I was talking to a longtime comics publisher yesterday.
I'd gotten an e-mail, offering a significant sale, and mentioning that yes, they were a bit desperate to raise short-term cash.
So I talked to him about that. He's feeling discouraged, after being a major player for decades, and is ready to do something else. I told him to hang in there.
Thing is, he publishes two of the bestselling independent books I have, and I keep a couple of his series in stock, in full, in comic form, which is extremely rare. In other words, if anyone was going to succeed in the independent market, it's this company. (At one point, he carried a third bestseller, but that author got a major deal out of a major publisher, and deserted the ship.)
He informed me that he thought only about 50 to 100 comic shops consistently pre-order his product, and that it's less now than ever, despite all the media attention. I answered, that while I felt my brethren were wrong not to carry independents, as a small town store I understood their concerns. I have the advantage of tourism, and by constantly looking for opportunities, I've been able to stock my store to the point where it actually works to carry them. But it wasn't easy.
He said, he got tired of hearing that independents don't sell, but he appreciated what I was saying.
I also mentioned, from my perspective, that I was kind of hurt by the ill-will that some independents supporters seemed to have toward local comic shops, and how their wishing for the mass market to take over was both wrong-headed and short-sighted, and he sort of agreed.
I informed him that I carry all his books, as well as a strong selection of Top Shelf, Oni, Drawn and Quarterly, and Fantagraphics, and many others. But I admitted to him, that much of that stock was acquired by being very diligent about buying discounted stock whenever possible. I'm not sure how that helps him, except that I'm an independent comics carrier....
I asked him why, since he had some really great titles, no one was willing to invest in his company, or if he wanted someone to invest in his company.
He allowed as he might like that, but that "they just be buying me, and my expertise." He continued that he'd made a fundamental mistake in the beginning, by not taking partial ownership in the titles. "I'm just the publisher. The guy who did it right, who I should have been watching, was Mike Richardson."
We talked about Mike for awhile, and about all the great licenses that were floating around that no one was doing. (Mobieus?)
"All you need is for so-and-so to produce another work." I was referring to the bestselling author, who I sell the hell out of, but who has only produced a total of 2 books, and 3 small pamphlets. He laughed, dryly. "Yeah, I've been saying that for years. I think I feel fortunate that he's stuck with me at all."
I told him that --despite all the news about how hard it was for booksellers -- that from my perspective, having done both, that bookselling was twice as easy as comic selling. "You just can't get around that 1% of the populous reading comics..."
Anyway, it was interesting to talk to a longtime publisher about the difficulties of producing quality work and making it pay.
I'd gotten an e-mail, offering a significant sale, and mentioning that yes, they were a bit desperate to raise short-term cash.
So I talked to him about that. He's feeling discouraged, after being a major player for decades, and is ready to do something else. I told him to hang in there.
Thing is, he publishes two of the bestselling independent books I have, and I keep a couple of his series in stock, in full, in comic form, which is extremely rare. In other words, if anyone was going to succeed in the independent market, it's this company. (At one point, he carried a third bestseller, but that author got a major deal out of a major publisher, and deserted the ship.)
He informed me that he thought only about 50 to 100 comic shops consistently pre-order his product, and that it's less now than ever, despite all the media attention. I answered, that while I felt my brethren were wrong not to carry independents, as a small town store I understood their concerns. I have the advantage of tourism, and by constantly looking for opportunities, I've been able to stock my store to the point where it actually works to carry them. But it wasn't easy.
He said, he got tired of hearing that independents don't sell, but he appreciated what I was saying.
I also mentioned, from my perspective, that I was kind of hurt by the ill-will that some independents supporters seemed to have toward local comic shops, and how their wishing for the mass market to take over was both wrong-headed and short-sighted, and he sort of agreed.
I informed him that I carry all his books, as well as a strong selection of Top Shelf, Oni, Drawn and Quarterly, and Fantagraphics, and many others. But I admitted to him, that much of that stock was acquired by being very diligent about buying discounted stock whenever possible. I'm not sure how that helps him, except that I'm an independent comics carrier....
I asked him why, since he had some really great titles, no one was willing to invest in his company, or if he wanted someone to invest in his company.
He allowed as he might like that, but that "they just be buying me, and my expertise." He continued that he'd made a fundamental mistake in the beginning, by not taking partial ownership in the titles. "I'm just the publisher. The guy who did it right, who I should have been watching, was Mike Richardson."
We talked about Mike for awhile, and about all the great licenses that were floating around that no one was doing. (Mobieus?)
"All you need is for so-and-so to produce another work." I was referring to the bestselling author, who I sell the hell out of, but who has only produced a total of 2 books, and 3 small pamphlets. He laughed, dryly. "Yeah, I've been saying that for years. I think I feel fortunate that he's stuck with me at all."
I told him that --despite all the news about how hard it was for booksellers -- that from my perspective, having done both, that bookselling was twice as easy as comic selling. "You just can't get around that 1% of the populous reading comics..."
Anyway, it was interesting to talk to a longtime publisher about the difficulties of producing quality work and making it pay.