{"id":4813,"date":"2013-09-09T18:16:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-09T18:16:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-08-01T15:13:30","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T20:13:30","slug":"august-2013-comics-sales-estimates-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2013\/09\/09\/august-2013-comics-sales-estimates-now\/","title":{"rendered":"August 2013 comics sales estimates now online"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The final comics sales estimates are out from Diamond Comic Distributors<\/b><\/a>, and as mentioned here in the preliminary post, if July’s final day had been part of August, we’d be looking at two relatively\u00a0 normal months instead of one boom month and one big slide, which is what we had. Click to see the sales estimates for comics ordered in August 2013<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Orders
\nfor comic books, graphic novels, and magazines appear to have been
\naround $38.3 million in August, the lowest dollar amount seen since April 2012<\/b><\/a>. Led by Marvel’s Infinity<\/i> #1<\/b><\/a>,
\ncomics dollar sales were off 10%. But we’re comparing a four-week month with five-week
\nmonths in both last month<\/b><\/a> and in August 2012<\/a><\/b>.
\nWe already know that there’s about a 11% or so bonus to having an extra
\nweek, because it means more new titles and reorders can ship \u2014 but we
\ncan also see it in the number of releases. The total number of new
\ncomics shipped in August 2013 was 406, with 212 new graphic novels. This
\nis down from totals of 465 and 295 respectively last month. There was
\nsimply less new material debuting.<\/p>\n

We also know the
\nmarket ordered a huge number of\u00a0 graphic novels in July<\/b><\/a> \u2014 up a far greater
\namount than expected \u2014 and it’s possible retailers brought some orders
\ninto July that normally would have been in August. Further, August is a
\nmonth with no pricey, blockbuster trade paperback or hardcover releases \u2014 any month Walking Dead Vol. 1<\/b><\/i><\/a> is the top book, you know that: it’s the standard retailers turn their dollars toward.<\/p>\n

The aggregate sales:<\/p>\n

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

August 2013<\/a>: <\/b>6.36 million copies
\nVersus 1 year ago this month<\/b><\/a>: -10%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: -7%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +6%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: -10%
\nYEAR TO DATE: 55.38 million copies, +6% vs. 2012, +3% vs. 2008, +19% vs. 2003, -2% vs. 1998<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS UNIT SALES<\/b>
\nAugust 2013 versus one year ago this month: -11.21%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +7.38%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

July 2013: $23.13 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: -9%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +4%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month: +38%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month: +25%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $200.47 million, +9% vs. 2012, +17% vs. 2008, +53% vs. 2003, +45% vs. 1998<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS DOLLAR SALES<\/b>
\nAugust 2013 versus one year ago this month: -10.39%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +9.82%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

August 2013: $6.02 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: -22%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: -34%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 50 vs. the Top 50: -7%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month, just the Top 25 vs. the Top 25: -18%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $60.13 million, +8% vs. 2012<\/p>\n

ALL TRADE PAPERBACK\u00a0 SALES<\/b>
\nAugust 2013 versus one year ago this month: -22.09%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +6.59%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

August 2013: $29.15 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: -12%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month, counting just the Top 100 TPBs: -4%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month, counting just the Top 50 TPBs: +27%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month, counting just the Top 25 TPBs: +32%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $260.3 million, +9% vs. 2012<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS AND TRADE PAPERBACK\u00a0 SALES<\/b>
\nAugust 2013 versus one year ago this month: -14.29%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +8.79%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

August 2013: approximately $38.25 million (subject to revision)
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: -14%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +5%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month: +54%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $334.8 million, +9% vs. 2012<\/p>\n

RELEASES<\/b><\/span>
\nNew comic books released: 406<\/b>
\nNew graphic novels released: 212<\/b>
\nNew magazines released: 34 <\/b>
\nAll new releases: 652<\/b><\/p>\n

The average comic book in the Top 300 cost $3.61; the average comic book
\nretailers ordered cost $3.63. The median and most common price for comics offered was $3.99. Click to see comics prices across time.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The breakdowns of how many comics and graphic novels each major publisher released appears in the column on the left on the monthly estimates page<\/b><\/a>. I do not plan to run a table comparing this information with the Top 300 results each month, but the reader can easily make these comparisons. This month among publishers with more than 10 releases, for example, all of Marvel<\/b> and Zenescope<\/b>‘s titles made the Top 300.<\/p>\n

I’ve looked at trying to square up the new release tables with market shares, but it just doesn’t work: market share is based on a basket that includes everything, not just new releases. So we end up seeing that DC<\/b> and Marvel<\/b>‘s overall market share is larger than their share of new releases because they have, on average, more books in the backlist system that perform well. Image<\/b> fares better in overall market share than publishers with more new releases each month like IDW<\/b> and Dynamite, in part because Image has more backlist items and many that sell very well indeed, like Walking Dead<\/i>. But there isn’t enough information to put together a measure of “per-release efficiency.”<\/p>\n

This month marks the completion of my 17th year compiling these numbers for publication each month. I published my 200th monthly report at the beginning of the summer, and with all the new categories added over the years, the analysis now requires many more individual steps each month. It’s something I’m aware of in months, like this, in which my professional life is very busy (see here<\/b><\/a> for more), but as a comics collector, completeness a compulsion!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The final comics sales estimates are out from Diamond Comic Distributors, and as mentioned here in the preliminary post, if July’s final day had been part of August, we’d be looking at two relatively\u00a0 normal months instead of one boom month and one big slide, which is what we had. Click to see the sales … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4814,"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-4813","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\/4813","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=4813"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6452,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions\/6452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}