Posted in: Comics, Current News | Tagged: comicspro, diamond

Atom! Freeman On How To Fix Comics At ComicsPRO

Atom! Freeman of Prana on how to fix comics, the creating, the distrubtion and the selling of them, at ComicsPRO

Atom! Freeman, began his career in the comics industry as the co-owner of Brave New World Comics where he received the 2008 Eisner Spirit of Retail award. In 2010, he transitioned to publishing as the Director Of Sales & Marketing at Top Cow Entertainment. In 2012, Freeman was one of the five principal architects of Valiant Entertainment's re-emergence. After leaving Valiant, post-acquisition by Chinese investors DMG, he was one of the founding names at Bad Idea Comics before launching Prana: Direct Market Solutions as a vehicle for consulting and sales services for publishers and other brands looking to grow in the Direct Market comics shops. The year before Diamond Comic Distributors announced Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As Dan Crary, Director of Marketing & Communications at Oni, said at last week's ComicsPRO looking at industry moves, "Atom Freeman went from Bad Idea to Worst Idea, I mean Prana! You know I love you!". No news as to whether or not Freeman had Crary taken outside and shot. But Freeman did have a presentation for ComicsPRO…

"The thing about building a 30+ year career in selling, marketing, and producing comics and graphic novels is that not a whole lot shocks you. When you were around for Diamond gobbling up comics distribution and interacted with them from all sides with lifelong friends on staff, when the fall comes, the reasons are not a surprise. When one of the most ambitious and capable couples you've ever met step in to build when others are crumbling, it doesn't even get a shoulder shrug. When one of the largest publishing and distribution companies in the history of man steps in to grab a piece of our industry, you wonder why it didn't happen sooner (and that's not even counting the dark/stalking horse waiting in the wings). Do you know what surprised me? This graph:

"This line graph represents the Fan Confidence Rating (a metric that looks at the preorders and subscriptions in the average store) for single-issue comics for the last 24 months. We have built this through relationships with comics shop POS systems, the data of over 200 stores, 24,000+ consumers, and a whopping half million active subscriptions. And I've never seen anything like it. We've seen spikes, certainly. Some are even bigger than this. And we've seen trends. But this sort of steady growth over a 2-year period when all around us was chaos and the only voices getting attention were doom and gloom? Not in my memory. Pouring fuel on this fire is the wake that is being caused by Diamond's collapse. Like any star that big, when it fails, it takes down a lot of planets with it. Publishers who were dependent on Direct Market sales without enough cash reserves or plans for this when the tea leaves became neon signs are being forced to make some pretty tough decisions. Some are closing their doors, some are refocusing on different product lines, and some are just laying folks off and hoping for the best. But the smart ones see the opportunity. An increasing demand happening during a once-in-decade disruption leading to lower available publishers and distributor volume? Time to build. It's time to make new alliances. Time to build new infrastructure. It's time to create out of destruction. "Enough of metaphor, Atom! What should I be doing right now?" Okay, fine. Let's focus on 5 points that any publisher should be leaning into:

1. Refocus on quality. We all got caught up on SKUs there for a minute. And who could blame us? Start a rumor about media rights and build a dozen covers knowing that the rest of that series was DOA anyway. Doesn't matter. Let's print some money! But, it did matter. All those SKUs filled up the store shelves, made the retailers lives harder, drove up the prices for printing, and, in the end, was one of the downfalls of Diamond. Distributing small press is a viable business but not when each issue has a dozen covers. At Prana, we had a client that we sold several hundreds of thousands of exclusive covers for in one year. The year before they went bankrupt. The answer is simple. Do LESS of BETTER. Hire the best editors and creators you can find, not just more of them. Find creative partners who share your vision and are determined to create something wonderful. Build something you are proud of and then don't give up until you've done everything you can to make it better. You know the difference in printing work you are proud of and the work you just put out to pay the bills. Demand the first.The ramifications of that strategy are tough to swallow, I know. You will need a leaner team. You will need to adapt more quickly to the marketplace. You will, in short, need to work more and harder. But the benefits of producing work you are proud of will keep you going and build your company faster than the same long list of IP everyone else has.
2. Refocus on consistency. There are plenty of reasons the Direct Market works as a sector. But the number one reason has to be the weekly comics fan. The person who shows up each week no matter what is going on in their lives to pick up their comics (even those who will never have time read them all), talks to the store staff, and gives a portion of every week to thinking about what they are going to buy when they go in. But, they won't show up if you don't ship. Dedicate yourself to consistency. Pick a date each month that is yours and own it with the best product you can build. This strategy works if you are a comics publisher, retailer, creator, or, I don't know, Tik Tok dancer. You won't build an audience if they don't know when to meet you. BE ON TIME.
3. Market the sh-t out of it. Variant covers made us complacent. They made us weak. It's time to get back to the gym. Build your social media campaign, your advertising campaign, your marketing campaign, and your retailer relations campaign  (if you don't know the difference between those, let's talk) before you solicit and work those plans within an inch of their lives. Then go back and rework them when they don't perform. Nothing sells wholesale like retail demand and that is not something you can delegate to the busy retailer (though thank the retail gods for those that can hand-sell).
4. Spread your risk and your rewards. Any of my retailer friends who are reading this, can I recommend that you skip to #5? Are they gone? Okay, good. Publishers, if you don't have a Direct To Consumer plan that isn't just a website and tabling at your favorite conventions every year, this will not be the last implosion threatening to take you down. Your business plan must include some sort of direct to consumer marketing and sales plans. That means (but isn't limited to) conventions and a website, yes. But, also, crowdfunding and email campaigns. It means social media ads to support all of those things. It means advertising on every platform you can afford (can I recommend ZCN?). You started a comics publisher to develop a fanbase. You owe it to yourself and your team to always be growing that base. The benefit of this is that larger consumer demand and more impressions will not only benefit your direct sales, they actually increase demand in the comics shops and bookstores themselves.
5. Build community. This means a lot of different things for a lot of different companies, but I can tell you what I've seen work. Podcasts, newsletters, Discord channels, meetups, and conventions and many, many more. Find your tribe. Your fans are not just consumers, they are people with interesting lives and they want to connect. Be open to that connection and find as many channels to start and grow those conversations as possible.

"I wish there was a crystal ball to tell us all how the next year is going to go. I have some predictions but they all lead to a whole lot of drama and anxiety behind the scenes. But, the good news is that the audience is still pushing their way into the theater. And it looks like we're about to have a packed house. They don't need to know that everything backstage is on fire. They just want to connect and to be entertained. If enough of us focus on connection and quality, we're on the precipice of something spectacular. Namaste, y'all.

Atom! Freeman
Prana: Direct Market Solutions

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