New Trades for $15? Isn't that too much.

[MrPlentl]

I love Valiant and I want to support them, but paying $15 for 4 issues I already own is a bit much. By far, the best deal is the Harbinger trade that features 5 issues for $10. I think I would rather re-buy those issues for close to the same price. What do you think?

[iwantvaliant]

I select the option $10-$15 is a fair price to pay for a trade.

[Phoenix8008]

If I could afford to buy both floppies and trades, I would. Since I can't, I don't. I am supporting Valiant by purchasing all their normail titles and the pullbox variants as well. For now, I can do that. After they add a few more titles, I won't be able to even buy the pullbox issues. I don't feel guilty about it at all though. I'm doing what I can and they've gotta please more than just me to keep this thing going. I'd say they're doing fine so far though.

As for whether $15 is a fair price, I'd say it is. Not everybody that buys a trade has already bought the floppies. So for them that is a $1 discount.

[cavemold]

pretty on point they have the first for like 5 bucks. Amazon discounted the 2nd archs at 10 bucks as well

[Aram]

$11.99 for 4 issue arcs would be my highest. That being said.. I'm hopeful for amazon deals and will probably pick these up only when I can find them for $10 or less.

I think the higher price only hurts lcs', but not vei becauae of alternate sources like amazon.

[Newton]

$15 is not unreasonable, but my expectation is more along the lines of $12. Value for trades is all over the place I have noticed. You can pay anywhere from half cover price to double cover price depending on publisher/format/etc.

[MarkRoseHFX]

that's not a bad price considering they are small and independent

[Dr. Solar]

Valiant's gotta make money yo!

Comics rules everything around me!

C.R.E.A.M. get the comic, bag and board that book y'all!

[lorddunlow]

No choice for ice cream? Not even sherbet?

[nscc]

I don't really look at trades as needing to be a lot cheaper than the books. I like them because of the format. Being able to read a story arc in one volume, collected that fits on a shelf is great. Maybe there will be some extra art, or a sketch book or an extra bonus story....or maybe not. I like the convenience of it. I find with many of the trades I currently own, they are at or more than cover price too.

Like many other things in life, we pay for the convenience or the format that is preferable to us. If it wasn't for Valiant, I would only buy trades. I buy the books monthly because I really like these stories and don't want to have to wait. For everything else, I plan on just getting trades because I prefer them. I will probably still buy all the Valiant trades too, they will be the books that will be on a shelf, ready to be picked up and read at a moments notice, or loaned to a friend.

I paid more for some trades than cover and less for others, but they were all ones I enjoyed reading and paid for the convenience. Death: the high cost of living and the time of your life were $13 for 3 books, but Preacher: gone to texas reprints 1-7 for $18. Watchmen is 12 issues (I think) for 20 in trade.

I guess all I am saying is... I kind of expect them to cost this much.

[Elveen]

Valiant's gotta make money yo!

Comics rules everything around me!

C.R.E.A.M. get the comic, bag and board that book y'all!

"I bomb atomically, Socrates' philosophies and hypothesis..."

[Bubba]

$15 isn't a problem if they would include some extras.

[Bubba]

An introduction by a valiant alumni would be worth it.

[MarkRoseHFX]

Valiant's gotta make money yo!

Comics rules everything around me!

C.R.E.A.M. get the comic, bag and board that book y'all!

Wu Tang Doc ain't nuttin ta wit

[jmatt]

$15 seems reasonable. I'm not buying them at that price but I have the floppies so...

[400yrs]

$14.99 for 4 issues is like saving a buck, so in that sense, it's not too much. However, if you compare other $14.99 trades to a VEI trade containing 4 issues, the other trade will likely always be a better value page-wise.

[tetrisdork]

$10 for the introductory volume. $15 afterwards. Pending the situation, like a "Unity"-type event, a price higher than that can be justified.

What bugs me are the extras or lack thereof in the Valiant trades. I was disappointed with the 1st X-O trade only including the variants and second printing cover art for the 1st issue and not the others, and having the Nord and Aja variants shrunk. Even a publisher like BOOM! managed to put every single cover for Fanboys Vs Zombies #1-4 in its first trade and at decent sizes. The first Harby trade, only other non-Masters trade I have from Valiant, did a better job at getting all the covers save for Braithwaite's #4 drawing of Zephyr and the #1 second printing from Zircher. But, even then, only the QR cover and Aja's design variant got full-page printings while the other 4 got crammed into one page.

Quick note to those that might have the new Bloodshot trade: how did they treated the variant cover art? Did they include all of 1-4's variants?

[MoonChild]

At 9.99, i'd buy em all. At 14.99 I wont be buying them anymore.

[Dallow Spicer1]

Presumably when VEI are planning to put out trades they primarily aim at readers who don't already own single issues? So with this in mind $15 seems reasonable. I think if you've already got the individual issues then you're doing enough to support the company.

If the trades were always $10 then wouldn't this dissuade readers from buying individual issues which would be counter productive?

[paradise]

At 9.99, i'd buy em all. At 14.99 I wont be buying them anymore.

Valiant is following an INDUSTRY MODEL with $9.99 intro trades and standard priced, $14.99, trades after that. It has worked for Y The Last Man, Fables, Saga, and at least 10-20 others I can find for you within a few min looking.

Trades are not a product you buy, in general, after reading singles. They are a separate line for people who do not generally read single issues. I know many here are collecting both but that's not the norm, most of my XO Volume 1 sales were to people who'd never read it before. $9.99 price point gets them to try it, but you don't need to keep underselling to keep them coming, it's not worth it, companies don't make much on $9.99 volumes. Even DC has changed the price on Y vol 1 and Fables vol 1 to $14.99 after the first few printings.

9.99 is what most businesses call customer acquisition cost. You lose money but hopefully make it up on later offerings.

[jmatt]

I think if you've already got the individual issues then you're doing enough to support the company.

I was picking up my latest batch with a few $20 and $15 variants. When I looked at the Valiant books on the shelf I thought "There's all the books I paid for...".

Buying the variants helps the LCS subsidize his order. So while I am sometimes ambivalent about variants, I do feel like I am, in some small way, helping the company get off the ground.

[jmatt]

... companies don't make much on $9.99 volumes.

I would think that apart from printing costs, it's all profit since the art and stories have already been paid for.

[Dallow Spicer1]

... companies don't make much on $9.99 volumes.

I would think that apart from printing costs, it's all profit since the art and stories have already been paid for.

This is a really interesting point. I've often thought whether there is any profit for VEI with the current sales volumes?

The books cost the customer $4, but from that the LCS takes a cut and there are charges for distribution too. So, from that $4 let's imagine VEI get $2. Let's take X-O which sells circa 16k issues, using my made up stats that $32k per issue that VEI would receive. From that the creative team need to be paid, any ideas how much per issue a writer, artist, colourist etc would get? Then there's the rest of the VEI staff to pay for plus advertising etc...so I'm not sure there's any profit from the current sales volumes?

[etos45]

$14.99 for 4 issues is like saving a buck, so in that sense, it's not too much. However, if you compare other $14.99 trades to a VEI trade containing 4 issues, the other trade will likely always be a better value page-wise.

My biggest issue is that I look at this from a collector's point of view, which is biased. These issues aren't rare, and it's entirely likely that I can track down the four original comics for $1 more or even in a lot for less than the cost of the trade. Because of that, I'd rather own the originals over the reprinted trade.

To make Paradises' point, though, I'm not the person these are marketed towards. I don't understand the TPB buyers, but they would rather own the collected trade and don't mind waiting extra months and paying about the same price to get it that way. The only time a trade is valuable to me is when it's the only way I could afford to own these issues or if they came with something extra to entice me in. The original Valiant did this... I couldn't afford Harbinger, X-O, or Rai, so I happily forked out the money for the trades. Then I also got a bonus comic to boot... so double score.

[GGSAE]

$14.99 for 4 issues is like saving a buck, so in that sense, it's not too much. However, if you compare other $14.99 trades to a VEI trade containing 4 issues, the other trade will likely always be a better value page-wise.

My biggest issue is that I look at this from a collector's point of view, which is biased. These issues aren't rare, and it's entirely likely that I can track down the four original comics for $1 more or even in a lot for less than the cost of the trade. Because of that, I'd rather own the originals over the reprinted trade.

To make Paradises' point, though, I'm not the person these are marketed towards. I don't understand the TPB buyers, but they would rather own the collected trade and don't mind waiting extra months and paying about the same price to get it that way. The only time a trade is valuable to me is when it's the only way I could afford to own these issues or if they came with something extra to entice me in. The original Valiant did this... I couldn't afford Harbinger, X-O, or Rai, so I happily forked out the money for the trades. Then I also got a bonus comic to boot... so double score.

Right, I'm in the same boat. I think trades are great for people new to an on-going series, and especially if the first issues have taken off and are expensive (which we're seeing a lot of!), or HTF. I would never buy trades, I think the fact that I get every floppy (hate that word), and the majority of the variants, I'm doing my part. I think they're important, as another point that wasn't mentioned is that if you can get the 1$ issues for back issues, sure that would be cheaper, but that's not an option for a lot of us. Lower print runs, and local LCS stores that don't discount back issues, have made it very difficult to find cheap early issues - it's not like the 90s and the 6 figure print runs, there's not a lot of stores that would have big supplies of extra issues, aside from guys like Ed and the top 1% stores.