Steve Gerber was right.

Several months ago, Steve asked me to write a piece for the freelancers magazine, Words and Pictures (WAP!), and we got to talking about the mechanics of writing. Steve said, "You should always take notes, you never know when an idea is going to hit you, and you don't want to forget a great topic."

There's another side to that, as well, you might forget that you haven't talked about a specific topic.

I'm sitting here, thinking what to talk about (and it's got to be something that I burn about, y'know, otherwise it falls flat), and I totally forgot that I hadn't yet talked about how (and why) to sell alternative comics. This may be because it's one of the most frequent questions I answer on the phones and computer bulletin boards, and so I assumed I had already covered it in depth. I touched upon the topic on my piece on diversification, but there's a couple of more things to say.

One of things I hear frequently from other retailers is, "I can't sell alternatives, they don't sell, I have no customers for them, and last time I tried to sell them, I almost lost my shirt." All I can say to these people is that they're just not doing it right.

One important thing to bear in mind is that alternatives are not like mainstream comics. Wait, lemme backtrack a touch here and stress that "alternative" and "mainstream" have absolutely nothing to do with what company is publishing them. Marvel and DC publish some alternative comics, and Dark Horse and Eclipse (for example) publish some mainstream material. Aliens is a mainstream title, Sandman is an alternative. You with me so far?

Overall, the clearest difference between the two is a matter of scale. A mainstream comic is one that appeals (immediately) to a large number of your "typical" comic shop customers, while an alternative has a smaller, more select clientele (but one that's just as passionate – if not far more) Independents can be either mainstream or alternative, as can the Majors.

Since mainstream comics have a more obvious clientele, the tendency is to order high on the assumption that if you don't sell it right away, it'll move as a back issue, somewhere down the line, probably at a higher price. There's not a great deal of (obvious) risk (though this is perhaps a much more insidious trap – but more of that later), so you order with confidence.

Alternatives, on the other hand, having a far more select audience, tend to be ordered down because while you might sell half of your total sales (or more) of a mainstream title in the first week (because of you regular, weekly customers), the alternative customer tends to not be that weekly grazer, so you may only sell 10-20% of your total (that is, potential) sales that first week. The alternative customer may only come in once a month (or even less), making it much harder to readily identify them in your day-to-day sales, especially if you're not using cycle sheets. Often, working in the store daily can blind you to the bigger picture.

The trick to ordering alternatives is not to think of them as mainstream comics – that is, that they'll (effectively) sell themselves, that most of them will sell in the first week (or month even), or that you should expect any significant portion of your customers to buy them (at least initially).

Nor will every alternative sell in your store – even in my "pro-alternative" store, there are many items in which there is nil (or next to it) interest for. You must know your customers & their tastes, and you must strive to educate yourself about the material itself (this is work, after all).

Here's a simple way to do it: purchase one copy of a dozen titles you've never carried before (start with titles that have a track record, and/or by creators that have won or been nominated for industry awards), and take them home and read them – chances are, if you enjoy it, you have customers that will as well. Either way, you should be able to write off this expense as research from your taxes. If you find a title that you enjoy, contact the publisher about getting a conservative number of copies on consignment, or with return privileges – make sure you present it to them as trying to expand your product mix! If the particular publisher is unwilling or able to help, go to the distributor. I have found helpful people at both Diamond and Capital.

An important consideration in your initial tests is being conservative. Many a retailer has almost lost his or her shirt by going hog-wild on alternatives, after one or two minor successes. If developed carefully, alternative comics can develop to a healthy profit center for your store, but, quite often, while there is a market for some independent sales in every store, it almost always has to be nurtured. On the other hand, many a retailer has almost lost his or her shirt (or is in the process of losing it) by over-ordering – even by as little as one percent – on mainstream material as well.

One major difference is that of frequency, as well. Let's walk through an example using the idea above, using, say, Hate as an example. Let's say that you buy one copy of #7 in January for experimentation (It's made it past #3, so it's got some legs, and Peter Bagge has been nominated for several industry awards). You also get the solicitation for #8, which ships in April (Hate is quarterly). Since you liked #7, you order, say, 5 copies of #8. (The exact number will depend on your store, and knowledge of your customers – it could be 3, it could be 10, etc.) Even if the solicitation for #9 happens before you get #8, you'll still have your sales figures from #8 before you order #10. Your risk is really minimal, because you're only ordering one (or at most two) issues "blind". Compare this to a new monthly release from Marvel or DC (where you're virtually obligated to carry it), where you're ordering 3 or more issues blind.

Anyway, if you only sell 3 of the copies, you'll know to take your order down a bit; while if you sell out, it's easy to build up an increase for the next issue.

I would strongly recommend that you set aside a small amount each month for "experimentation" – say $20, or so. That's only $240 a year, and you should be able to write that off as research. That $20 will get you around six new titles to try out and see.

One last quick bit on selling alternatives: An important thing to consider is how you rack your titles – you can't expect something to sell if you don't rack it properly. Alternatives will not sell if you put them all the way at the back of the small dusty rack in the back of your store. You must give them adequate coverage in a prominent place. In the case of items that you particularly like, you should have them at or near the counter to facilitate your pushing them.

If you make a minor, honest, conservative effort to know your product and customers, you should be able to slowly build alternatives into a nice profit center in your store. How nice is entirely up to you, and how much effort you're willing to put into it. `Course, if you don't want the money, I'm sure another store would be more than willing....

Don't say I didn't warn ya.