{"id":4862,"date":"2013-05-06T17:50:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-06T17:50:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-08-01T15:23:13","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T20:23:13","slug":"april-2013-comics-sales-big-even","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/06\/april-2013-comics-sales-big-even\/","title":{"rendered":"April 2013 comics sales big, even without blockbusters"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Diamond Comic Distributors has released the main wave of comics sales statistics for April 2013 comics sales, and the estimates are now online here at Comichron. Click to see Comichron’s estimates for April 2013 comics sales.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

As reported here on Friday, North
\nAmerican comics shop retailers ordered just over $41 million worth of
\ncomic books and graphic novels in April 2013, an increase of more than
\n18% over the same month last year. That
\nfigure brings the year-to-date total to $163 million, up more than $25
\nmillion from 2012 at this point. The
\nmarket would just top $500 million for the year if the next eight months were
\ncompletely flat.<\/p>\n

Batman<\/i> #19<\/b><\/a> from DC led the comics sales list in the month, with first-month orders of more than 132,000 copies. This is, in fact, the lowest figure for a top-seller since May 2011, as we can see from the list of top-sellers by month<\/b><\/a>; it’s significant that the month is as far ahead as it is, without having a major blockbuster issue. Marvel placed several Age of Ultron <\/b><\/i>issues in the Top 10.<\/p>\n

The Top 300 graphic novels again posted a huge number \u2014 up 30% over the same dollar value from last year \u2014 but as with last month, there is a significant caution. Marvel offered many hardcovers to the market at a deep discount during the tracking period, contributing to the total value. But Diamond calculates its market shares based on wholesale value \u2014 what retailers paid, not the cover prices of the items they bought \u2014 so we do not see an outsized influence of those sales on the market shares.<\/p>\n

As usual, Diamond also released lists of its Top 50 Small Publisher comics and graphic novels; many of these fell outside the Top 300 lists, and have been added to Comichron’s tables<\/b><\/a>. (Don’t ask to see the missing entries, because they’re from the larger publishers and weren’t on the lists Diamond released.) The graphic novel list contains data this month going almost to 500th place, where Diamond was still selling about 300 copies of each title.<\/p>\n

You can see what was selling in comparative months of the past in our April Flashbacks column<\/b><\/a>, which is now online. April was the 20th anniversary of the return of Superman from the dead, the top month for comics orders in the history of the Direct Market.<\/p>\n

The aggregate sales:<\/p>\n

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

April 2013<\/a>: <\/b>6.79 million copies
\nVersus 1 year ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +11%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +1%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +13%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: -3%
\nYEAR TO DATE: 27.72 million copies, +16% vs. 2012, +7% vs. 2008, +20% vs. 2003, unchanged vs. 1998<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS UNIT SALES<\/b>
\nApril 2013 versus one year ago this month: +11.71%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +16.85%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

April 2013: $24.28 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +14%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +13%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month: +45%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month: +38%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $99.48 million, +20% vs. 2012, +22% vs. 2008, +54% vs. 2003, +48% vs. 1998<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS DOLLAR SALES<\/b>
\nApril 2013 versus one year ago this month: +13.87%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +19.44%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

April 2013: $8.77 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +30%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: +10%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 50 vs. the Top 50: +10%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $31.55 million, +27% vs. 2012<\/p>\n

ALL TRADE PAPERBACK\u00a0 SALES<\/b>
\nApril 2013 versus one year ago this month: +14.83%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +15.85%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

April 2013: $33.05 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +18%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month, counting just the Top 100 TPBs: +11%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month, counting just the Top 25 TPBs: +26%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $131.02 million, +22% vs. 2012<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS AND TRADE PAPERBACK\u00a0 SALES<\/b>
\nApril 2013 versus one year ago this month: +14.18%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +18.32%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

April 2013: approximately $41.11 million (subject to revision)
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +14%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +12%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month: +54%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $163.05 million, +18% vs. 2012<\/p>\n

The average comic book in the Top 300 cost $3.55; the average comic book
\nretailers ordered cost $3.58. The median and most common price for comics offered was $3.99. Click to see comics prices across time.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

IDW once again saw its highest dollar market share
\nyet, 7.54%: the update has been made to the list of Diamond Exclusive Era records<\/b><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The pages for monthly top sellers<\/b><\/a> and 300th place titles across time<\/b><\/a> have been updated.\u00a0 <\/b>
\n
\n<\/a>
\n<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diamond Comic Distributors has released the main wave of comics sales statistics for April 2013 comics sales, and the estimates are now online here at Comichron. Click to see Comichron’s estimates for April 2013 comics sales. As reported here on Friday, North American comics shop retailers ordered just over $41 million worth of comic books … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4863,"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-4862","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\/4862","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=4862"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6463,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4862\/revisions\/6463"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}