Monday Mash-up, 2/4/08
1) While a couple of good things happened in January (most notably an unexpected promotion at work to Online Ad Sales Director for all of our properties!), overall it was as bad a start to 2008 as I could have imagined. Nothing major, but a lot of bumps in the road that tested my constitution
Review Roundup: 1/08
Last year I was invited to join Amazon Vine, the online behemoth’s slick new marketing program that enables publishers (and other companies) to provide free review copies of their books (and other products) for a group of Amazon-selected reviewers, pretty much ensuring a lot of independent user reviews for the participating products. The program lets
On Comics, Pokémon and Storm Hawks
Other than the occasional review at Amazon — or even less frequently, at PopCultureShock — it’s been a while since I’ve written about comics. After 2.5 years of being ankle-deep in the industry, writing reviews, interviews, commentary and the occasional news piece, I really don’t miss it at all. While I’m still reading comics, my weekly trips to Midtown Comics
Obama, I Choose You!
Back in 2004 I discovered an election sim called President Forever via a random Google ad on my old blog, bought it and spent many a late night frustrated over my unsuccessful attempts to lead Dennis Kucinich to simulated victory over Dubya. No surprise, really, but it was still a fun game that nicely married
On the Shelves: 3/7/07
Reading is fundamental. Read what you like; don’t waste your time reading bad comics out of habit! My weekly look at select comic books being released Wednesday, 3/7/07. The full shipping list, as always, is available at ComicList. [NOTE: Not all of these titles will actually arrive in all stores. If your LCBS offers a
Marketing Monday: No-Brainer Marketing Efforts, Pt. II
Wrapping up the subject of Marketing No-Brainers from two weeks ago, the final no-brainer is the PowerPoint presentation — a portable, printable document offering an overview of all relevant information on the publisher and/or product based on the intended audience. This presentation should bring together all of the other elements of the no-brainer puzzle into
Ghost Rider’s Qualified Success and What it Means for DC
With the estimates for its third weekend in ($11.5m towards $94m to-date, domestic) it’s safe to consider Ghost Rider a qualified success as it’s quite likely that it will surpass director Mark Steven Johnson’s previous effort, Daredevil — which topped out at $102m after 22 weeks in release — by the end of next weekend,
On the Shelves: 2/21/07
Reading is fundamental. Read what you like; don’t waste your time reading bad comics out of habit! My weekly look at select comic books being released Wednesday, 2/21/07. The full shipping list, as always, is available at ComicList. [NOTE: Not all of these titles will actually arrive in all stores. If your LCBS offers a
Marketing Monday: No-Brainer Marketing Efforts
Thanks to Adam Kubert, today’s Marketing Monday column will be delayed until later this evening.* So far, we’ve looked at the five basic steps to developing a simple marketing plan and how they specifically relate to marketing comics. Last week, I put forth five specific marketing efforts, no-brainers that every aspiring publisher should be ready
On Soliciting Reviews, Entitlement and Reaction Sheets
“You get what you get, and you don’t get upset.” –Isaac D. Gonzalez, 6 years old An interesting debate broke out over the weekend at Johanna Draper Carlson’s blog, Comics Worth Reading, in response to a post entitled, Stupid Publisher Tricks: Review Copies and Guilt Trips (and its follow-up, Another Argument Against Review Copies), that