let’s talk about sales numbers
Friday, November 18, 2011 # 12:42 pm # comicsmarket # 6 Commentsthere’s an ongoing debate, for a bunch of years now. there are numbers that circulate every month, inaccurate numbers, people track them, people use that flawed “data” to comment on what they see as the progress or decline on the list. a lot of comics professionals are against this, for a lot of reasons. in my case, for my books, the books i personally share copyright on… my reason is, and no offense to anyone out there: my income is none of your business. just as your income is none of mine.
as anyone who knows me knows: i’m pretty open to debate. and i’ve welcomed a counterpoint on this, any number of times: “why do you need to know?” and the best response i’ve ever gotten… really the ONLY response is: “because we want to.”
and then we go around a bit, comic pros point out the numbers are flawed, then: “well, if the numbers are flawed, why not post the real numbers?”
and my response to that is usually something along the lines of: if someone says they’ve got a picture of your privates, would you drop your pants to prove them wrong?
SO: while no one has been able to express a positive thing that comes out of these numbers, beyond traffic to the websites that talk about them… let’s talk about a negative consequence.
FULL DISCLOSURE: i like the guys at ifanboy. i like a lot of what they post, i like them in person. i’m using this link as an example, because it’s new.
today ifanboy posted basically their version of a deathwatch list:
http://ifanboy.com/articles/cancelpocalypse-whos-next/
TO BE CLEAR: NO ONE AT MARVEL HAS ANNOUNCED THEIR CANCELLATION OR EXPRESSED ANY DANGER AT ALL TO THESE BOOKS.
but if you’re an ifanboy reader: what does your new list potentially accomplish? let’s say you were on the fence about trying any of those books… why would you want to invest in a book that your favorite comics site has made a case for the demise of? comics aren’t cheap, the economy’s in the toilet… if you’re looking to save some money, what better place? they’ve done the math for you, right?
what’s the harm in that? well, maybe the speculation itself helps to lead those books down the road to cancellation. in an industry with contracting numbers where folks are already very cautious about buying books they think “don’t count” in a line’s continuity, your speculation for kicks based on murky arbitrary sales “data” maybe has the added bonus of a causative effect, creating the reader insecurities that lead to the effects that you’d “predicted”.
and between the books on that list there are probably upwards of 30 people drawing an income. about half of which are probably working FULL TIME on those books at longer than normal office hours (often 7 days a week) with no other source of income.
so we’ve already established: i don’t know what the upside is. but the downside? someone’s reward for working every day of the week? you get to help them lose their job.
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on the other hand, in the case where they’re right and also not uniquely the cause of the cancellation, then they’ve helped people who don’t want to spend money on books that have no future save their money;
you’re essentially advocating for hiding information so that you can trick readers who would rather not buy a book that’s doomed out of their money.
and i don’t know who you’re talking to but i’m surprised no one can come up with any good reasons for wanting to know that information. off the top of my head, it can be used to accurately assess the state of the industry. it can be used to identify trends. it can used be inspire people to start their own publishing houses. it can be used to save people from losing their shirts on starting their own publishing houses. it can be used to more accurately frame debates about social and moral responsibility in comics (i.e. stop claiming books with female protagonists don’t sell, these numbers say otherwise; or the opposite, we want to make more books with female protagonists but the consumer has to help out by buying them, look at these numbers) and this is literally me just riffing in 30 seconds. if i really sat down to think about, i could come up with tons.
and again this is against the highly questionable position of “if people know the truth about a product, they might realize it’s not something they actually want.”
and i’m not trying to be a jerk, i just very much disagree with you. and i’ll end where you begin: i disagree with initial premise. i think your income is/should be public knowledge. just as i think mine should be.
no, i don’t think privacy is the same as hiding. there is a lot that happens in your life and in mine that isn’t public.
and i’m advocating no such thing: i’m saying that using 3rd party estimates to arbitrarily determine the life cycle of a book has no value beyond a potential to harm that book.
your position is indeed questionable, but it isn’t what i said. i call many things the truth, but a death poll based on 3rd party estimates is not one of them.
okay, maybe i over-generalized from your article. you’re saying that the real issue you have with disseminating sales information is that it’s often erroneous? if the information was accurate you’d be cool with it?
yes, i agree privacy isn’t the same as hiding. i was just making the point that salary information isn’t something that should “obviously be private” — some people prefer it to be private some don’t and in general there are very few people in America who have anything close to privacy when it comes to income. if i know someone’s job, i probably know their income within an order of magnitude. ironically, your salary and mine (tv writer) are more private than most because our deals vary so much from individual to individual, and are tied to metrics that are very hard to track (how much do I get for syndication in Russia? hell, even I don’t know)
well, i’m saying a couple things. american comics sales figures are based on the only numbers that are released, which are the book rankings for the top 300 comics of the month. the “sales figures” are based on a 3rd party formula that believes it can take those standings and extrapolate sales from them.
from my experience, on my books, the numbers are always wrong. so: that’s the starting point.
speaking only in the case of my own numbers, i don’t see the advantage in releasing them. in a void, without understanding the costs, the other data that a person would need to understand what the numbers mean relative to longevity, the numbers are useless. to your earlier point as to the advantages to younger professionals, that’s not the way i learned what to expect. i had people to tell me, i tell people now what things cost/sell/etc. i don’t need to publish that information to the world to achieve that.
SHOULD these things be private? i don’t know the answer to that. i know that they are and i control that information relative to what i own and what i’ve created. and i’m a pretty old fashioned guy. i dislike talking about money, in general, and in this case i don’t see why i should.
well, that IS interesting that the sales figures are purely speculation… extrapolations based on algorithms. that’s actually kind of fascinating and I certainly see that this would be annoying to a creator. it’s like if Diamond is going to release the numbers so be it, or if a 3rd party has an accurate algorithm to deduce the sales numbers so be it, but I’m definitely with you on the point of “but don’t make up sales numbers and pass them off as accurate when they’re not.”
and to be fair on your second point, the numbers AREN’T released in a void. things like production cost are pretty easily learned and the more information that’s out there the more accurate a model people can build.
i guess i’m just trying to point out that there are a lot of good reasons why a consumer would want to know that information. when a manufacturer knows something that changes the value of a product and doesn’t tell the consumer, people tend to get angry.
think of the recent example with the kindle. amazon hid the existence of the kindle 2 until very close to the announcement. so people spent $300 on a kindle 1 when that same $300 would have gotten them a kindle 2 a month later. certainly you can see why some consumers found that outrageous? and they made enough noise that amazon honored switch outs if you bought a kindle 1 within a few months of the kindle 2 release.
so if sales data would tell me that a book is doomed and i am someone who doesn’t want to spend my hard-earned money on a doomed book, you can at least partially see why i, as a consumer, would want to know that information. even if it’s not in your interest for me to know it
anyway, interesting discussion. and i definitely am surprised to learn that those sales numbers are all just guesses! and btw i don’t know your work, i stumbled onto here from brubaker’s feed, but i just ordered some of your books, so you can add +1 to that secret number you wont’ release :)
HA- well, thank you. and/or i apologize in advance, but really ed’s to blame:)