Tuesday, February 9, 2010

The Lonely Independent.

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.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

I read things like this and can't help but shake my head. With the explosion of comic and graphic novel properties in all forms of media it seems impossible that any publisher should be nearing shutting their doors. While I as a nearly life long reader and collector wish I could do more my wallet just won't allow it. The worst is people who torrent titles from these small indies espousing that it doesn't hurt anyone. I will agree that the film and music industry barely feel a blip on the radar from illegal downloading, but when you download comics, especially the indies, you are killing publisher, creators, and your local comic shop. There is such a slim margin of error in the field financially. Well...and yes I tried to guess who you were talking to...I wish them the best of luck and when next I have a few dollars to burn and am in the shop I may ask you who it was so I can buy SOMETHING. Every little piece helps out I'm sure.

Duncan McGeary said...

Jack, you just need to come in and reintroduced yourself.

Unknown said...

I will be in tomorrow. I have a horrible flu but yeah...it has been too long. :)

MrBruce said...

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201003/jobless-america-future

Dunc, want some 'disaster' in your diet read the above.

MrBruce said...

This is why I like to stick my ass in comic books and ignore the real fucking world ...

We are in a very deep hole, and we’ve been in it for a relatively long time already. Concerns over deficits are understandable, but in these times, our bias should be toward doing too much rather than doing too little. That implies some small risk to the government’s ability to continue borrowing in the future; and it implies somewhat higher taxes in the future too. But that seems a trade worth making. We are living through a slow-motion social catastrophe, one that could stain our culture and weaken our nation for many, many years to come. We have a civic—and indeed a moral—responsibility to do everything in our power to stop it now, before it gets even worse.

RDC said...

Sounds a little like getting drunk to cure a hangover.

This is a deleveraging event. It is occuring because we have too much debt in the system. The cure is to get the debt out of the system. That will take time and be painful. Anything that moves the debt to the government balance sheet, or that increases total debt is simply delaying process. The government is a very inefficient driver of jobs and it competes with the private sector for capital when its debt level increases. Every dollar buying treasuries is a dollar that is not available for other investments. The government balance sheet will be a substantial and continued drag on the economy, just as consumers balance sheets are today. Every dollar spent as a stimulus today, will end up being a $1.50 worth of drag if it adds to the deficit.