Diamond Graphic Novels Chart - Below the Top 300

Since I spent a few posts talking about books that almost always show up on Diamond's Top 300 Graphic Novel chart, I figured it was worth looking at examples of books that never do, but still sell well, just to emphasize the importance of the so-called "long tail" and the fact that the Top 300 isn't everything.

Some background. Diamond currently reports the Top 300 books they categorize as graphic novels every month, plus some months their "small publishers" chart includes a few more entries below #300. This includes both new releases and backlist items. The cut-off for appearing on the list varies, of course. In 2013 estimates of sales of the #300 book ranged from 327 copies to 510 copies. What this means is that theoretically a book could have come in at #301 every month, tied with the book above it, shipped 4963 copies and yet never appear on the Top 300. Of course, that's statistically unlikely.

However, Diamond also releases a Top 1000 for the full year. On the Comics side there are no real surprises, it goes down to 27,800 copies estimated sales, so it's pretty much stuff that was in the Top 100 every month, with a few books moving up or down a few spots from what you'd expect based on the monthly charts, indicating a few thousand reorders or later printings falling below the Top 300, or adjustments for returns.

The graphic novel list, on the other hand, goes down to 1600 copies, and the nature of the market means it's perfectly feasible for books which rarely if ever make the top 300 in any single month to make that chart, just by selling more than an average of 133 copies a month. That might not seem like a lot of copies, but 1600 copies a year, just in the non-returnable direct market, for a book where all the initial creative and production costs are paid for is probably a decent enough sales velocity for most publishers to keep a book in stock, and probably call for a new printing when sold out.

It's hard to do an exact count, since Diamond often makes small changes in the listed titles of books, but I'd say there are a little over 100 books on the yearly Top 1000 for 2013 which were never on the monthly charts during the year.

The highest of those appears to be Marvel's FEAR ITSELF TP, a collection of the 2011 crossover event. It ranked #392 for the year, selling around 3100 copies, or slightly over 250 each month on average.

Just a few more highlights from books in this category, starting with Marvel since we're already there. I've identified 23 Marvel books, and almost one-third of them are Deadpool books. A few older best-sellers like WOLVERINE ORIGIN, MARVEL 1602 and HULK: WORLD WAR HULK are also there, as is the hardcover edition of the CIVIL WAR crossover which also sells well in softcover. There's one collection of older material the first Marvel Masterworks edition of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, which sells about 1700 copies for the year.

As you'd expect, DC has a most of the books in this category, many under the Vertigo imprint which is known for its vigorous backlist program. The top one is Y THE LAST MAN VOL 4 SAFEWORD, selling around 3000 copies (250 a month), with the prior volumes selling more and making the Top 300 at least once and the next six volumes selling enough to make the annual Top 1000, with VOL 10 selling around 1700 copies.  There are also multiple volumes of FABLES, TRANSMETROPOLITAN, AMERICAN VAMPIRE, SWEET TOOTH and single volumes of several other Vertigo series, with the later ones probably selling steadily at a slightly lower rate.

On the DC super-hero side, lots of Batman, some Green Lantern, several of the old "Crisis" books (CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS, IDENTITY CRISIS, INFINITE CRISIS). The first volume of the kids book TINY TITANS still sells at a steady pace, with about 2200 copies in the direct market several years after it was first published.

Image and Dark Horse both have a number of books in this category.  From Image it's a selection of WALKING DEAD hardcovers, a few volumes of MORNING GLORIES and single volumes of SPAWN, INVINCIBLE and KING CITY. Dark Horse has several BUFFY books and single early volumes of THE GOON, AXE COP, SIN CITY, MASS EFFECT and STAR WARS CLONE WARS.

Various other publishers have one or two books. Archaia has two MOUSE GUARD books, Avatar has the second CROSSED book and NEONOMICON. Dynamite has the first two volumes of THE BOYS. IDW has the first volume of the current TMNT series and the second hardcover volume of LOCKE AND KEY.

Other publishers have single volumes of SCOTT PILGRIM (Oni), BLACK BUTLER (Yen), ASSASSIN'S CREED (Titan) and LEGEND OF ZELDA (Viz).