We've taken on a lot of advice from Diamond UK over the years, which resulted in us improving our books (over a span of some 4 years) until they were good enough to attract the right kind of attention and interest from Retails and Readers alike.It was obvious to me early on that Diamond would have no reason to put down a book that they believed would sell, so if they had problems with something then there would be nothing personal in their view. It's purely commercial, and based on their experience of the market.
Their experience of what sells and what doesn't is far greater than mine, so I've always taken their advice very seriously.
A few years later we took the result of our fine tuning to Diamond UK in the shape of The Wolfmen and the ZOMBIES anthology. The advice from Diamond this time was that we'd arrived. These books would look good on the shelves of Comic Stores across the globe, and they would be happy to recommend these books to the parent Diamond company in the US.
All of the Accent UK books since then have been listed in PREVEWS, and many have had attention drawn to them through Spotlights and other recommendations, and our latest book The Fall Of The Wolfmen is no different.
In fact in the PREVIEWS UK section of the catalogue the Diamond Geezers have gone so far as to make our double pack, adding the original The Wolfmen comic, a FEATURED ITEM.
This type of added exposure can only help raise the books profile, and we're very grateful.
In the global part of the catalogue, which is seen outside of the UK, they've highlighted the book with a CERTIFIED COOL logo. Again this is unexpected and very welcome.
All of this helps with getting our books out there and combined with the reviews we get is very encouraging.
It'll be a few months now until we get sales figures from Diamond, but all things considered there's not much more that they could do to push our books.
All of this helps with getting our books out there and combined with the reviews we get is very encouraging.
It'll be a few months now until we get sales figures from Diamond, but all things considered there's not much more that they could do to push our books.
I know they've had a pretty bad press of late, but I will say that they've always been very helpful to us. We respect their input and I believe that they respect our approach to the whole thing.
I think it's what could be called 'a win win situation'.
Ooh, nice one! That's a pretty nice bit of publicity. But does the fact that you are now officially "cool" mean you won't want to talk to all of us nerds any more? :)
ReplyDeleteTwo things of note: 1. I never really knew there was level of excellence they held companies to so they could be placed in their catalog. That is actually nice to know. 2. I generally enjoy their "featured" and "cert cool" marked items, and they do catch my eye, so it is nice to hear Accent UK getting those banners. Kudos!
ReplyDeleteThanks guys ... and cool-ness is relative... I'm sure only a certain section of society would even consider comics to be cool ... to eveyone else it's all just a load of comic nerd-ness ... so ... Yes Darren, we'll still talk to you :o)
ReplyDeleteWith regards Diamond's quality threshold .. they certainly ensure a level of quality as far as independent titles are concerned. I don't think this was always the case but certainly has been over the last few years. For us it's been a good way of having something to aim at, now we just need to maintain it :o)
.. Oh yes ... Andy sent me this link, which gives an idea of what 'Certified Cool' means ... http://previewsworld.com/public/default.asp?t=1&m=1&c=6&s=40&ai=12306
ReplyDeleteWhat great company to be in :o)