Free Comic Book Day 2007: It's Time For a Breakdown

I promised awhile back that I would break down our order for Free Comics Book Day this year and so, here we go. I'm talking only in percentages here, although the breakdown will include percentage of money spent versus percentage of total copies ordered (that will make more sense as we go). First, let me say that it's only so much hyperbole to say that we had a metric ton of leftover FCBD comics from last year. We distributed many of those around town but we still have enough of the X-Men/Runaways book to wallpaper the store. That said, we spent slightly more on this year's offerings, although when considering that there are ten more books being offered this year, proportionally we cut back a tiny bit.

And now, on the with show.

Amazing Spider-Man Swing Shift - (5% of dollars spent; 6.2% of total copies bought):
Considering FCBD is May 5th and Spider-man 3 comes out on May 4th, I suspect that there will be more demand for this title than any other. Unfortunately, it appears to be one of the least useful FCBD books available since it advertises neither a trade paperback nor even an ongoing story to immediately point to if a new customer likes it. At best I can point to other Spider-man titles and the work of Dan Slott and Phil Jimenez. Even so, Spider-man is a character that people recognize and that we can stick into just about anyone's hand year round and they'll probably at least take a look.

Unseen Peanuts - (4.75% of dollars spent; 3.8% of total copies bought):
This book was one of the rare instances in which I upped the percentage of money being spent because of a fairly high cost to retailers of $.31 per copy. This book, however, has tremendous selling potential since it offers a sample of what is included in each volume of the Complete Peanuts while highlighting that fact that many of these strips have never been collected in any other volume. Based on the promotional value of this book, I upped the amount we spent on it, and even so we'll still have 2/3 as many copies of this as we will of Spider-man.

Justice League of America #0 - (4% of dollars spent; 4.7% of total copies bought):
While I wasn't a huge fan of this particular issue, it does act as an introduction of sorts to the Justice League and I can pretty safely point anyone who likes it towards Meltzer's run on JLA.

Train Was Bang on Time - (4% of dollars spent; 4.7% of total copies bought):
Anything I can do to get people to read more Eddie Campbell and First Second is high on my priority list. The one drawback here is that we may not have the Black Diamond Detective Agency book that it's promoting on FCBD, but we will shortly thereafter and we'll be using this one year round.

Whiteout #1 - (3.8% of dollars spent; 3.2% of total copies bought):
After the success we had with using the first issue of Fables to turn readers onto the trades, this one is a no brainer (especially if the movie's development picks up steam).

Bongo's Free For All - (3.7% of dollars spent; 4.28% of total copies bought):
Everyone loves the Simpsons. And there's plenty more where that came from.

Lone Ranger/New Battlestar Galactica Flip Book - (3.5% of dollars spent; 3.6% of total copies bought):
This one is a bit tricky, but it is a chance to promote to readers who enjoy Sci-Fi's BSG show and to promote a Lone Ranger series that has been pretty solid thus far.

Owly & Korgi - (3.5% of dollars spent; 2.25% of total copies bought):
Expensive but worth it. The little kids who got dragged in last year with their parents and older siblings really liked Owly and it's a series that I hand sell pretty well so anything that helps promote it is helpful.

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Coming Soon: Part 2