Today’s resource is from Todd’s column called “Publishing Follies,” posted at Comic Book Resources every two weeks.

Though the article is primarily focused on the sale of comic book collections and graphic novels through libraries, Todd Allen offers some interesting research:

How many libraries are there? The ALA lists 16,549 Public Libraries (counting branch libraries, as well as the central administrative unit), 3,653 Academic Libraries, and 93,861 School Libraries. Special (i.e., corporate, law, etc.) Libraries probably aren’t a factor here, but that’s still over 114,000 venues for graphic novel product. If a publisher could get 10% penetration into libraries, that’d be 11,400 copies sold. That would rank as the #4 title for Graphic Novels on the November 2007 list at ICV2. Of course, the “Heroes” graphic Novel, “Black Dossier” and “Dark Tower” all came out in November, so a more fair comparison would have that same 11,400 hypothetical books outselling everything in the category for October 2007 and August 2007, while coming in 2nd behind a new “Walking Dead” volume in September. We’re not talking about a small market, here.

What’s really interesting is that I’ve heard librarians love to carry graphic novels because people actually read them. Sadly, librarians usually have little to no idea which graphic novels to order because many comic book publishers simply do not market to them.

There are several ways to get your product in front of librarians. First of all, you can attend a convention where librarians are likely to be present, such as BookExpo America or an ALA conference. You can get a review in the ALA’s
Booklist or Publisher’s Weekly, both of which librarians depend upon, though it’s hard to get them to review you even if you follow their strenuous guidelines. You can also send media kits to individual library buyers and hope that some samples or galleys will do the trick.

And, at the local level, you can always encourage your readers to help you out:

Now if you’re a reader, not a publisher, there are two things you can do to get graphic novels in your library. First, most libraries will have a form to request new books. Fill some out. The second thing is to start ordering books through inter-library loan like a demon. Get your friends to do it, too. If the demand is documented, the library will likely capitulate. Remember, the mandate is to serve the community, and you’re part of the community.

It’s worth a try. After all, a sale’s a sale, and who knows? You may inspire a whole group of readers to wait for your next book to arrive at the library.

There’s more in the article, too. Check it out!

My team met weekly, and I was able to put my knowledge of publishing to great use. We shaped a great concept for an online marketplace that would even allow McGraw-Hill to take advantage of used book buying and selling without incurring any inventory costs, and we backed it up with a campus consumer program to make sure the website would be well-used. I took our notes and wrote up the bulk of the proposal, made some corrections with the input from the team, handed it over to our team leader, and went on a cruise, promptly putting the case competition out of my mind.

Last week, I found out that out of the 60 or so schools that submitted case proposals, 46 were considered really top-notch. But my proposal stood out above even those, and our team was invited to the final stage of the competition, where the top 8 teams will present their ideas to McGraw-Hill executives in New Orleans this April. I’m really excited to have the chance to make a brand new set of contacts in the publishing industry, and I’m hoping we’ll knock ‘em dead.

Meanwhile, Marvel Comics released Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter #7 over the last couple of weeks – the first issue of the series since Dabel Brothers Publishing dissolved its partnership with Marvel. I was the editor on the first five issues, and my wife did the adaptation.

But what a lot of people don’t realize is that I also handled all the marketing and PR, and we pushed the heck out of the first six issues in every way imaginable. The first issue had three printings and sold well over 50,000 copies. The second and third issues also went into an additional printing, and each sold around 35,000 copies. The fourth, fifth and sixth issues sold around 30,000 copies each. The graphic novel collection, which came out later in the year, was one of the bestselling graphic novels of 2007, and from what I’ve heard, it sold around 60-70,000 copies. These numbers are great when you consider that the average Marvel comic book sells 3,000-5,000 copies, and the average successful independent book sells 2,000-2,500. I have no idea what’s currently “average” for graphic novel sales, but our next bestselling graphic novel, Red Prophet: The Tales of Alvin Maker vol. 1, which I also handled the marketing on, was considered quite successful at around 16,000 copies sold.

Anyhow, Anita #7 has received zero marketing support from Marvel, and it’s selling dreadfully — a friend in the industry told me it’s only sold 9,000 copies. That’s pathetic. It’s almost like they expected the book to sell itself. I don’t think they realized how hard my team was working with the customers to make sure the book was a success.

But then, that’s exactly why you can’t have a product-oriented perspective in publishing, as Marvel’s definitely learning once again with their ridiculous reset of the Spider-Man story. You’ve got to focus on what the customers want, not on which products you think you can sell. Today’s consumers don’t want to be told what they want unless you can get it right every single time. Mess up too often and they’ll find someone else to buy from. The sad thing is, consumers are very vocal about what they want, but many companies do a lousy job of listening.

On a final note, my apologies for the various hiccups the website has endured over the last week. Between a domain name issue, a server problem and some configuration issues, it’s been tough to get it back online and working. Fortunately, it looks like the problems are finally resolved. All I’m waiting for now is for the “Time Tourists” portion of the site to go back online.