Pre-Order, Pre-Order, Pre-Order

I have a really huge favor to ask readers. If you like a book, especially an indie, please tell your retailer to order, or even pre-order it. 

Marvel and DC and others are flooding the market right now with useless variant covers and other gimmicks that have nothing to do with quality comics. Anybody trying to do anything even remotely different or outside the mainstream are suffering. 

Retailers need to know, now more then ever, what books you will buy otherwise they have to use their limited budgets on Super Strong Guy in Underwear #1 Variant 52. 

For the sake of indie comics, please, please pre-order. 

Thanks!

-Steve

 

Update via Facebook: 

Comments

[RT]

Hey Steve, you ought to post this to your Tumblr as well so we can reblog it.

[Chris H]

"Marvel and DC and others are flooding the market right now with useless variant covers and other gimmicks that have nothing to do with quality comics."

Seriously, do you need to promote your work by insulting others? You can ask people to support your work without labeling other people's hard work as "useless gimmicks" and intimating that the books lack quality.

Classless.

[Dragon's Lair Comics and Fantasy Austin, TX]

Yes please! We're a brick-and-mortar in Austin and preorders are AWESOME. We don't charge extra to preorder or special order stuff, and you don't pay till you pick it up.

Sometimes we won't order something unless we know there's demand for it, so preorder preorder preorder! Austinites, you can check us out at dlair.net/austin if there's something you're after :)

[Alan Szymkowiak]

Chris, I don't want to turn the comments section of an otherwise benign post into an unnecessary debate, but you're pretty off base there. Steve didn't imply anything about the quality of the work put into anyone's books, he merely said that some of the major publishers continue to milk their fans by getting them to dump money on useless gimmicks (such as purchasing multiple copies of the same book just to get variant covers). In some cases, this is money that might otherwise be spent on a new indie book or two (heaven forbid), which certainly seems like a disservice to both the creators of those books as well as anyone who appreciates some actual variety in the industry.

[Chris H]

Really, Alan? Really?

"Marvel and DC and others are flooding the market right now with useless variant covers and other gimmicks that have nothing to do with quality comics."

If he wasn't making a comment about the quality of these books, then why mention "quality"?

Would typing "Marvel and DC and others are flooding the market right now with useless variant covers and other gimmicks" have not made sense? Would it not have worked to make a point? It works perfectly, but he had to intimate that these books lack quality with that little jab at the end.

I fully, whole heartedly support the point. I am luckily friends with the guy at my local comic shop so make sure he does order in at least a handful of non-superhero books. But you don't need to drag down other people's work with passive aggressive snidey comments to push your own work. It is classless.

If you want new fans, if you want people to preorder and support your work, implying that they're pretty stupid for buying several "useless" variants of "Super Strong Guy in Underwear #1" that aren't "quality comics" is not the way to do it.

[Alan Szymkowiak]

This seems like a dead horse well on its way to being soundly beaten, but variant covers and other such gimmicks having nothing to do with quality comics (and they don't) is an indictment of those types of marketing tactics, not the books themselves. This is something that's causing problems not only at the consumer level, but also at the store owner level, as companies like Marvel are pushing vendors to increase orders for their books by dangling a big, gimmicky carrot in front of them.

[Chris H]

Vendors are grown ups. They aren't bullied into doing something that is bad for their business. They buy them because they can sell them. These "gimmicks" wouldn't exist if they didn't work. To tell a vendor they shouldn't do what they can profit from because they should do this instead? Do they come into your place of work and tell you what to do?

It is not a "problem" at store level, or consumer level. Just because they exist, does not mean you have to buy them. Don't try and turn it into them=bad us=good.

Co-exist. Again, don't drag them down to make yourself look better.