I consider today to be the real start to the Christmas shopping season.
People are buying in-store from here on out. We get out-of-towners and tourists and vacationers and families. They LIKE downtown -- and I'm sure it's not as interesting to them to visit the exact same giant chainstores that they have where they came from.
Up until today, I've been having a hard time gauging the Christmas sales right. Too early, I suppose. I usually only do a bit above average in the first half of December, and then have a huge last 10 days or so.
I've been ordering tons of books -- and also anything else I think the store needs. My instinctive response is to order more material, not less, when in doubt. I can probably get a couple of more weekly shipments in before it's too late.
I also ordered a lot of boardgames, especially the big three: Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, and Carcassonne. These games can sell in spurts -- like yesterday. I'm getting an order in today, which I thought would be the last of it -- but now, I'm thinking, I need to make one last -- just to be safe -- order. Not like I can't sell these games next year.
This time of year is kind of nerve-wracking because I just don't know what's going to happen and it matters. Trends are amplified. If something is selling good, it might sell even better. If things are on a downward track, they can go down even farther. Last year I sold more boardgames than I thought possible, but I was very aggressive in promoting them. This year, I'm just letting things happen. I'm not sure, but I suspect these games are more readily available elsewhere.
I mean, no matter what, (knock wood) we'll have one of our best months of the year. Despite threatening and blustering, the Sheriff of Nottingham hasn't quite managed to "Cancel Christmas!" yet.
I've kind of fallen out of the habit of comparing "This Day" to last year; and I haven't missed it. Except at Christmas. Then I kind of want to know what the trends were last year. Still, I haven't quite felt compelled to dig out last years records.
It will be what it will be.
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OK, looking for some shop owner reflection on the Kickstarter trend in indie comics. Here's an example: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sarahbecan/shuteye-a-graphic-novel-by-sarah-becan
Basically the author is self-publishing this book using funds contributed by individuals. Most of these Kickstarter projects seem to center on a contract between end-buyers and the creators, but I've been seeing more and more (like this one) offer an incentive to retailers. What's your take? Obviously indie stuff doesn't sell like the Big Two stuff. But are these kinds of things attractive to retailers? Or mostly inconsequential?
Ten years ago there were stores who could try to carry just about every graphic novel there was.
Five years ago, stores had to start getting more selective. So just about every good graphic novel there is.
Three years ago, you could carry just about every critically acclaimed graphic novel and most of the good ones.
A year to two years ago, you could carry the cream of the crop.
Now -- despite me going to four to five graphic novel sites a day, there are great books that I don't realize exist until they are pointed out to me.
We're going to have to be more like independent bookstores, carrying a revolving stock, rather than trying to carry "everything."
My problem is, despite carrying a large inventory of them, I sell maybe one true indie book a week, and I'm seeing four or five that I think I should try to carry.
It's pretty much a break-even try to impress the customer idea. Sell the major titles enough to cover the mid-list.
So asking to chip in on a non-published graphic novel probably isn't going to get very far with the retailers. We are all feeling pretty overwhelmed, these days.
Andy,
There are stores who carry indie, and stores who don't carry indie.
The stores who don't carry indie are scorned.
I'm a store in a small town who carries indies -- and I can confirm that they don't sell very well.
I can get away with it because I've been doing it for years, little by little, building my stock, jumping on every deal. And I can get away with it because I get just enough tourists to probably not lose too much.
But mostly, it's just that I want to best store I can do, and that means carrying worthy but low selling titles.
A typical example is The Green River Killer -- a highly acclaimed book. You asked for it, I bought a second copy -- and I think maybe I sold it. Then I bought a third copy, which has been out on the shelves for several weeks, now.
And that's a better result than usual. Maybe a third, I never sell. (A higher percentage of the books I buy at a discount don't sell -- and some of these are good books.)
Usually, I'll get one of these books -- and if I can sell it once, and then reorder, then I'm losing a tiny bit of money on that title, but still have the book everyone expects me to have in stock.
Sadly, about 80% of the indies never sell that third copy for me. Much less the fourth copy with pays all.
Then again, I'll sell Preacher and Transmetro and Y-the Last Man maybe 10 or 20 times; Walking Dead maybe 30 times, and so on. Books like that pay for the rest.
The latest Dan Clowes book? Have sold it -- once. May I'll sell it twice more in its history --
Frankly, even though I carry these books and probably break even on them (the critical indie darlings) I can get a little irritated by the attitude of the hard core that we're (Local Comic Book Stores) doing a lousy job of selling them.
And especially when they cheer our demise, or hope the big bookstores take over (five years ago) and then the internet (two years ago) and now digital.
I try not to hold that against the creators, who I think know better.
Brian Hibbs has a new Tilting at Windmills up that talks about much the same thing.
So the short answer is "mostly inconsequential."
I'm not surprised. As Hibbs says, indie comics are a sub-niche within a niche. It's already hard to explain to a non-comics-reading friend that I read a lot of comics but that I don't really read superhero books.
"But there's this whole vibrant, interesting comics scene with stories that have nothing to do with Spider-Man!"
"Huh."
I know the response. I guess I delude myself into thinking that with all the galleries, all the indie book stores, all the "cultural events" that Bend has, that there would be enough people to support a "scene." Or at least a few more people that buy non-hero books. But even the artsy-fartsy Bendite elite just don't even seem to notice comics, much less indie comics. (Or maybe they're all buying online.)
Maybe I should bribe someone to pick a comic for the Novel Idea program at the library. Or maybe petition Nature of Words to bring more creators (maybe even artists) around. The exposure can't hurt, right?
Oh, and I'm finally going to add Tilting at Windmills to my Google Reader subscriptions. I had it there once before but he's just so long-winded...
Dude. Get this. You may be my only current regular buyer of indies.
The rest I sell to out-of-towners, mostly.
It's that small an audience.
Meanwhile, one of the comments on Hibb's site talks about how the local comic shop sucked cause it doesn't have Lone Wolf and Cub 1-3, but has 4 on.
Hey, I haven't been able to get 1-3 for over a year now, because the publisher hasn't kept it in print.
I really wonder how hard these "indie" guys look, whether they ever ask, and whether they are willing to wait just a couple of days for the comic shop to get it for them. And there seems no clear understanding that there are so many titles now that no one can have them all.
Instead of throwing up their hands in a fit.
Indie is actually a really good term for it.
How do indie movies do? In small towns?
I think Regal has actually tried over the years to bring in 'art' films, and they have almost always flopped.
How likely is it we'll bet The Artist? A foreign film, in black and white, a silent set in the golden age of movies? It may happen, but only because it's gotten so many awards lately.
Or Hugo? Which is a great movie, directed by a well known director; which the last I heard has earned about 25 million, or about a third of what Twilight earned on it's first weekend.
Now, like McMinimen's (which you would think was a perfect venue for art films) they show second run mainstream movies.
It's amazing in some ways that the indie comic movement survives at all. Or that stores like me make the attempt.
There are enough of us comic shops who feel that the future health of the industry means we should support these books even if they don't sell all that well.
But we can't turn our stores completely over to them, like the real hardcore want us to. And for that we get criticized.
Oh, well.
An indie bookstore can't make a living selling indie books. And he could sell a few more if the indie publisher would put indie books back in print.
There's irony in there somewhere.
Another complaint I hear from the "local comic shops suck" crowd is, "I asked him for such and such a title and he hadn't even heard of it!"
I used to think this was sort of disgraceful -- until the last couple years. Now it's as impossible to know every graphic novel as it is to know every record or book. There are just too many, even the good ones.
I spend a fair amount of time browsing sites who inform me of new graphic novels and even I get caught some times.
Hey, selective perception. Of course THEY know about the book they're looking for, so they expect everyone else to know. (Even though I could probably throw out a hundred worthy titles they don't know about.)
One other thing about this that kind of gets me.
I don't know about other people but I can only read one book at any one moment. My bookstore has plenty of material for even the most picky of readers.
It's like telling me that there is an Amazon PANTS site which has MILLIONS of PANTS!!!!
But I can still only wear one pair of pants at a time.
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