On Sept. 7, Diamond Comic Distributors, the sole large distributor to the comics-shop Direct Market, informed publishers that it may not fill orders that do not exceed a minimum dollar amount (roughly $600 per title). The new policy occasioned another shift in the comics industry's image of itself, with some hailing the move as a long overdue step toward greater professionalism, while others mourned the loss of the comics market's unique accessibility and diversity.

In the face of concerns from small publishers, Diamond quickly downplayed the magnitude of the change, with Diamond Comics Purchasing Manager Jim Kuhoric denying to the Journal that the apparent policy was "really even a 'policy' per se -- it is an internal analysis point to determine if sales were so much lower than we had originally forecast, that there really wasn't a demand for the product in the marketplace. If an item was listed in the catalog, essentially crossing approximately 70,000 potential consumers' (not to mention copies which are shared with fellow collectors/readers) and retailers' eyes and failed to sell $600 worth on its initial listing we can pretty safely say that it has an extremely tough road ahead in finding an audience. In the extreme cases where a book has sold very poorly we will contact the vendor and let them know that we won't be issuing a final purchase order, as both consumers and retailers have chosen not to support their publication."

But of course, unless the book drew no orders at all, some retailers did support it -- just not enough to make the threshold set by Diamond. And if those orders were canceled, per the "nonpolicy," consumers never got a chance to support it, unless they made a point of placing an advance special order with a retailer. Therein lies the crux of the change instituted by Diamond: Whereas Diamond has always had "benchmarks" or sales goals which it expected titles to make in order to be offered in the catalog ("Having a minimum target to break even for soliciting a product is just a sensible business model," Kuhoric told the Journal.), solicitation is granted to every book believed to have a chance of making those benchmarks in Diamond's estimation. Once a book was solicited, however, Diamond filled whatever orders the book accumulated, giving the title several months to bring its sales up to the benchmark -- currently $1,500 wholesale. The new threshold has been set at 40 percent of the $1,500 benchmark, or roughly $600 wholesale. The benchmark is still in place, and books are expected to achieve that level of sales eventually. The threshold marks the point beneath which Diamond no longer holds any hope that a title will ever increase sales to the benchmark level. With this "internal analysis point" in place, Diamond is poised to cancel orders that don't reach the $600 threshold, meaning those titles will never reach the shelves of comics shops. A new title would have one shot and one shot only to attract orders via a three-inch listing in Diamond's Previews catalog. If not enough retailers are willing to take a chance on it out of the starting gate, the book will never reach the hands of retailers or readers. Bad news for unfamiliar comics creators and fledgling publishers.

In the September Previews for November-shipping titles, Kuhoric told the Journal, orders for six new comics and one softcover collection were canceled for failure to cross the threshold. "The total combined orders for these seven items were just over $2,200," he said, "with the lowest dollar comic generating orders of $161."

As Kuhoric pointed out, that is a small number, given the large number of titles solicited every month. Anyone who's seen the monthly Previews in recent years knows that it is bursting at the seams with 560+ pages of solicitations for everything from the latest Batman spin-off titles to God, the Dyslexic Dog #4 to three-inch Ramones Teddy-Bear figurines. Knowing that the eyes of most retailers and customers will have lost focus by the time they get to the back of the alphabetically arranged comics listings, upstart publishers tend to choose names like AA Pop Comics and ACC Studios. Meanwhile, the big companies asserted their right not to have to associate with the rest of the publishing masses by buying their way to the front of the catalog via exclusive contracts. Diamond was the first distributor to nail down an excusive relationship with indispensable DC Comics and Image Comics, which is why Diamond is today the life's blood of the Direct Market and its competitors either gone or reduced to the role of tiny, supplemental supplier.

Given Diamond's dominance of the market, it is perhaps not surprising that most initial responses on the Internet were more supportive of Diamond's right to maximize its profits than critical of how the policy might affect small publishers. Most Web reporters bent over backward to be understanding of Diamond's position. Matt Brady at Newsarama: "Though Diamond may have instituted the change in its guidelines, at the end of the day, it will [be] the economics of supply and demand that rule the day. Creators and publishers will now have to make sure there is enough demand to facilitate a threshold supply." Rich Johnston reported in his Lying in the Gutters Web-column that Diamond was so pleased with Brady's report that the distributor was using it as a promotional handout at shows. Johnston, who was one of the few Web reporters directly critical of Diamond, pointed out that the threshold followed on the heels of an increase in Diamond's benchmark -- a fact that was obscured in Brady's report by a math error. Brady had corrected the error, but Johnston said he had heard from publishers that Diamond was handing out the uncorrected version of the report.

Tom Spurgeon at ComicsReporter.com seemed to twist himself into knots in an effort to espouse all viewpoints and none: "Books like Bone, Cerebus, and Love and Rockets... illustrate the possibility of what can be lost, not the certainty of what will be.... Neglecting the low-end of the direct market creates a reality that leads to dumping it becoming a good idea.... Seeing potential benefits or expressing empathy for a business decision in no way means an endorsement of the morality involved.... Nor is it a prediction of success."

It seems clear that every segment of the industry will be affected in some way by Diamond's new thresholds, but as the Journal spoke with comics retailers, publishers, creators and distributors, most were still trying to think through whether those effects would be catastrophic or negligible, welcome or unwelcome.

For the publishers that are too big to be endangered by Diamond's cut-offs, but not big enough to merit a contractual place in the front of the catalog, the policy can only improve things if it succeeds in clearing away the catalog's underbrush.

Among the smaller, more marginally selling publishers, the new cut-off could be a help in clearing out some of the crowd of competitors -- until it reaches the tipping point where it ceases to be a help and becomes a death blow. Among these publishers, no one wants to cheer too loudly for fear of waking up one day and finding they are part of the underbrush to be cleared away. Nor are they eager to criticize Diamond too directly, because if judgment day comes and they find themselves on the wrong side of $600, it will be only by Diamond's good graces that they are allowed another chance to stay in business.

One senses this kind of hesitation in Randy Reynaldo, who has been publishing Rob Hanes Adventures through WCG Publications. With both art and story patterned after Steve Canyon-style adventure strips, Rob Hanes has been appearing with few interruptions since 1990, along the way winning Reynaldo a Xeric Foundation grant and a Russ Manning Award for Best Newcomer. He told the Journal, "For the most part, though I understand Diamond's position, I think it's too early to tell whether the policy will have a 'good' or 'bad' effect on the industry, which can mean many things. As a publisher as small as myself who does not have the resources to purchase lots of print ads or to advertise aggressively through traditional methods, Diamond in my experience has over the years been exceedingly generous to and supportive of Rob Hanes Adventures by providing spotlights and other showcases for the series regularly -- certainly more than I would expect without being a major Diamond vendor or advertiser. I like to think that this is partly due to Diamond's recognition of the quality of my series, as well as an acknowledgment of the need for diverse work in the marketplace that falls somewhere between superhero comics and more edgy independent fare. People familiar with my work know that Rob Hanes Adventures is an attempt to do a modern-day "mainstream" action-adventure series in a traditional (and, for the most part, unironic) vein, so I like to think that Diamond's staff enjoy the book and believe it fulfills an important niche in this regard. They have tried to be fairly supportive of the series."

Nevertheless, Diamond's new guidelines have him a little worried. "Although I get the sense that, for many publishers, providing circulation numbers is tantamount to revealing a state secret," he told the Journal, "I'm willing to state for the record that recent issues of Rob Hanes Adventures have been on the 'cusp' in terms of Diamond's minimum sales policies, so this new policy probably does put my title at risk in terms of continued distribution through Diamond.... I remain committed to continuing the series in some form or another even if the comic-book model no longer became viable. Fortunately, there exists today a wider variety of options than ever for producing and, yes, even distributing a comic-book (i.e., on the Web, print-on-demand printers, etc.), though losing the option of Diamond as a distributor will obviously severely hamper the widespread availability of any series to most comic-book readers. I understand that Diamond still has the option of exercising discretion in applying the new policy, but obviously it still creates greater exposure and uncertainty for small publishers like myself. I'm really not sure why the policy is designed the way it is other than it gives Diamond a very clear and quantifiable justification for canceling and no longer carrying a book (i.e., low orders)."

In the normal course of things, most publishers told the Journal, material would be at the printer waiting for retailer order numbers to come back from Diamond, with the actual print run authorized and set according to those numbers. If Diamond chooses to cancel all orders at the point, the publisher will also have the option of canceling its print run, but not without losing a substantial printer deposit, as well as the costs of developing the book to that point. According to Adhouse Books Publisher Chris Pitzer, "To get a book started, I would need a deposit, and if the numbers were not high enough, I would not have an outlet for said product. If I decided to cut my losses before printing, I would be out that deposit. Hopefully, that would never happen."

Paige Braddock, whose lesbian-themed Jane's World comic has, like Rob Hanes, been more lauded than purchased, told the Journal, "I don't really understand why Diamond is doing this. I mean, on a purely superficial level, yes... I understand it.... It's all about the bottom line. But for an industry that has sort of built a lot of its fame, readership and longevity on the 'underground' and indy comics culture, I don't think it's a smart move for the long-term relevance of comics."

[To read the rest of this story, please see The Comics Journal #272.]

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