As someone who has lived the pains of comic book publishing for the past 10+ years, I’m going to go over a list of the most important cold hard facts of the comic book industry.

Here are what I like to call…

The 7 Comic Book Publishing Realities

1. Most comic books suck, and yours probably does too
This may be a painful thing to hear and I hate to be the Simon Cowell of the industry, but the majority of comic books produced today are unprofessional and poorly done. With the advent of print-on-demand (POD) technology, there are now more bad comics available for purchase than at any time in the past. If I was forced to take a guess at the percentage of unsellable comic books on the market today I’d have to say 99.9% of independent comics aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.

Far too many publishers rush to press with talent well beneath the pro level, and a lot of creators feel their work is a lot better than it really is. Since I’ve already made a Simon Cowell reference, it isn’t that great of a stretch to compare the comic book industry to American Idol. We’ve got a lot of talentless hopefuls but only 1 in 20,000 contestants is actually a winner.

What this means for most of you reading this book is: more than likely your work falls into the talentless hopeful portion of the industry. They may be a harsh realization for you and I’m sure most are either spitting venom at me or are in complete denial of the fact. Luckily, there is hope for you. Keep practicing. Keep putting out comics and get your work to the level of a professional. Sure your books may not be able to stack up to the latest comics from Marvel or DC but you will get better with practice.

2. Brands Sell
Another stark reality is that independent comics are a very hard sale without the support of either a recognizable industry name or a familiar licensed property. Without one of those two pieces most comics will fail. There are a few exceptions to that rule but they are just exceptions. It doesn’t happen often. A “Name” or licensed properties are two great hooks to bolster the marketing of your products on.

The truth of the matter is, if you took any well-known person in the industry and stripped him (or her) of their bankable Name (i.e. their Brand) and their contacts then their books will fail just as quickly as yours would. With creator egos as insanely over-blown as they currently are, most big name creators will probably scoff at the notion that their name makes more sales than their “talent,” but it is true. Branding is more important than talent or skill.

3. Independent Comic Book Sales Suck, even through Diamond
The cold hard truth is most independent comic book publishers will sell less than 250 copies of their books through Diamond Comic Distributors. So even if you get accepted in to the Diamond sales channel the chances are you won’t sell enough to even pay for your print run. Diamond will stick your book in the back section of Previews and leave you there to die a quiet, sad little death. They don’t sell or market your books; they just list them in a portion of their catalog, a section that most comic book storeowners ignore outright.

4. Most Independent Comic Book Series last less than 2 issues through Diamond
Ouch. That’s right, because of Diamond’s minimum sales requirements (which are in the range of $1000 from what I recall), books not reaching sales quotas are no longer carried by the catalog. Again, there are a few exceptions where a book is a favorite of one of the sales reps and will be kept on, but in general not meeting your Diamond minimum will put your book on the chopping block.

5. Low Diamond Sales Gets all Orders Cancelled
A recent policy change at Diamond now cancels pre-orders for titles not meeting the minimums. In the “old” days, Diamond would still ship an order not meeting the minimum requirements with Diamond placing no orders for future issues. Now, your orders just get cancelled and you make no sales at all through Diamond. Meet the quota or get canned is now a small press publisher’s call to action.

On the positive side, this means getting rejected by Diamond really won’t cost you that many sales or that much visibility. This is a very good thing because it means you really don’t need to subject yourself to their poor treatment of small press comic book publishers. Yay! The negative side is you’re going to have to do more work to get sales.

6. Comic book stores are not looking for your books and will not order them
Since you are an unknown creator working with an unknown publisher and put out an unknown property, comic book stores won’t be ordering your books. They don’t know about it, they don’t know about you and they’ve never heard of your publisher. Worse yet, the majority of comic book stores will only order an indie title if one of their customers orders it for their pull list (and some won’t even order it even then!). Your books will never make it to the shelves of a comic store…most store owners/managers find the small press to be more of an annoyance than anything else and would prefer you just went away altogether.

7. Comic book readers are not looking for your books and will not buy them
Even though you have your own website, your own MySpace pages, your own order page on IndyPlanet.Com AND you’ve been telling people about your awesome new comic on the forums at Dimestore and Digital Webbing, actual comic book buyers have no idea you even exist. Real buyers don’t really frequent those places, other creators do. Unfortunately, comic creators are poor and most don’t buy very many comics from other creators.

No one really buys comics from small press creators. The majority of the industry is going to be completely ignorant of your existence and the fact you have a comic to sell. If the Gods of Luck are on your side and someone has heard of you, they’re still not going to buy your book. The reputation for small press publishers never finishing storylines and disappearing after an issue or two will scare away most educated buyers. Readers are going to be looking at books from the larger companies – books they know will be around for a long time and books they know will ship on time (mostly).

Wow, this is all beginning to seem quite gloomy, isn’t it? This is where the good news comes in. I’d like to introduce you to the overlooked 8th Reality for Comic Book Publishers:

8. The Mainstream LOVES Comic Books, just not yours…but you can fix that!
In spite of everything I’ve said, the mainstream audience – those who have never stepped foot into a comic book store – absolutely loves the comic book medium. They may not know who you are or ever heard of your book, but you can fix that by following the tips and techniques found on this website.

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