{"id":4887,"date":"2013-04-09T06:54:00","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T06:54:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-08-01T15:31:55","modified_gmt":"2020-08-01T20:31:55","slug":"march-2013-comics-sales-estimates-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/09\/march-2013-comics-sales-estimates-now\/","title":{"rendered":"March 2013 comics sales estimates now online"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As noted here last week, sales in the
\nDirect Market were up considerably in March, according to data released by Diamond Comic Distributors<\/b><\/a>.
\nComics shops in North America ordered $41.3 million
\nworth of comics and graphic novels in March, beating the previous year’s
\ntotal by nearly 23%.<\/p>\n

Guardians of the Galaxy<\/i> #1<\/b><\/a> led the market, with orders topping 200,000 copies. Click to see the estimated sales for comics for March 2013.<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

The Top 300 graphic novels posted nearly $9 million in sales, the highest figure for that category ever. However, the figures this month were distorted considerably by heavy discounting. Marvel sold several million dollars worth of hardcovers to retailers in a sale, inflating the total retail value of books sold.<\/p>\n

We can partially see this by adding up everything that sold in the Top 300 Comics and Top 300 Graphic Novels categories: if all books were counted at full retail, Marvel’s share of those sales would have topped 50% this month. But Marvel’s overall dollar share was reported as 40% by Diamond, which makes its calculations based on wholesale dollars. So while Marvel did move more dollars worth of material (unadjusted for inflation) into shops in March than in any month in the last 17 years, an asterisk is probably in order.<\/p>\n

It’s still a blockbuster month for this time of year, no matter what. The aggregate sales:<\/p>\n

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

March 2013<\/a>: <\/b>7.2 million copies
\nVersus 1 year ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +20%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +18%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +29%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month<\/b><\/a>: +1%
\nYEAR TO DATE: 20.93 million copies, +17% vs. 2012, +10% vs. 2008, +23% vs. 2003, +1% vs. 1998<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS UNIT SALES<\/b>
\nMarch 2013 versus one year ago this month: +21.43%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +18.62%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

March 2013: $25.93 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +25%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +35%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month: +65%
\nVersus 15 years ago this month: +48%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $75.2 million, +22% vs. 2012, +26% vs. 2008, +57% vs. 2003, +51% vs. 1998<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS DOLLAR SALES<\/b>
\nMarch 2013 versus one year ago this month: +26.28%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +21.38%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

March 2013: $8.97 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +39%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month, just the Top 100 vs. the Top 100: +25%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month, just the Top 50 vs. the Top 50: +44
\nYEAR TO DATE: $22.78 million, +26% vs. 2012<\/p>\n

ALL TRADE PAPERBACK\u00a0 SALES<\/b>
\nMarch 2013 versus one year ago this month: +14.33%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +16.22%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

March 2013: $34.89 million
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +28%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month, counting just the Top 100 TPBs: +34%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month, counting just the Top 25 TPBs: +62%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $97.97 million, +23% vs. 2012<\/p>\n

ALL COMICS AND TRADE PAPERBACK\u00a0 SALES<\/b>
\nMarch 2013 versus one year ago this month: +22.59%<\/b>
\nYEAR TO DATE: +19.78%<\/b><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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

March 2013: approximately $41.33 million (subject to revision)
\nVersus 1 year ago this month: +23%
\nVersus 5 years ago this month: +32%
\nVersus 10 years ago this month: +69%
\nYEAR TO DATE: $121.94 million, +20% vs. 2012<\/p>\n

The average comic book in the Top 300 cost $3.59; the average comic book
\nretailers ordered cost $3.60. The median price for comics offered was $3.97, and the most common price for comics offered was $3.99. Click to see comics prices across time.<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

The Flashback column for Marches past<\/b><\/a> is also online here at Comichron: click to read about the best-sellers from March five, ten, 25, and even 50 years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As noted here last week, sales in the Direct Market were up considerably in March, according to data released by Diamond Comic Distributors. Comics shops in North America ordered $41.3 million worth of comics and graphic novels in March, beating the previous year’s total by nearly 23%. Guardians of the Galaxy #1 led the market, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4888,"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-4887","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\/4887","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=4887"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6468,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4887\/revisions\/6468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comichron.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}