David Gabriel, Marvel’s Senior VP of Sales, sent around an e-mail report of the Dark Tower midnight opening at Midtown Comics, and some responses from other retailers who participated.
(Photos courtesy of Marvel's Mike Pasciullo. Find more event photos at the Agent M blog, here.)
Now take it away, David:
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Already reports on the event from last night, from all over the country have been tremendous. All retailers that I have heard from have reported sales close to a slow Wednesday on sale date. Comic retailers actually had people shake their hands thanking them for holding the event.
Random things I heard and/or saw myself at Midtown:
• People are flipping out over the book- many claiming it is the best example of a comic book ever
• LOTS of notice on the House Ads in the books, especially the Last of the Mohicans.
• People loved the personal note from Ralph Macchio (at least one person said "he's still there?")
• More new faces coming in the doors than ever before
• Many guys passed out the Dabel Brothers and MAX samplers along with the DT Sketchbooks
• Ladies bringing cookies
Congrats to EVERYONE for all the hard work on this
Here are a few retailer responses:
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Thank you so much for this.
New faces and tremendously high sales for only 3 hours.
The variants as door prizes went over huge. Thanks so much. I held back one of each to compensate the guys who went to local bookstores to hand out flyers, but I gave the other 8 away to stunned, buy very happy customers.
Half of the faces in the store were new.
One third of the new faces found out from either Marvel.com or Stephen King's e-mail newsletter. Great job marketing all around. Thanks for the idea, the execution, and the partnership-minded marketing.
I am thrilled. I had guys shaking my hand for how great this event was. It started with Marvel and you getting this together.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
-Tom, Cool Stuff/Effin Comics
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We opened the doors at 9:30- it's pretty cold here in upstate NY. We had punch, coffee and cookies for those who were able to brave the weather. We passed out some sketchbooks we held back and handed out Dabel Brothers and Max samplers in addition to color Xeroxes of covers we had made from the pdf files. And inside each one of the Dark Towers we inserted a flyer with cover scans of issues #2 and #3, along with an ad for Anita Blake and an announcement of Free Comic Book Day on May 5th- hey we want these people back, right?
We had a decent turnout, about 50 people total over four hours. There were a lot of oohs and ahs over the content. The local news came down and took video of the store and the customers talking about the book. it 's going to be shown on the morning show, so we're going to get ready for the next wave of customers. We made some money, pushed some future projects and customers had a great time.
Thanks again for making this happen, we were honored to participate.
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Same here, about half a good Wednesday money in 3 hrs. Gave away raffle, 3 books every half an hour, 1 ticket for every $10 spent during the sale. Had 30% off TPBs, 50% off back issues, 20% off merchandize sale. Did really well with that.
And the best thing, this was almost a free promotion. Total spent about $10 (including postage for press releases and copy cost of those stickers that are free labels from UPS).
Also, sold 4 out of the 6 1:75 variants and 10 out of 18 1:25 variants, so the books are PRETTY MUCH Free now. Sold for $75 and $25, and people were ecstatic, no talk of "gouging" at all. ZERO. People who get King stuff get it completely.
Amazing production at Marvel, and a hell of a read of a comic book. Best promotion job ever. If every company tried this hard.... we'd be much happier retailers…
.......
…and so on and so on!
Array
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About this blog: The Dark Tower creative and editorial teams give us the behind-the-scenes details on The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born.
About the author: Stephen King's Dark Tower is adapted for comics by Peter David, Robin Furth, Jae Lee, Richard Isanove, John Barber and a handful of other astute minds. They'll all contribute to the blog.
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