Back to PW for another story from the ICv2 Graphic Novel Conference, this one about sales. Here’s the executive summary of the presentation by ICv2 CEO Milton Greipp:
Graphic novel sales in the U.S. and Canada came to $245 million in 2005, up 18 percent from the year before. $145 million of that was manga. $167 million of total sales were in bookstores, $78 million in comics shops.
While manga sales are better overall in general bookstores, Griepp noted that the very best individual stores selling manga are generally comics shops.
Oh, and there’s not enough shelf space. But then, there never is.
About Brigid Alverson
Brigid Alverson has been reading comics since she was 4. After earning an MFA in printmaking, she headed to New York to become a famous artist but ended up working with words instead of pictures, first as a book editor and later as a newspaper reporter. She started
MangaBlog to keep track of her daughters’ reading habits and now covers manga, comics and graphic novels as a freelancer for
School Library Journal,
Publishers Weekly Comics Week,
Comic Book Resources, the
Barnes & Noble Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog, and
Robot 6. She also edits the
Good Comics for Kids blog at School Library Journal. Now settled in the outskirts of Boston, Brigid is married to a physicist and has two daughters.
