TPB Sales Figures?

[FiveGhosts]

Does anyone know how many copies a trade needs to sell in order to continue being collected? I'm talking about The Spectre trades in particular. I know the second volume is coming out in December, but the numbers for volume 1 were only 1,367 according to Comichron. Is this cause for concern?

[NZ_InFerno]

That is pretty healthy sales numbers for an Omnibus, for a tpb I guess they would keep going with it as there is some demand there. Was that the first month it was on sale? They can sell more each month, and given that's it's that Spectre run I'd imagine DC is keen to put the whole thing out there.

[FiveGhosts]

That is pretty healthy sales numbers for an Omnibus, for a tpb I guess they would keep going with it as there is some demand there. Was that the first month it was on sale? They can sell more each month, and given that's it's that Spectre run I'd imagine DC is keen to put the whole thing out there.

I've seen a few series stop after a few volumes (Shade the Changing Man, The Spirit [First Wave]), but I'd be interested to see how it sells over time. I hear what you're saying about DC wanting the whole thing collected, as the series is always spoken highly of by fans.

[johnsme]

I think the announcment of the Spectre being in the Constantine tv show should help boost sales.a

[kodave]

Does anyone know how many copies a trade needs to sell in order to continue being collected? I'm talking about The Spectre trades in particular. I know the second volume is coming out in December, but the numbers for volume 1 were only 1,367 according to Comichron. Is this cause for concern?

Only someone within DC will know the magic number you're looking for. There are so many different factors in play.

First, there's the cost of actually making the book. For something like a TPB, it's probably nothing out of the ordinary, which is a good thing for you.

Then there's whatever royalties - if any - might need to be paid out. Who knows what Ostrander's contract with DC is like, if any even exists beyond industry standard work for hire.

Printing costs and rights/royalties have to be cheap enough to making the printing of the book worth it.

Then there's the actual issue of sales numbers. The website you link to is basically how many copies Diamond sold to comic shops. That doesn't mean every copy there actually sold to a customer. Copies could be sitting on a shelf or in a warehouse taking up space. But you'd think most comic shops would maybe buy a copy or two max for the shelves and any other orders would be for people who pre-ordered it or specifically asked their LCS to order another copy from Diamond. So it's probably a good indicator of what LCSes sold but there are variables within that. Then there's the variables of how many sold in subsequent months - not enough to crack the sales chart, but a book might be surprising and make a comeback or good press draws attention to it and DC goes back and does another printing to satisfy demand. But even those re-printings might not sell enough all in the same month to crack the sales charts so we don't have much to go on in the way of numbers. Second printings and beyond are usually only a good thing though.

Then there's sales to book stores and places like Amazon and Barnes and Noble. We don't get those sales numbers. Unless the retailer has a Top Sellers list, the only hope is that if the book sold well on the direct market with LCSes, it is selling well in equal or greater proportions with other retailers.

The next variable is that usually subsequent volumes of books get smaller print runs than the volumes that proceeded them. So if DC printed 5,000 copies of the first volume, they may only print 4,500 or 4,000 or even less to err on the side of caution that everyone who bought the first volume probably isn't going to buy the second volume. If the book actually sold and tons of copies aren't sitting around unsold at LCSes, then LCSes will order subsequent volumes. But just like DC printing less, stores are going to order less too, generally speaking. And that will mean lower numbers, but that's expected. You just hope the sales numbers won't be too low.

Pre-orders are also important. If pre-orders are very soft, DC might cancel printing the book all together as to not risk it flopping and them taking a big loss on the printing costs. Pre-orders can also help publishers gauge demand and print an appropriate number of copies.

So yeah... there are a lot of variables and no magic number we can guess. Only DC knows.

Volume one moving 1,367 units from Diamond to LCSes in its first month is probably a good thing since DC decided to go ahead with the second volume. It hit whatever internal targets DC had for the book. If the second volume moves a similar number of copies, you should be optimistic about getting a third volume. It's a total guess, but I'd say under 1,000 units moved from Diamond to LCSes in the first month might be a cause for concern with volume 2. With 64 issues to that run, you're looking at probably 6 volumes total, so 4 more to go after this second one comes out. It would be really surprising for The Spectre to go the distance on that.

It's a totally different book and publisher, but I think the numbers are worth comparing: X-Factor By Peter David Complete Collection Vol. 1 moved 959 units in January of this year, and Vol. 2 moved 832 units in May. X-Factor would need another 4 to 5 volumes to completely collect this format. I don't believe a volume 3 was announced through spring of 2015, which isn't a great sign.

[SJNeal]

^ ^ ^

Even though I bought both volumes of PAD's complete X-Factor, I think they started releasing them too soon. The series just ended less than 2 yrs ago; with the current trades out of print, demand for new collected editions would have only increased with time.

[Mad Hatter]

Well, regarding the X-Factor by PAD sales numbers, take for example, the Exiles Ultimate Collections. Six books released over a 20 months period, with sales numbers free-falling:

Exiles Ultimate Collection Book 1 1,016 04/09
Exiles Ultimate Collection Book 2 825 08/09
Exiles Ultimate Collection Book 3 716 12/09
Exiles Ultimate Collection Book 4 668 04/10
Exiles Ultimate Collection Book 5 576 09/10
Exiles Ultimate Collection Book 6 495 12/10

Obs: Sales figures from www.comichron.com

[kodave]

Well, regarding the X-Factor by PAD sales numbers, take for example, the Exiles Ultimate Collections. Six books released over a 20 months period, with sales numbers free-falling:

Exiles Ultimate Collection Book 1 1,016 04/09
Exiles Ultimate Collection Book 2 825 08/09
Exiles Ultimate Collection Book 3 716 12/09
Exiles Ultimate Collection Book 4 668 04/10
Exiles Ultimate Collection Book 5 576 09/10
Exiles Ultimate Collection Book 6 495 12/10

Obs: Sales figures from www.comichron.com

Mildly interesting: all of those except Volume 1 are available from IST. Amazon has very few copies of 2-6 left with Vol. 1 sold out. BN is sold out of the first 3 volumes. I wonder what the printing status was on those books. Has Marvel kept them sorta-ever green since 2009/2010 with multiple printings? Did Marvel just print a bunch and it's taken years for supply to dwindle? Did Marvel taper off the print numbers for later volumes, or did they print them all equally? I guess we'll never know.

Exiles took a 51% dive between the first month of Book 1 and the first month of Book 6. Other than Book 1 to 2, which took the biggest drop at almost 19%, each subsequent volume didn't see more than a 15% drop in sales from the previous volume in the first month of sales availability. Maybe there's something to that?

X-Factor only had a 13% drop between the first two, but overall sales were softer than Exiles. Maybe there's hope for the title in this format yet.

She-Hulk by Dan Slott Complete Vol 1 moved 1,256 copies in 2/14, then Vol 2 moved 1,084 copies in 5/14, only a few months later. That's barely a 14% drop, though obviously those numbers are higher than X-Factor and Exiles. I wish Marvel would put out a She-Hulk by Peter David Complete Collection to grab the last 20ish issues from that particular volume of She-Hulk. Maybe the Peter David X-Factor Complete sales are soft and maybe Slott has more name value thanks to Spider-Man and maybe people just like Slott's run better than PAD's, but I'm sure they could sell the Peter David She-Hulk Complete Collection to the same people that bought the two Slott volumes. Won't someobody think of the completionists?

[drd]

For another comparison Ostranders Martian Manhunter series had volume one put out in February and achieved first month sales of 898 copies to the direct market according to ICV2[1]. And were getting a second volume of that soon so either Martian Manhunter did very well in the wider market or DCs has a much lower bar set for TPB cancellation.

[1] http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/28149.html

[kodave]

For another comparison Ostranders Martian Manhunter series had volume one put out in February and achieved first month sales of 898 copies to the direct market according to ICV2[1]. And were getting a second volume of that soon so either Martian Manhunter did very well in the wider market or DCs has a much lower bar set for TPB cancellation.

[1] http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/28149.html

Another relevant comparison is Grell's Green Arrow. The collected mini series Longbow Hunters moved 1,373 copies in 9/12. Vol. 1 Hunter's Moon went up and moved 1,665 copies in 11/13. Vol. 2 Here There Be Dragons drops in October. And Vol. 3 The Trial of Oliver Queen has been solicited for June 2015. DC must be pretty happy with these numbers. I have to imagine the CW show is helping draw a lot of eyes to Grell's Arrow run which was pretty ahead of its time.

There's 80 issues of Grell's Green Arrow run, 3 issues of the Longbow Hunters, 4 issues for The Wonder Year mini, and 4 issues of Shado: Song of the Dragon. I think the minis were all prestige format so they might be longer than a standard issue. If DC is going to put 6ish issues per Grell GA trade, then that's about 13 volumes. Plus they could two more trades for The Wonder Year and Song of the Dragon. Doing it this way would take 16 trade volumes to collect all of Grell's Green Arrow (and Shado) stuff. So I guess 4 down, 12 to go! At the current rate of one Grell trade per 8.5 months, DC could complete this run just before the earth ends! Or they could just do us all a solid and Omnibus it in two very large volumes.

[Stormcrow]

Another relevant comparison is Grell's Green Arrow. The collected mini series Longbow Hunters moved 1,373 copies in 9/12. Vol. 1 Hunter's Moon went up and moved 1,665 copies in 11/13. Vol. 2 Here There Be Dragons drops in October. And Vol. 3 The Trial of Oliver Queen has been solicited for June 2015. DC must be pretty happy with these numbers. I have to imagine the CW show is helping draw a lot of eyes to Grell's Arrow run which was pretty ahead of its time.

There's 80 issues of Grell's Green Arrow run, 3 issues of the Longbow Hunters, 4 issues for The Wonder Year mini, and 4 issues of Shado: Song of the Dragon. I think the minis were all prestige format so they might be longer than a standard issue. If DC is going to put 6ish issues per Grell GA trade, then that's about 13 volumes. Plus they could two more trades for The Wonder Year and Song of the Dragon. Doing it this way would take 16 trade volumes to collect all of Grell's Green Arrow (and Shado) stuff. So I guess 4 down, 12 to go! At the current rate of one Grell trade per 8.5 months, DC could complete this run just before the earth ends! Or they could just do us all a solid and Omnibus it in two very large volumes.

I'm pretty happy that they're finally reprinting Grell's run, but at this rate it's gonna take forever to complete. Seems like volume three will have a couple more issues than the previous ones, so at least they're increasing in size.

And I can't believe I was completely unaware of that Shado mini-series, so thank you for mentioning it. The stories featuring her were always my favorites, I hope they continue publishing the trades at least to complete those. Wish they'd reprint the mini, but I suppose it's a long shot.

[kodave]

I'm pretty happy that they're finally reprinting Grell's run, but at this rate it's gonna take forever to complete. Seems like volume three will have a couple more issues than the previous ones, so at least they're increasing in size.

And I can't believe I was completely unaware of that Shado mini-series, so thank you for mentioning it. The stories featuring her were always my favorites, I hope they continue publishing the trades at least to complete those. Wish they'd reprint the mini, but I suppose it's a long shot.

The Shado mini isn't that great, and in many ways Shado takes a backseat to other characters in the book. The art is strange because it seems like the dude they got for it was trying to imitate Grell. And I think this is the only comic he ever worked on. I believe you can find the four Prestige Format issues for the Shado mini pretty cheap. I paid a flat $5 for the lot of them back when I got them a couple of years ago.

[FiveGhosts]

Thanks for the responses! Interesting point re: Martian Manhunter too. As long as DC keeps putting out Spectre and Green Arrow trades, I'll keep getting them.

[SJNeal]

I'm pretty happy that they're finally reprinting Grell's run, but at this rate it's gonna take forever to complete. Seems like volume three will have a couple more issues than the previous ones, so at least they're increasing in size.

Yeah, I can't figure out why they decided to go with smaller 6 issue collections as opposed to the beefier 10(ish) ones that The Spectre and Martian Manhunter are getting. Speaking of, I'm also curious why the MM trades haven't had volume numbers like GA and The Spectre. Do they not plan on collecting the entire series? Or do they plan on skipping issues at some point? The two trades we've gotten suggest otherwise, as they're complete, but you never know...

[mars]

Was MM involved in crossovers?