{"id":4807,"date":"2013-10-07T17:21:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-07T17:21:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-08-01T15:11:45","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T20:11:45","slug":"final-september-2013-comics-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2013\/10\/07\/final-september-2013-comics-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Final September 2013 comics sales estimates now online"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The final comics sales reports are out from Diamond Comic Distributors<\/b><\/a>, and as reported here on Friday, Comichron’s estimates based on those reports show that DC’s “Villains Month” propelled the market to top several previous records from the Diamond Exclusive Era. Click to see the sales estimates for comics ordered in September 2013<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n

DC released 53 different issues featuring villains<\/b><\/a>, each (apart from the chart-topping Forever Evil <\/i>#1<\/a><\/b>) numbered as part of a parent title: for example, Batman<\/b><\/i> #23.1 featured the Joker, #23.2 featured the Riddler, #23.3 featured the Penguin and #23.4 starred Bane. While each title was intended to have a 3-D cover, demand resulted in the printing of a second “standard edition” version. The result was that DC had 129 new comics releases in September, of which 128 made the Top 300; that figure is only one less than its record high from early in the DC relaunch.<\/p>\n

DC announced on Friday that it had sold 4.3 million copies<\/b><\/a> of its comics to the North American Direct Market in September; its sales within the Top 300 itself were almost exactly 4 million copies,\u00a0 a figure not seen for DC since the post-relaunch month of October 2011, with DC orders of 4.26 million copies in the Top 300. Several other 1997-to-present records<\/b><\/a> set during the month:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Highest dollar volume for Top 300 Comics sales <\/b>in a single month: $30.05 million<\/p>\n

\u2022 Highest dollar volume for Top 300 Comics and Top 300 Trade Paperbacks<\/b> combined for a single month: $37.61 million<\/p>\n

\u2022 Highest dollar volume for All Comics, Trade Paperbacks, and Magazines <\/b>ordered in a single month: $48.07 million<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0 Highest dollar volume for All Comics, Trade Paperbacks, and Magazines <\/b>ordered in a single QUARTER: $113.16 million<\/p>\n

\u2022 Highest weighted average price for all comics ordered<\/b> within Diamond’s Top 300 Comics list: $3.69 (tied with November 2010<\/b><\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u2022 Most copies sold by a 300th place title in a four-week month: <\/b>6,448<\/p>\n

That latter figure blows away the previous record by more than a thousand copies, and results largely from the added number of DC entries this month. There’s more volume higher up on the chart, and many of the titles usually in the lower rankings were pushed off the Top 300 completely. Perhaps in response, Diamond expanded its list for this month to go down to the end of the Top 400<\/b><\/a> \u2014 and as usual, there are random issues beneath that which appeared in the Small Publisher Top 50. All of the Top Comics calculations below continue to be for the Top 300, so as to compare like against like.<\/p>\n

The aggregate changes:<\/p>\n

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

September 2013<\/a>: <\/b>8.15 million copies
\nVersus 1 year ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +25%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +20%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +25%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +10%
\nQ3 2013: 21.83 million copies, +8% vs. Q3 2012
\nYEAR TO DATE: 63.53 million copies, +8% vs. 2012, +5% vs. 2008, +19% vs. 2003, unchanged vs. 1998<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS UNIT SALES<\/b>
\nSeptember 2013 versus one year ago this month: +26.97%<\/b>
\nQ3 2012 versus Q3 2012: +8.27 <\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +9.56%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

September 2013: $30.05 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +32%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +37%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month: +58%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month: +65%
\nQ3 2013: $80.07 million, +9% vs. Q3 2012<\/p>\n

YEAR TO DATE: $230.52 million, +11% vs. 2012, +19% vs. 2008, +54% vs. 2003, +47% vs. 1998<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS DOLLAR SALES<\/b>
\nSeptember 2013 versus one year ago this month: +33.9%<\/b>
\nQ3 2013 versus Q3 2012: +11.12% <\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +12.50%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

September 2013: $7.56 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +6%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: -3%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 50 vs. the Top 50: +1%
\nQ3 2013: $21.51 million, -2% vs. Q3 2012<\/p>\n

YEAR TO DATE: $67.69 million, +8% vs. 2012<\/p>\n

ALL TRADE PAPERBACK\u00a0 SALES<\/b>
\nSeptember 2013 versus one year ago this month: +1.76%<\/b>
\nQ3 2013 versus Q3 2012: +0.30% <\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +6.03%<\/b><\/p>\n

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

September 2013: $37.61 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +26%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month, counting just the Top 100 TPBs: +30%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month, counting just the Top 50 TPBs: +46%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month, counting just the Top 25 TPBs: +76%
\nQ3 2013: $101.28 million, +6% vs. Q3 2012<\/p>\n

YEAR TO DATE: $196.23 million, +13% vs. 2012<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS AND TRADE PAPERBACK\u00a0 SALES<\/b>
\nSeptember 2013 versus one year ago this month: +23.4%<\/b>
\nQ3 2013 versus Q3 2012: +7.64%\u00a0 <\/b>
\n\u00a0<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +10.43%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

September 2013: approximately $48.07 million (subject to revision)
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +23%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +37%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month: +71%
\nQ3 2013: $133.16 million, +8% vs. 2012
\n<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: $382.88 million, +10% vs. 2012<\/b><\/p>\n

RELEASES<\/b><\/span>
\nNew comic books released: 444<\/b>
\nNew graphic novels released: 255<\/b>
\nNew magazines released: 38 <\/b>
\nAll new releases: 737<\/b><\/p>\n

The average comic book in the Top 300 cost $3.60; again, the average comic book
\nretailers ordered cost $3.69. The median and most common price for comics offered was $3.99. Click to see comics prices across time.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

For the curious, the additonal 100 copies on the list adds about 430,000 copies, or about 4% more comics to the usual Top 300 list; it adds $1.6 million, or 5%, in dollars. That’s expected, as books lower on the list tend to have higher prices. From the glimpses we get of the lower echelons of the list, it would appear to fall off dramatically from there, with #400-500 adding another 100,000 copies worth $400,000 or so \u2014 and by the time we reach #500-600, we’re well out of the frontlist and only about 40,000 copies worth $160,000 are being added.<\/p>\n

So it looks like the total comics sale is in the 9 million copy range, worth close to $33 million; the Top 300 captures 90% of the periodical activity. That leaves $15 million for graphic novels and trade paperbacks, of which more than half is captured in the Top 300 graphic novel list. And the overall Direct Market dollar breakdown is about 2\/3 comics, 1\/3 graphic novels \u2014 which is about what we’ve seen in the recent past.<\/p>\n

That’s September. See everyone at New York Comicon!<\/p>\n

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The final comics sales reports are out from Diamond Comic Distributors, and as reported here on Friday, Comichron’s estimates based on those reports show that DC’s “Villains Month” propelled the market to top several previous records from the Diamond Exclusive Era. Click to see the sales estimates for comics ordered in September 2013. DC released … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[76,17],"class_list":["post-4807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2013-sales","tag-diamond-monthly-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807","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=4807"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6450,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807\/revisions\/6450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}