Marketing Manager @SquareEnixBooks| Past: Brand Manager, Editorial @Skybound & Sales @boomstudios | Opinions are mine | She/Her | Icon @MinemikoMali
Los Angeles, CA
Joined January 2014
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Love seeing folks talk about new digital options for comics but I'd really love to see comics folk talk more about the absolute abhorrent laws and budget cuts the government is passing to dismantle our library system.
Librarians are KEY to the accessibility & success of comics.
Like I said initially, there's a lot to unpack here. I'm not here to engage in which is better bc at the end of the day, whether you're reading western comics or manga, you enjoy storytelling & sequential art. Both contribute to the North American Comic Market in different ways.
If you want more information on market performance or are curious about manga in the comics industry, I highly recommend checking out ICv2 (Pro & non-Pro articles + sales charts), Publishers Weekly, White Box Entertainment, and subscribing to SKTCHD.
There are other factors at play such as differences in pricing & production costs, format choices, sales performance, readership & collectibility, etc. that are all relevant. I just don't have the energy for that rn 😅, so I focused on some reasons for physical space allocation.
And more retailers are relying on customer preorders to accurately inform them which new titles they need to stock. Preorders really do help bookstores figure out WHAT is in demand before release and can result in a store stocking more of a title initially as well as long term.
And media adaptations (including anime) increase awareness but not always sales, so stocking is a challenge for book retailers as more series enter the market bc it's impossible to stock everything.
Oversaturation of content & product is on both sides, so retailers begin curate.
With regards to accessibility, there wasn't (and still isn't) really an equivalent to a sales multiplier like anime for Western Comics except for a few series like Invincible or The Boys, which, like manga, have a single volume 1 entry point and linear story progression.
Something of note to mention is that there was a massive disruption to distribution during the pandemic when Diamond Comic Distributors (the only comics distributor at the time) understandably suspended business, impacting publishers & retailers alike.
forbes.com/sites/robsalkowit…
The pandemic played a huge role in that exponential growth because content was more accessible at a time when ppl were constantly looking for entertainment & a community to engage in it with.
Original graphic novels, especially young readers & middle-grade, do very well in the book market bc they are often treated like traditional book product by publishers, the authors may have a proven sales track in bookstores, & the target buying audience is in bookstores.
Selling into both markets is key to overall success, and recognizing where the core audience lives for a particular title means tailored sales & marketing efforts to reach them effectively. Comic Shops have seen growth in new readers & sales as a result.
sktchd.com/longform/new-read…
This doesn't mean that those readers don't exist in bookstores -- they absolutely do. There are just less compared to those buying manga.
And we're focusing on the Comics & Graphic Novels section, featuring Big 2 superheroes, but that's not all encompassing of Western Comics.
Thanks to those single issue sales, shops already have an idea of who the audience for a series is ahead of the collected edition, giving them a stronger idea of what to order for a TPB release, resulting in higher sales & reorder rates for the publisher in that channel.
And while the Book Market is incredibly important to long-term success, the core audience for traditional comics isn't necessarily purchasing from there. They've established their buying patterns & are seeking out those titles elsewhere, esp. recently.
icv2.com/articles/markets/vi…
On the flip side, single issues are largely absent from Book Market retailers, so bookstores don't have that sales data to rely on when ordering TPBs, so they're unable to accurately gauge demand & potentially stocking less inventory, resulting in less dedicated space in-store.
There are 4 key things to keep in mind here:
✨Sales Channels & Distribution
✨Primary Product Type
✨Core Audience & Readership
✨Accessibility
This isn't tea by any means. Just providing some general operational context and observations.