Having read the ICv2 announcement of, and comments about, the upcoming mini-series The Truth, here is one retailer's immediate reaction.  I will try to keep this short and cogent, rather than write a diatribe or dissertation.

Mr. Jemas, if Marvel truly feels this is the next 'big thing,' then it would seem to behoove the company to back up the product and their faith in it with something demonstrable.  In short, for projects deemed special and breakaway, such as this one seemingly is, it is high time for Marvel to put its money where its mouth is, rather than (again) putting the retailer's money where Marvel's mouth is.

Retailers have been down this road many, many times (from Marvel and lots of other publishers), and have learned, wisely, to take such announcements with the proverbial grain of salt.  While your heads-up on anticipated publicity is a help, we all know that the lead time between ordering, publicity and shipment is cumbersome.  Not to mention the volatility of news cycles -- any big story can eclipse this one in the interim or at the time of product availability.

Too many times have we seen publishers make grand announcements, only to have no evidence that they have enough confidence in what they are promoting to back it up with concrete, substantiated actions that justify the superlatives they have thrown our way.  What are some things that would help?  Here's a few that, alone or together, would make at least this retailer more confident in ordering this product:

1) In special cases such as this -- overprint.  Print to anticipated demand, or close to it rather than to actual orders.  This, alone, demonstrates faith in the product in that the publisher is willing to gamble a little and share the risk and the reward amongst the entire retailing community.  By the time #3 is on sale, we will all have handle on solid numbers, and overprinting can cease.

2) Perhaps print a short-run of preview copies, or even stapled-together b&w pages, to be received by the retailers at least 2 weeks prior to the advance increase cutoff date.  This would allow us to shop the product around amongst our customers, and better determine consumer interest.  Having something more to go on than a press release is vital.  Heck, even just put the b&w samples up on a password retailer-only page for a limited time and let us print them out!

3) Info, info, info.  Keep retailers in the loop, right up through the order increase cutoff date, about what is planned and approximately when (if specific venues cannot be disclosed, still, knowing that a major national magazine or a noted network show will be covering this, and who from Marvel will be appearing to promote it, will help).  The more specifics, the better.

4) If overprinting, in the case of something deemed so important and potentially popular by Marvel, cannot be an option, then consider a share-the-risk plan.  For example, a 20% quantity return policy on issue #1 (provided that the initial order is, say, no higher than double the order for the next-highest ordered regular ongoing Marvel series -- in the case of orders higher than double that number, the total returns allowed would be the percentage applied to the orders for the ongoing title), a similar 10% return on #2, and 5% on #3.  This allows the retailers to at least have some confidence that, if we adhere to Marvel's request to order heavily, that we won't be stuck with a huge amount of unsaleable product, plus we'll better be able to determine orders on any later issues by the time #3 ships, assuming the series ships on time.  By tying the returns allowed to a total other than this book, it will keep the unscrupulous from ordering an unrealistically high amount and possibly sticking Marvel with an unrealistically high number of returns.

There's lots more I could add, but I promised to try to keep this short.