My first issue of Tabloia had only sold 613 copies, despite a lot of money to Diamond to try and come out of the gate with a decent-sized advertising bang. I’d run a full-page color ad in Diamond’s Previews, which cost me $2300. I’d spent $700 printing up mini-posters, and another hundred to get them sent out to indie-supportive comics shops across the nation. I thought, well the sales weren’t great, but word will spread, and reorders will come in, and it will all work out okay.
I did get reorders…but only for six issues. Not enough to make any difference. Just enough to realize I can’t count on reorders to pick up my initial sales numbers. I began to feel pangs of worry, but it didn’t really affect me until the second issue was released, and its sales dropped almost in half, down to 315. Still upset, I thought, if only people find out about this comic, it will catch on. Or at least maybe steady out. I was doing signings, getting interviews and decent reviews, and going to conventions out of town. The orders can still pick up, the orders can still pick up…
I was tempted to speak with my representative with Diamond. I was tempted to say, “Look, I spent three thousand dollars for my initial push, and I haven’t made any of that money back. Couldn’t you guys do a little spotlight on my book, since it’s got all these great pin-up artists? Or do a little interview? Or just spotlight me in some way?” But instead I chose to take the coward’s route. I realized I didn’t have a lot of bargaining chips, with a failing book, so I just tried to keep inconspicuous, and not stir up any dust. I hoped if I didn’t bother him, I could keep under his radar, and my series might slip through the cracks and continue to get published. Naive, and maybe not the smartest way to handle it.
Now I was sweating, but still holding out hope for my third issue. When those numbers came in, I knew it was just a matter of time. Now my orders had plummeted yet again, now down to 260. I was devastated. This was when I wernt over to Sam Kieth’s house. This was after running an ad in the Comics Journal, and in Love and Rockets, since my issue had pin-ups by all three Hernandez Brothers. I knew it was hopeless, and just a matter of time. I was a walking dead man.
On November 9 2004, after the numbers came in for issue three, but before I’d gotten it back from the printer, and immediately after submitting the product info for issue four to be listed in Previews, my representative at Diamond delivered the death blow for Tabloia, in the form of an email. He was very sweet and professional about it. He reminded me that not even my first issue had made the benchmark for sales, but that they let the title run for a few more issues, just to see if it had any chances of picking up. Since the sales had continued to drop, he said it was time to cancel the book.
He suggested combining books, and doubling the page count. He said, then I could charge a higher cover price, and maybe that would help me to make the benchmark requirements.
I gave this some thought, before replying with a begging email. I said that Tabloia’s first story arc was supposed to run six issues. Would he consider letting me put out the fourth issue as planned, and then doing a final, double-sized fifth issue to round up the series? Pretty please? He agreed. I was relieved.
But what a blow, knowing you’ve spent all this time on a story that you thought would be really good, and that you thought other people would enjoy. Drawing it the best you can, putting all your money into it, to the point that you’ve gone into debt, publishing it and getting it into stores, only to learn it just isn’t a success, and people aren’t or don’t want to read it, or worse, maybe they tried the first issue and decided they didn’t care for it, and now it’s going to be cancelled.
I realized how lucky I was that I hadn’t tried to do a ten or twenty issue story, that would have gotten cancelled after three issues. At least I would have the opportunity to finish my story. I realized, from this point out, it would be a good idea to only do three issue stories, because anything longer than that would probably not get to see completion in print. What a sobering thought. And what a difficult industry, if you won’t necessarily get to finish a story you started.