For the first time in God-only-knows-how-long…
I live in a town with a comic book store!
This is dangerous.
It’s like a drug addict living on the corner of crack and 8 ball.
I’ve already been in there several times, buying a bunch of graphic novels and wasting WAY too much time chatting with the owner who has forgotten more about comic books, what’s going on in the industry, who’s suing who, etc than I’ll ever even begin to know.
Anyway, there’s a reason I’m telling you this.
Check this out:
So the store owner and I got to rapping about what’s been going on in the 10+ years since I’ve collected comic books. And one of the questions I asked was “why do these comic book companies keep restarting the numbering???”
It used to be cool to have an #1 issue.
Now?
Apparently they re-boot titles every few years.
The reason?
Low sales!
And the reason for low sales?
Lack of good stories, art, etc.
(I blame the executives for this — even back in the 90’s they used to make the writers to do yearly “events” which would force the writers of multiple titles to compromise on telling great stories to get a surge of sales as collectors then needed to buy ALL the titles tied in to the event to get the full story. That was why great writers like Chris Claremont left the X-Men — after single handedly making it THE top selling book — after 17 years. Or, why Peter David — another great writer — left the Incredible Hulk after bringing it to the top of the sales charts, too…)
Ah crap, I just geeked out there, didn’t I?
My bad.
Alright back to the point:
So they basically keep rebooting titles as sales gimmicks.
Kinda like when they killed Superman.
It was an obvious gimmick.
And, yes, it helped sales.
But it also killed a lot of peoples’ enthusiasm for the book.
Anyway, here’s the point:
You may be tempted to do this with your online business — and “reverse engineer” what you see gurus doing constantly launching and re-launching products over and over and over… even though, from what I’ve been told and have learned first hand from at least one guru… some of these blokes are just one failed launch away from living on the street!
As are these comic book titles, apparently.
After all, if you got no substance, you must rely on gimmicks.
Trickery.
And, sometimes, even fraud.
Or, you can do it the EASY way.
The RIGHT way.
And, yes, the PROFITABLE way:
Focus on creating quality products. Sell them using email the way I teach. And, work on a way to have consistent sales coming in… instead of having to rely on geeking up you entire affiliate base in your niche with yet another hyped up launch. (You can still do the affiliate thing, and should if that’s your bag, but don’t *rely* on it — the ol’ Dan Kennedyism of “1 is the most dangerous number” is truth.)
Hey Marvel Comics, you listening?
What about you, DC?
This is free advice to ye company “suits.”
Which is why, it would be ignored, anyway.
Oh well.
It ain’t easy always being right.
Go here next:
Ben Settle
