Readers have found my previous creator-owned economic posts interesting/informative and I thought I’d post some new data now that we’re a couple months into our ridiculous 5 month unbooted issue promotion.

In my previous post about sales I focused heavily on the dollars and cents of creator-owned sales; How much money each issue and trade has made so far based on printing, shipping and distribution costs. Those numbers are far more complex than straight-out sales numbers: How many issues we’ve sold to retailers/readers.

As you’d expect, most comics fall into an attrition sales pattern. Some series see sales improvements based on stellar reviews, creative team changes, awards, press hype or media tie-in announcements, but those aren’t the norm. Over time some readers will drop a series or decide they’re going to move on to a “trade waiting” sales pattern (buying collections rather than single issues). After launch publishers hope a series will stabilize with a collector base at a sales level where it continues to be profitable over the long haul.

As Skullkickers continued through our 3rd story arc, we’d settled into a low-but-stable sales pattern. Although we were picking up new readers through our web comic site or trades, most new readers weren’t going to jump on board buying singles 18+ issues into the series.

In the spirit of the sarcasm that permeates the Skullkickers concept, I came up with a way to try hyping things in an irreverent way, announcing new adjectives and new #1’s for our entire fourth story arc, making it clear that these would be the next issues in our series but that we were having fun with the whole “reboot” thing and that Skullkickers was worth checking out. I figured our hardcore audience would stick around no matter what but that we might be able to gather some new readers by playing with adjectives and cover designs based on mainstream superhero homages.

Here’s the checklist of names and release dates we rolled out:
FEB: The Uncanny Skullkickers #1
MAR: Savage Skullkickers #1
APR: The Mighty Skullkickers #1
MAY: The All-New Secret Skullkickers #1
JUN: Dark Skullkickers Dark #1

Five ‘Unbooted’ new #1’s in five months. Yes, we’re jerks.

If you click on the above you can read our press releases and see the sarcasm grow with each one as we pull out all the stops to hype the series. I have to tip my hat to Image PR person Jennifer DeGuzman and Image Publisher Eric Stephenson for letting me run with this insane thing. Image really does put control in the hands of their creators and I’m thankful for their support. Contrary to anything else you may have heard, we’re doing this for five months and then going back to normal (well, as normal as we ever get). There’s no Superior Skullkickers or Justice League of Skullkickers coming.

Now that a couple have been released, we can parse the numbers and, here are the results so far. As before, I’ve removed specific sales numbers and am just focusing on the overall visual percentages to show sales trends:

Needless to say, I was shocked at how well it’s gone over. Sales are up more than double from issue #18 to #19 (Uncanny #1) and are at their highest level since the original issue #1. We put the series back on the sales chart in a big way (for an indy title) and increased our visibility. For the first time in a long time, people beyond our hardcore readership were talking about Skullkickers.

I don’t know if sales will fall back to previous levels once our little adjective game is over, but I’m hoping we can keep some of our new readers on board if they were enticed to give the series a try. If we’re able to level out higher than we were before, I’ll consider the whole experiment a “success”.

That being said, I don’t think this is something other people can necessarily reproduce. It’s a weird and wonderful sales spike based on a very specific promotion that I feel hit the zeitgeist of Marvel/DC reboots, poking fun at a larger comic marketing trend while simultaneously benefiting from the very same thing it was mocking.

As I noted in my previous post, digital is not a huge percentage of our sales right now, but the flexibility and lack of print limits keeps our early issues selling long after they’ve gone out of print. Coupled with print sales it can help keep us rolling forward and I expect digital will become even more important in the future.

Notice also the extra bump provided by well-timed retailer-specific variants on issues #1 and 19. They’ve helped increase visibility and created beacon locations where Skullkickers sells upwards of 10 times our average numbers.

Our retailer and convention-specific variants have helped increase visibility.

All in all, a bit of luck and circus-worthy hucksterism helped stir some short term interest and sales. The reviews for this new story arc have been really strong so far and I’m proud of the mix of action and humor we’ve put together. I don’t know what the long term sales effects will be, but I hope the quality of our work keeps readers engaged and allows us to finish the big story the team and I have planned.

Also, in case it wasn’t clear, a sales spike like the above doesn’t suddenly mean we’re rolling in money. It lengthens the viable sales life of our series and keeps our head above water. We’re still on the hunt for long term profitability. A gimmick is fun and can be useful, but it’s not a replacement for stabilized reader/retailer support.

I don’t know if there’s really a teach-able moment in this post. It’s more of a general analysis of our issue-by-issue sales curve and the result of some out-of-the-box marketing. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t think people should use my economic posts as a master plan for their own creative projects. Every series is different and all of this is a learning experience for me too. Whatever I create after Skullkickers will benefit from the things I’ve learned building and marketing this series.

If you find my tutorial blogposts helpful, feel free to let me know here (or on Twitter), share them with your friends and consider buying some of my comics to show your support.

Quite a few people have asked me how sales are going on Skullkickers and whether or not serializing our previous issues online for free has had a negative impact on sales. With the latest accounting information from Image wrapping up 2012 I had a chance to plug those numbers in and was surprised at the results. I’ve removed the dollar amounts from the charts below, but the visuals should give you an understanding of overall trends for analysis.

Digging into the accounting was honestly quite daunting at first. There are dozens of categories, debts and credits applied based on sales, printing, shipping, storage and book orders for conventions. Thankfully each section is broken down with a current loss/gain total and those totals are carried over from previous accruals.

Here’s how Skullkickers has performed over the past two years:

2011 Q1-Q2: We dug into the red aggressively overprinting the first trade paperback to keep it in stock and profits gained from the issues, trade and minuscule digital sales didn’t cover the difference that early into its sales cycle. All in all, we dug down 27% more than we made in the first half of 2011.

For most creators that would’ve been the end of it and that’s totally reasonable. Even with Image covering costs so we didn’t have to spend our own money to print or distribute, the complete lack of profits for 6 months would have sealed the series’ fate. Thankfully, Edwin, Misty and I all have day job income and stuck it out for the long haul.

2011 Q3-Q4: In the second half of 2011 we turned things around, actually making 8% more than we spent for that half of the year. It wasn’t enough to pay back the debt incurred from the first half of 2011, but it showed some promise. Most new businesses have to go into debt to start something new. The fact that within 6 months we were able to reverse that trend and start paying it back was encouraging.

2012 Q1-Q2: Printing a hardcover deluxe collection of 1 & 2 together cost a lot, but we were still able to stay narrowly ahead. Digital made a huge sales jump here compared to 2011 and that corresponds with us starting to serialize Skullkickers online for free. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Our web visibility exploded and digital comic sales followed. Digital wasn’t a large percentage of total sales, but helped keep our head above water.

2012 Q3-Q4: Now we’re starting to see the benefit of the back catalogue and digital sales as our overall profitability goes up on the series. It’s still not enough to pay off that original debt incurred in 2011 but the overall trend is a positive one. If the first half of 2013 is as strong as the last half of 2012 we’ll be in good shape as we head into the last third of the series (we’re planning six arcs in total).

I was fascinated at how the profits broke down by issue:

Keep in mind this is profitability, not sales.

Our first two issues became speculator-hyped and went through multiple printings in the first couple weeks. Issue #1 sold more than #2, but had three printings instead of two, so it became less profitable overall. Even without the exact dollar amount you can see how strong that launch was. I know the tall green bar looks like it would be a lot of money but, without talking exact figures, I will say that the payout on issue #1 and 2 were at a level where an indy creator could sustain a meager existence if that was their sole income. Unfortunately we didn’t stay at that profit level for long.

Issue three narrowly sold out and we decided to do a second printing on it, but reorders weren’t as strong, pushing it out of profitability.

As retailers adjusted their expectations and we settled into a more reasonable sales trend for a fantasy-comedy comic in a serious superhero-centric market we struggled to keep the book profitable at all. Extra press, a comiXology sale and raising the price by 50 cents to $3.50 saved our butts as we headed into issue #13 and our third story arc.

You can really see the profit difference with issue #18 because it was priced at $3.99 for 40 pages of short stories. That extra 50 cents helped a lot. If our print sales dip again I may have to switch it to $3.99 for the regular issues to keep us afloat.

You can see the importance of digital sales here. On issues that have long been out of print the digital version keeps selling 24/7 without any additional printing or shipping cost. That build up of digital sales over 2+ years has put issues like #3, 9 and 10 into profitable territory even though the print versions lost money. You can see how steady the digital sales are too. Not a lot of fluctuation past issue #1. People tend to buy the whole series digitally and the profit margin on that doesn’t fluctuate much. It’s small, but every bit helps.

Okay, so you look at that and wonder how we could be so deep in the red if practically all of our issues made some money. Here’s the accrued collection profits:

Ouch, right? Printing and distributing softcovers and hardcovers is a long game with lots of pitfalls. The numbers involved are much larger and a cult book like Skullkickers doesn’t have huge print runs or massive pre-orders to bring in big bucks right off the bat.

Skullkickers Vol. 1: 1000 Opas and a Dead Body is value-priced at $9.99 and has to stay in print otherwise people can’t get started on the series. Keeping this first volume in print at that price point is tough, but we use it as a loss leader to grow our overall readership. Over the long-long haul it pays off if people get on board and pick up other full price volumes. With 6 volumes planned we want the bar to entry as low as possible.

Profitability on volume 1 fluctuates a lot due to larger print runs and the wider push it gets as the entry point for the series. By the midway point of 2013 sales will hopefully catch up with the print debt incurred. Like volume 3, it looks worse here than it really is.

UPDATE April 8th: I received clarification on this from Image Comics’ accounting. There are two reasons why this book is so deep in the red. One is because of bookstore returns/liquidations (Borders collapsing and flushing stock, etc.) and the second reason is because we printed a series of special limited edition hardcover volume 1’s we sold directly at conventions in 2011. The printing and shipping cost is reflected in the accruals, but the money made on them wasn’t through standard distribution, it was direct sales at conventions. Without those two deductions Skullkickers Vol. 1 would be profitable even with its $9.99 cover price. We’re in better shape than I thought!

Skullkickers Vol. 2: Five Funerals and a Bucket of Blood is what we’re aiming for across the board. It has a $16.99 cover price, is selling well overall and has now turned a small profit.

Skullkickers Vol. 3: Six Shooter on the Seven Seas looks dire but keep in mind it just came out as 2012 was wrapping up. The print bill was paid but print sales hadn’t come back yet. By the time we get our 2013 Q1-Q2 statement it should be in similar territory to Volume 2.

Skullkickers Treasure Trove Vol. 1, our 1+2 combined deluxe hardback, is an expensive book to produce. It hasn’t sold like crazy through comic shops but over the long haul I think it will work out because of the high cover price. It’s also a sales dynamo for me at conventions so I want to keep it in print and keep selling it directly to fans.

Again, look at the digital profits. I was shocked at how well digital trades have helped top us up. I wasn’t expecting that at all. Digital comics are picking up steam and work well when added to print sales.

So, what’s the overall trend looking like?

Skullkickers is still in the red, but it looks like we hit our lowest point and are now climbing steadily. Print and digital sales are up and our ridiculous relaunch promotion has garnered a lot of visibility for the series in 2013. The fact that Image has stuck with us and believes in our quality and long term potential gives us a lot more leeway than we’d have at most other publishers. They’re able to make their base amount and keep us rolling. I genuinely believe we’ll be indy-profitable by the time the series is done and the trending numbers seem to agree with that.

Keep in mind this is just analysis of one creator-owned series. As interesting as that is I can’t speak to anyone else’s sales or their financial situation. I don’t think this sales cycle corresponds to all creator-owned books. Please don’t assume every money losing comic will bounce back over the long term and don’t make your own financial decisions based on what I’ve done. Everyone’s risk threshold and situation is different. My next creator-owned project will have a completely different sales life cycle.

Note that these charts don’t include convention sales, which have more than doubled from 2011-2012. The money made from direct convention sales, sketch covers, commissions and selling original page art has helped keep us going and viable. I exhibited at 15 conventions last year and, even though it was exhausting, it paid off in terms of sales and visibility for the series.

Also note that none of the above takes into account freelance work that’s come from working on Skullkickers. If you factor in money made from the writing jobs I’ve done for UDON, Bandai-Namco, Dynamite and DC Comics since the series began, it has “turned a profit” in that way even after paying the art team out of my own pocket. Skullkickers helped me build a 2nd career as a professional comic writer over a relatively short period of time.

Most importantly, we put out a comic that stands favorably beside some of the best titles in the industry and I’m incredibly proud of that. It represents the professional quality and work ethic of our creative team.

If you find my tutorial blogposts helpful, feel free to let me know here (or on Twitter), share them with your friends and consider buying some of my comics to show your support.