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Ali T. Kokmen on PW’s New Combined Numbers
posted October 4, 2006
 

[Original Article Referenced]

I certainly don't have any inside knowledge of how PW's composing their new bestseller list (though, in full disclosure, since I'm now working for a manga publisher, I have a definite interest in its existence...) I kinda doubt that they're using Diamond data.

This bestseller list almost surely intends to reflect sales by stores to individual buyers. The Diamond data (at least the data we're used to seeing, the data regularly released and analyzed by comics fans) only speaks to Diamond's sales to comics stores, not comics stores' sales to customers. It wouldn't seem to be relevant to what this list is trying to reflect.

Also, I'm somewhat skeptical that they'd be relying largely on Bookscan data, but that's, admittedly, more of a personal feeling.

Rather, I could easily believe that PW has made arrangements with key bookstores and key comic book stores to report their comics/graphic novel sales directly to PW, which PW would then analyze and number-crunch to compose their list. The exact identity of these retailers (book and comics) are surely held to some degree of secrecy, but since PW almost surely has similar arrangments for composing their other bestseller lists, I would imagine they have the ability to build this comics bestseller list though some measure of direct reporting that they themselves initiate.

Just my guess, but I think an informed one...