Moderns that are heating up on ebay! 70 70

[gradejunky]

1 hour ago, fastballspecial said:

I often now wonder if Cates just sits on tons of copies and announces stuff periodically now. Hell of a profit if he did.

 

 

Well, I wasn't pumping and dumping as I didn't even link my listing of this book on that post but I just sold my 9.6 raw copy within an hour of listing:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Venom-First-Host-3-2nd-Print-NM-9-6-1st-Sleeper-Super-Scarce-Marvel/264442385061?hash=item3d91fe92a5

[fastballspecial]

9 minutes ago, gradejunky said:

1 hour ago, fastballspecial said:

I often now wonder if Cates just sits on tons of copies and announces stuff periodically now. Hell of a profit if he did.

 

 

Well, I wasn't pumping and dumping as I didn't even link my listing of this book on that post but I just sold my 9.6 raw copy within an hour of listing:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Venom-First-Host-3-2nd-Print-NM-9-6-1st-Sleeper-Super-Scarce-Marvel/264442385061?hash=item3d91fe92a5

No that wasn't meant as a slight toward you in any way. Sales are sales.

I am just amazed at his capability to move markets like he does in the last year I can show several
examples of how just a few words from the guy generates tons of sales.

He has speculators wrapped around his finger.

 

Edited August 25, 2019 by fastballspecial

[gradejunky]

12 minutes ago, fastballspecial said:

No that wasn't meant as a slight toward you in any way. Sales are sales.

I am just amazed at his capability to move markets like he does in the last year I can show several
examples of how just a few words from the guy generates tons of sales.

He has speculators wrapped around his finger.

 

Oh no, I wasn't even thinking about you slighting me fastball; quite the contrary. I was just sending a link to show that my book sold within an hour at a very aggressive price even though no link had been shown.  Just proving I guess if you have this book sell it now! You are a stand-up member of this community IMHO.

[showcase4]

22 hours ago, gradejunky said:

Well, I wasn't pumping and dumping as I didn't even link my listing of this book on that post but I just sold my 9.6 raw copy within an hour of listing:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Venom-First-Host-3-2nd-Print-NM-9-6-1st-Sleeper-Super-Scarce-Marvel/264442385061?hash=item3d91fe92a5

..... and  I look forward to receiving it  ( I am your buyer ) 

 

Edited August 26, 2019 by showcase4

[paul747]

On 8/24/2019 at 11:16 AM, fastballspecial said:

I hope kamilla finds an audience otherwise all these buyers paying big money for that book are screwed. It sure didnt sell well monthly.

She had a huge audience and sold more trades than anyone .

[fastballspecial]

3 minutes ago, paul747 said:

On 8/24/2019 at 10:16 AM, fastballspecial said:

I hope kamilla finds an audience otherwise all these buyers paying big money for that book are screwed. It sure didnt sell well monthly.

She had a huge audience and sold more trades than anyone .

Yes I know she had decent TPB sales. Her huge audience though didn't buy monthlies and that is pretty hard to dispute
just look at the numbers each month. This might not even matter if she is a hit.

Here are couple of TPB examples from the  last few years. 

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

[maidenmate91]

2 hours ago, paul747 said:

She had a huge audience and sold more trades than anyone .

To Libraries, and Ollie's discount bargain store, for 75% off retail. Yes, this is true. 

[THB]

Scholastic exposes this character to readers all over the country just like with Bone. It's not only comic book stores anymore.

[Brock]

1 hour ago, THB said:

Scholastic exposes this character to readers all over the country just like with Bone. It's not only comic book stores anymore.

I think this other market dwarfs the direct sales market... Rain Telgemeier is a legitimate comics superstar, and earns millions a year from her comics, but few on these boards have probably read any of her work.

However, few people playing in that "other" market (served by Scholastic a range of specialist publishers) see any of their books rising in price in the back issue market (the thrust of this thread).

It's interesting to see, though, how Ms. Marvel crosses these two solitudes - selling well in the "other" market, while her back issues continue to rise in "our" market. In that context, there are very few comparators - maybe Bone, Walking Dead and Saga? Perhaps Maus (with early editions/appearances being so pricy)?

[fastballspecial]

6 hours ago, THB said:

Scholastic exposes this character to readers all over the country just like with Bone. It's not only comic book stores anymore.

I agree now show me numbers. Otherwise its just talk honestly.

 

[fastballspecial]

5 hours ago, Brock said:

6 hours ago, THB said:

Scholastic exposes this character to readers all over the country just like with Bone. It's not only comic book stores anymore.

I think this other market dwarfs the direct sales market... Rain Telgemeier is a legitimate comics superstar, and earns millions a year from her comics, but few on these boards have probably read any of her work.

However, few people playing in that "other" market (served by Scholastic a range of specialist publishers) see any of their books rising in price in the back issue market (the thrust of this thread).

It's interesting to see, though, how Ms. Marvel crosses these two solitudes - selling well in the "other" market, while her back issues continue to rise in "our" market. In that context, there are very few comparators - maybe Bone, Walking Dead and Saga? Perhaps Maus (with early editions/appearances being so pricy)?

Agree now show me some numbers like I said to THB. I want to believe in this character, but nobody can show me anything to show me any kinds of upward trend in sales. 

I pulled TPB sales that she was apparently killing it on she is not. 

Someone pull Scholastic info for me and some me some numbers. So no slight to anyone who is a fan I just want numbers to prove it.

Not just speculators who are hoping they didn't overpay.

 

Edited August 27, 2019 by fastballspecial

[ygogolak]

15 hours ago, fastballspecial said:

I agree now show me numbers. Otherwise its just talk honestly.

 

Marvel: 40% of our readers are female and our sales are just fine, thanks

Marvel’s David Gabriel, their svp – print, sales & marketing, doesn’t do too many interviews, ...

In part two, Gabriel mentions that Disney Stores are now carrying some Disney, Marvel and Star Wars books. Finally. And at Scholastic book fairs, they’re carrying Han Solo, Totally Awesome Hulk, All-New All-Different Avengers, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, and Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. So if you wonder why those last two books are still being published, wonder no more. Gabriel also gives big play to the Squirel Girl OGN, which could be a significant release for this format.

https://www.comicsbeat.com/marvel-40-of-our-readers-are-female-and-our-sales-are-just-fine-thanks/

Edited August 28, 2019 by ygogolak

[Brock]

16 hours ago, fastballspecial said:

I agree now show me numbers. Otherwise its just talk honestly.

In my mind, it may not be quite that straightforward. To the best of my knowledge, Scholastic does not release any sales info for individual books, but we can infer a fair bit from existing sources.

First, we know that Scholastic sales are huge. In 2016, comic blogger Ben Towle (benzilla.com) put together some reasonable estimates suggesting that as many as 19.5 million US youth participate annually in Scholastic book fairs. For accuracy's sake, about 115,000 book fairs are held in the US each year. Plus, for many schools, there are catalogues (think of a mini Previews) that are sent home with each student for independent orders on a monthly basis. Of course, Scholastic also distributes its books (using similar approaches) across the English-speaking world, including Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and India (collectively a market that is as much as 5 times larger than the US).

From this we can infer that the Scholastic market is exponentially larger than the direct market, or possibly even the US bookstore market. We can also see that the scope and scale of the marketing and distribution system are massive - so large that the company has 9,700 employees. So how does this affect comic sales?

Again, we have few exact numbers, but there are some interesting indicators. In a 2014 interview with the Beat (comicsbeat.com), Ted Adams of IDW talked about the importance of Scholastic to IDW's publishing strategy. He said:

The other place that I think is a great feeder system for comics but doesn’t get talked about much is the Scholastic book fairs and book clubs. We’ve had tremendous success with them over the years, most recently in the current Scholastic catalogue there are three IDW products, My Little Pony, Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. One each of those books in the current catalogue. I just got the sell through on those and it’s also extraordinary, it’s through the roof.

Adams was then asked if the Scholastic system actually worked for comic publishers (which is basically your question, too). He replied:

Oh it actually worked. We’ve been selling to them for years.

When pressed for specific numbers, Adams said:

They’re actually looking to be completely sold out by summer. So you’re talking about virtually 100% sell through in significant six figure quantities for all three of those books.

This suggests that, in 2014 IDW was selling AT LEAST 100,000 copies of single My Little Pony, Transformers and TMNT collections through Scholastic, and possible many, many more ("significant six figure quantities" being hard to pin down).

We can compare these numbers with IDW's bookstore sales, using Brian Hibb's annual BookScan summary, and it shows that in bookstores, IDW's 2014 top sellers were Skylanders: The Kaos Trap (almost 12,000 sold), Locke and Key (8,602 sold), and My Little Pony (7,753 sold). This suggests to me that for a book like My Little Pony, Scholastic sales were AT LEAST 13 times higher through Scholastic than through bookstores as a whole (using Adams' six-figure comment as a 100,000 unit baseline) and potentially much, much higher.

It seems likely to me that we can apply similar multipliers to Marvel's books through Scholastic, though this is obviously an approximation. So if Ms. Marvel Vol. 1 sold 11,479 volumes for Marvel in bookstores in 2014 (as suggested in the posts above), it's not unreasonable to estimate that Scholastic could have sold AT LEAST another 149,000 copies through their distribution system.

We can quibble about the exact number, but the scale of the sales is evident.

In terms of how this impacts Marvel's publishing plans, it's important to keep in mind that Marvel has always underperformed in the bookstore and collected edition component of the market, where competitors like Image and DC have run circles around it. In part, this is because it lacks perennial sellers like Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns, and (IMHO) because its constant relaunches make it difficult to know which collected volumes of any given series to read next. Everyone knows what the next volume of Sandman or Walking Dead to read is, but it's hard to know what volume of Avengers is next...

So, in an environment where Marvel struggles to succeed, a single buyer like Scholastic can definitely be the tail wagging the dog. Sales of 5,000 copies in BookScan or in the Direct Market can't tell the story about Scholastic. However, Marvel itself has suggested that these sales are strong (and they must have SOME rationale for continuing to publish these books), and the circumstantial evidence presented here helps to explain the wider context.

Not necessarily proof positive, but I think this is pretty compelling.

Edited August 28, 2019 by Brock

[Darth Floppy]

Good news for Marvel, but the ability to attract new readership in long term is another story.  One analogy I can think of that may relate is kids playing soccer.  Almost every tyke plays soccer, simple rules and minimal gear, but past a certain point, they move on to other sports or stopping playing altogether.

I took up basketball and football and never looked back.  We all read Curious George and Where the Wild Things are as little children, but I doubt many of us still care about these books unless we are parents ourselves.

[ygogolak]

1 hour ago, Darth Floppy said:

Good news for Marvel, but the ability to attract new readership in long term is another story.  One analogy I can think of that may relate is kids playing soccer.  Almost every tyke plays soccer, simple rules and minimal gear, but past a certain point, they move on to other sports or stopping playing altogether.

I took up basketball and football and never looked back.  We all read Curious George and Where the Wild Things are as little children, but I doubt many of us still care about these books unless we are parents ourselves.

So you're saying none of the people on these boards, let alone the hobby, are adults that read comics as kids?

Edited August 28, 2019 by ygogolak

[Lazyboy]

41 minutes ago, Brock said:

This suggests that, in 2014 IDW was selling AT LEAST 100,000 copies of single My Little Pony, Transformers and TMNT collections through Scholastic, and possible many, many more ("significant six figure quantities" being hard to pin down).

We can compare these numbers with IDW's bookstore sales, using Brian Hibb's annual BookScan summary, and it shows that in bookstores, IDW's 2014 top sellers were Skylanders: The Kaos Trap (almost 12,000 sold), Locke and Key (8,602 sold), and My Little Pony (7,753 sold). This suggests to me that for a book like My Little Pony, Scholastic sales were AT LEAST 13 times higher through Scholastic than through bookstores as a whole (using Adams' six-figure comment as a 100,000 unit baseline) and potentially much, much higher.

It seems likely to me that we can apply similar multipliers to Marvel's books through Scholastic, though this is obviously an approximation. So if Ms. Marvel Vol. 1 sold 11,479 volumes for Marvel in bookstores in 2014 (as suggested in the posts above), it's not unreasonable to estimate that Scholastic could have sold AT LEAST another 149,000 copies through their distribution system.

We can quibble about the exact number, but the scale of the sales is evident.

That's great! But when will these 10-year-olds start paying $100+ for single back issue comics?

[fastballspecial]

Great discussion I mean that. But as Brock kinda stated we dont have a smoking gun what we have is still inferred speculation.

Yes we know Scholastic is a juggernaut, but we dont know sales. Yes female readership is on the rise which I really like. All signs point right even google trends is murky because u dotn know which ms marvel it is. 

There is heavy investment in this book and to a lighter degree moon girl as well. Sometimes I just try to distinguish between rampant speculator bs  and actually solid information to demand of a title. In this case honestly it's just hard.

[Broke as a Joke]

Bone never really caught on with those kids as they became adults and could purchase back issues.  When schools push books on kids it doesn't always end up so great.  

[ygogolak]

31 minutes ago, fastballspecial said:

Great discussion I mean that. But as Brock kinda stated we dont have a smoking gun what we have is still inferred speculation.

Yes we know Scholastic is a juggernaut, but we dont know sales. Yes female readership is on the rise which I really like. All signs point right even google trends is murky because u dotn know which ms marvel it is. 

There is heavy investment in this book and to a lighter degree moon girl as well. Sometimes I just try to distinguish between rampant speculator bs  and actually solid information to demand of a title. In this case honestly it's just hard.

Do you have some comic book print run numbers I can put up against these?

[Darth Floppy]

2 hours ago, ygogolak said:

So you're saying none of the people on these boards, let alone the hobby, are adults that read comics as kids?

What I was saying that it is encouraging to see Marvel doing well in other areas in their publication division, the point I was making was is there a correlation between this area and our beloved hobby.

The soccer analogy was to illustrate that life happens and people move beyond a lot of things we love as children.

Almost EVERYBODY grew up with these characters, but sadly most lose interest later on.  Encouraging new readership keeps the hobby alive, but do these changes add to the base readership in an overall manner, rather than growing a demographic to replace a declining demographic?

Just about everybody watches the movies, many people still read, but it seems fewer people collect.  That is another discussion for another thread.  I have been collecting since the mid 70s and in my city local comic stores have declined from almost two dozen to maybe a dozen now, almost all bad. 

I am old, but the children of collectors I know do not collect physical copies, the watch more of the movies than I do and read online, but they never buy floppies.  If they only knew what Dad has stashed dad has stashed away.

We can only hope that this success can carry forward to keep publishing physical copies viable.