A good year for comics

There’s a new story up over at Publishers Weekly, in which the vp of sales and marketing for Diamond Book Distribution breaks down pretty thoroughly just how good of a year the industry enjoyed in 2006, and offers some promising words for the future. Of course, that should be expected from somebody working within the industry, but anyway.

Here’s an excerpt:

Kuo-yu Liang, DBD’s v-p of sales and marketing, said DBD reported net revenues of $36.5 million on gross revenues of $46.3 million for the year ending December 2006, a 40% increase in net revenue over the previous year. Liang also said overall returns for its graphic novel business were down to 20% from 28% in 2005. Liang is bullish on the market and expects continued growth in 2007.

“The graphic novel business is good,” said Liang, “and the growth is not dependent on any one publisher or any one book.” Liang said that DBD’s growth didn’t follow the general 80-20 rule–80% of a business’s revenues generated from 20% of its products. “The growth has been spread over a number of genres,” he said. “It’s superhero comics, it’s the Halo Graphic Novel, it’s Top Shelf’s Lost Girls. Of course, manga is still big, and Bone is doing very well.”

And, one last little piece:

Liang added that independent bookstores as well as college bookstores continue to lag behind in stocking and selling graphic novels.

“We don’t have a single account from a NACS store,” said Liang, referring to the National Association of College Stores. “This year we’re going to do a promotional mailing to 3,000 college stores. There’s just tons of room for growth.”