New Brevoort Formspring

>You know your argument about price is absolutely ridiculous, Tom. The fact that you printed my statement and then just went off on a rant about how Marvel can’t lower their price to make me happy may be one of the most ridiculous things and biggest Straw man argument I’ve ever read. I didn’t say that at all. I simply pointed out that Marvel raises its prices with frequency because the overabundance of product is only reaching an ever dwindling niche target audience and that is a poor business model and THAT’S why Marvel has to raise their prices so frequently. That’s not me wanting you to lower your price; that’s me pointing out that your business model is terrible and that print comics, unlike their movie counterparts don’t seem to have a huge audience. Your price increases are not keyed into the rates of inflation and rising costs, and they are significant jumps. Your cover price until nearly 2000, I believe, was still 1.99, and within a few years later your cover price has doubled (3.99 has been around for several years now at least on several titles).  So no retailer was making money in 1999? Everybody lost their shirt on 1.99 books? Nobody stayed in business for those years?? Because that’s your argument now; that retailers make more money for a 3.99 book than a 2.99 book. So what? By that logic, they make double THAT amount for a book that costs 7.99. Should you raise your cover price to 7.99? Unless you’re a severely brain damaged monkey, you know that the more copies you print, the lower your price per copy. The more copies you sell, the more money you take in. Sure there are factors involving shipping, but again, the more guaranteed bulk rate shipping you create for a carrier the lower your prices tend to be. So if Marvel were selling a lot of comics, why would they need to continually raise prices? It defies logic. So give your glib, vague phony answers to the brevoort- ites who believe your mumbo jumbo. Don’t bother answering this as you will serve up another plate of phony stew to your happy hordes, but know I find you ridiculous and your math ridiculous.>

You seem to be arguing that we should wave our magic wand and suddenly conjure up hundreds of thousands of additional readers for our books, and this would make them more affordable.

That approach might work in candyland, but you and I live in the real world, I’m afraid.

And in the real world, as just about anybody involved in any facet of it will tell you, print publishing as a business is in a freefall. Whether it’s books or magazines or newspapers, every aspect of the business is hurting. And in fact, comics are doing far better than virtually any other print category because of that network of hardcore niche audience members that we call the Direct Market. It makes us the envy of the publishing world at this point.

So I really don’t know what you’re arguing, apart from being unhappy with the way we run our business. And in that, I’m sorry you feel that way, but it’s our business, and we must run it in a manner that allows us to remain alive and afloat and to continue to be able to produce this material.