How to track a comic book's economic success?

Cafe Society
1

I am interested in knowing how well Adam Warren’s “Empowered” did in terms of sales. Is there any objective source of information on this topic? Do comic publishers horde such information, or is it freely available?

This is kind of a GQ question, I know, but I ask in this forum because this is where the people who know comics hang out.

BTW, I am aware that there is a second volume of “Empowered” coming in September, so I’m assuming the first volume was a success of some sort, though I don’t know for sure. I’d like to know for sure, and have some idea how “Empowered’s” success/failure compares with other, similar publications.

2

The CBG comes to mind, who track at least the Diamond comics’ sales. I have no idea whether they’ve got “Empowered,” but you could check them out?

http://www.cbgxtra.com/ (Sales Charts)

Edit: This Newsarama article puts Warren’s “Empowered” at nr 21/100 of the Top Sold Graphic Novels charts. That should at least give you an idea, I think?

3

The Newsarama posts charts sales via Diamond, which can give you (most of) the story for comic book stores.

Tracking sales in actual book stores, an increasingly important outlet for GN format books like Empowered, is damn near impossible. All comics and manga fall well short of the bestseller lists, and the stores don’t report to a distributor like Diamond that makes their data public. This means that only the actual store owners and the publishers know for sure, and neither one has any reason to tell you if something’s selling like shit. I’ve seen some efforts to poll book store employees as to sales, but that’s hardly scientific.

4

Thanks that was exactly the kind of information I was looking for.