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Countdown only sold 8.000 copies?

Tino

Tino

Captain
Captain
I'm fairly certain it's the collected TPB's from the bookstores where the bigger sales and money comes from. I'm told that sales figures for those (and Trek novels) are a closely guarded secret.

If IDW really were losing money on every Trek comic, including the later TPB collections, they wouldn't still be making them years later.

At least, I hope not.
 
Allyn Gibson said:
Countdown sold roughly 18k in the book market, per Brian Hibbs. The number TrekMovie reported was to direct market comic shops, which is a smaller market.
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Oh, thanks for that link, Allyn. That is fascinating! I like to read John Jackson Miller's Comic Chronicles on occasion, but it's neat to see an alternate perspective-- I'm amazed by how much DC outsells Marvel in bookstores given how both do in comics stores. But it makes sense; seeing two dozen volumes labeled "Secret Invasion" is probably not very casual-reader friendly.
 
Steve Mollmann said:
I'm amazed by how much DC outsells Marvel in bookstores given how both do in comics stores. But it makes sense; seeing two dozen volumes labeled "Secret Invasion" is probably not very casual-reader friendly.
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In some ways, the graphic novel numbers in bookstores are deceptive. DC does do fantastically well in bookstores, but they do it on books that have been out five, ten, even twenty years. Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Batman: The Long Halloween, the many volumes of Sandman -- these have been out for a long time, and they're perennial sellers. When you get to more recent, not-yet-stood-the-test-of-time material, DC and Marvel are on very similar footing. DC seems to be better at creating that kind of material than Marvel, even though Marvel sells better in the comic shops.

Marvel, unfortunately, doesn't have collections that are perennial sellers. Kick-Ass has done fantastically well this year, and I'm curious to see if it can become a long-term seller. Marvel doesn't t appear to have a gameplan in the book market, and they haven't really figured out how to translate their movie success into bookstore success. Maybe, with Hachette handling their graphic novel distribution at the end of the year, they'll figure out how best to leverage themselves into bookstores.
 
Tino said:
Hi there,

over at the trekmovie.com-entry
http://trekmovie.com/2010/06/23/tre...k-the-next-generation-ghosts-trade-paperback/

I saw a chart
http://trekmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/sttradesales.jpg

that claims "Countdown" is the highest selling comic in 2009. But it only sold 8.000 copies.
Look at the others ... are 1000 copies sold really worth the effort? I mean that's
10.000 Dollars for the story, the artists, distribution ... is that really enough to be rentable?

Just wondering.
Click to expand...

The article also states (right above the chart)
[NOTE: Data does not include sales from book stores, where most trade paperbacks are sold, but it gives an idea of relative sales]
Click to expand...
 
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KingDaniel said:
I'm fairly certain it's the collected TPB's from the bookstores where the bigger sales and money comes from. I'm told that sales figures for those (and Trek novels) are a closely guarded secret..
Click to expand...

Anyone care to guess how many copies of the novels are sold? 10000? 100000? I have no idea what it would be. I don't even know what kind of numbers a Tom Clancy novel sells so you could tell me anything!
 
Allyn Gibson said:
The number TrekMovie reported was to direct market comic shops, which is a smaller market.
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Oh, I didn't know that there are different markets. 18k sounds great but I'm still
a little bit disappointed. I thought the "comic-guy-market" was bigger.

garoo1980 said:
Anyone care to guess how many copies of the novels are sold? 10000? 100000?
Click to expand...

I'd be interested in that too. 100.000 copies seems a little to much
but 30.000 should be in it, right?
 
If you want some perspective, each individual issue of Countdown sold an average of about 13,500 copies in the Direct Market, and it was IDW's best-selling Star Trek miniseries. The average issue sells 8,630 copies.

But as you saw on that graph, most of their Star Trek trades sell considerably less.
 
^I guess the trades sell more poorly in comics shops because the patrons of those shops are the people who'd tend to buy the single issues when they first come out. I expect it would be the other way around in bookstore and online sales.

Just goes to show: whenever presented with statistics, always consider the context.
 
Christopher said:
^I guess the trades sell more poorly in comics shops because the patrons of those shops are the people who'd tend to buy the single issues when they first come out. I expect it would be the other way around in bookstore and online sales.

Just goes to show: whenever presented with statistics, always consider the context.
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Yeah, when browsing Trek trades in a bookstore once, I saw that Countdown had already gone back for a second printing, and this was just after the film came out. I've never noticed that another IDW trade is a second printing.
mmtz said:
Here are the sales figure for individual issues. This is a cut-and-past job from icv2.com. Like the Comics Chronicles, their data comes from Diamond and is only for sales in comic shops. I tried making a chart out of this data, but Google Spreadsheet charting capabilities are pretty limited.
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I am actually working on an article for Unreality SF about the sales of Star Trek comics using the data I pulled from Comics Chronicles; it should be done in the next day or so. It has more charts than you can handle!
 
Please post a link to your article here, if you get a chance. thanks
 
I didn't realize you wrote for Unreality, steve. Have you written any of the Trek reviews or interviews?
 
No, that seems a bit of a conflict of interest to me! I primarily do Doctor Who stuff, reviewing the eighth Doctor audio dramas as well as some of the Companion Chronicles. I did contribute to James Swallow's interview, but only the Doctor Who questions.
 
Christopher, you are spot-on...whereas you have your fair share of comic readers who wait for the trade paperback compilations to come out then read the stories sequentially and without advertising pages, most "comic book guys" buy the individual issues as soon as they are released.

I haven't seen any official sales figures to reflect this, but I have heard from my local comic retailer that trade paperback sales of "The Walking Dead" series by Image Comics are triple the individual issue sales.
 
SicOne said:
I haven't seen any official sales figures to reflect this, but I have heard from my local comic retailer that trade paperback sales of "The Walking Dead" series by Image Comics are triple the individual issue sales.
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The other benefit trades have is that they keep on selling. If you look at The Walking Dead's figures for February 2010, you'll see that that issue #70 sold 23,999 copies... but no other issues sold a thing. On the other hand, all eleven volumes of the trade paperbacks landed in the Top 300 trade paperbacks, with the best one (volume 11) selling 1,831 copies, and the second-best still being volume 1 with 1,307 copies.
 
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