DC's sales cancellation threshold, while dependent on editorial discretion, is approximately 15,000 units. That's the white line in the graph above. Unless "Blackest Night" or the arrival of Keith Giffen can earn Booster Gold some new regular readers, it looks like the series will be targeted for termination by issue 50. I find that unacceptable. So spread the word, Boosterphiles, and lets see if we can't get some more air under Booster's sails.
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KMD Posted on Feb. 7, 2010 at 03:26:41 PM
Hopefully JL: Generation Lost can increase sales. We'll see. I am not optimistic though things could change if the "Blue Beetle" co feature is pulled and the price per issue goes back down.
Harry Posted on Feb. 8, 2010 at 05:42:53 PM
Booster will need continual event press to keep sales above the kill line. Its the nature of being a lesser known property. A big name on the new creative team, a featured spot in the bi-weekly series, the return of Ted Kord all seem to be DC's attempt to keep this title alive. That bodes well. Still, as big of a fan as I am, a 50 issue run just may be all the milage there is. Any idea how the collected editions are doing?
Boosterrific [Official Comment] Posted on Feb. 9, 2010 at 12:09:49 AM
KMD: One of the things I discovered in the stats is that the price change did not appear to in any way significantly affect the rate of decline of sales. While I hear that the Beetle co-feature is being canceled, I don't expect that if the price does fall back to $2.99, the change alone will make much of a change in the sales figures.
Harry: The TPB sales, like the individual comic book issues, are sliding, at least so far as direct sales reports are concerned. It is hard to get a grasp on the trade numbers, as distributors don't report sales numbers, and comichron.com only tracks the top 300 sellers each month. For example, Booster's softcover trades have sold approx 1700, 1500, and 1400, each in their opening month of sales.
Harry Posted on Feb. 9, 2010 at 11:20:57 PM
Those TPB sales are better than I expected. If they can sell close to 1500 each TPB edition I think that encourages DC to work to keep the title in circulation. However, it looks like the Jan sales numbers are back to about 20,000. Will we get new graphs Boosterrific? I LOVE graphs!
Boosterrific [Official Comment] Posted on Feb. 10, 2010 at 02:21:06 AM
Harry, I'll definitely be revisiting this topic, and you can be assured that I'll be bringing the graphs.
KMD Posted on Feb. 11, 2010 at 05:06:00 PM
Thanks for the info, and all else you do, Boosterrific.
Harry Posted on Feb. 11, 2010 at 11:19:04 PM
Ditto the appreciation. I never knew I needed a comprehensive collection of all things Booster Gold... but here I am.
Boosterrific [Official Comment] Posted on Feb. 12, 2010 at 03:17:36 PM
"Built it and they will come." Turns out that it's true.
Booster Gold Versus The Doom Patrol
Today's graph compresses the timeline of yesterday's graph to compare apples to apples: issue by issue of Comicchron.com sales numbers for recently canceled DC titles. The trend becomes pretty obvious here as ballooning early enthusiasm quickly deflates to a sloping plateau before finally petering out altogether. Note the recurring late series crossover spikes as Blue Beetle #20 is a Sinestro Corps crossover and both Manhunter #13 and 26 got boosts from Infinite Crisis-related stories. I wonder how big those spikes would have been if little plastic rings had been involved?