2007 year-end report

(12:00pm) 

Welcome to the first annual Icarus Publishing Angel Investor Financial Conference / Pep Rally / Luncheon, held at the beautiful Pho 79 restaurant (located near Federal and Exposition) and simul-cast on the internet.  Here, immersed in the sweet aroma of $5-a-bowl noodle soup and the lyrical Vietnamese insults of our surly waitress, we will take a look at the triumphs of the past year and the glorious future that lies ahead for the most cutting-edge manga publisher in North America.  We’re also going to pass around this plastic yard bag into which you may deposit your money.  (For the folks online, you can invest in Icarus by visiting our webstore.  Yeah, we’ve got one of those.)

(12:10pm, begin presentation)

2007:
The year Icarus Publishing bravely stood up from the crowd and proclaimed “Hey, we sell manga, too!”

• Sales Stats 

We begin with a look back at our sales performance in 2007.  As with all such investor meetings, the purpose of this presentation is to assuage investor fears by putting a positive spin on absolutely everything, if not lie outright, so we will only be discussing gross revenue in vague percentages and abstract depictions of wealth, accompanied by misleading graphs and not-to-scale pie charts.  Also note that losses incurred from late or non-payment by certain accounts are not reflected in these numbers.  You know who you are, you lousy sons of b-… ahem.

Total gross revenue increase, 2006 to 2007:

Gross sales in 2007 increased 17.41% over 2006, which amounts to a money sack approximately twice the size of an ordinary money sack.  38.24% of our gross sales came from Diamond.  As the graph indicates, profits are soaring at Icarus.

*Graph not actually indicative of any profit.

(12:35pm)

• Retail Fuc Penetration

Using a combination of statistical analysis, reader surveys, and consultations with top foreign exchange students, we have calculated the number of stores in the direct market which carry Icarus Publishing books and comics:

Currently, only 23% of the direct market supports Icarus Publishing.

Through the course of our research, we also found these interesting statistics:

Note: the market penetration pie chart is purely an estimate, since Diamond does not share that information with publishers.  The other pie charts, however, are 100% accurate.

(1:25pm)

• Top Products of 2007

The 3 best seling books of 2007 in units sold are as follows:

1. Council of Carnality Unlimited 
2. Blue Eyes 3
3. Taboo District

These three titles are not the fastest or best overall sellers, but all three had the benefit of being release in early 2007.

THE FUTURE:
Boldly going where no other publisher has gone before (excluding Fantagraphics, Radio Comix, ComicsOne, Central Park Media, Venus Comics, Verotik, and Studio Ironcat.)

• New License Aquisition

No, we’re not going to license John K Peta.  Stop emailing me.

(1:28pm)

• New Print Format

Icarus Publishing has always been at the forefront of finding new and exciting ways to present our material to audiences.  Repeatedly.  And we will take the lead once again in 2008 when we debut our brand new format, the OMNITANK ™.

Collecting 42 volumes into one single unstoppable package, the OMNITANK ™ is clearly superior to omnibus editions from other publishers.  Each book will require the equivalent of 16 old-growth redwoods to manufacture.  At launch, the suggested retail price will be $2,599.98.

• Online Initiative

At the end of 2007 we held an online distribution experiment to study the feasibility of offering e-books via “The BitTorrent.”  Within the first two weeks of making the e-book available, the number of downloads surpassed average readership of the print version of Comic AG.

Unfortunately, approximately two-thirds of downloads were to IP addresses located in Japan.

(1:55pm)

Icarus is a company on the rise.  With steady yearly growth and huge portions of the market as yet untapped, Icarus is on course to see even more success in 2008.  In fact, in two-years time we fully expect to be able to afford a real Powerpoint presentation.

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And now for some news items around the net…

PWCW has a great interview with Kio Shimoku who, in true otaku fashion, is ashamed and troubled by the increasing exposure given to the highly fetishistic (not necessarily in the sexual sense) Japanese fan culture that spawned the concept of “moe”.

Also in this week’s issue, an updated look at Tor and Seven Seas’ co-publishing endeavor, set to launch in March of this year.

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Comics212 has a cool series of photos of design sheets by Osamu Tezuka.

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Elements by Tanuki Kamogawa will be shipping very, very soon.  In fact, it’s already in California… it’s just caught in the customs inspection process.  Just a little longer, guys.

Oh, and Comic AG issue 73 is available this Wednesday!  Or maybe it was last Friday… I’m not sure.  Post-holiday shipping schedules are always difficult to decipher, so check with your local comic shop.