Amelia Cole and the Great Renumbering: Adam P. Knave Explains The Decision

It's not that infrequent that comic book series renumber; often it's truncating a long run to take [...]

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It's not that infrequent that comic book series renumber; often it's truncating a long run to take advantage of the upside of a new #1 in a crowded marketplace full of titles with long, impenetrable backstories. Once in a great while, it's returning to the higher number you abandoned after the low numbers get high enough that they're no longer attractive to new readers. In the case of Amelia Cole, though, it's something else entirely. The Monkeybrain title, launched last year as a series of miniseries, ran for six issues as Amelia Cole and the Unknown World before rebranding last month as Amelia Cole and the Hidden War. The creators--writers Adam P. Knave, D.j. Kirkbride and artist Nick Brokenshire-- "It's a pulp fiction staple; the Indiana Jones movies use them, the Harry Potter books use them," Knave said. "And there are other comics, like Hellboy and Locke & Key. So it wasn't uncharted territory but when we started the book back before Monkeybrain, we hadn't really given much thought to ComiXology. When we started with ComiXology, we had a discussion and decided to just go forward as limited series." That comes with complications, though; ComiXology isn't set up to automatically detect what miniseries comes next (they're technically different products altogether, after all), so their popular "keep reading" feature that pops up at the end of books won't come when you finish one miniseries, even if the next one is readily available. However, it works perfectly with ongoing series.

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"That [decision] was born of a lack of understanding of how digital sales work, which sounds strange, Knave said. "If you are used to the direct market, digital sales are a completely new animal and takes a few months--at least it did for us because it was uncharted territory--to really wrap your head around the way sales work." He added, "If you've got a book that is going to comic stores--direct market stuff, we'll say Booster Gold. If Booster Gold ships and it sells 4,000 copies that week, that is how many copies Booster Gold sold that month. The next issue comes out and it sells, whatever, 3,500 copies, and that's how many copies that book sold that month. Because of digital, issue four of Booster Gold on ComiXology sells 4,000 copies that month--which, whatever, I'm just making up numbers here--but when people see issue four, there are a number of people who go, 'Maybe I will buy that book because someone else likes it, or this looks interesting.' So issue four sells 4,000 copies, issue one sells 2,000 copies, issue two sells 300 copies, issue three sells 2,000 copies--and then issue five comes out and all of those books sell more copies because people go back. So the question is, quick: how many copies did that sell? The month no longer matters; it's the units." It's because of this that the creators of Amelia Cole decided to merge the miniseries--to make shopping backwards as easy as it can be for the reader. Knave explained that even if it's only an altered search string or a few extra clicks, he knows that little bit of extra work or aggravation can be the thing that dissuades somebody from buying in, or buying in as much as they otherwise would have. He also added that whereas a higher issue number on the front of a comic can be a deterrent in the brick-and-mortar store where you can't necessarily find back issues, on ComiXology where everything is available, all it means is that there's more content if you fall in love with the series.

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There were practical concerns beyond just sales, too. "On ComiXology, you can set alerts to say, 'let me know when the next issue of Avengers hits,' and you'll get that alert. With this you would never get that alert, because it's a different series," Knave said. "And for a sales perspective that's bad. For a 'Let's just make things easier for readers to enjoy,' why would we make it harder for them to find the book?" The new issue of Amelia Cole--#8--just hit the stands yesterday under the title Amelia Cole and the Hidden War #2. That and the other seven issues that have been published already are available now on ComiXology and the title treatment will remain consistent even while the numbering has changed. At left is a screenshot of my Amelia Cole collection--you'll see that each issue is numbered, and then followed by a subtitle and part (e.g., The Unknown World Part Four). Trade paperback collections will similarly be titled as they would if it were a novel, with a small notation on the bottom of the spine to let readers know what volume of the larger series the story constitutes. Knave also wanted readers to know that this was a choice they made to make life easier for the reader, and not something that was ComiXology's "fault." They've been helpful every step of the way as the creative team debated the change, he said, and once they decided to pull the trigger yesterday, they were caught a bit flat-footed by the speed of ComiXology's response, which necessitated a quick outreach to press and a blog post to help keep the readers abreast.

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