dollar order minimums (I still can’t get a straight answer out of anyone at Diamond as to what those amounts are on our magazines.) So we have to get creative in finding other ways to build our audience.
That said, at least Diamond carries TwoMorrows work, which is more than can be said for Comic Foundry, as Tim Leong points out:
Diamond has chosen not to carry Comic Foundry Magazine… According to Diamond: “a B&W title at the price you’re using just won’t work well in the current market we believe.” Fact: our cover price is $6.25 for an 80-page B&W magazine. Now they might not think that will sell, but it isn’t consistent with what they’re already approving. Such as Issue 14 of Draw! magazine, that’s 80 pages, B&W and retails for $6.95. Same with issue 15 of Write Now! Both same specs, but 70 cents more.
I called Diamond for more clarification and spoke with Tim Huckelbery, who let me know the news in the first place. He said, among other things, “When I was looking though it and reading a magazine of that type, which is about comics, which has lots of images of comics characters, that is looking to be timely and topical, I was expecting color. That, just for me, is how my brain is wired.” So, to be a timely magazine with topical content (and feature images of comic characters) it has to be in color? I’m sorry, I’ve thought about this all afternoon, and I don’t really see how this makes sense. What about The Comics Journal or Comics Buyers Guide? Neither of those are full-color, right?
…Diamond is the major distributor in comics. Without being in Previews means a serious hurt in circulation. Can the magazine survive without Diamond? I certainly hope so. I’ve got a will, I’m just looking for a way.
In the interests of full disclosure, Tim’s a friend and I’ve seen pages from the first issue of the print Comic Foundry; it’s pretty damn impressive, doesn’t feel as if it’s lacking for not being in full color, and is something that I’d like to see on the market. Diamond, not for the first time here? You’re kind of wrong.
May 15th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
frankly… Diamond is a disgrace. They take no accountability for anything, and I’m amazed companies like DC, Marvel, or even Dark Horse allow Diamond to continually make their product look inferior. Their monopoly on the industry is nice in the sense that you only have to go to the one place to find something, but they offer absolutely no customer service, and treat the retailers like fools who can be ripped off at leisure - as there is no where else to go. I wish someone with some weight behind them would finally stand up and call Diamond on all of their various insantities.
May 15th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
I hate to do this but it’s GOTTA be said.
Tim says his book in in the same format as the TwoMorrows books and says they should get distributed too.
And at the same time TwoMorrows publisher bemoans his lack of success in the DM, despite FCBD and calling up 500 stores offering them free samples to try.
Maybe Diamond knows via the TwoMorrows experience that a b&w, 80 page $6 magazine format doesn’t work in comic shops? And for professional reasons doesn’t want to spread that around so they suggest color because they think it would help sell the book?
Perhaps Tim should seriously consider doing Comic Foundry in color like Diamond suggests. Otherwise, he could get his wish and would later end up bemoaning the lack of support among comic shops.
Regardless, I do wish Tim and the Comic Foundry the best of luck, an alternative to Wizard is a good thing.
May 16th, 2007 at 11:32 am
Well, before anyone goes off thinking our mags aren’t doing well, they are. Our sales have been steady for the last two years (following a slight drop during the Recession, which, in many cases, are readers we mostly didn’t get back when the economy recovered). I’m just trying to find new ways to reach more readers.
Our mags are mostly black-and-white, with color sections on occasion. DRAW! always has a sizeable color section. However, other than working through some small regional distributors, we’ve not attempted large-scale bookstore/newsstand distribution since the days when we were publishing Comic Book Artist magazine. Our mags are niche; we know it, and we’re doing just fine in the direct market. We also have a healthy subscription base.
So our B&W format is working great. But these new postal rates are likely to kill a lot of our direct orders from overseas readers.
My goal is to increase sales in both the Direct Market, and through subscriptions. The sizeable amount of money we put into our mass mailing to comics shops was part of our attempt to reach the Direct Market. And our upcoming digital editions are an attempt to reach people that can’t find our mags in comics shops.
It all works together. Frankly, I wish Diamond didn’t force us to stick our magazines in the “Magazine” section of Previews, and then our Books in the “Comics” section. It’s hard enough to find us in Previews; now people have to look in both places. But that’s their policy, so we’re stuck with it.
May 16th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
What I find peculiar is that Diamond, the virtual-monopoly distributor of comics in the direct market, acts as the gate-keeper of whether or not comics will meet the necessary thresh hold of sales before even testing the waters by giving up about 3 square inches of space in it’s 800 page monthly catalog for which it charges, what is it- $6.00?
First, perhaps Diamond should actually see how their customers’ brains are wired instead of having some expert in their sales department make those calls- I thought Diamond was a distributor yet they make decisions on what will sell instead of actually letting the free market do that for them. If the magazine doesn’t meet the minimum the orders aren’t placed and it doesn’t get solicited again. Pretty simple.
Also, Diamond maintains a phantom “minimum” order yet their Previews catalog contains hundreds of gee gaws and collectibles in the back that surely can’t be expected to meet that same minimum order barrier. I have found the Comics Foundry web site interesting and informative and looked forward to a print edition. 900 registered users and all the ones who never registered probably would have taken a glance at it too, but as Mr. Morrow points out- even if Diamond had decided to carry it there’s not much chances retailers would have bothered to take even a sideways glance at it.
The industry is being suffocated by the idiocy of a distributor and a majority of retailers who seem to only know how to sell what’s already selling and refuse to see much interest in allowing new products to come to market. Marvel and DC pump out massive number of products to squeeze Two Morrows publications and the Comics Foundry magazine off the shelves.
The circular logic seems to go that people won’t buy it so retailers and Diamond won’t waste their time with it but since they won’t waste their time on it, people never see it and have a chance to buy it… or not. Is it any wonder that thousands of readers have left comics? Stores are maxed out ordering the entire line of Big 2 products and simply don’t have the cash flow or shelf space left to order much else.
One has to wonder if Diamond’s real problem with Leong’s magazine is it’s potential to damage one of the publications of an “exclusive” publisher thus putting Diamond in a position of collusion or even racketeering. Maybe a call from a lawyer can rewire some of brains of the the pin heads at Diamond.
May 17th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Hey John,
Sorry that I misunderstood your comments regarding sales of TwoMorrow magazines. I’m glad you’re doing well. I don’t have any subscriptions personally, but I do pick up some of your mags from the Beguiling in Toronto where they rack them.