Selling Graphic Novels to Retailers

Over the past year, attitudes toward graphic novels have changed. Certainly Pokémon has played a role in the growing popularity of the genre. So have movies based on popular Marvel superheroes like Spider-Man and the Hulk and, to a lesser extent, art films made from books, like Daniel Clowes's Ghost World (Fantagraphics) and Max Allen Collins's Road to Perdition (movie tie-in from Pocket Books).

Initially, libraries led the way in embracing comics as a way to get young people to read. And wholesalers that service libraries—such as BWI, Baker & Taylor and Ingram Book Group—developed catalogues, e-mailings and Web sites to help with building graphic novel collections. Now bookstores are starting to expand their graphic novel stock beyond a few staples like Art Spiegelman's Maus (Pantheon) to include Craig Thompson's Blankets (Top Shelf). Wholesalers and distributors are adjusting their programs to assist booksellers who want to get started but aren't sure how to begin, with comics section starter kits like the Koen 25 and catalogues with each title marked by age.

Diamond Anniversary

When comic store distribution powerhouse Diamond decided last fall to create a separate book distribution division, that spoke reams about the growing importance of the bookstore channel to graphic novel publishers. Over the past year, Diamond Book Distributors has added more than 50 publishers.

According to Kuo-Yu Liang, v-p of sales and marketing at Diamond, bookstores are "extremely important" to traditional comics publishers. It enables them to "reach out to new readers that comics shops do not reach, mainly women and kids, and it allows them to do certain books that traditionally do not do as well in comics shops, such as literary comics and manga," says Liang. Adapting to the book market has meant adding ISBNs and preparing jackets four or five months ahead of publication, as well as creating returns policies. Comics stores buy books on a nonreturnable basis.

"Chains have been much more open to graphic novels," notes Liang. "They are consciously trying to grow new business for their stores. Independents are much more status quo. The mindset is very different." And it is that mindset—"I don't have the customers for this"—that Diamond and other distributors are trying to change. Liang, who worked at Ballantine for 13 years, compares the conversations he has now with booksellers about graphic novels to the ones he had with them about stocking science fiction a decade ago.

At Publishers Group West, which has represented Viz for the past 10 years, teaching booksellers why graphic novels are important to their business is key. "We try to educate everybody on graphic novels and in particular manga," explains Mark Ouimet, executive v-p of marketing and international distribution. "We have a major commitment to graphic novels, and we're going to add them." Currently, that translates into putting together graphic novels bestseller lists and producing a separate Viz catalogue starting this fall with categories, such as action or Shojo, clearly indicated, to appeal to both female and male readers.

Drawing Readers

According to Ron Turner, who founded Last Gasp publishing and distributors more than a quarter-century ago, many of the traditional graphic novel outlets are drying up. He estimates, for example, that comic store accounts have shrunk from 20,000 15 years ago to 2,500 today. "Chains like Tower that used to be one of our major sales areas for graphic novels found themselves up against the wall," says Turner, who labels selling to bookstores "arduous. There's still a great resistance, because booksellers aren't reading the stuff themselves. They're not swimming in this lake. If you let us stock a shelf, we guarantee the books will move."

Still, there are some bright spots among alternative markets. "We must have five trendy boutiques on Haight Street that carry books," says Turner. "People go into a store to buy a shirt, and they buy a book." He has also found a ready audience in art bars, where Last Gasp holds many of its signings, as well as at bicycle shops and tattoo parlors.

Client Distribution Services, which represents Marvel, Tokyopop and Keenspot (a Web site that hosts a roster of Web comics), among others, also looks to nonbook accounts to pick up the slack. Its graphic novels do well in GameStop, TransWorld, Fry's computer stores on the West Coast and other stores with a customer base of 14—18-year-olds. As Stanley Cohen, v-p, director of sales, sees it, "Independent booksellers are a little behind the two chains, Barnes & Noble and Borders. The next steps are the mass merchandisers, particularly Sam's, Costco and Wal-Mart." Cohen advises stores that are taking the plunge to display graphic novels in the front. "Put them up front on a table where you'd put the new Diane Johnson or in the window," he recommends.

Distributors that are strong in the independents, like W.W. Norton, are already starting to see significant increases in graphic novel sales. Since Norton took on Fantagraphics Books two years ago, sales have doubled. "We didn't know it would be growing this much," v-p and sales director Dosier Hammond tells PW.

Chronicle Books, which added Drawn & Quarterly almost a year ago, has been so pleased with the possibilities that it signed one of D&Q's authors, Adrian Tomine (Summer Blonde), to create art for its gift line. However, like the other distributors PW spoke with, Anna Erickson, director of distribution client services, stresses that it is very much a challenge to get the word out on graphic novels. "Drawn & Quarterly is very well reviewed," she says. "How can you take the coverage in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times into displays on the store level?"

Yes and No

Not everyone, even on the distribution side, is eager to get wet. National Book Network only got into the field this fall, when Vertical added its first manga titles with the publication of two volumes in its eight-book biographical series, Buddha by Osamu Tezuka.

On the other hand, Koen Books has been an aggressive player since the mid-'90s, first through its Loose Cannons program, which promotes books on popular culture, and more recently through one that focuses primarily on graphic novels, Koen Comics. "We've had all that stuff forever," says director of sales Ed Evans, who also does a lot of the graphic novel buying. "It's nice that the market caught up with us. The assortments—Koen Comics 25, Koen Comics 50, Koen Comics 100—really make a difference. The key is knowing the content."

At Ingram Book Group, Jeannine Wiese, title researcher for library collection development, stresses that graphic novels are just a format, like audio, and laments that many titles get tucked away in science fiction and fantasy sections, instead of in their own section or divided into more age-appropriate and/or content-related areas. She tries to keep up with the nearly 200 continuing graphic novel series as well as stand-alones. One concern in creating lists, she says, is "being as discriminating as possible without being a censor-driven personality." Baker & Taylor and BWI are equally concerned about content and also offer advice to librarians about the mature content of some books.

For now, the biggest hurdle may not be so much what's inside the book as getting booksellers to read them. The Graphic Novels Day at BEA last May was a start, along with similar panels this fall at PNBA, NCIBA and the other regional bookseller shows.

As Turner notes, "Booksellers have to become closer allies to the changing values of their audience. Not everything is going to be a Da Vinci Code or a memoir by a former presidential wife. They have to taste this apple, so they can recommend it like they do novels."

Top-selling Graphic Novels of 2003

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