The Diamond news is out. If you haven't heard already, Diamond will be making some changes that will affect the comic industry on a large scale. Here is an excerpt from the announcement made on Newsarama last week:

According to various sources across the internet, Diamond will be ending the print edition of its Previews Adult Supplement catalog (which lists all adult comics and products offered to retailers from various publishers), and, due to economic conditions, is raising the purchase order benchmark from $1500 to $2500. The distributor began informing publishers of the change last week by phone.

While the change sounds like something that it may not affect readers, the move may result in the disappearance of many small press and independent titles from store shelves unless alternative means of distribution are found, and retailers take advantage of them.

For full Newsarama article click here.

To help make some sense of everything, John Jackson Miller from the Comics Chronicles site has crunched some numbers to illustrate what type of sales Diamond will be expecting on their new terms.

First, sorry, Chevy Chase, there will be math. First, that $2,500 doesn't appear to refer to the total dollar value of the order, but rather what the publisher will realize from the sale after Diamond takes its share. Let's take 40% for the sake of argument. The total value of dollars at retail for a purchase order to be generated for a single item would be $2500/0.4, or $6,250.

This means this many copies at the following comic book price points:

$2.99: 2,090 copies

$3.50: 1,785 copies

$3.99: 1,566 copies

$4.99: 1,252 copies

$5.99: 1,043 copies

$6.99: 894 copies

$7.99: 782 copies

...and then moving up into trade-land...

$12.99: 481 copies

$13.99: 446 copies

$14.99: 416 copies

$15.99: 390 copies

$16.99: 367 copies

$17.99: 347 copies

$18.99: 329 copies

$19.99: 312 copies

For more comments from Miller, read full article here.

This is definitely not making things easier for indie comic publishers. Sure Diamond is a company, and like any other company they have to make adjustments in order to find ways to navigate this difficult economic climate. However, these adjustments pose great challenges for indie publishers and creators. It was hard enough for most indie publishers to meet the old minimum requirements let alone the new threshold. Diamond may have a monopoly in terms of retailer distribution at the moment, but they do not control the other means of getting your work to the comic reading public. Yes, it will be more challenging to get your book on the comic shop racks but maybe this is just a temporary setback and maybe this will create room for new innovations and opportunities in the industry.

As for what you can do right now to advance your chances of success in the indie comic realm, maybe its time to consider or improve upon some of following options:

-Look towards other smaller distributors such as Haven

-Find other ways to reach retailers yourself.

-Improve your marketing plan.

-Seek new knowledge and consult with others in your field.

-Expand your Social Networks.

-Release your project in a digital format first.

-Have your friends help spread the word.

-Advertise on indie comic Websites and Blogs.

It's time for us indie creators and indie publishers to get innovative and to think outside of the comic book panel. What are YOU going to do? What are your thoughts on this?

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