The last issue of USM #133 sold 57,364 copies @$2.99 for $171,518.36
The current issue (on the chart) for UCSM #6 sold 43,622 @$3.99 for $174051.78
Let me pull out my handy-dandy calculator....for a difference of $2533.42. It only took 6 months to reach that level.
Now the first issue had sales over 86,000, so that helps a bit in the long run of profit I would figure. Yet, all things not being equal I would assume (right or wrong) that there are some shops already making less on the new series than they were on the old one. At normal rates of sales attrition overall shops will be making equal to or less than they did before the relaunch pretty soon. I just wonder if the first two issues (the only two to sell more than the last issue of USM) made it worth it for shop owners? Or are they ticked off at the relaunch and the bottom line?
The sales figures at the Beat included a two issue Requiem mini that I ignored because it was a mini series, and I didn't know the price of it.
Any other thoughts? Comments? I'm not really sure where I am going with this, I just liked the math a numbers of it all. I am too lazy to look up when the DC titles with backups switched to $3.99 and compare those to current sales
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Well I don't think I really had much of a conclusion per se. I chose the last issue of the regular series, because that just seemed right. Choosing any other issue would seem arbitrary. The last two issues of the regular series ended on an uptick, which suggests you were right in that people wanted to see how it all ended.
Then looking deeper at how it ended issue 132 had sales of 50,144 for $149930.56
and issue 131 49,565 @ $148199.35
Which would put it significantly lower than its current sales, which would certainly give it more leeway with Marvel.
One of the reasons I even brought this up is that price changes are hardly every mentioned on the sales chart analysis. A title will be relaunched, and then compared to the previous title at the same or lower sales figures, but it isn' mentioned that the cover price was increased.
It would be interesting though to see the data for all of the titles that went to the higher price in the last year or so and see if their rate of decline was different than the rate of decline on titles that kept the same price.
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -Groucho Marx
Check out the Secret Headquarters (my store) website! It's a pretty lame website, but I did it myself, so tough noogies
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But I think it would be foolish in the extreme to assume that DC would be dropping book prices; the last time I remember that happening was when comics went from 25 cents to 20 cents, and THAT was because of a major shrinking in page size. (Oh, and the dollar super spectaculars that continued - the only ones were Detective Comics and World's Finest, as I recall...)
Someone once said, "Hey! If those series are good enough to hold a back up spot, they're good enough to hold their own series." It's hard to believe that anyone has so fouled up the LSH that they couldn't hold their own book, I grant you. The other three that I know are done - I might pick up a regular Metal Men book, but then again, I am the Silver Age Fogey. (And you can be sure I'd miss it if it were as bad as that back up strip was!)
I don't see any return to three dollars a book; and I think a price jump this big is going to be the start down the road of the End of Comic Books. I hate it as much as any of you, and a lot more besides; but I can't see how comics can go on, as they are, in the quantities necessary to sustain publication. I just think it's gone too far...
Hoping himself wrong,
Eric L. Sofer
The Silver Age Fogey
x<]:o){
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read." -Groucho Marx
Check out the Secret Headquarters (my store) website! It's a pretty lame website, but I did it myself, so tough noogies
Listen to WOXY.com, it's the future of rock-n-roll!
Issue #852 the last @$2.99 56,656 copies - $169,401.44
Issue #861 @$3.99 45,937 copies - $183,288.63
Still ahead money wise from where it was before. Now I know this is a sample size of one, so you can't really do much with it, but it does seem to be shedding readers pretty fast, 25% in the last 6 months The average DC Universe title has lost 18% of its readership.
Is this due to people not liking the storyline, or the price, or both? (Sidetrack, for me, it was the story, I would have bailed at $2.99 as it just didn't do it for me)
I will be interested in the sales of Captain America when its price hike comes in. And the sales of the titles that are getting a price reduction to $2.99.
I think that despite rave reviews there is a silent majority of readers who dropped Detective Comics because Batman is no longer in it. Thus, we get the early extraction of Batwoman from it's pages after the next issue. I'm actually more tempted to bail after that one because I was really enjoying the Rucka/Williams III run. To be honest, though, the current "Cutter" three-parter isn't that great. Fortunately, the Question co-feature makes up for its deficiencies, especially with last week's installment.
On a related note, I hope today's announcement of Nomad and Arana moving to a new ongoing means that Captain America will go back to being co-featureless very soon.
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