The marketing of the road to god knows...
What’s Been Done So Far
To begin with, then, the target market for the road to god know… is quite simple: college aged and older female readers who love the graphic novel form. These are women who’ve regularly bought other graphic novels (such as Ghost World (by Daniel Clowes), Persepolis (by Marjane Satrapi) and The Tale of One Bad Rat (by Bryan Talbot)) and are comfortable with the medium. The problem, unfortunately, is also quite simple: reaching these readers on a very small budget is going to be tricky. There’s certainly no way of launching a national or North American-wide marketing campaign to target this group. I just don’t have the budget to mount that type of focused campaign. Instead, what I’ll be relying on is strong word of mouth advertising to generate awareness for the book.
To build interest, I’ll be using a number of different merchandise ideas that will (hopefully) build and connect with this target demographic. Some of these include: ashcan samplers (chapter excerpts of about twenty-five pages), press kits, art prints, bookmarks, buttons, and bound galleys. All of these will be distributed in various different ways (see below) and all will be distributed for free.
For road to “take off” (defined by strong initial orders), there’ll need to be a buzz well before the book is officially launched. How can this be accomplished? Well, it requires a multiple pronged strategy. The first aspect of this is using targeted marketing at arts oriented graphic novel festivals (conventions like the Small Press Expo (SPX) in Bethesda, Maryland and the Alternative Press Expo (APE) in San Francisco, California). These events attract exactly the demographic we are looking for and are an excellent way to grow word of mouth. The disadvantage is obvious, however. These events are expensive and we’ll need to have strong measurable data to try and determine if they are worth the dollars we are investing in them.
The second prong is by networking with key opinion formers. There are a number of influential women in comics and developing contacts with them is quite important. Critical groups include The Friends of Lulu and Sequential Tart (both collectives charted with growing female readership of comics) and also key reviewers. If a good number of these believe in the book, it will go a long way towards building word of mouth.
Retailers, especially Direct Market retailers are the third prong in the strategy. Having been a retailer myself, it is impossible to underestimate how critical retailers are in increasing sales of specific titles. A retailer who gets behind a title can dramatically change a books outlook. Direct Market retailers (traditional comic book shops) are critical since the orders they place for titles are often non-returnable (though it should be mentioned that this has changed as more of these retailers diversify their supply chain away from Diamond Distribution). In addition, Direct Market retailers are key opinion formers. While measurable data is tricky to qualify, titles like Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World had their initial sales in Direct Market stores. Only later, with the larger media buzz behind them, do we see growth in these titles in the larger book trade.
Lastly, key academics and librarians need to be contacted. Some librarians have long championed the graphic novel as a “circulation builder” at libraries. A number of these librarians are also published authors and key commentators on graphic novels as a medium. Tying into this are the various academics (typically professors) who have adopted graphic novels as part of their overall academic focus. These individuals have done a great deal of work developing a criticism of comics. Obviously, tapping into that will be a key outreach effort, as well.
These four marketing streams (“art” conventions, key opinion formers, direct market retailers, and strong academic and/or library sources) is what we’ll need to target to generate buzz.
Competition
Competition for the road to god knows… comes from a number of different areas. I should mention at the outset, however, that competition between titles and/or genres is a difficult thing to quantify in the world of books. While people who do read graphic novels slide into various genre “camps” (superhero fans, for example), I don’t believe that this is an area of concern in general. Why? Well, the main reason is that readers seek out new experiences all the time. Sometimes that’s a “more of the same” type mentality but often it’s new and different experiences that relate to what they enjoy. My book is pretty much an arts/indy type story and will fit into those readers (again, primarily female) who enjoy this type of experience. From that point of view, I’m really not competing with super hero titles or whatnot. The pool of indy titles isn’t that huge.
Where the competition does come from, however, is shelf space. Getting the road to god knows… on to a store or library’s shelf in the first place will be exceptionally difficult. Ensuring that retailers are purchasing my book at a decent profit margin will be problematic (especially with distribution through Diamond) and ensuring retailers get a strong stock turn once they bring in the shelf will be impossible to guarantee. I suspect that this will create a great deal of apathy on the retailer side in particular. This is why building awareness for the book before it ships is so critical to the book’s health: if retailers don’t see a measurable demand for it, they’ll either not order it at all or order it in such a low quantity that there’s no guarantee they’ll re-order once the book sells out. This is a major threat and a problem that’s not easy to solve. Basically, buzz equals orders. The latter won’t happen without the former but measuring that in any appreciable way (and then proving it to retailers) is a riddle. And how to do that on a very narrow budget makes it that much harder.
Another area of concern is the growth of manga. Traditionally, North American published titles are aimed primarily at boys or young men (pretty much defined as the super hero genre). The disadvantage of a title like road is that it can be buried by the vast amount of this type of material that’s being published. The advantage, though, is that it gives retailers (and librarians) a different genre to work with. In a sea of superheroes, I believe that my story will come across as refreshingly unique. Manga, however, challenges is this.
Manga is far more egalitarian when it comes to genres. On top of it, there’s a vast amount of material that’s available to North American publishers like Del Rey, Viz and Tokyopop. Manga has been a stalwart in Japan for approximately thirty years. As a result, there are a number of titles that can be brought into the North American market for exceptionally cheap prices. The main cost comes from rights sales and translation. Neither one of these are much of a hurdle; especially for material that’s a few years old. There has been a deluge of manga over the past 5-10 years (especially in the bookstores) and this growth, combined with manga’s remarkably diverse genre base, means that my book can easily be lost. Make no mistake: that’s a challenge.
The advantage I do have is that my art style is nothing like traditional manga. My style is far more North American then manga and, on top of it, the road to god knows… will be watercoloured in grey washes. This creates far more depth and tone than the typical “zipatone” approach that much of manga uses. In addition, manga has actually helps my marketing efforts. For a time, black and white comics and graphic novels were considered a dead or dying form. Colour was where comics were going. Colour is expensive, though (typically four times the price of a black and white title) and prohibitively so for me. Manga has reframed this argument and, while the price points are low due to the aforementioned reprint and translation costs, it has helped spark a return to black and white in the world of comics. From where I sit, that’s a good thing.
Market Share
Measuring market share is an extremely difficult exercise. Part of this problem is that Diamond Distribution is remarkably proprietary about their sales data. It’s impossible to get a solid handle on how sales of similar titles to mine fair in the Direct Market or exactly how many retailers Diamond services. The best guess is that there are approximately 2500 traditional comic book shops and, out of this, about 400 actively carry literary or small press titles (the so-called "indy friendly" stores).
While the Direct Market is relatively young when compared to other distribution systems, it has gone through a variety of changes to reach its present stage of evolution. Currently, all major comic book titles (including those of Marvel and DC) are distributed exclusively in the Direct Market by Diamond. While Diamond continues to service the sales of traditional comic books quite well, it has proven to be extremely poor at handling the changing nature of comics themselves. With a periodical distribution model based on monthly orders, Diamond has proven to be inflexible when it comes to the seasonal nature of graphic novels.
The disadvantage that Diamond faces is quite simple: its methodology is predicated on the sales of monthly comics with a low price point (typically $2.95 US) and a corresponding low risk point for retailers. Graphic novels are a far trickier beast; retailers are at substantially more risk when ordering graphic novels on a non-returnable basis, mostly as a result of both the higher price points and also higher production values. This risk point most likely was part of the reason that North American graphic novels grew so slowly when compared to their European and Japanese brethren. Even into the 1980s and early 90s graphic novels consisted mostly of collections of reprinted story arcs from regular monthly comic books. That slow growth rate would be strongly challenged in the 1990s by the explosive growth of manga into the North American marketplace.
What we do know is that Diamond releases it’s Top Twenty graphic novels once a year. While no firm numbers are released with this information, it is still enlightening to see how strongly Diamond sells particular titles (see below).
In the book trade, the numbers are just as
difficult to verify. Neilsen Bookscan tracks sales data
on the book market on a weekly basis and generates an overall tally of
how the book trade has done with various genres. This
tracking information is important as it measures actual customer sales
(and not “buy-in” by book trade
retailers). By examining actual sell-through data, Bookscan
is quite useful in looking at the overall sales of graphic novels in
the US bookstore market. It is by no means complete (not
every bookstore reports data, for example) and while it does measure
some online sales (notably Amazon.com) it doesn’t look at the
impact of library sales and the like. On top of it, the
information is not free and I have to rely on secondary sources without
a firm ability to confirm it for myself. The main secondary
source is retailer Brian Hibbs (owner of Comix
Experience in San Francisco, California). Hibbs
does an annual breakdown on the book trade’s success with
graphic novels in general (see the 2006 edition of the Neilsen Bookscan).
His 2006 conclusions are interesting (see below).
When one compares Diamond
Distribution’s data with what Mr. Hibbs gleaned from the
Neilsen Bookscan data, it’s very clear how difficult it is
for a smaller press title to make any impact on Diamond’s
charts. Part of this is an artifact of how Diamond
operates. Diamond has a “buy/sell” relationship
with the four brokered publishers (Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and Image)
and retailers earn their largest discount margins from these four
publishers (typically ranging from 50-58% off the SRP).
What’s important to understand is that Diamond does not own
these titles. They are very much a freight forwarder in these cases
and they technically never assume ownership; instead, they simply fulfill orders that are
place by their account holders. What discount Diamond earns
off of each of these publishers is not public information (though The
Comics Journal quoted a disclosed memorandum from DC Comics
that the brokerage fees operate on a "sliding scale from 6.25-7% of
retail.")All other publishers are in a uniquely different situation. Diamond does take ownership of titles from these publishers (though most of it is based on advance orders placed by retailers). While the barrier for entry is fairly low, they will not take an “inventory position” on titles. As far as I can gather, Diamond will stock titles very close to orders. That means that if a retailer sells out of a title and then attempts to place a re-order, the odds of Diamond having that title in stock are very low. Most likely Diamond would need to place an order with the publisher in question first. The retailer may not receive their re-order for some time after they place it. Certainly not when compared to “just in time” ordering practices.
Unfortunately, a title like mine will most likely not grow without the availability of re-orders. This means that Diamond is extremely problematic for me and other smaller publishers. The quandary is simple: initial orders most likely won’t be high enough to ensure stock availability if the title becomes hot. Because retailers are ordering from Diamond on a non-returnable basis, though, most will not take an inventory position on an unproven product or creator. That Catch-22 is extremely difficult to overcome.
Having stock at Diamond’s only remaining competitor (Cold Cut Distribution) is of critical importance to the growth of my book. It’s difficult to determine how many Direct Market retailers have accounts with Cold Cut (most likely no more than 500) and it’s made somewhat worse by the fact that Cold Cut primarily services West Coast retailers. Still, it’s extremely clear that all other distribution options (Bookazine distribution and independent sales agents like Tony Shenton, for example) must be aggressively pursued to ensure that Direct Market retailers have adequate stocking options.
In the book trade, the problem is somewhat different. There are a large number of distribution options (Baker and Taylor and Ingram are the two largest as well as Canada’s North 49 and Raincoast Book Express). If I do wind up publishing the book myself, however, I have an issue of scale. Many if not most of these options do not include distribution of small publishers that only have “onesies and twosies” of titles. Some graphic novel publishers (notably Exhibit A Press) have set-up strategic relationships with companies like Biblio to increase their distribution options. Biblio acts as a distribution house for small publishers in exactly my position and it will be important to make sure that I have this type of flexibility as I go forward.
It is clear to me that much of my retail growth will come from a very small selection of stores, especially if I wind up self-publishing the book. Servicing these stores will be critical (ensuring an adequate supply of my book) and making sure that I have a number of their distribution options covered will go a long way to determine how successful I am at this. I will need to pursue key promotions (“buy X get X free”) to help raise initial orders and I absolutely have to be prepared to support them with as much point of purchase options as I can afford. We’ve already made a number of inroads with bookmarks and the like and these, along with options like counter displays, may be just the element that helps solidify the book’s launch.
If I do get published by someone else, my best bet would most likely be Image Comics. That’s mainly due to the fact that Image will earn retailers the largest discount possible and will also expose my work to the greatest number of retailers. The disadvantage is twofold: the first is that I must pay Image a fee (my understanding is that it’s approximately $2000.00 US plus a percentage off of each graphic novel sale). The second is that, due to their brokered relationship with Diamond, my other distribution options are smaller. While Image is distributed through book trade options, I’ll most likely have very little control over this. That’s a trade off, though. Unfortunately, Image has already rejected the road to god knows… once (in the fall of 2005) and we’ll have to see if they’re willing to take a flyer on it now that it’s close to being completed.
Competitive Advantages
The road to god knows… does bring a number of key elements to the table that will hopefully resonate with readers. The first and perhaps most critical is that any person reading the book is getting my own creative vision. Many graphic novels are produced by committee (with separate individuals collaborating together to create the final product). That’s not the case with me at all. Another advantage, aside from the book itself, is that I can speak directly to any reader/fan who wants to discuss the work with me. There is no fragmentation due to “too many cooks.” That makes a lot of the media contact work easier; there’s only one person to deal with.
In addition, I’m using fairly traditional art styles in a new and innovative way. Most publishers are not doing watercolour anymore (instead turning to computer colouring even for grey tones) and the hand-crafted element of the book will appeal to certain people who find computer colouring cold. This will be a matter of personal taste, of course, but it is an angle that’s different compared to much of what’s out there.
The narrative also forms a key advantage. Very few titles cover the kind of ground that I am. The story is not derivative. That, I think, makes it fairly fresh and unique compared to many other titles on the market. Books dealing with mental illness in general (and schizophrenia in particular) are few and far between. If I’ve done my job right, the story and characters will resonate with readers. Simply put, it will make them think.
Pricing Considerations
Graphic novels come in dizzying number of price points. As mentioned earlier, low-cost Manga titles often come in at prices of around $10.00 for a fairly large page count (approximately 150 pages). That’s a very low price point on a per page basis (7 cents per page) and isn’t something I can compete with. Other small press titles are priced significantly higher and there’s quite a bit of range in-between. While there’s certainly no consensus on this front, there’s no competitive advantage of going cheaper then I need to. Since I’m not expecting there to be strong initial orders anyway, I don’t believe that price point will be a consideration for retailers (anecdotal evidence).
The following chart (see chart at right) shows a
nominal 2000 copy print run on #60 paper Offset in US
dollars. It assumes an SRP of $19.95 US and includes as many
data points as I can muster. This data is a little out of
date, however, and I’d like to seek an update for 2007 in the
near future.The problem with this is that it doesn’t include any of my marketing efforts at all. While the book could generate a total revenue of $ $10,941.05 (2000 copies sold at a revenue of $7.98 per copy less $5,018.95 for printing) the reality is that this revenue has already been spent in the convention costs alone. Each convention chimes it at approximately $2500.00 each (includes supplies, accommodations, transportation, merchandise and miscellaneous costs). And, of course, the reality of a total sell-out is pretty naïve. The odds are exceptionally poor that this will happen in the short-term.
This, then, is the major disconnect on the book marketing front. It isn’t a question of how successful the book will be. Unless I get significantly large orders that would warrant a much higher print run (at least 4000 copies), the money I’ve already invested will never be recovered if all copies are sold through distributors. There’s not enough potential revenue to cover these expenses.
What can change this, of course, is if I can wind up selling a large number of copies myself. If 400 copies of the 2000 copy print run could be sold without any middle men, then my total revenue would jump to $15,729.05 (1600 copies sold through distributors and 400 copies sold at full retail by us less the printing costs). It makes strategic sense, then, to sell directly to as many retailers/civilians as possible as a result of this. I do need to be careful undercutting our retailer base, though. Retailers who support the book by purchasing it through distributors will not be so keen to see me sell the book in their market (through conventions, for example). So great care must be taken with this.
These figures also do not take into account reprinting the book. The advantage of this type of demand is that little additional marketing has to be done. If I sell-through the entire print run quickly, then additional print runs are where true profit can be made. While this is impossible to predict (and again, with a first book the chances of this happening are slim) it is important to keep in mind. While the first 2000 copies represent either break-even or a small loss, future print runs that sell out are pure profit after the printing cost is paid. Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise is a good example of this. My edition of Volume 1 is in it’s 9th printing! While Moore may have lost money on the first print run, getting the book to this type of sales plateau (even if it’s only 1000 copy print runs) is clearly critical for the overall bottom line.
That said, the argument has actually changed from the initial sales potential of the road to god knows… to minimizing the total loss I will incur. This is a difficult argument to frame, however, since I don’t have any measurable data on predicted sales. Since I have no idea if I’ll even self-publish the book or not, calculating final sales is extremely problematic. Assuming I self-publish, though, the odds of cracking 2000 copies sold are fairly poor on the outset. A bestseller in Canada is approximately 5000 copies and while I will have the larger United States market to sell to, a lot will depend on how much traction we can get on the retailer/distributor front. It’s a challenge to say the least.
Advertising and Promotions
Over the past two years I’ve tried my best to generate a buzz about the road to god knows… The main thrust of this marketing effort was built on convention appearances at the arts-oriented expos to help build word of mouth. That was primarily generated through targeted giveaways to attendees of these events and the interaction between myself with the attendees.
As mentioned in the opening, the major problem I
have in targeting a literate, graphic novel-loving female demographic
is knowing where to find them. Both SPX and APE are strongly
independent oriented and do not contain the vast amount of pop culture
that many of the larger mainstream conventions attract (for example,
attendees dressed up as stormtroopers and/or anime
characters). In addition, both of these expos have become
legendary as proving grounds for unknown talent. And, on top
of it, it was pretty clear that a great number of opinion formers
(academics, media types, librarians and retailers) that related to our
target demographic do attend these cons regularly. So, both
my wife and I felt that it was important to be there despite the
tremendous costs we absorb. Some of these are outlined in the
chart (at right).The problem we’ve had with these convention appearances has been fairly straightforward: namely there is no measurable data to evaluate how successful we’ve been. As the chart (next page) shows, we absorb a number of costs involved in exhibiting and the overall benefits are difficult to measure. They have been successful from the point of view of meeting retailers and some media people; the question is how effective is this as a form of outreach? Will they lead to future sales of the book? Have the generated any advance reviews or other discussion? Would other measures by more effective in comparison? Getting a handle on this has been extremely difficult.
Again, the entire raison d’etre of attending these conventions was to generate a large amount of buzz through the distribution of free samples. While I do understand that most convention goers will simply toss a majority of this type of freebie material (that was obviously a risk going in), I did feel that these type of events (by their very nature) would minimize that to some extent. These are not dry seminars and those attending certainly are not forced to be there. In addition, both of these expos are over ten years old. They’ve certainly found their legs and many attendees make it an annual pilgrimage. Really, in terms of “one stop shopping” these were exactly the shows we needed to be at.
All this said, how have we faired? I think the answer, in looking over the past 18 months of promotional effort, is very clear: poorly, especially when compared to the amount of dollars we’ve invested. There has been no sense that ashcan samplers, buttons, bookmarks and the like are being circulated and discussed “behind the scenes.” There has most certainly been no bounce back to the website let alone blog activity and emails to indicate that interest in the book is spreading through worth of mouth advertising. While there is a chance that when the book eventually debuts there’ll be a resulting surge of interest, I think that based on what we’re seeing here that’s extremely doubtful. It is far more likely that the samplers and giveaways are not resonating for whatever reason. The only return on investment I was looking for was an upsurge in interest. I must absolutely stress this point. As our primary marketing effort to network and build awareness for both myself and the story, we’ve generated little interest in these three conventions (and the upcoming fourth one).
Unfortunately, I’m at a loss to explain why. “In-person” feedback is quite different. Attendees that flip through the portfolio, chat with us, and then walk away with an ashcan and a bookmark are usually extremely positive. Some people remembered us at SPX 2006 from our initial appearance a full year earlier. This type of attention is exactly what I want – we’re creating strong ties with people. Some of them, including a retailer or two, have sought us out. But the problem is that it’s only on a micro level. Why then is this creating so little buzz in a larger, macro sense?
At SPX 2006 I added the distribution of 15 galleys (early mock-ups of the book) to key opinion formers. Disappointingly, none of these have gotten back to me regarding their feelings about the story. In addition (and perhaps more problematically), they are not discussing the book or “talking it up” online. This was most troublesome to me on a number of fronts. SPX 2006 was my first attempt at strong media outreach (I sent approximately 25 press kits in advance of the Expo) and, while I only received a 32% response rate, some of these individuals did attend the show. Due to this, I was able to get the galleys directly into the hands of people I already had built a relationship with (through the press kits and subsequent emails). Despite all of this, the result has been pretty poor: no replies at all.
What’s becoming increasingly clear to me is that the mistake we’ve made is in the lack of follow-up. People, despite all of the targeted marketing we’ve done, are not talking about the book spontaneously on their own. That’s probably not that surprising though it is somewhat disappointing. At best we are getting a few “post-con report” mentions on blogs and the like and that’s the extent of it. We clearly need to follow-up with people to try and get more interaction (and thus more attention) going.
In a sense these conventions, despite the fact that they contain much of my targeted demographic, are similar to Direct Mailing. They are behaving in much the same fashion and that’s certainly not something I expected going in. Part of the reason why I went the convention route in the first place was to avoid Direct Mailing and do a meet and greet directly with people who are already clearly interested in comics – and indy comics in particular. But the behaviour we’ve seen has caught me off-guard. Attendees require much more follow-up then I ever initially thought.
Another problem with the convention appearances (especially in light of the lack of subsequent buzz) is the fact that it cuts out all other marketing that I could do dollar-wise. The conventions are so expensive that I basically disappear for the rest of the year. Obviously, that’s not a good thing. Of course, what I was hoping would happen with regular con appearances is that we’d build up through consistency. There’d be follow-up discussion, email exchanges, pre-publicity interviews and the like. Since this hasn’t happened, the convention appearances become, for the most part, the only place where we surface. Not good.
I realized this going in and I wanted to mitigate it to some extent. Our blog was one way we did that and has been pretty successful. Another key marketing outreach was the purchase of a web banner (an animated gif measuring 468 by 60 pixels) that ran for eight months on sequentialtart.com. Sequential Tart is one of the key opinion formers that I needed to work with and I wanted to do it to ensure some other type of marketing that fit in with our overall image. And minimize our disappearances. Unfortunately, the overall effect has been fairly poor. Not only have I not received much traffic to the site (despite the fact that I vetted the ad as best I could with a number of people), it has not generated any bounce back in terms of the conventions themselves. No one who dropped by our table at either APE 2006 or SPX 2006 (we attended both while the ad ran) mentioned the ad at all.
The ad was plagued with some issues on sequentialtart.com itself; the site is basically a monthly magazine (though recently it changed to a weekly update format) and, as a result, most hits are front loaded to the first of the month. Hits follow a predictable decline as the month goes on before hitting another peak as the new month starts. Obviously, the ad needs to be on the website and running on the first of the month to coincide with this.
Unfortunately, this didn’t happen on a
number of occasions. I’ve never been clear why; I
would renew the ad on a monthly basis (usually on the twenty-second of
the previous month). Despite the confirmation of the receipt
of payment the ad would often not appear in circulation (after my
prodding) until the third or the fourth. Not good. The problem with this type of traffic is that the clicks don’t result in consistent traffic patterns. Part of the problem is that while there is a fair amount of content on the site to encourage surfing there’s most likely not enough to encourage any repeat flow of traffic. I’ve also done a very poor job of tracking exactly how long someone stays on the site. I have no measurable data on that at all. On top of it, the cost per click is pretty high based on this lack of traffic. It’s one thing to pay $0.36 to get someone to hit the website and then become a regular visitor; it’s another thing altogether when they just disappear after one visit.
My suspicion is that for regular banner advertising to work there needs to be a stronger cross section of targeted advertising at where I think our target demographic will be. The problem, though, is the cost. Sites like bookslut.com would be an excellent choice to advertise on but under my current situation it’s just a no go. I don’t have the financial flexibility to add that to our budget. Even the Sequential Tart ad was relatively expensive based on the overall traffic we generated.
One option that might solve this is one I’ve long considered: serializing the entire story online. This way there’d be regular traffic to the website and that traffic would justify the expense of banner ads. Especially ads done through sites like projectwonderful.com (a cost effective way of targeting fans of webcomics). I do have a number of concerns, though. One is trying to track down our demographic. Many sites are expensive to advertise on and that’s putting us “betwixt and between” with our current budget. In addition, there must be regular updates to the site (at least three times a week) to warrant the expense in the first place. And lastly, we cannot cannibalize sales of the book through exposure on the website. While I don’t think this will happen, there are certainly no guarantees.
In July 2006 I had an art show at Rasputin’s Folk Café, a local café that has become quite well known for showcasing up and coming talent in both the arts and musical field. It’s actually for the latter that the café has become the most well known; owner Dean Verger has deep rooted contacts in the music community and has helped launch the career of many of Canada’s best known folk artists. He was nice enough to let me use his walls for an entire month to help spread the word about the book. Once again, though, the overall effect was minimal.
The goal of the art show was to create a feel on the walls that was close to the reading experience that one will get from the book itself. In other words, I wanted viewers to get a sense of the sequential nature of the story, viewing the art page by page exactly as they would when reading the book. With this in mind, 8 pages were shown at a time and these were changed once a week. So, in total 32 pages were up on the wall through the course of the month. To support it, I did a major media push both inside Ottawa and also nationally well before the show started.
Part of the goal with this was to see if I could connect with various mental health and schizophrenia support groups, centres and programs. One possibility would be to have these groups do a talk at the vernissage (the opening night) and help get more media attention for both myself and their respective organization. The Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), the Schizophrenic Society of Canada and it’s provincial arm in Ontario, the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario’s (CHEO) mental health arm and a few other organizations were specifically targeted to help spread the word of the book. The frustrating part is that while many of the groups did get back to me, none were interested in doing anything with the show. Part of the problem is that, with the book not out yet, none of these groups were keen on collaborating. Many expressed interest in seeing the book when it’s completed, but none would work with me at the art show itself.
I had a similar experience with the mainstream media. CBC Radio, in particular, was quite disappointing. The main show I targeted was All in a Day, the local drive-home show that features a great deal on local area arts. However, despite a three-pronged contact scheme (I snail mailed a press kit, I sent query emails, and I did follow-up phone calls), no one ever got back to me. I stress here that this was done over a number of weeks so that I wouldn’t come across as “pushy.” The lack of response was disheartening since I was hoping to speak to at least speak to one of the producers about it. I had similar experiences with a couple of other CBC Ottawa programs, too. Only silence. (Update: this actually did change back in December, 2007 and I was interviewed on All in a Day. That interview can be heard here). The Ottawa Citizen was good enough to at least list the art show in their community calendar pages (as did a few local community newspapers) but I could not gain any further traction than this. Part of the problem was that the city’s summer music festivals were in full swing and there was very little room to cover me (as the Citizen’s arts editor made clear).
On the positive side, I was fortunate enough to get two interviews done through Carleton University and the University of Ottawa. The former has a mental health radio program called Sound Mind and I did a 30 minute interview on that show. The latter has a local arts show called Click here and I did a 10 minute piece for it. I was also able to garner some attention in the comics world and a few pieces were done on online news sites (newsarama.com and comicbookresources.com did interviews with me). In general, though, I couldn’t generate any activity in Ottawa itself.
Press kit mailings and email queries did get responses (to the tune of about 45% of mailings/emails) but the overall goal of driving people to Rasputin’s to see the art show failed. For the most part, only friends came to the vernissage and, as far as I can determine, no additional people made the trip to see the show through the course of July. Mainstream media attention may have helped on this front but I’ll never know. I did get positive feedback from the café’s patrons who viewed the art while there for food or music and that’s encouraging.
Retailer contact, as I touched upon earlier, has been better. Since we’ve become familiar with a number of Direct Market retailers already, being able to network with these stores has been quite easy. Most retailers are used to little or no publisher support so showing them that we are prepared to support the book with promotional materials has been quite positive. That said, there’s still very little data in terms of how this will effect retailer orders down the road. While the bookmarks have been effectively distributed at both the conventions and retailers, only one retailer (Calum Johnston of Strange Adventures in Halifax) has reported any initial orders as a result. That said, overall feedback has been quite positive.
The main issue I’m facing on the retailer contact front is the immense expense of printing up and then shipping the galleys (aka Advance Reader Copies or ARCs) to help drum up support and initial orders. Not only are the galleys an issue but, like the convention information above, they must absolutely drive word of mouth advertising or they are pointless to pursue. This is extremely difficult to do from Canada. Shipping a galley with a cover letter, press kit, and 50 bookmarks to the United States is costing around $10-$15 per retailer. This expense is so high as to be unviable. I need to find another way (even if that way is just mailing them from within the United States) to cut down on that cost.
Make no mistake: I believe that the further
growth of the book will be through the use of the galley.
Again, the entire goal of galleys is to get people talking about the
book. By having completed versions of the book to generate
that discussion, I’m hoping that retailers will place larger
initial orders over the long haul. While the initial galleys
at SPX 2006 were not met with much fanfare, I’ll be doing a
larger run for APE 2007 and that will be a key metric in the
book’s performance. In a way, APE is critical since
so much comics media comes out of the Bay Area. Direct mailing costs aside, galleys also represent a large problem in terms of fulfillment. The per copy costs are quite high in low print runs and while the effect is extremely professional, it has doubtful that we’ll be able to continue printing in these quantities. At that point going with a 1000 copy print run would be more affordable through an offset print. While Lulu.com represents a very reasonable alternative to print shop pricing (where the per copy price was $20.00 Canadian and the book was printed on regular photocopy paper and cerlox bound, to boot) the per copy costs are still quite high. Especially with shipping into Canada (see chart).
A similar issue presents itself with libraries. Galleys have much the same use with librarians as they do with retailers. Not only do they give these the buyer a better sense of what they are buying, they can really prove useful for spreading the word about an upcoming title. My personal feeling is that galleys are most effective when they are well dog-eared as a result of being passed around from reader to reader and, hopefully, sparking discussion and interest (see, for example, the American Bookseller’s Association Booksense study on Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants (PDF)
This run of galleys does represent the last “kick of the can” of convention appearances. If the galleys, even though they won’t have all the grey washes in them, do not generate the type of buzz we are looking for, then there is absolutely no point in continuing with this type of marketing effort. The costs simply outweigh the potential benefits. And, I hasten to add, the “potential” has never lived up to what I had hoped. We’ll see how it plays out, but our current marketing efforts will have to be radically re-thought for the rest of 2007 and onwards to 2008.
Summary
Launching a book is difficult and the road to god knows… is bearing that out. Convention appearances, at least in their current iteration, are not working for us nearly as well as I hoped they would going in. Getting traction in an already congested market has not been easy and we’ve incurred a large amount of expenses. So many, in fact, that sales of 2000 copies of the graphic novel (at $19.95 US) will not recoup any of our initial investment. While that's frustrating, it's probably not that surprising. With that in mind, I wanted to leave with an interesting thought from writer Seth Godin. He faced his own difficulties with a book he wrote in the early 90s and I think his experiences are quite revealing:
"A few years before that, I had
published a book about a political issue. An activist's handbook. I had
20,000 copies in my garage when I found out about a large march in
Washington. I bought an outdoor booth and trucked the books down to DC.
I stood on the Mall in my little booth and watched more than 250,000
people walk by in less than two hours. Every single one an activist.
Every single one a demographically perfect match for my handbook. After
100,000 people had walked by and we'd sold only one book, I lowered the
price from around $10 to $1 just to prove my point--that it wasn't the
book and it wasn't the price, it was the ability of the
audience to listen that mattered. This group, in this
moment, was there to march, not to shop.
Most people, most of the time, steadfastly refuse to pay attention."
That's the challenge. Getting people to pay attention when they're not interested. In my case, I couldn't do it. I don't regret the attempt but I think my efforts are a good cautionary tale for other writers and artists out there.
Most people, most of the time, steadfastly refuse to pay attention."
That's the challenge. Getting people to pay attention when they're not interested. In my case, I couldn't do it. I don't regret the attempt but I think my efforts are a good cautionary tale for other writers and artists out there.
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Von Allan
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