{"id":4580,"date":"2015-06-16T00:41:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T00:41:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-07-31T19:27:22","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T00:27:22","slug":"may-2015-comics-sales-estimates-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2015\/06\/16\/may-2015-comics-sales-estimates-online\/","title":{"rendered":"May 2015 comics sales estimates online: Loot Crate effect hits half-million copies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/CCSecrW1\"<\/div>\n

Marvel’s Secret Wars<\/i><\/b><\/a> revival made a big splash in the comics market in May, moving more than 527,000 copies to comic shops in North America. That’s according to Comichron’s estimates for May 2015 comics sales<\/b><\/a> based on information released by Diamond Comic Distributors<\/b><\/a>. You can find the report here<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n

That’s enough to place the issue fourth on the list of best-selling comics of the century<\/b><\/a>, and it could go higher with reorders. It came in a month when strong six-figure launches from A-Force<\/b><\/i><\/a> and Old Man Logan<\/b><\/i><\/a>, and a dominating performance from Batman: Earth 2 Vol. 2<\/b><\/i><\/a> on the graphic novel charts helped push the market to a 13% increase.<\/p>\n

The Secret Wars<\/i> issue edged out a surprise second-place finisher, Bravest Warriors: Tales from the Holo John<\/i> #1<\/a> <\/b>\u2014 and with the comic book, Loot Crate<\/b><\/a>‘s effect on the Direct Market sales charts may finally have reached \u2014 pun entirely intended \u2014 cartoonish levels. Just over half a million copies of the comic book based on the animated series were shipped by Diamond, and indications are that most of those copies went directly to one customer: Loot Crate, which then doled them out to its subscribers (who do not know in advance what comic books they’re going to receive). When the regular Bravest Warriors<\/i><\/b> title appeared on the periodical charts more than a year ago, it was selling around the 4,000 copy level, and while this first issue likely sold more copies than that in comic shops, it’s likely that more than 98% of the copies went to one customer.
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\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/CCBravW1\"<\/div>\n

The massive single order had effects on the charts in several ways. Comics unit sales were up 20% over last May: 7.5% of that came from the Loot Crate copies. Industry sales went up $5.8 million versus last May, but $2.5 million of that came from Bravest Warriors<\/i>. The title cost $4.99, so it helped punch up the weighted average cover price \u2014 the price of the average comic book Diamond shipped \u2014 to a record $4.17; without the inclusion of the Loot Crate books, that average drops to $4.11. (Still a record, but it only beats the last one \u2014 set in April \u2014 by nine cents.) It also sent Boom<\/b>‘s market share northward, making it the #4 publisher in terms of units sold last month \u2014 and #3 in dollar sales within just the Top 300.<\/p>\n

Where we don’t see the distortion is in Diamond’s dollar shares, which only look at the dollars it was paid \u2014 and there, Boom is in fifth place. According to Diamond’s dollar rankings<\/b><\/a>, it sold 2.4 copies of Bravest Warriors<\/i> for every Secret Wars <\/i>#2 it sold \u2014 and yet the distributor made more money on Secret Wars<\/i> #2. Since Secret Wars<\/i> #2 and Bravest Warriors<\/i> cost the same \u2014 $4.99 \u2014 that would indicate that Loot Crate got a much<\/i> better deal from Boom at wholesale on its copies than retailers got from Marvel. In the case of this issue and Februrary’s chart-topping Orphan Black<\/b><\/i><\/a>, it’s probably more appropriate to look at these as promotional copies. Diamond stopped including comics promotionally cover-priced below $1 in its charts several years ago, but there doesn’t appear to be a rule concerning a wholesale price minimum. (If there were, we wouldn’t see graphic novels sold at deep discounts included in the charts \u2014 and those have often distorted the sales figures by several million dollars.)<\/p>\n

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There is, again, no single rule I can think of that would easily fit all occasions here \u2014 and as the number of box offerings proliferates, the potential impact on the charts grows. (Secret Wars<\/i> #1 itself was in the Comic Block<\/b><\/a>, Geek Fuel<\/b><\/a>, and Comic Con<\/b><\/a> boxes in May, and Convergence: Action Comics <\/b><\/i>#1<\/b> and Mythic <\/b><\/i>#1<\/b> were also in the Comic Block box, although the numbers involved are likely much smaller than the Loot Crate case. It’s also not clear whether they’re all going through Diamond: DC didn’t go through Diamond with its first Loot Crate offering.) About the only suggestion I might have would be for Diamond to remove from the Top 300 charts sales any non-Direct Market accounts that do not order a variety of comics monthly; that would allow in sales from outlets like Hastings, but separate out promotional one-off purchases by outside firms. Such titles might be reported as an addendum to the charts, such that we’d know how they affected the market shares and bottom line; publishers would also see their sales reflected in that event. But that approach might be more difficult to do as the number of grab-bag retailers increases.<\/p>\n

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

TOP 300 COMICS UNIT SALES<\/b><\/span>
\nMay 2015<\/a>: <\/b>8 million copies
\nVersus 1 year ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +20%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +30%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +36%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +33%
\nYEAR TO DATE: 37.16 million copies, +16% vs. 2014, +29% vs. 2010, +26% vs. 2005, +30% vs. 2000<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS UNIT SALES<\/b>
\nMay 2015 versus one year ago this month: +19.53%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +16.9%<\/b><\/p>\n

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

May 2015: $33.34 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +33%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +55%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month: +96%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month: +105%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $146.69 million, +21% vs. 2014, +46% vs. 2010, +75% vs. 2005, +94% vs. 2000<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS DOLLAR SALES<\/b>
\nMay 2015 versus one year ago this month: +19.94%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +16.48% <\/b><\/p>\n

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

May 2015: $7.27 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: unchanged
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +21%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: +28%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month, just the Top 25 vs. the Top 25: +34%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $35.1 million, -1% vs. 2014<\/p>\n

ALL TRADE PAPERBACK\u00a0 SALES<\/b>
\nMay 2015 versus one year ago this month: -0.29%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +3.41%<\/b><\/p>\n

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

May 2015: $40.61 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +26%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +38%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month, counting just the Top 100 TPBs: +72%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month, counting just the Top 25 TPBs: +118%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $181.76 million, +16% vs. 2014<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS AND TRADE PAPERBACK SALES<\/b>
\nMay 2015 versus one year ago this month: +13.49%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +12.31%<\/b><\/p>\n

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

May 2015: approximately $48.89 million (subject to revision)
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +13%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +39%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month: +83%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $233.5 million, +12% vs. 2014<\/b><\/p>\n

RELEASES<\/b><\/span>
\nNew comic books released: 436<\/b>
\nNew graphic novels released: 228<\/b>
\nNew magazines released: 44<\/b>
\nAll new releases: 708<\/b><\/p>\n

As mentioned above, the average cover price of the comic books in Diamond’s Top 300 was $3.95, a record; there were 205 comics priced at $3.99, 26 above that mark, and 69 below. There were only 38 comics in the chart prices at $2.99, the previous most common price point. Click to see cover prices across time.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Our joint report with ICV2 on 2014’s overall comics sales is being finalized; look for it here in the coming days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marvel’s Secret Wars revival made a big splash in the comics market in May, moving more than 527,000 copies to comic shops in North America. That’s according to Comichron’s estimates for May 2015 comics sales based on information released by Diamond Comic Distributors. You can find the report here. That’s enough to place the issue … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[66,17,40],"class_list":["post-4580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2015-sales","tag-diamond-monthly-reports","tag-loot-crate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4580","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=4580"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6400,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4580\/revisions\/6400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}