Shonen Jump Sales: Now Divide My Enthusiasm By Two
Almost forgot to mention this:
Last
week I asked readers for help in determining what the actual sales
figures were like for
Shonen Jump. Helpful reader
Mark
searched through the January 2004 issue of
Shonen Jump
and found the following information from Viz's circulation report:
Page 302, down in the corner in teeny tiny print. I'm not
going to type the whole thing in, but for October 2003, they list total
paid circulation of 140,323 out of a total of 283,000 copies. The
average from February thru October shows total paid circulation of
150,961 out of 349,444 total copies.
Thanks for the info, Mark. And thanks to
Matt
Maxwell for first bringing this to my attention. I knew
newsstand magazines faced returns, but I had no idea returns could
account for half a print run or more. I'll definitely keep this
in mind when I read future press releases from Viz about the amazing
sales of
Shonen Jump. Not that I'm suddenly
declaring
Shonen Jump a failure. From what I
understand,
Shonen Jump's rate of sales vs. returns is
actually pretty good for a newsstand periodical. And Viz
maintains that circulation continues to rise. But I will
definitely mentally adjust those sales figures from now on.
I'm still left wondering: Why is selling half of your print run
considered a success in the magazine business? Why don't
publishers try to bring print runs more in line with actual sales
numbers? Is having half (or more) of your print run sitting
unsold on the stands considered the price of doing business (have to
allow for reading copies, which will get damaged/beat up)?
