Re: Non-Glossy Paper

Brian Henderson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> On 26 Nov 2003 06:50:26 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Glenn Simpson)
> wrote:
> 
> >Lowering the price may not be the only way, or the best way, but it's
> >certainly one way. It may or may not bring in new readers, but if
> >Marvel and DC cut their prices in half, I would spend at least 50% of
> >those savings on books I wasn't buying before.  If 100,000 comics
> >readers bought 5 more books a month, that would be an increase in
> >circulation.
> 
> See, I wouldn't.  If Marvel and DC dropped their prices to 10 cents, I
> wouldn't  buy any more than I'm buying now because I buy comics for
> the STORIES.  I can afford to buy comics regardless of the price, so
> long as I perceive the product to be worth the cost.  There are comics
> I'd buy at $10 an issue if I had to.  There are comics I wouldn't
> spend more than $3 for.  There are plenty that I consider so awful
> that I wouldn't pay for on a bet.
> 
> If it's not a good story with interesting characters, I have no
> interest in wasting my time on it.

(wrapping up all reponses to my previous post here).

I never said DC and Marvel wouldn't lose their shirts doing this. I'm
not going to pretend to know what their bottom line was like.  All I
said was, decreasing the price would increase circulation. There may
be other reasons NOT to lower the price, but doing so WOULD increase
circulation.  Which might allow them to up their ad rate, which would
be the reason to do it. Quite possibly not enough to make up for the
drop in price, sure. I don't know. I'm just saying that dropping the
price would increase circulation.

Just dropping one or two books down 10-cents isn't really enough of a
hit to make a noticable difference or change anyone's buying patterns.

And no, this isn't going to bring in new readers, or help distribution
or anything.

The whole point of this was, ad rates are based on circulation, so
unless you can get circulation up, there's no way to (reasonably) up
your ad rates. But if you get circulation up, do you need to increase
the ad rates?

And Brian - I can't pretend to know for sure, but I feel like there
must be more people out there who would like to be buying more comics
than they can currently afford to.