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Do you think this is a good idea or a bad idea? I thought I had seen everything that could be done with incentive covers, heck I read comics through the 90s. But this is a new one on me, a retailer incentive series.
A special, retailer-incentive limited series, all four issues of BOOK OF DEATH: LEGENDS OF THE GEOMANCER will be printed in limited quantities and will only be made available to retailers who qualify based on their orders of BOOK OF DEATH #1-4. Fans interested in obtaining this special incentive limited series should contact their local comics retailer to pre-order their copy before the May 28th initial order date for BOOK OF DEATH #1 (of 4).
Mike Myers emailed me about this very topic this morning.
As I understood it at the Valiant panel at C2E2, the idea was to boost sales of the other Valiant comics since they felt more could be sold if stores had more copies. I liked the idea as it was explained to the crowd of Valiant readers. It seemed, and maybe I misunderstood what they were saying, that it wasn't going to be an unrealistic burden on the retailers. I think I recorded that panel using my phone. I'll see if I can dig up the recording and find the part when they discussed this.
As I understand it now having looked at the order 25 of the Book of Death to be able to order as single copy of Book of Death: Legends of the Geomancer, I think it is a very flawed approach to solving the problem as Valiant sees it. I think it will lead to very low sales of the Book of Death: Legends of the Geomancer series and reduce brand loyalty at both the reader and retailer levels.
Since I know many users shop there, and it was a way to get a feel for the pricing, I just looked this up on DCBS. They are charging $20 for the first issue of this series. If Valiant thinks making customers pay that of even higher for a 24page comic book is going to help sell more books and build customer loyalty I think they greatly mistaken.
fudd71 wrote:Since I know many users shop there, and it was a way to get a feel for the pricing, I just looked this up on DCBS. They are charging $20 for the first issue of this series. If Valiant thinks making customers pay that of even higher for a 24page comic book is going to help sell more books and build customer loyalty I think they greatly mistaken.
Am I looking at the wrong thing in the DCBS Excel order form. Line 2137 seems to have "BOOK OF DEATH LEGENDS OF GEOMANCER #1 (OF 4) *Special Discount*" at a $3.99 cover price with a 50% discount putting it at $1.99.
I'm not a normal customer, so I don't know the site well, but the 4th one down on the right hand side seems to be the "1:25 Incentive Issue, NO Regular Cover Available" DCBS Price: $20.00. It is completely possible I'm looking at the wrong item, but if I am, they aren't making the issue easy to find.
One other point on this: Part of the justification for this was that stores were selling out of Valiant titles early on the day of release. How does trying to inflate the sales of Book of Death using the incentive Book of Death: Legend of the Geomancer series address the problem of stores not have enough copies of the other Valiant titles?
I am increasingly of the opinion that Valiant is trying to boost sales of "Book of Death" using this incentive miniseries approach at the literal expense of hardcore fans (not to be confused with H.A.R.D. Corps fans).
I was all in on Valiant, in fact twice over, as I bought both the comics and the trades. With this move, I will now be all out. There are too many good books out there to waste time supporting a company which thinks this little of their fans to put out a 24 page comic for $20. (At DCBS at least - I suspect more at other retailers.) And then to also say that it won't be available either digitally or as a trade, while focusing on the backstory of a key character/element of your universe? They have just told me they don't actually want my support or money - they just want to bleed those few suckers who they can.
I'd be more inclined if it were a 1:10 variant, but this is too much. While the speculator side of me likes the idea of having a copy of a story only available this way, the practical and pragmatic side of me insists I not participate. Sorry Valiant. I am neither all in or all out. I get about 4 titles from them on average each month, and I am happy with that.
I've read about this issue on many other forums - some justification was found from a few posters but overall a lot of irritated fans.
Some other interesting points that were mentioned on the other forums is the Book of Death (BoD) is returnable if the 25 book limit is met and Valiant is giving retailers an 80% discount. Not sure of the validity of the post, but if true, retailers wouldn't be hurt if they sold BoD:Geomancers at an inflated rate and sold through the regular copies of BoD.
Disappointing move by a company that seemed to place fans first. Depriving the majority of their readership from reading a possibly very good comic (judging by the current quality of titles) is a shame.
To answer the original question, anything done to deprive loyal consumers a chance to own a product is a bad idea.
Here is the section of the retailer order form for "Book of Death" and "Book of Death: Legends of the Geomancer":
FI MAY15 1586 E BOOK OF DEATH #1 (OF 4) CVR A GILL $3.99 = $ 07/15/15 06/22/15 1
(NOTE: Order the min number of copies of Book of Death #1 (cvrs A-E any comb) based on your DCD disc tier and total order is fully returnable and will rcv 80% disc. Speak with your CS Rep or see retailer website to ID disc tier.)
FI MAY15 1587 E BOOK OF DEATH #1 (OF 4) CVR B NORD $3.99 = $
07/15/15 06/22/15 1
(NOTE: Order the min number of copies of Book of Death #1 (cvrs A-E any comb) based on your DCD disc tier and total order is fully returnable and will rcv 80% disc. Speak with your CS Rep or see retailer website to ID disc tier.)
FI MAY15 1588 E BOOK OF DEATH #1 (OF 4) CVR C CRAIN $3.99 = $ 07/15/15 06/22/15 1
(NOTE: Order the min number of copies of Book of Death #1 (cvrs A-E any comb) based on your DCD disc tier and total order is fully returnable and will rcv 80% disc. Speak with your CS Rep or see retailer website to ID disc tier.)
FI MAY15 1589 E BOOK OF DEATH #1 (OF 4) CVR D KEVIC-DJURDJEVIC $3.99 = $ 07/15/15 06/22/15 1
(NOTE: Order the min number of copies of Book of Death #1 (cvrs A-E any comb) based on your DCD disc tier and total order is fully returnable and will rcv 80% disc. Speak with your CS Rep or see retailer website to ID disc tier.)
FI MAY15 1590 E BOOK OF DEATH #1 (OF 4) CVR E BLANK CVR $3.99 = $ 07/15/15 06/22/15 1
(NOTE: Order the min number of copies of Book of Death #1 (cvrs A-E any comb) based on your DCD disc tier and total order is fully returnable and will rcv 80% disc. Speak with your CS Rep or see retailer website to ID disc tier.)
MAY15 1591 E BOOK OF DEATH #1 (OF 4) CVR F 10 COPY INCV CHAR DSN RIVERA $3.99 = $ 07/15/15 06/22/15 1
(NOTE: For every 10 copies of Book of Death #1 ordered (cvrs A-E any comb) retailers may order 1 Paolo Rivera Character Design Variant cover.)
MAY15 1592 E BOOK OF DEATH #1 (OF 4) CVR G 20 COPY INCV ICONS PEREZ $3.99 = $ 07/15/15 06/22/15 1
(NOTE: For every 20 copies of Book of Death #1 ordered (cvrs A-E any comb) retailers may order 1 Pere Perez Valiant Icons Variant cover.)
MAY15 1593 E BOOK OF DEATH #1 (OF 4) CVR H 60 COPY INCV RIVERA $3.99 = $ 07/15/15 06/22/15 1
(NOTE: For every 60 copies of Book of Death #1 ordered (cvrs A-E any comb) retailers may order 1 Paolo Perez Artist Variant cover.)
MAY15 1594 E BOOK OF DEATH LEGENDS OF GEOMANCER #1 (OF 4) $3.99 = $ 07/15/15 06/22/15 1
(NOTE: For every 25 copies of Book of Death #1 ordered (cvrs A-E any comb) retailer may order 1 copy of Book of Death: Legends of the Geomancer #1.)
I have no idea what the minimum number of copies is based on the discount tiers.
And, please do not use this information to badger your retailer.
Something else that came to mind was the Valiant continuity. By limiting the background of the Geomancer characters, Valiant is preventing potential story plots from being utilized in future books. As a reader who loves to know the history of the characters, I would buy a book about the Valiant past. I always thought the best Shadowman stories were the ones that examined the origins of the character.
JohnMayo wrote:And, please do not use this information to badger your retailer.
No way! I feel bad enough for my retailers after I strike up a conversation about Diamond.
I think I have answered my own question with not only is this a bad idea it is a terrible idea.
Looking at this from a pure #s side even if this works just as intended by Valliant in a best case scenario, the whole scheme is a drain on a shops cash flow, arguably the most important thing to managing a shop successfully.
Based on the information on retailer order form. A store that has 5 all in Valliant customers, and 5 who buy one or more and 3 copies for the rack, you can assume the store would on average order 10 copies of each Valliant book. And yes I’m being simplistic to stick with nice round number. For the sake of argument let’s say there are 5 Valiant title a month each with a cover price of $4. That means the retailer buys $200 (5 x 10 x $4) retail dollars worth of Valliant a month. We will assume the normal discount is 50 points (I have no idea if this is accurate but for discussion let’s use keystone discounts) that means the shop spends $100 with Valliant a month. Again let’s assume at this hypothetical shop the manager decides he need at least 8 of the special book (5 for the die-hards and 3 for the other Valliant fans). We will also assume the Valliant will put 4 books plus book of death #1 (the normal 5) plus the Legends of the Geomancer all at $4. Best case scenario the store doubles their normal sales on a Valiant book and sells 20 copies of Book of Death we will also assume the store normally sells only 90% of Valiant books ordered but in this case will sell 100% of the other Valliant books. All books are sold at full retail
Normal month invoice $100 sales $180 return $0.80 to the dollar
Since 80% discount is unclear, I don’t know if that means 80 points off retail or a discount of 80% off the shops normal discount we will look at it both ways.
80% meaning 80points off retail.
4 normal books (4 X 10 X $2normal 50 points) = $80
200 copies of Book of death needed for the 8 Legends of the Geomancer needed (200 X $0.80) = $160
8 copies Legends of the Geomancer (8 X $2) = $16
Total invoice = $256
Total sales = $272
Return to retailer $0.06 to the dollar
80% meaning 80% off normal price paid
4 normal books (4 X 10 X $2normal 50 points) = $80
200 copies of Book of death needed for the 8 Legends of the Geomancer needed (200 X $0.40) = $80
8 copies Legends of the Geomancer (8 X $2) = $16
Total invoice = $176
Total sales = $272
Return to retailer $0.55 to the dollar
Anyway you look at this, even if it goes exactly as planed by Valliant executives the cash flow Gross margin return to the shop goes from a normal 80% to 6%-55% plus they have to deal with all the ill will. The only way to make this work financially for a retailer is to charge an inflated rate for the Legends of the Geomancer book which defeats the purpose of bringing in readers. An inflated price book makes the potential audience even smaller then normal not larger. Whoever thought of this at Valliant either didn't run the numbers or is only interested in Valliant's cash flow not gaining readers.
