Publishers are weird, too; How publishing pr0n is driving me into poverty

On the specific topic of the promotional discount we offered, a perspective from retailer/columnist/blogger Brian Hibbs:

One trick with promotional pricing, especially on adults-only books, where Diamond doesn€™t print ANY solicitation information in the main PREVIEWS catalog, is that you have to figure out SOME way to properly inform us of that promotional pricing.

I looked through the AUG07 catalog, and saw no mention; same thing in the PREVIEWS ADULT catalog (at least the online version, I€™ve long since thrown out the printed catalog) €“ in fact, the only place I see it mentioned at all is on the order form. But here€™s the problem: I don€™t even USE the order form any longer €“ we€™re now on POS, so we order using the POS system and €œ(Note:)€ lines don€™t show up in the ordering interface.

Given there€™s only a 111 copy spread between #68-70, I€™m going to go ahead and assume that most stores DIDN€™T see it€¦ and that specific spread could possibly be explained by something like how the individual lines printed in the order book (for example, was #69 on the bottom of one page, and #70 on the top of the next? I don€™t know€¦. I threw out the order booklet over two months ago since we no longer use it!)

So, with all other things being equal, I€™d guess that the promotional pricing had basically NO impact€¦ but not because of something wrong with the pricing, but because most retailers almost certainly never even noticed it — because of how it was presented.

-Brian Hibbs

And in that are some important lessons for small pubs like me… never assume anything, and don’t rely on anyone else to get the message out.  I assumed the discount itself was promotion enough, I assumed that retailers would see the discount on their order forms; wrong on both counts.  (In my own defense, we would have plugged the discount in Previews, except since it’s technically a consumer catalog, we are not allowed to talk about pricing.)  Because retailers are the true buyers in the direct market, I ultimately have the responsibility of making sure our communication gets to them, and I failed to do that here.

Which leads us to the question: how do we properly inform retailers?  This gives me a segue into Tom Spurgeon’s excellent post that touches on the very topic of getting information to publishers, or the lack thereof in the direct market.  Diamond doesn’t provide any retailer information to publishers, unless publishers pay a fee.  Even then, the process isn’t very easy.  We don’t know who out of the 3500 retailers out there are buying a lot of our products, who buy a little bit (so there’s room to improve sales), and who refuse to sell adult publications at all… and this is a particular problem for us.  It’s really bad form to cold-call retailers to sell porn.

Another example of how this gridlock on information may be hurting the effectiveness of our promotions: for our free comics, we had to pay Diamond to ship them out.  But since we had no idea who our customers really are, Diamond chose where to send them.  Was the lukewarm response to those comics due to them being sent to retailers who had little desire to sell adult material?  Could be.

But, back to the original post from yesterday.  While my own oversights could explain why the discount gave only a small bump to AG issue 69, I don’t feel it explains why issue 70 had a dip.  A spread between the two issues was expected… the drop in orders on the regularly-discounted issue was not.  It would be easier for me to think that this was an anomoly, except our numbers have been so consistant for so long that I couldn’t help but see a connection, and draw the conclusion that of the few who did notice the promotion and decided to take advantage of it, some of them also cut orders slightly on the other issue.  I can understand perfectly why that may be done… for one, space is a limiting factor.  But whatever the reason, this was my small taste of the exasperation that other pubs have felt (and blogged publicly about): the exceeding difficulty of improving one’s position in the direct market, the apparent impotance of outreach efforts, the perplexity of watching DM sales remain stagnant while other channels improve.  A better discount leads to lower sales on the next issue?  Come on, you can’t blame me too much for feeling like I’m in the Twilight Zone…

Some retailers point to indy pubs’ inability to promote their products effectly, while indy pubs point to their sales sheets as proof that they are reaching their audience… but that the real difficulty lies in getting those people to make their purchases in a comic book shop.  Given the response to our various promotions, I gotta say I’m starting to lean towards the latter explanation.  And this time I have some numbers to point to… but what I really want to know is whether the potential reward for a small comics pub to figure this out is great enough to justify the effort.

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So, umm… did the rumored entry into DM distribution by companies unknown come to fruition in Baltimore over the week?  Anybody? No?  Awww……

Here’s Newsarama’s coverage of the event, anyway.

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ICv2 reports that ero anime publishers Critical Mass and Adult Source Media are teaming up to “battle illegal downloads of their licensed properties.”  Websites, whether free or a pay site, will be the primary targets.  Not much else is revealed about the hows and whys of the alliance, although I would imagine this would ameliorate the cost of enforcement for both.

A couple of things about ero anime… the Japanese production companies which create them are relatively small studios, and in recent times revenue from licensing shows overseas has become ever more important for their survival.  Second, ero anime is the one genre which has really embraced digital downloading, which means fansubs and rips are in direct competition with legitimate product.

And just as I finish writing this… I notice Anime News Network has the full press release, including an e-mail ( stoppiracy@adultsourcemedia.com ) for people to report suspected pirate sites.

Edit: Also worth noting… Shawn Kleckner of Right Stuf directly answers questions at the forum regarding how bootlegging is truly hurting both domestic licensees and the Japanese producers.

And because people will probably ask… at Icarus, artists do get royalties for each book sold.  In fact, they get the largest chunk outside of retailers, printers, and distributors, who all have their own overhead.  Out of the $20 you spend on every one of our books (and this is assuming the book sells out):

• 45% goes to retailers
• 15% goes to distributor
• 18% goes to the artist
• 12~13% goes to the printer
• 3~4% goes towards shipping costs
• ~7% goes to me… which I use to first pay translators, illustrator, other freelance workers; storage rental, and catnip toys for my kitty, among other things

See… I’m not joking when I talk about eating ramen.

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This review of How to Draw Manga: Yaoi at Manga Jouhou reminds me that I need to redouble efforts to coax certain someones in Japan to write a how-to book for drawing ero manga.

Meanwhile, MangaCast –> Yaoi Suki –> Yahoo Yaoi in English Group dig up info and pictures of Deux’s (potentially) new yaoi licenses.