The story of ValiantFans.com edition of Valiant 2013 FCBD

[greg]

THE STORY OF THE VALIANTFANS.COM EDITION OF VALIANT 2013: HARBINGER WARS FCBD SPECIAL

On Thursday, February 14th, 2013, Valiant Entertainment announced that any Diamond retailer who ordered 3,000 copies of the regular Valiant 2013: Harbinger Wars FCBD Special
by Friday (about 24 hours notice) would be able to customize a portion of the cover with their retailer name, address, contact, info, etc.

ValiantFans.com members wondered if we might be able to do the same and order 3,000 copies of the book with a ValiantFans.com logo/customization.
I contacted Dinesh Shamdasani (Valiant CEO) and Atom! Freeman (Valiant Sales Manager) to find out if it would be possible for us to get this custom book.

Atom! informed me that Diamond Comic Distribution would require the order to come from an existing Diamond retailer account.
Atom! and I spoke with Michael Tierney, owner of the local Comic Book Store, in Little Rock, Arkansas, since 1989.
Michael said it would be no problem to have the ValiantFans.com edition of the Valiant 2013 FCBD ordered through his Diamond account.
He said he didn't want to make any money on it, just make sure he didn't lose money and he'd be happy to help us out.
HUGE THANKS TO DIAMOND COMICS RETAILER MICHAEL TIERNEY FOR HELPING US MAKE THIS HAPPEN!

At that point on Thursday, it was POSSIBLE that ValiantFans.com could get a custom edition of the Valiant 2013 FCBD book, but we still needed to figure out how to get the order completed.

Thursday, I posted on the board that we had the opportunity, but we really needed some members of the website to agree to buy a case of books (300 copies) at cost.
There's just no way I could try to distribute 3,000 copies of a comic book without serious help. Having board members agree to buy a full case meant that
I only needed to receive the case and put a new shipping label on it for the next person down the line. Breaking up 3,000 copies would only be possible
if several people agreed to break up 300 copies each. Even then, it could take up to 30 packages just to distribute 10 copies at a time.

Retailer cost was $0.25 per book (retailer order price), plus shipping from Diamond to the local retailer, plus shipping from me to ValiantFans.com case buyers.
Including taxes and PayPal fees, it works out to around $0.80 per book. For $240 per case of 300, various members of the website offered to receive and distribute
the books at $0.80 plus the cost of (the next round of) shipping to those members who were interested but wanted fewer copies (10+), not all 300.
HUGE THANKS to everyone who agreed to purchase a case and distribute the books in 10+ packs!

In general, the initial orders and distribution of the 10+ books to dozens of board members worked out to around $1 to $2 per book, U.S. and international.
Many of those members have expressed an interest in giving these books away in comic shops to try to build readership in Valiant comics.
It's likely that single issues will eventually be made available by various members of this website to collectors who might only want one copy.

Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) 2013 is May 4th.
The regular Valiant 2013 FCBD edition will be available at most comic shops for free (retailers pay for the FCBD books, then give them away).
The custom Valiant 2013 FCBD editions will be exclusive to retailers who ordered 3,000 copies.
ValiantFans.com will be one of those custom editions this year, our first OFFICIAL Valiant comic with the ValiantFans.com logo.

HUGE THANKS to Valiant Entertainment (especially Dinesh and Atom!) for giving ValiantFans.com the opportunity for an official Valiant comic!



UPDATE:
February 21st - found out that the customizable area will be black-and-white.
February 22nd - reworked the graphic to keep the Past, Present, Future concept, but to keep it simple.
March 7th - received confirmation of the graphic to be used in production (updated above)
March 8th - spoke to Michael Tierney who stated that the final order was 3,300 copies

[lorddunlow]

Yay!

[Squirrel]

[dhudson1]

Wonderful idea!

[kjjohanson]

Any idea whether Valiant will make public what retailers ponied up for their own version? Or is tracking down all the variants going to be the next board project?

[Bubba]

Thanks for sharing Greg

[Phoenix8008]

Love it, and glad to be a small part of this board project!

[drmirage]

I have a feeling that there will be more ValiantFans.com Edition Books in the near future.

[iwantvaliant]

I too would be curious what shops did this same program. Well I'm super excited that I get to be a part of this and I can't wait for mine to arrive.

[Phoenix8008]

I too would be curious what shops did this same program. Well I'm super excited that I get to be a part of this and I can't wait for mine to arrive.

Exactly. 3 month wait begins. It'll be a good birthday present though since my B-day is in May!

[depluto]

[nscc]

This is great, glad to have been a part of this. The 30 comics I ordered means I will have 1% of this book showing up in May.

Thanks everyone who made this possible

[grendeljd]

Way to go, Greg, Dinesh, Atom!, Michael Tierney and every other board member that made this possible! This is just so gosh-darn cool. Can't wait to get mine, and I'm particularly looking forward to passing some out for FCBD 2013! Here's hoping the endeavour brings a host of new (& old) fans into the Valiant (and ValiantFan) fold.

Cheers, everyone!

[etos45]

Greg is my hero!

[BugsySig]

all around!

[Shadowman99]

I think this is brilliant. Well done everyone!!

I sincerely hope to see more Valiantfans.com-sponsored books in the future.

[FormerReader]

[caniac]

[hawkeyeps]

[jmatt]

This entire effort is an amazing exercise in leadership, cooperation and spontaneous organization. With little structural direction from above, we organized among ourselves such that no one person was shouldering the burden of cost or shipping duties.

Greg dug up buyers for ten shipments. Those ten buyers then found others who would "buy-in" on their share of 300. And in turn, those buyers found people who would share the cost of their allotment, purchasing in lots of ten, etc. Right on down the line to the point where board members who maybe only wanted one or two copies could participate.

The end result being we all got what we wanted and with each participant only having to make a handful of shipments. And it all happened in just 4 days.

Astounding! Amazing! I am proud to call myself a member of this fine board.

And Greg, Dino, Atom! ... everyone who made this possible, I bow deeply. You are of the finest sort.

[lorddunlow]

And I'll add to jmatt's statements to point out that 5 different organizational schemes were used:
1. I gathered backers and the money before I sent Greg payment
2. Kjjohanson decided to have a local group with no reshipping
3. Two guys bought an entire case with no definite plans in place
4. Hawkeyeps committed before having backers and gathered enough international backers to cover his costs.
5. Dr Mirage prepaid and essentially set up a virtual storefront in his thread

..and then there were our 4 anonymous benefactors

[ShadowTuga]

This community f'n ROCKS!!!!

[comicsyte95]

[kjjohanson]

And I'll add to jmatt's statements to point out that 5 different organizational schemes were used:
1. I gathered backers and the money before I sent Greg payment
2. Kjjohanson decided to have a local group with no reshipping
3. Two guys bought an entire case with no definite plans in place
4. Hawkeyeps committed before having backers and gathered enough international backers to cover his costs.
5. Dr Mirage prepaid and essentially set up a virtual storefront in his thread

..and then there were our 4 anonymous benefactors

I'm actually going to be doing a little bit of reshipping. But nothing compared to the scope of the NYCC TPBs (which was what I was looking to avoid).

There will still be batches available in NYC for those interested. I'm making a list. If interested, PM me.

[pixierosa]

True and classy fans.