How publishers could fix the industry

All #1’s and #2’s to ALL size stores, 50 cent Each!!!
All #3’s and #4’s to ALL size stores, $1 Each!!

That does several things.
It makes it possible for the small outlets, drug stores and other lost venues to be able to afford to be competitive with the big stores in terms of pricing.

It takes a lot of the risk away from ordering titles you don’t have sales data or subscribers for prior to ordering deadlines.

It should slow down the flood of restarts killing the sellability of series that have unsold shelf stock still in stores by encouraging them to keep the titles going longer and not start one for every weak whim that comes down the idea trail.

That’ll also cut out the endless waves of one-shots and tie-in mini series to other events killing shelf space and overwhelming customers with too much needed to follow or enjoy anything.

It’s a nice thought, but never going to happen … deep discounting is nothing more than an easy answer to a problem that goes way deeper than just price …

Now, the Give-A-Way comic that was used during the Venom theatrical release was a good idea … get a Comic in the hands of the Masses that see the Movie … if just a small portion of Theater goers become readers / collectors, then that’s a win for Shops …

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I was hoping Avengers Endgame would pop a 10 second commercial in the end credits to promote Marvel’s FCBD issues. Another missed opportunity.

I was reading an e-mail from another source that had big store management pushing for something like this to replace the 45 year old tiered discounting store setup that’s been in place longer than most stores have.

Image and DC are heading in the right direction making some of their titles returnable but it doesn’t reach far enough. Take the HOX/POX thing. It pretty much guarantee’s I’m going to lose at least half my subscribers when Uncanny is cancelled. I’m supposed to invest in yet two more titles that are lead ins for them to oversaturate the market with more right after?

With the deep discounted setup it gives stores time to get subscribers and see how a title is going to sell off the shelf before committing to the series heavier and with the lower pricing point, a reason to put extra copies on the shelf just in case.

With HOX and POX we may have 8 or more issues already order committed to before we have any sales data from actual sales to judge the actual order size needed. If I’m basing it on the dismal sales of Age of X-Man then I have to guess, very few copies will be needed.

There are some other areas the industry needs to think about including lower cover prices, less total books coming out, alternative cross media promotions like the movie credits and giveaways, fewer variant covers, FREE SHIPPING from Diamond for all accounts so we can actually know what each item really cost us individually, taking Trumps phone away so he stops finding reasons to Tariff China jacking the cost of everything plastic in the store up higher over time as the stores and consumers pay higher prices to offset the tariffs, fewer variant covers, increased returnability for titles cancelled in less than 50 issues, etc…

The Tariff one in particular is big news today. Block Chinese shipments from coming in, don’t use it as a tax increase in disguise that consumers and stores have to now pay.

Disney or WB are never going to sacrifice their profit margin to help your bottom line, @BJ

‘…These adaptations have fueled growth in the comic book industry: Sales in 2018 rose $80 million from the previous year.’

I believe @Uncle_Willie is more on point with his solutions to increase foot traffic at a LCS.

I’d agree with that as well.

Cheap comics aren’t going to draw in more people. Look at FCBD… is it successful at getting people out into local shops on FCBD? Yes.

How many of those people you only see on FCBD start showing up regularly each week?

FCBD draws some good foot traffic … however, the retention of those folks into Regulars has been a downward trend, at least in my case … next year, I will be seriously re-evaluating my level of participation …

If I took that money and had “Free Hot Dog Day”, I might actually see a higher percentage converted to Paying Customers … :hotdog:

To save the comic industry stop store variants, stop incentive variants, no more than 2 covers. No reusing old art for new covers like Detective #1000 Alex Ross, Detective #880 Jock, Dell Otto X23, Mary Jane Venom, later printings, etc…, No more 2nd 3rd 4th prints. Marvel and DC have 100 million downloads on some of their mobile games give away free digital items and characters for these games with every comic purchase. Stuff that can only be acquired in that game by buying books, You’ll get a flood of people who don’t want the comic but the special character so they will go out to the store and get it. Stop going #1 issues every 6 months how about after 300 issues you can restart with a #1.

I think the digital downloads for things within games could be a winner. But it could backfire though too. I could see people buying the comics just to sell the digital codes for a fraction of the price of the book. Most gamers would probably go that route instead of buying the comics to get the codes for downloads or perks within the games.

But it might draw in some readers but it would definitely be an experiment for them to do.

Take that money and spread it out over a year… like once a month, free hot dog day at the shop. Count me in and I don’t even eat hot dogs anymore. :slight_smile:

Alana is on point. Stop all the Variant madness.

I had a huge rant typed out but after reading it I feel all I was doing was bashing people.

I hate store variants. End of story.

I could live without all the variants as well. I mean, I am the one that tells people to always bet on cover A. :wink: