Comics and graphic novel sales hit a new high in 2018, according to a new joint estimate by ICv2’s Milton Griepp and Comichron’s John Jackson Miller. Total comics and graphic novel sales to consumers in the U.S. and Canada were approximately $1.095 billion in 2018, an $80 million increase over sales in 2017. The increase was due to gains in book channel and digital sales, and the inclusion of an estimate for U.S. and Canada sales through crowdfunding sites for the first time.
“After a brief downturn in 2017, the market bounced back last year,” Miller said. “Popular releases helped right the ship in comics shops, even as other sales avenues made significant gains.”
“A historic shift is playing out as the market grew, primarily in the book channel, in 2018,” Griepp said. “While comics stores are still the largest channel, they represented less than half the market for comics and graphic novels in 2018 for the first time in at least three decades.”
Sales in the book channel, which includes chain bookstores, mass merchants, major online retailers, and Scholastic Book Fairs, were up by double digits, with sales of kids graphic novels the biggest factor. Digital sales were also up for the first time in several years, with increased title counts across multiple platforms a factor. Sales in comic stores were down very slightly versus the previous year.
Sales of all three formats, comics, graphic novels, and digital, grew in 2018, with graphic novels leading the way, followed at some distance by digital and comics.
As presented above and in the accompanying infographics, the analysis by Comichron and ICv2 was divided up between periodical comics (what some call “floppies” or “pamphlets”), graphic novels, and digital download-to-own sales. All print figures are calculated based on the full retail price of books sold into the market, and do not account for discounting or markup. Digital sales do not include subscription-based “all you can read” services.
We’ve added a new category, “Other” to our channel breakdown. “Other” includes the Newsstand (periodical sales through specialty retail and mass merchant chains) and Crowdfunding (Kickstarter, etc.) channels. This year, those two channels each accounted for roughly half of the “Other” category.
Sources for the information include NPD BookScan, which collects weekly point-of-sale data on print books from over 16,000 locations including e-tailers, chains, mass merchandisers, independent bookstores, and more. NPD BookScan covers approximately 85% of the U.S. trade print book market. Some publishers classify titles that are primarily text, or art books, as graphic novels; we remove those titles from our analysis.
The analysis also incorporates information released by Diamond Comic Distributors, the largest distributor of English-language comics and graphic novels in the world, on sales to comic stores.
Information is also gathered from a variety of other sources, including publisher, distributor, and retailer interviews.
This is the sixth joint market size analysis from ICv2 and Comichron; the first was for 2013 sales.
ICv2
ICv2 is the #1 industry source on the business of geek culture, including comics and graphic novels, hobby games, and showbiz on its website, www.ICv2.com, and in its magazine, Internal Correspondence. For the people on the front lines of the geek culture business, staying ahead of the trends isn’t something that can be left to chance-it’s a basic necessity for being successful. That’s why ICv2 is the #1 source of news and information for the buyers, gatekeepers, and tastemakers on the front lines. ICv2 is where trend-watching is a science.
Comichron
Comichron is the world’s largest public repository of comic-book sales figures, featuring data from the 1930s to today about comic book and graphic novel circulation, cover prices, and market shares on its website, www.comichron.com. With data and analysis on the distant past as well as the present, Comichron serves as a trusted resource for academics studying the historical reach of the medium and for collectors seeking accurate information about how many copies of a comic book originally circulated.
Sounds like good news to me.
This is not the greatest news for Comic Shops ..
Griepp said. “While comics stores are still the largest channel, they represented less than half the market for comics and graphic novels in 2018 for the first time in at least three decades.”
hey anthony, i sold my dark nights metal set yesterday for $200 cad. maybe it deserves a comment lol.
Congrats on the sale. Which books were in the set?
Total qty of comics sold looked like it was down again and even though Book sales are up, they appear to be basing that on Diamonds invoicing at cover price even though Marvel had multiple huge stupid level discount sales last year almost every week it seemed like and DC had a few as well making those numbers not truly reflective of what was actually spent or could be expected. When they’re selling $14.99 to $39.99 trade paperbacks and hardbacks for anywhere from $1 to $2 each and throwing in an extra book for Free sometimes. How can the numbers not look impressive when in reality it truly reflects book dumping trying to increase cash flow in the short term. maybe it’ll trick the stock holders into not panicking though and keep the mouse’s axe delayed a while longer.
If “full retail” is used in the calculation, then discount Amazon / eBay / etc sales would also skew the numbers up, artificially .. and yeah, Diamond has had some really cheap blowouts, many of which are not even worth the deep discount price .. but, they are cheap ..
I would assume Amazon and others are not going through Diamond ..
I’ve known Milton Griepp since the late 80’s .. he’s a good guy and has done much for the Industry .. He was a partner with John Davis in Capital City DIST, which should really be credited with coming up with what Diamond now calls “Previews” ..
After Steve Geppi scooped up Capital City and a few others in the mid 1990’s, thus becoming the primary monopoly in Comic and related distribution .. Griepp remains pretty tight with Geppi to this day, although back then, they were not on such friendly terms ..
I used to hope Griepp would build another distributor from the ground up and give Geppi some competition ..
So, maybe I am not understanding the implications here, but to me it seems the Book Channels are replacing the lost potential circulation from the racks/shelves in Grocery and Local Drug Stores. My thought process here is that you may not be in the location to purchase a book, but you happen to see it and pick it up.
Thoughts?
I’ve not seen a comic rack in a Grocer or Drug store in years .. ??
The last store I saw comics outside a comic shop was at Toys R Us and most of the time those books were already man handled by a bunch of 6 year olds..
“I would assume Amazon and others are not going through Diamond ..”
I was reading an article yesterday that said Diamond distributes to book stores thru several other companies. There was an article about some wholesaler closing and it’s possible affects on the supply. There was a list of companies and ways Diamond gets the books to book stores thru other middleman options. If Diamond has exclusivity with Marvel, DC and others, that should mean one way or another they all pass thru Diamonds hands or at least the paperwork if they’re direct shipped.
Diamond also usually offers pallet deals on books so the more pallets you buy the cheaper they get. You have to have some fancy forklift loading and unloading type options to take advantage of that though. It’s been tempting to want to tell them to drop them off out back and spend the rest of the day racing books inside hoping to beat the rain. We used to do that with pallets of Portland cement at my parents well drilling company when the original supplier only had a crane thing mounted on the truck that couldn’t get the pallets in the building. I think books would be a breeze compared to 94 pound bags of dusty back breaking eye irritating powder. I assume a lot of those discount chains you see stacks of books $5 each but no apparent theme other than being from Marvel or DC get theirs that way also. Some appear to do nothing more than forklift the pallet to the sales floor, take the box sides down and put up a sign for pricing so customers can dig and hope.
Side note, where is it 8:20 AM at? The previous post was at 4:20 AM.
Also, why am I CHUing again when I should be sleeping?
The site’s clock is GMT. So east coast 8PM it shows as midnight. And you are chuing again because this is such a great place.