Monday, 1 September 2014

Special: Top 10 Books that would not sell at Fan Expo

Yes I realize I'm really late on this but I spent the weekend at Fan Expo and thus I had no time to do a Sunday Special until today (Monday) and since I had no idea of what to put out I'm going to go with what I know best from my experience at Fan Expo. I spent the weekend working at the Big B Comics booth (Thursday - Sunday) selling graphic novels, I mostly dealt with the Marvel/DC stuff but I did help with the pack up so I did notice some other books that didn't really sell all that well. There were books that weren't selling that ended up picking up. Batman And Son, Nova: Origin and The Infinity Gauntlet are prime examples of this. But these 10 never really drummed up much interest...

10. Batman: Earth One

This is a book that on Thursday I was shocked that we brought so little of (maybe 10... If that!) but yet we sold maybe 4? But with so much other classic Batman stories readily available at the table Earth One was looked over... Well maybe next year when part 2 is out they'll be more interest.

9. X-Men: Days Of Future Past

This is a book that I really didn't see sell once, similar to Earth One we had a small number (10ish) but it was at the opposite end of my table so I couldn't sell it really, but as you'll see a little later the books that look really old were a hard sell, especially the Marvel titles.

8. The Death Of Captain America

I can pinpoint why this didn't sell. The $40 price point was the highest on the table (apart from some of the omnibus') and there just isn't that much interest in Captain America to throw $40 on this when you can get the Winter Soldier collection for $30 or Civil War for $25.

7. Batman: Death Of The Family

This book probably moved some of the most units on this list (top 3 anyways) but we just had so many it became apparent early on it wouldn't sell. To our surprise a lot of people still didn't have Court Of Owls and City Of Owls so seeing the "Volume 3" scared people away without having read the first 2 volumes, Joker aside... People grabbed up The Killing Joke instead.

6. Rocket Raccoon And Groot: The Complete Collection

As I mentioned above the books that looked old didn't sell and this was no exception. We finally sold our first copy near closing on Sunday, luckily we had under 10 on our hands so that was enough to keep them out of the top 5.

5. Secret Wars

See the "Old books don't sell" line. We had a bunch of these and sold 2 early on but that was it.

4. The Batman: The Animated Series Harley Quinn books

Interest in these picked up Sunday and I was able to sell a couple of Mad Love and Volume 3 when Harley and Ivy move to Metropolis but Volume 1 (shown) and Volume 2 didn't sell and we probably had about 20 of each title going in so a lot of Harley Quinn went back to the store. People were looking for the current Harley which allowed Suicide Squad to sell well enough.

3. Marvel Zombies: Volume 2

Volume 1 didn't fly off the shelves, but it did enough (about 5 of 10 sold) but we went back with all 10 copies of Marvel Zombies volume 2. The $35 price point scared a lot of people off.

2. Scott Pilgrim (all volumes really)

I unfortunately had to put Pilgrim at #2, #1 didn't sell great (4 of 10) or so but the other 5 volumes didn't sell at all. I'm chalking this up to everyone already having these books since a number of people were asking about O'Malley's new book Seconds.

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Color Classics: The Works Volume 2

I'm sad to say that we didn't move one of these, it was odd to have volume 2 and no volume 1 but most people were looking for the current IDW series so I rightfully sent them elsewhere to find it instead of spending their money on this.

For those wondering these are the books that actually sold out that I remember:

Death Of The Family Omnibus (only had a couple of these)
Batman: Hush
Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again
Batman And Son
The Infinity Gauntlet
Guardians Of The Galaxy (2008) Volume 1
Guardians Of The Galaxy: Cosmic Avengers
The Flashpoint Paradox
The Flash: Rebirth
Justice League: Origin
Justice League: The Villain's Journey
Aquaman: The Trench
Aquaman: The Others
Aquaman: The Throne Of Atlantis
Suicide Squad: Volume 1
Age Of Ultron
Deadpool: Daniel Way Collection Volume 1
Deadpool: Daniel Way Collection Volume 2
Deadpool: Volume 1
Deadpool: Volume 3
Deadpool: Volume 5
Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe
Deadpool Kills Deadpool

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