Big Numbers: Brian’s Tilting… on the 2011 Bookscan Numbers at CBR

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Posted by: Jeff Lester on February 10, 2012

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Hey, everyone.  Since Brian is off doing what Brian does best–pestering comic book publishers for hard data–(and let’s face it, that isn’t very pretty), he asked me to give all y’all a link to his latest Tilting at Windmills over at CBR.  It’s his annual review of the Bookscan numbers which I think makes it even more of a look-see than usual. This is the ninth time Hibbs has sat down and crunched numbers of the Bookscan report (the sixth time he’s looked at *all* the numbers for the year) and, as always, the results are fascinating, terrifying, and stultifying all at once.  This year’s report runs approximately 15,000 words which is…pretty god-damned daunting, so my brain always breaks when…  Read More…

Tilting at Windmills #200: BookScan 2011

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 9, 2011

Categories: Retailing/Industry

It is now up at Comic Book Resources — 15,103 words long! Read it, absorb it, let me know what you think. -B

Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 15, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry

I mean, if I had just waited 20 minutes to post, I could have done this in the first post, but then Tom has to go and post something from Eric Reynolds… First off, seriously, “Bookscan Analysis as Direct Market Public Service Announcement”? Really? I feel like I’ve been told to get off Tom’s lawn for playing too much… Eric’s comments are wonderful, but I don’t really see that they have much (if anything) to do with anything that I actually WROTE, as opposed, possibly, what people might want to think that I wrote. If someone can point me to anyplace where I’ve represented the BookScan numbers to be anything other than what I say they are — that they…  Read More…

Only Nixon Can Go To China?

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Tom Spurgeon has some excellent comments up about my BookScan Analysis, and I feel compelled to engage his commentary. This is not a Blog War, but I’m hiding most of this behind the jump for those of you who Don’t Like To See The Parents Fight… Let’s start with motivations, which works nicely as a “response” to numbered point #1 (“I know I’m grateful…It’s fun to see how certain books did on the chart“). First and foremost, I’m getting the Top 750 out there, and if you don’t like my analysis, in the words of the great “Scoop” Nisker, “If You Don’t Like The News, Go Out And Make Some of Your Own” The entire reason I bother to write…  Read More…

Tilting v3 #22 is up! BookScan 2009

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 12, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry

Ah! It is the longest thing I write every year. WITNESS: 6 weeks of my life in the look at BookScan in 2009, in TILTING AT WINDMILLS #189 http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=24818 -B

Comic Book Movies in 2009?

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 5, 2010

Categories: Retailing/Industry

I’m pretty good about doing my own research, most of the time, but as I wander through my BookScan Analysis this year (Sheesh, I’m at 12,000 words, and I still haven’t touched 2 of the 4 categories!) I’m hoping I can depend on YOU to help me a bit. What movies based on comics were released in 2009? Watchmen, obviously. And Wolverine. Astro Boy. But then I start to blank. Name me some titles, would you? Thanks in advance!! -B

Flying Thompson’s Gazelle of The Yard

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 26, 2009

Categories: Retailing/Industry

A final word on my 2008 report on BookScan. Under the jump for everyone who is tired of this topic (which is probably most sane and rational people) As a prominent retailer in a prominent market, who has a long-running soapbox on the retailing of comics, I do a fairly large number (3-6-ish) of interviews any given year, whether it be for various podcasts or newspaper features or whatever about the comics industry. Pretty uniformly, “what’s the size of the market?” is one of the primary questions that rises. We have a paucity of real, viable data in this business. Other industries appear to have whole sub-industries designed just to analyze sales data. I guess the need to categorize, to…  Read More…

The New Tilting is up: BookScan 2008

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 20, 2009

Categories: Retailing/Industry

You can find my look at BookScan 2008 right here. I’d strongly suggest grabbing the chart and saving it off before Jonah gets a C&D. Tomorrow will likely be too late! Interested in your thoughts, as always! Edit: Tom Spurgeon has some good comments here. For the record, Tom is 100% right: look at these with a grain of salt, then a chunk of salt, then an entire salt mine, because, at best, these numbers are just the visible tip of the iceberg. I really really tried to make this clear throughout the piece: go and count how many times I say something like “to the stores that report to BookScan” or words to that effect. I keep being afraid…  Read More…

Moving the Goalposts

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Posted by: Brian Hibbs on February 26, 2008

Categories: Retailing/Industry

For the handful of you interested in the back-and-forth over the BookScan issue, I want to point you to Heidi’s post, as well as Dirk’s first and second sallies. For those of you only here for the reviews, you can stop reading now. In fact, I’d really urge you to! If I have edited this properly, it continues after the jump: For whatever it is worth, I agree nearly 100% with Heidi: my biases are both obvious, (and directly stated in the original piece!) — I believe in the Direct Market (as a concept, if not, necessarily, in the specific individual on-the-ground iteration) to be a far superior method of selling comics for the simple reason that a specialist, with…  Read More…

Tilting at Windmills v2 #9: BookScan 2007

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Posted by: admin on February 15, 2008

Categories: Retailing/Industry

The latest Tilting at Windmills is up on Newsarama. Yeesh, more than 11k words!! Matt decided to not post the file with the actual numbers, so foo on that. Any commentary, feel free below. Some actual reviews coming later this afternoon… -B

TITLTING AT WINDMILLS v2 #37: BookScan 2006 is up

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Posted by: admin on February 16, 2007

Categories: Retailing/Industry

http://www.newsarama.com/Tilting2_0/Tilting37.html Its very very long. Go read, tell me what you think! -B

Tilting at Windmills up @Newsarama

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Posted by: admin on February 10, 2006

Categories: Retailing/Industry

The newest column, on BookScan in 2005, is up at Newsarama — alway interested in your thoughts! http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=1629090#post1629090 OK, time to get ready to go to WonderCon…. -B