Sales of ANAD Marvel falling off a cliff?

[Shaggy]

http://www.comicbookresources.com/ar...ll-market-dips

Marvel ongoing titles under 20,000 units include "Star Lord," "Vision," "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.," "New Avengers," "Nova," "Unbeatable Squirrel Girl," "Patsy Walker Aka Hellcat," " Angela: Queen of H'el," " Illuminati," "Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur," "Drax," "Black Knight," "Weirdworld," "Hercules," "Howling Commandos of S.H.I.E.L.D.," "Red Wolf" and "Starbrand and Nightmask."

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomi...6/2016-02.html

19,117 - Star-Lord #4
19,070 - Vision #4
18,771 - Agents of Shield #2
18,520 - New Avengers #7
18,187 - Nova #4
17,743 - Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #5
16,587 - Patsy Walker Aka Hellcat #3
15,968 - Angela Queen of Hel #5
15,280 - Illuminati #4
14,941 - Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #4
14,620 - Drax #4
14,346 - Black Knight #4
14,190 - Weirdworld #3
13,767 - Hercules #4
12,281 - Howling Commandos of Shield #5
12,211 - Red Wolf #3
8,956 - Starbrand and Nightmask

Now, I have been looking at sales figures from time to time and this seems especially bad (considering that right now there are another 11 titles selling between 25,000 and 20,000). Then again, I'm no expert when it comes to sales data. I guess I want to know if anyone else feels like the ANAD sales on a lot of titles are tanking or is this business as usual?

[Galerion]

http://www.comicbookresources.com/ar...ll-market-dips



http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomi...6/2016-02.html

19,117 - Star-Lord #4
19,070 - Vision #4
18,771 - Agents of Shield #2
18,520 - New Avengers #7
18,187 - Nova #4
17,743 - Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #5
16,587 - Patsy Walker Aka Hellcat #3
15,968 - Angela Queen of Hel #5
15,280 - Illuminati #4
14,941 - Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #4
14,620 - Drax #4
14,346 - Black Knight #4
14,190 - Weirdworld #3
13,767 - Hercules #4
12,281 - Howling Commandos of Shield #5
12,211 - Red Wolf #3
8,956 - Starbrand and Nightmask

Now, I have been looking at sales figures from time to time and this seems especially bad (considering that right now there are another 11 titles selling between 25,000 and 20,000). Then again, I'm no expert when it comes to sales data. I guess I want to know if anyone else feels like the ANAD sales on a lot of titles are tanking or is this business as usual?

I have to ask. Were you expecting any of these titles to set the sales charts on fire?

[sifighter]

http://www.comicbookresources.com/ar...ll-market-dips



http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomi...6/2016-02.html

19,117 - Star-Lord #4
19,070 - Vision #4
18,771 - Agents of Shield #2
18,520 - New Avengers #7
18,187 - Nova #4
17,743 - Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #5
16,587 - Patsy Walker Aka Hellcat #3
15,968 - Angela Queen of Hel #5
15,280 - Illuminati #4
14,941 - Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #4
14,620 - Drax #4
14,346 - Black Knight #4
14,190 - Weirdworld #3
13,767 - Hercules #4
12,281 - Howling Commandos of Shield #5
12,211 - Red Wolf #3
8,956 - Starbrand and Nightmask

Now, I have been looking at sales figures from time to time and this seems especially bad (considering that right now there are another 11 titles selling between 25,000 and 20,000). Then again, I'm no expert when it comes to sales data. I guess I want to know if anyone else feels like the ANAD sales on a lot of titles are tanking or is this business as usual?

I'm surprised to see New Avengers and Squirrel Girl here since people seem to love Squirrel Girl and Al Ewing is a pretty great writer(though that is just my opinion) with a bunch of really good work out right now. Everything else though I'm not surprised to see here based on various reasons either in the case of Vision with King leaving or the fact that they are some lesser known or just not as popular characters.

[SuperiorIronman]

We do not know Digital sales figures. Some may survive based on that.

With as many titles as Marvel put out for ANAD (78?) there was bound to be ones that didn't live up to expectations. Not everything will survive. Marvel also relaunched after a huge event which stalled the old publishing line for months on end. They needed something to draw in readers so they threw everything at the wall to see what sticks since people left due to Secret Wars, and want to draw in new readers and bring back old with almost 80 books. There is something for everyone in ANAD and Marvel had the financials to make that happen.

This should be business as usual. There are ups and downs in this business, it's just the nature of the job. There will be products some overlook or don't bother with when you have 80 products to choose from AND Starwars.

[CIA]

New Avengers, Herc and some other titles had a distribution problem due to a truck crash.

[Ceebiro]

Even not thinking about digital sales and subscriptions, for what those particular books are, those are respectable numbers for the industry's current state. The only thing that really affects their perception is that they're Marvel books, and that's a double-edged sword. It draws more attention to them but they're also held to a higher sales standard.

[cranger]

Now, I have been looking at sales figures from time to time and this seems especially bad (considering that right now there are another 11 titles selling between 25,000 and 20,000). Then again, I'm no expert when it comes to sales data. I guess I want to know if anyone else feels like the ANAD sales on a lot of titles are tanking or is this business as usual?

It is pretty bad for sure, but it is pretty much as expected. There was a reason Marvel focused on their core titles and double shipped them. Despite any truck crashes or abnormal digital sales, I expect Marvel is still looking at 23K or something near there as the cut off. They got a lot of good press announcing all this stuff and now they will try their best to let it quietly get canceled.

[Of Atlantis]

New Avengers, Herc and some other titles had a distribution problem due to a truck crash.

New Avengers, Silk and Hercules were apparently the worst affected, which explains the numbers. Other books hit include:

All-New Inhumans
All-New X-Men
Angela Queen of Hel
Astonishing Ant-Man
Daredevil
Patsy Walker
Spider-Man 2099
Venom Space Knight

And titles affected, but not as bad include:

All New All Different Avengers
Howling Commandos of Shield
Karnak
Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

Think it's fair to write off the sales numbers for these titles as wildly inaccurate for the month of February, but this is bound to affect sales for upcoming months. Shame, seeing how some of these books really needed the push too.

[MajorHoy]

We do not know Digital sales figures. Some may survive based on that.

With as many titles as Marvel put out for ANAD (78?) there was bound to be ones that didn't live up to expectations. Not everything will survive. Marvel also relaunched after a huge event which stalled the old publishing line for months on end. They needed something to draw in readers so they threw everything at the wall to see what sticks since people left due to Secret Wars, and want to draw in new readers and bring back old with almost 80 books. There is something for everyone in ANAD and Marvel had the financials to make that happen.

This should be business as usual. There are ups and downs in this business, it's just the nature of the job. There will be products some overlook or don't bother with when you have 80 products to choose from AND Starwars.

In addition to not knowing about exact digital sales numbers (not just guesstimate percentages), there's also the dropoff in multiple variant cover options after the first couple of issues, so that will drop some sales. (Not necessarily the number of people who buy a title, but how many different copies of that title some people buy.) And since Marvel didn't relaunch EVERYTHING in the same month, comic book shops may have ordered fewer copies of later issue numbers so they can buy more of the #1 and/or #2 issues being launched later on. There are a lot of different factors that we just don't know.

New Avengers, Herc and some other titles had a distribution problem due to a truck crash.

The numbers Comichron reports are primarily the number of copies comic book shops ordered from Diamond; that wouldn't necessarily be affected by distribution problems after the orders were placed. (Just as the numbers give no real clue as to how many of those copies on the chart were actually SOLD to individual customers. Diamond only cares about who orders how many since the books that aren't sold are normally non-returnable.)

[Of Atlantis]

The numbers Comichron reports are primarily the number of copies comic book shops ordered from Diamond; that wouldn't necessarily be affected by distribution problems after the orders were placed. (Just as the numbers give no real clue as to how many of those copies on the chart were actually SOLD to individual customers. Diamond only cares about who orders how many since the books that aren't sold are normally non-returnable.)

I'm not sure how it quite works, but the numbers they give are "estimated sales" which could mean one of two things, they are the number ordered as you said OR they are the number estimated based on the order. I'd assume if estimated sales were simply just #s shipped, we would have the numbers sooner, instead of at the end of that month, where a proper, or as close to proper, estimate could be figured out.

[CIA]

The numbers Comichron reports are primarily the number of copies comic book shops ordered from Diamond; that wouldn't necessarily be affected by distribution problems after the orders were placed. (Just as the numbers give no real clue as to how many of those copies on the chart were actually SOLD to individual customers. Diamond only cares about who orders how many since the books that aren't sold are normally non-returnable.)

The same thing happened with Secret Avengers #24 in 2012 and they just counted the issues that went to the comic shops, adding the "missing" copies in the next month charts.

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomi...2/2012-03.html
http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomi...2/2012-04.html

[cranger]

I'm not sure how it quite works, but the numbers they give are "estimated sales" which could mean one of two things, they are the number ordered as you said OR they are the number estimated based on the order. I'd assume if estimated sales were simply just #s shipped, we would have the numbers sooner, instead of at the end of that month, where a proper, or as close to proper, estimate could be figured out.

My understanding is that these numbers are based on what the retailers were 'invoiced' and the main reason they are estimates is because Diamond does not release exact numbers, but instead numbers based on an index where Batman is 1.0 and everything else is a calculated from that (e.g., a book selling exactly half of the latest issue of Batman would be a 0.5).

[JKtheMac]

I have to ask. Were you expecting any of these titles to set the sales charts on fire?

I have to go back to this earliest of reactions and point out the flawed nature of the OP. If you list books below a cerain point in the charts, by the very nature of that process you are pointing at the books that are hoping to at least break even or hopefully not be damaging losses. To suggest that is a problem with ANAD would require the books in that list to be the expected big sellers. None of them are really.

There are a couple that will be bigger digital sellers and one or two that Marvel were clearly taking a punt with, but nothing surprising. New Avengers was never going to be the headline Avengers book, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and possibly Nova are perhaps much bigger successes than they appear to be here.

I would expect the following list to be boosted by digital sales based on their broader or cross cultural appeal:

Star-Lord
Agents of Shield
Nova
Unbeatable Squirrel Girl
Patsy Walker Aka Hellcat
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur
Drax

[aja_christopher]

I have to ask. Were you expecting any of these titles to set the sales charts on fire?

Some people will always point out the worst just to justify their own prejudices.

I guess I'll just post this here to, conversely, point out the fact that if you're going to keep harping on the "bad" then you should also point out the "good" as well.




"Marvel Comics was February’s top publisher with a 42.19% dollar share and a 40.78% unit share. DC Entertainment was the month’s number two publisher with a 29.01% dollar share and a 26.00% unit share. January’s number three publisher was Image Comics with a 10.13% dollar share and a 9.18% unit share. In fourth was IDW Publishing with a 4.14% dollar share and a 4.78% unit share. Dark Horse Comics placed fifth for the month with a 2.59% dollar share and a 3.07% unit share.

Marvel Comics had seven of February’s top ten best-selling titles, led by Jason Aaron and Leinil Francis Yu’s Star Wars #16 at #2. Also in the top ten were Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli’s Spider-Man #1 at #4, Cullen Bunn and Salva Espin’s Deadpool: The Mercs for Money #1 at #5..."

https://comicspectrumnews.wordpress.com/

[cranger]

Some people will always point out the worst just to justify their own prejudices.

I guess I'll just post this here to, conversely, point out the fact that if you're going to keep harping on the "bad" then you should also point out the "good" as well.

I suppose it comes down to what the objective of ANAD is, or more importantly, what each person thought the objective was. If someone saw the objective being to launch a variety of titles and raise sales across the board, then these numbers are more relevant than a market share which is largely propped up by Star Wars, speculators and variants.