{"id":4500,"date":"2016-01-11T16:39:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T16:39:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-07-31T19:08:49","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T00:08:49","slug":"december-2015-comics-sales-estimates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2016\/01\/11\/december-2015-comics-sales-estimates\/","title":{"rendered":"December 2015 comics sales estimates online: Secret Wars #8 leads with 170k copies ordered"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The final sales report for December is now out from Diamond Comic Distributors<\/b><\/a>,
\nand the sales estimates have been calculated here at Comichron. Click to see the sales estimates for comics ordered in December 2015<\/b><\/a>.
\n
\n<\/a>
\n\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/CCSecretW8\"We’ve
\nalready covered the end-of-year bottom line numbers in our preliminary 2015 post<\/b><\/a>, but now we get to see some of the numbers in the narrower
\ncategories. Diamond sold 98 million comic books overall in 2015, we
\nknew; now we see that 89.17 million of them, or 91% of them, appeared in
\nDiamond’s Top 300 lists during the year. Applying the weighted average
\nprice for Diamond’s comics in 2015 to the 98-million-copy figure gives
\nus $388 million in periodical sales overall; $353.18 million of that
\ncame from just the Top 300s.<\/p>\n

The average price of
\ncomic books offered in Diamond’s Top 300 lists each month of the year
\nwas $3.83. The weighted average price of those comics \u2014 total dollars
\ndivided by total units \u2014 was $3.96.<\/p>\n

Diamond said it had
\nsold “just over 8 million” graphic novels and trade paperbacks in the
\nyear. We know that the Top 300s each month added up to 4.45 million
\ncopies, so that tracks very well. The titles below 300th place would
\nalmost certainly on balance have higher average prices than those that
\nmade the lists each month.<\/p>\n

In December proper, Secret Wars<\/i> #8<\/b><\/a>
\nwas the top seller with nearly 170,000 copies sold. There were six
\ncomic books with sales above 100,000 copies. While that would seem to
\nsuggest poorer unit sales overall for comic books than November
\nhad\u2014which had thirteen titles in six figures \u2014 in fact December’s unit
\nsales were much better. Where November saw 179 titles above 10,000
\ncopies, December had 206. More of the Marvel relaunch books are now
\nrunning\u2014and, of course, December had an extra shipping week.<\/p>\n

The aggregate changes are as follows:<\/p>\n

TOP 300 COMICS UNIT SALES<\/b><\/span>
\nDecember 2015<\/a>: <\/b>7.95 million copies
\nVersus 1 year ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +18%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +43%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +21%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +44%
\n4th Quarter 2015: 24.18 million copies, +10% vs. 2014
\n2015 YEAR-END: 89.17 million copies, +8% vs. 2014, +29% vs. 2010, +17% vs. 2005, +29% vs. 2000<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS UNIT SALES<\/b>
\nDecember 2015 versus one year ago this month: +18.63%<\/b>
\n4th Qtr 2015 vs. 4th Qtr 2014: +6.43% <\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +4.21%<\/b><\/p>\n

TOP 300 COMICS DOLLAR SALES<\/b><\/div>\n

December 2015: $32.16 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +26%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +58%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month: +61%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month: +104%
\n4th Quarter 2015: $98.8 million, +20% vs. 2014
\n2015 YEAR-END: $353.18 million, +13% vs. 2014, +44% vs. 2010, +59% vs. 2005, +85% vs. 2000<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS DOLLAR SALES<\/b>
\nDecember 2015 versus one year ago this month: +25.05%<\/b>
\n4th Qtr 2015 vs. 4th Qtr 2014: +13.84% <\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +8.99% <\/b><\/p>\n

TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES<\/b><\/div>\n

December 2015: $7.22 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +11%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +11%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: +11%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month, just the Top 25 vs. the Top 25: -15%
\n4th Quarter 2015: $23 million, -5% vs. 2014
\n2015 YEAR-END: $89.43 million, +1% vs. 2014<\/p>\n

ALL TRADE PAPERBACK SALES<\/b>
\nDecember 2015 versus one year ago this month: +14.12%<\/b>
\n4th Qtr 2015 vs. 4th Qtr 2014: -7.43% <\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +3.14%<\/b><\/p>\n

TOP 300 COMICS + TOP 300 TRADE PAPERBACK DOLLAR SALES<\/b><\/div>\n

December 2015: $39.83 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +23%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +20%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month, counting just the Top 100 TPBs: +35%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month, counting just the Top 25 TPBs: +104%
\n4th Quarter 2015: $121.8 million, +14%
\n2015 YEAR-END: $442.6 million, +10% vs. 2014<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS AND TRADE PAPERBACK SALES<\/b>
\nDecember 2015 versus one year ago this month: +21.85%<\/b>
\n4th Qtr 2015 vs. 4th Qtr 2014: +7.2% <\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +7.17%<\/b><\/p>\n

OVERALL DIAMOND SALES (including all comics, trades, and magazines)<\/b><\/div>\n

December 2015: approximately $52.9 million (subject to revision)
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +22%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +46%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month: +64%
\n4th Quarter 2015: $155.74, +7% vs. 2014
\n2015 YEAR-END: $579.18 million, +7% vs. 2014<\/b><\/p>\n

RELEASES<\/b><\/span>
\nNew comic books released: 556<\/b>
\nNew graphic novels released: 306<\/b>
\nNew magazines released: 46<\/b>
\nAll new releases: 908<\/b><\/p>\n

The average comic book in the Top 300 in December cost $3.90; the average comic book
\nretailers ordered cost $4.04. The median and most common price for comics offered was $3.99. Click to see comics prices across time.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The final sales report for December is now out from Diamond Comic Distributors, and the sales estimates have been calculated here at Comichron. Click to see the sales estimates for comics ordered in December 2015. We’ve already covered the end-of-year bottom line numbers in our preliminary 2015 post, but now we get to see some … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[66,21,17],"class_list":["post-4500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2015-sales","tag-diamond-annual-reports","tag-diamond-monthly-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4500"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4500\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6382,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4500\/revisions\/6382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}