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For a while now some publishers have been very quick to collect a series and put it into trade paper backs. I've heard some people complain about this, retailers, pro's, fans, etc.. Everybody thinks this hurts the sales of the monthly comics. They are probably right. Why buy the monthly if the trade collection it is going to be out a week later?
Some believe there should still be a lag time (like a year) between the original monthly and the trade. The idea behind this was that make readers wait long enough and some of them will buy the monthly. But the publishers won't be doing this anytime soon and I'll explain why.
They want to move more trades, in fact I'm pretty sure they'd rather take a hit on the monthlies if it means selling more trades. I'm going to use Marvel as my example publisher because they are one of the quickest monthly to trade collectors out there.
A lot of Trades move because of buzz, particularly off the monthly readers. But will those readers still be talking about Grant Morrison's last X-men issue a year after it's been published? Or will they be talking about what's out that month and what's upcoming? I suspect it's the latter and that's why they are quick to trade the books. They want them out while they're still being talked about.
With a monthly, the publisher only makes money off one issue at a time. There are a number of readers that miss one of the issues and rather try and hunt it down, they simply ditch the series. Sometimes they're pissed off at their retailer for not having one for them, who in turn is pissed off at Marvel for not over/reprinting. By doing trades people are buying all the issues at once and Marvel gets money for every issue.
Also, retailers in general tend to decrease their orders over time because of people dropping the title. Everybody makes less money on issue #6 than they do issue #1. With a trade they are buying all of them and again they make the same amount of money on every issue.
Then there are some that will buy a trade blind because of buzz and/or they like enough of the creators previous work they feel safe in gambling - just like they do every time they go to a movie theater. Publishers make more money off these people than those that buy the one issue and decide it's not for them. Another dynamic is they might like the story when it's complete rather than when it's told in serials - this due to pacing and decompressed storytelling.
I'm pretty sure Marvel is making more money by going to trades quicker. I wouldn't be surprised if other publishers followed them in doing this. Don't be surprised when they do, in fact without actually checking the other publishers I'm already sure more of them are getting quicker with the trades.
One day this "get the Trade $$$ now" line of thinking may lead to getting all 4-6 issues in the can and putting the trade out the same week as the 1st issue. If by issue #1 or 2 the monthly readers are buzzing, the trade is already on the shelf. If the promotion is done well enough, people will just buy the trade. Lord knows there are a number of Marvel books out there with crummy first issues because of decompressed storytelling. Readers may figure, might as well get the whole story at once. If this happens, people will no longer have to wait for the trades and their sales will go up while the monthlies would go down. The reverse status quo will happen. Instead of people buying monthlies to get their early fix, they'll just buy the trade. Monthly sales will shrink to pretty much to only those that enjoy the serial format. I wouldn't be surprised if they started this using a trade selling name like Neil Gaiman or Warren Ellis.
I just put this out as a possible scenario to those retailers that are hurting because of the trade market. You will have to adapt to the trade market, like it or not because it's growing stronger every year and it's not going away. One day it may very well become the first format available, with the serials playing second fiddle.
And despite some fanboyish desires of traditionalist, this would be a good thing. There are a large and growing amount of readers that will *only* read trades. It's really, really stupid to try and convince people to buy a 3 dollar monthly when they are waving 20-30 dollars at you and asking for a trade. Most of them grew up buying, reading, bagging, boarding and boxing monthly comics and no longer want the fuss. Publishers are already capitalizing on this (manga in particular) and those that don't adapt will be left behind.
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