Friday, January 11, 2008

Brand New Day


Just as a quick follow-up to my past posts about the One More Day debacle I wanted to share the link to Vaneta Rogers' column on Newsarama where she asked several comic book store retailers their opinions on Brand New Day after One More Day.

I was quoted a few times. Rogers seemed to have had quite a few reactions from retailers to this, and she compiled the information very well to show the variety of opinions on the subject.

Notice that I pointed out that our first day sales of the first Brand New Day issue were down 25% from the first day sales of One More Day. It wasn't for lack of traffic in the store either, because we had 20% more transactions when Brand New Day came out this past Wednesday than we did on the Friday that One More Day was released. The first week sales should tell the story even better - it's hard to gage overall success of an issue based on its first day, but the first week usually is a pretty good reflection of how it sold.

5 comments:

James Meeley said...

Lisa:

Personally, I think you ought to have those who dropped ASM stick it to Joey da Q, in the exact way he pointed out in a recent interview. Have them pick up Spider-Girl. It feels more like Spider-Man than any of the Spidey titles (with the exception of Ultimate) have in a long time.

They shouldn't just let their anger at this crappy story just fester. Do something to show them what you want. Support the series that does Spider-Man like it is supposed to be done.

Just a thought.

Lisa said...

I have recommended that book to those that are flat-out refusing to give BND a try, as well as Marvel Adventures Spider-Man. Unfortunately most see those as "kids" books and just laughed at me.

James Meeley said...

I have recommended that book to those that are flat-out refusing to give BND a try, as well as Marvel Adventures Spider-Man. Unfortunately most see those as "kids" books and just laughed at me.

Maybe you could work out a small incentive for them to try it out. Something like a "money back guarantee." Tell them to try out an issue of Spider-Girl (or Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man) and if they don't like it, you'll give them a refund.

I worked at a shop one time and the owner let me do that with a series I felt strongly about. Out of everyone who took the challenge, not one person took us up on it. Now, I can't say whether they really enjoy the work or not, but they didn't dislike it enough that they thought they were cheated. I think you might want to try something similar with you customers who've dropped ASM.

Also point out that you are doing this to send a message to marvel and Joey and you might find people will be doing it JUST for that reason alone. Just some food for thought.

Lisa said...

You're right, James. The incentive that we're throwing it in JQ's face just might work. I'll have to up my numbers on Spider-Girl when the next issue shows up on our FOC.

I have heard of other stores doing that money back thing and most report just what you did - that few, if any, are ever brought back. We're also going to start featuring a comic book every week and that comic will be at a discounted price to encourage people to give it a try. We could do that with Spider-Girl too.

James Meeley said...

Lisa:

Hey, that sounds good. And just to help you out, if you want to recommend good jump on points on Amazing Spider-Girl, I don't know how far back you stock recent back issues on the wall/rack, but I's say ASG #9 or 13 would be the issues to have people check out as an intro to the book, since they each begin a storyarc. You'll have to let us all know how well this works with your former ASM buyers.