Newsarama has November’s sales estimates and one thing is for certain:
The people at DC are freakin’ geniuses — 52 is a damn cash cow.
Click through to see the top ten books for November.
Top Ten Books for November 2006
01. Civil War #5 – 272,600 (Marvel)
02. Justice League of America #3 – 140,900 (DC)
03. The New Avengers# 25 – 136,500 (Marvel)
04. The Amazing Spider-Man #536 – 118,800 (Marvel)
05. Astonishing X-Men #18 – 118,300 (Marvel)
06. 52 #26 – 104,600 (DC)
07. 52 #27 – 104,300 (DC)
08. 52 #28 – 103,500 (DC)
09. Punisher: War Journal #1 – 102,700 (Marvel)
10. 52 #29 – 102,700 (DC)
Wow, when’s the last time you saw a top ten ilst with only one X-book?
I normally don’t get too caught up in sales figures and rankings and who has the number one book. I only find it interesting in relation to finding out if books I like are near cancelation or when I want to torture myself by seeing how many more people are buying books I think are terrible versus books I think are fantastic. I also really like figures and rankings from an intellectual standpoint. But I don’t go crazy over it.
UPDATE! Now with the top ten trade paperbacks!
Top Ten Trade Paperbacks for November 2006
01. Y: The Last Man, Vol. 8: Kimono Dragons – 10,800 (DC)
02. Family Guy, Vol. 3 – 8,600 (Devil’s Due)
03. X-Men: The Complete Age of Apocalypse Epic, Book 4 – 5,700 (Marvel)
04. Ex Machina, Vol. 4: March To War – 5,600 (DC)
05. Superman/Batman, Vol. 3: Absolute Power – 5,500 (DC)
06. Marvel Zombies HC – 5,300 (Marvel)
07. Secret War – 5,200 (Marvel)
08. 300 HC – 5,100 (Dark Horse)
09. Star Wars: Tag & Bink Were Here – 4,400 (Dark Horse)
10. Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall HC – 4,200 (DC)
At this point, is the Star Wars license keeping Dark Horse afloat? Mayhap.
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I found the story pretty blah, but figures are like hips in that they don’t lie, I guess.
yeah
take that red tornado
I want that 300 hardcover!
Family Guy is number two? How does that happen?
Looking over this list I am very curious to see what will happen to sales figures once Civil War and 52 end. Maybe that’s why DC and Marvel seem to be planning continuation books for both events?
How many people do we think read comics? If the top selling book is at 272,000, do we think that maybe 350-400,000 people buy and read comics regularly? I have no idea, that’s just a wild guess based on nothing but Civil War‘s numbers. Regardless, I think it’s clear that the inflated sales numbers are from existing comic book readers buying more books (beause of company-wide events, which people claim to disdain but still seem to jump into headfirst), not large and significant numbers of new people coming into comics*.
* Yes, new people are coming into comics (or back into comics). We get lots of e-mails from them. I just can’t see it being a statistically significant figure**.
** I could be wrong.
Family Guy is #2
Not saying that this is the case here but
Rich Johnston in LITG has been reporting lately that smaller publishers, as I believe you would classify Devil’s Due, are sending out graphic novels for free or for damn near free to large retailers like Midtown so that they can get the press from the inflated sales numbers on their trades.
I believe that sales numbers from the direct market reflect sales to retailers than to actual customers. So, if I as publisher a send 10,000 copies of book b to retailer c then book b sold 10000 copies for the month rather than the 3000 that may have actually left at the lcs level.
I do not know that this is the case here
Ohhhhhh, that makes more sense than people enjoying the Family Guy.
speaking of sales figures and what will happen after 52 and civil war
stephen king on dark tower
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2006-12-18-king-darktower_x.htm
Sales numbers do indeed reflect sales to retailers and not customers.
And there are way, way, way more people who watch The Family Guy than read comic books, and many of them are obsessive about it, so I’m not shocked that it’s on the list.
Well, I am one of the people who has just gotten back into comic (I started buying again two weeks after Civil War #1 came out). So jumping into comics head first after YEARS gone was kinda terrifying, solely ’cause EVERY EFFING BOOK had a Civil War banner (even more-so than now), so I almost felt obligated to buy a lot of them. After going through ’em all, hearing your podcasts, figuring out which characters I liked again, etc, I now know what to buy. But at first, I was buying damn-near everything under the sun.
Ironically enough, I haven’t bought an issue of 52 since issue six. I just don’t care enough about DC anymore to buy a weekly book with characters I’m not that fond of. Except Animal-Man. He rules.
Right and I like the Family Guy but my store, like many others I’m sure, doesn’t even stock stuff like that so I’m just saying …..
could be bullshit
A Family Guy trade would probably sell to people outside the direct market, since lots of people like it. I also find it interesting that that particular license is only good for 8600 copies.
Conversely, I had no idea that Y was such a high selling trade.
Fascinating how the next book after #1, drops off by HALF.
And I see why they keep doing Punisher books. He fucking sells, don’t he?
Fascinating how the next book after #1, drops off by HALF.
The next Marvel or DC you book you mean?
I’d be shocked if there were 350k-450k regular comic readers out there. I think there are only actully 256 comic buyers. They buy multiple copies of everything. Ron is personally responsible for keeping X-Men the End Volume Three: Men and X-Men economically viable. Thanks Ron!
01. Y: The Last Man Vol. 8 Kimono Dragons – 10,800 (DC)
04. Ex Machina Vol. 4 March To War – 5,600 (DC)
10. Fables 1001 Nights of Snowfall HC – 4,200 (DC)
This warms my heart.
And I see why they keep doing Punisher books. He fucking sells, don’t he?
yes and the max series is good
i have all the issues and all the trades
The next Marvel or DC you book you mean?
Either. #1 is 280K, #2 is 140K.
The highest non big 2 comes in at #66 with 34,500
66 Star Wars Dark Times 1 $2.99 Dark Horse 34,500
Either. #1 is 280K, #2 is 140K.
Ah, I thought you were still talking about the trades list.
I was just suprised that the first non big 2 came in at 66. That’s kind of crazy when you think about it
So what we are saying is that 280K could be considered an accurate approximation of the number of people who read comics? I don’t know what that means. Does anyone know of a decent site that keeps numbers on other forms of media? I’d like to compare.
I’m not saying that at all. I say it’s closer to 450/500,000 people.
But that’s based on nothing but my gut.
I wonder what the industry would be like if it weren’t being propped up by movie money, and I wonder what will happen when that well dries up. I’d love to see how Anita Blake has been selling. I think Marvel is onto something by getting novel writers to do comics. If only they could get them to do original projects in graphic novel format. These are the kinds of things that would get prime display space in bookstores.
I don’t have the sales numbers on Anita Blake but so far both issues have gone back for second printings
gotta be a good sign for the marvel/dbpro relationship right?
Full disclosure:
i really like anita blake so I might speculate positivly on its behalf
OK Anita Blake numbers for Nov:
Rank 89 issue #2 28000 units
Rank 158 issue #1 reprint 14,200 units
not the best but better than some
Are you saying that only about half of the people who are reading comics are reading Civil War? That doesn’t seem right to me. Superheroes make up most of the content in comics and everyone who is a fan of superheroes is buying Civil War. Maybe not everyone but most. I realize comic books are more than superheroes, but I’d say Civil War is being picked up by more than half of the audience. My gut says two thirds of the people who buy comics are buying Civil War. If I do my math correctly that sets the audience at around 363K. What am I missing?
Hmm… I thought I heard retailers going bonkers over this book. I expected sales to be higher. Once this is collected in trade I would hope it would get good placement in chain bookstores, same for King, too. Let’s hope projects like these give comics a shot in the arm. My girlfriend is really big into this erotic vampire stuff but she was lukewarm to Anita Blake. I finally talked her into reading some comics so I started her on Ultimates HC volume 1. She’s really enjoying it.
Dave: I don’t think that half is too far off the mark. I almost didn’t buy it, and I wish I hadn’t. A lot of people wait for trades with finite series so I’d say half is pretty accurate.
Better idea for a comic: Anita Baker, Vampire Hunter.
I wonder what the industry would be like if it weren’t being propped up by movie money, and I wonder what will happen when that well dries up.
The licensing of properties will never dry up. I’m guessing that for most successful indy creators, the option money is the most lucrative part. I mean, Marvel makes comics, but most of their money comes from licensing crap, to movies or underoos.
I think that with Anita Blake the expectations were fairly low and I think that explains the print run number.
The other thing to consider is that it didn’t really get a hell of a lot of press or advertising that I saw anyway.
Also, retailers seem to have ordered it really low because they didn’t know what to expect and there in comes the print run and blah blah blah giant snake eating its tail
I think that you’ll see it creep up issue by issue as small retailers begin to trust it. My cbg at the lcs runs a small shop. He sells like 200 copies of Civil War but only orders books like this at 20 or 30 because he’s so small and doesn’t know what it will do. But, I think these numbers will show him and others like him that Anita Blake could actually become a thing if they order more and push the run up high and again giant snake eating its tail.
The principal problem seems to be not enough books to goi around so maybe time and trust fix that. Maybe the DBPro Marvel thing lasts a little longer or works a little better because of it. Who knows?
The other good news though is that Marvel seems to get it, in the book sales department anyway. For instance, the Dark Tower HC has already been announced and not a single issue has come out yet. I think that they realize that there will be a built in book store audience for this and I trust that they will with anita blake as well
I know DC doesn’t care that Marvel sells more comics (at least WB doesnt’), but I wonder if it bugs them that Spider-Man/X-Men have soundly trounced Superman/Batman. I would never imagined in my wildest dreams this happening.
Comic fans like Spider-Man and X-Men more than Batman and Superman. Whereas, in the larger public, the World’s Finest probably have more brand awareness, that doesn’t follow through to comic readers.
Dave Graham: Are you saying that only about half of the people who are reading comics are reading Civil War?
If there are 450,000 then it’s 60%. If it’s 500,000 then it’s 56%. I’d say that’s about right. The comic book reading pool is a lot larger than people who read just Marvel and DC, and even within that group not everyone is buying Civil War.
Josh: Whereas, in the larger public, the World’s Finest probably have more brand awareness, that doesn’t follow through to comic readers.
No ‘probably’ about it.
If there are 450,000 then it’s 60%. If it’s 500,000 then it’s 56%. I’d say that’s about right. The comic book reading pool is a lot larger than people who read just Marvel and DC, and even within that group not everyone is buying Civil War.
Yeah, but I bet a good chunk of the people buying Civil War don’t buy any other comics regularly. But I don’t know how much.
I’ve never even thought about crunching the numbers before today. I’ll trust your judgement, but I am going to have to ask the guy at my store about this. See what kind of numbers he comes up with. 400K doesn’t seem like a lot of people. What the hell are those other people spending their money on?
Conor’s theorized total number of regular comic book readers = 400,000
Copies of Civil War sold to retailers = 272,600
(Assuming every one of those copies sells, which we know isn’t true, but we’ll put that aside because that just complicates matters further)
Total number of regular comic book readers not buying Civil War = 127,400
Asking your retailer is going to be pretty futile, I suspect that most non-mainstream comic book readers don’t patronize comic book stores.
(Keep in mind also, that a “regular comic book reader” is defined as someone who reads as little as one book regularly. Go to a Terry Moore speaking engagement and you will see hundreds of people who do not care about Captain America.)
*** THIS IS ONLY MY THEORY ***
I tried reading anita blake, but after one issue i just got the impression that it was just pasty vampire guys flaunting around half-naked.
Another thing to keep in mind is that those sales figures are sales from Diamond to retailers – NOT actual readers buying and reading the comic. Fred mentioned this at the beginning of the thread and he is correct. Diamond sold 280,000 copies of Civil War to retailers. The actual number of copies purchased and read by us is something smaller than that. I know I see plenty of copies still on the shelves when I go to the LCS. Those copies are part of that 280k figure.
On a side note – When Marvel or DC issue press statements that a certain book has “sold-out”, all it means is that they have run out of copies to sell to retailers. There could still be an ass-load of books sitting on the LCS shelves, but somehow the book is “sold-out”. Go figure.
Getting back to Civil War, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was really somewhere around 200k people that bought and read the book. And I can easily see how that number is only half (or less) of the total comic readers in the U.S. Like other people have said here, a lot of people don’t read superheroes, or they wait for the trade, or they are DC fans and couldn’t care less about a Marvel crossover.
When Marvel or DC issue press statements that a certain book has “sold-out”, all it means is that they have run out of copies to sell to retailers.
and judging by the amount of these emails we get, they sell out a lot.
What will be interesting is how many copies of the Civil War trade/collection will sell.
“When Marvel or DC issue press statements that a certain book has “sold-out”, all it means is that they have run out of copies to sell to retailers.”
And frankly I suspect that the number of copies printed for sale is manipulated to help ensure a book sells out, so that the “This issue has sold out” press release can get posted on Newsarama, thus creating a false buzz, self-justification and/or demand for a 2nd printing etc. For example, Onslaught Reborn and Punisher War Journal were both sell outs, but it’s clear from the numbers that 23000 fewer copies of Onslaught were printed than PWJ; and that based on the popularity of the Punisher and CW tie-ins, that Marvel could easily have expected to sell more of PWJ than the substantial amount that they actually did.
If you read superhero comics there is a good chance you are reading Civil War. If you read any non-Brubaker Marvel titles, chances are very good there has been one or two issues that crossed over into Civil War. Crossing over plus internet buzz is enough to get people, who were already reading superhero comics in the first place, to pick up the damn thing. I don’t mean to say it is the best selling comic of all time, just that it is selling really well right now and maybe we can use it to judge how many people are reading comics today. I don’t think Civil War has brought a lot of new people into comics, because I know a lot of avid readers and they know I am a big comic book fan. None of them have asked me what this Civil War thing is about and I don’t think anyone would hiding it. I think the people who are reading Civil War are the same people who were reading comics six months before the series started. So I say about 2/3’s of the people buying comics today are reading Civil War.
That being said. When I go into a Barnes & Noble or a Borders I still see a heck of a lot more trades of Ultimate Spider-man than I do copies of American Born Chinese, Tricked, or Strangers in Paradise digests (and more Manga than anything else). I don’t know how to judge internet sales without going to Amazon and taking a look at the stuff that have stocked in the warehouse. Where is Amazon’s warehouse?
Anyway I am just shooting from the hip here and I don’t mean to seem like I am starting crap with anyone. Just trying to understand this sales stuff a little bit better.
I know that there’s an Amazon warehouse here in Kentucky, but I don’t know where others are located.
I think 52 is one of the more interesting sales phenomena to come along in comics in a long time. I don’t think they could have predicted this in their wildest dreams. Four issues of 52 per month selling over 100K is like having the top-selling monthly book on the market. Yeah, Ultimates sells more for Marvel, but it comes out three times a year (maybe).
When you combine that with the fact the book admittedly is about the DCU without the two (three) really big brand-name characters, it’s a fascinating success story from the financial point of view. The people in this book absolutely could not support their own title before this (and I’m dubious they will be able to now).
We’ve always been told that Americans don’t like anthology books, but this isn’t that different. I guess the key thing is that it is one story. Anyway, they must be scrambling to try and copy it.
Amazon.com fulfillment centers are located in the following cities, often near airports:
North America:
– Arizona, USA: Phoenix
– Delaware, USA: New Castle
– Kansas, USA: Coffeyville
– Kentucky, USA: Campbellsville, Hebron (near CVG), and Lexington
– Nevada, USA: Fernley and Red Rock (near 4SD)
– Washington, USA: Seattle
– Pennsylvania, USA: Chambersburg, Carlisle, and Lewisberry
– Texas, USA: Dallas/Fort Worth
– Ontario, Canada: Mississauga
Europe:
– Munster, Republic of Ireland: Cork
– Bedfordshire, England, UK: Marston Gate
– Inverclyde, Scotland, UK: Gourock
– Fife, Scotland, UK: Glenrothes
– Loiret, France: Orl
my house is beginning to look like an amazon fulfillment center
You aren’t kidding about 52. It’s got to be a success beyond even their dreams. Not only has it come out on time every week, but it’s selling really well, and consistently. 30+ weeks in, and they’ve still got 100K readers EVERY WEEK. This has to be the quiet success story of the year in comics business.
Ya know, I wonder how much of a cash cow 52 really is, given the cost of all the manpower they’re using, (What is it, 4 writers?)extra printing costs, and promotion. Plus, didn’t they say that it would never be out in trade? That’s a lot of money there. Of course, if they thought they’d lose money on it, they’d never have done it in the first place, right?
Plus, didn’t they say that it would never be out in trade?
only until it’s finished I believe
I hope they release 52 in one all encompassing volume. I’d love to have that on my book shelf.
I don’t think I’d ever read it through again.
Just wait until they roll out the sequel, “365”. There’s a four-issue arc going into detail about Ralph Dibney’s bathroom habits.
Are these figures just for the States or for the whole world? Thats and important point that nobody seemed to ask.
What kind of sales do American comics get oversees? Good question!
They’re for the direct market which i believe is strictly us
“I hope they release 52 in one all encompassing volume. I’d love to have that on my book shelf.”
Man… Alias was 28 issues, and my Alias Omnibus is about the size of an El Camino. Double that, and you’ll need to reinforce your floors.