Nifty Comics Online

I’ve been neglecting Nifty Comics a bit lately because of my other work. As most of you reading this know, I do a lot of film and television work in addition to running a small internet business outside of the entertainment industry. Unfortunately, that stuff takes up most of my time…as you can probably tell from the fact that the Nifty Comics website hasn’t been updated in a few months (heck, the last comic we put up for direct order was Cadre #4 and Cadre #7 was just released in stores!). I’m hoping to change that and get back to posting once a week, along with adding more content to the “Storytelling” section of the website. In theory, anyway.

Well, this weekend I’ve spent a lot of time working on getting the Nifty Comics house back in line and one of the things I did was send out all of the Cadre #7 orders to retailers, distributors and fans who have ordered the issue. I knew that we had a little over 7000 preorders back in August but what I very quickly realized was that we’d sold out almost completely of the entire 8000 unit print run we’d done. By “almost completely” I mean “I’ve got about 15 copies left and that’s it.” That’s right, Cadre #7 has sold more copies in its first month than any other normal issue we’ve done. Fionn #1 sold more but it was a special issue done for an event which boosted sales on it. Now, all of the past issue have sold around that number or more over time (Cadre #1 is up around 15,000 units sold), but this is the first time we’ve hit 8,000 units at release.

I was excited about the number, but not overly so because we’ve been selling pretty well for the past year. I wasn’t excited, that is, until someone suggested I take a look a Diamond’s Top 300 Comics and see where I would rank with those numbers. (more…)

I like to ramble on in this space from time to time about my experiences as an independent comic book publisher. Recently I wrote about some of the things I do to expand the sales and reach for the comics I publisher under the Nifty Comics banner. I also talked about how our initial orders (meaning upfront orders that come in either before printing or right as the comics are released in the first week afterwards) have started to hit the 8000 mark.

Now, I’m going to tell you why getting 8000 in sales can be a bad thing if you’re not ready for them. (more…)

Like most comic publishers I spend quite a bit of time thinking about the state of the industry and how to make it better – well, truthfully, how to make my little corner of it better. After spending a lot of time thinking it over and discussing what everyone perceives to be the main elements leading to the downfall of comics (the distributor monopoly, for example), I realized what the biggest problem and killer really is: the industry.

I believe most of the problems that we encounter “in the industry” come from the industry itself. First off, comic companies tend to publish only for those who are already in the industry. Comic publishers usually target their marketing towards those who are already here and creators tend to create product only for those who are already well-versed in industry. Very rarely does the thought of bringing new readers in really ever pop up, which is insane. That would be like Hollywood only creating films for those who work in film and television. As wacky as it sounds, this seems to be the mentality of the industry at large. (more…)