CSN Super Secret Strategy
Your Editor started in Animation (yay Gargoyles), then video games, then software. One of the things I liked about the software industry is the concept of a “retro”. Basically looking back at the goals you set for the year and reviewing what you learned. What went well? What did not? What might you change moving forward? Given this issue marks our one year anniversary since taking over Comic Shop News, this feels like a good time to share what we were thinking about for this first year and a little sneak peek into what’s next in 2024.
Nudge CSN Closer to Wizard - Don’t Break Anything
The header image you see above is the first slide in our strategy deck from December 2022. At the start of 2023, we didn’t want to “break” CSN and make it something different, but we did want to nudge it a bit closer to Wizard (without the snark). Visually make it more interesting to read. Mix in a bunch of different content. Keep the core value of curation, but make it more fun. We missed that element of the hobby and wanted to bring some of that fun back in. Hopefully you agree it was a change for the better.
Refresh The Visuals & Cover More Stuff
CSN started when newspapers were the dominant media. Founder Cliff Biggers is a great writer who likes long form articles. When CSN started, the direct market was largely focused on comic book pre-orders. This all made sense at the time, but things change. As comic readers with access to the Internet, does it still make sense to do an issue listing out all the pre-orders in a given month? Walk into your local comic shop and you’re just as likely to find a new POP figure as you will the latest issue of Batman. Does it still make sense to just focus on comics? Single issue sales might be slower at $5/comic, but Manga is going strong and young kids are tearing through graphic novels like crazy. Comic stores have evolved, so we felt it was important to reflect that change. With CSN, we wanted to both refresh the design and curate a wider variety of products. If 100 new things come out every week for fans to purchase, what are the top 20 items worth buying? That’s our focus. On the design side, we went a little overboard. Our layouts have been shifting like Beast Boy on a bender. We’re going to settle into this new layout for the foreseeable future. It can handle a variety of content, it’s much easier to read and we think it still “pops” in comparison to the previous four column newspaper layout..
Minimize “Interchangeable Nads”
Each issue of CSN takes about 18 hours each week to produce. While your Editor tries really hard to minimize errors, some will slip through. Printing a note that said the TMNT Splinter action figure included “interchangeable nads” was my favorite goof of the year. We’ll never fully eliminate mistakes but we will try our best to minimize the bad ones.
Analog Is Our Jam
Your Editor works in high-tech. Like most of us, I spend my day on computer screens, bombarded with alerts & marketing offers. It’s exhausting. Paper comics are my break. It’s time away from digital. Comic Shop News is a paper newspaper that’s not shouting at you. We don’t have a marketing funnel. Our production process is state of the art, but we’re respectful of our readers and want to be a peaceful break from your screen. We’ll be using digital to make more folks aware of the changes at CSN, and we made digital downloads available on our website because readers asked for it (looking at you Australian CSN fans) but that’s it. CSN is and will remain a print first experience.
What’s Next?
We’ve got a few things cooking for 2024. First, we have to get our printing & shipping costs under control. Now we understand why comics are $5. Second, we’re exploring a new monthly magazine in addition to Comic Shop News that would be it’s own thing. Third, we’re looking to experiment with exclusive content you can only get from CSN. Give folks more reasons to come into the comic shop every week. The Powers series originally launched in Comic Shop News, and we’d like to do that kind of thing again. We’re going to do something with this giant library of vintage toys and games we just purchased, but we have no idea what that looks like yet. Lastly, we’ve had some top secret chats with Spoiler Magazine that might lead to doing an event together. More on that later. In closing, we appreciate you sticking with us as we explore what’s next for CSN. Also, please thank your local store owner for carrying this newspaper. The stores that carry CSN do so because they care about this hobby. If your store doesn’t carry CSN, ask them why the heck not? If you have feedback on our changes so far, or you think we should be doing something different, then please hit us up at aloha@csnpress.com. We love hearing from you.
