Once upon a time, the PR press release was a noble art. Well, okay, perhaps not noble. But an art. The idea was that you would write something catchy and attention-grabbing, and send it to the press. The press, in their infinite journalistic wisdom, would then read it and, most likely, chuck it in the bin. But if you were lucky, they'd go and write up the story.

Things have changed.

Here's how it works now. You write any old crap. You e-mail it to every news site you can think of. Chances are they'll just stick it up as it is. Especially if it's from Marvel or DC, but let's face it, some sites would run a press release about the launch of a new photocopied minicomic in Tajikistan if they thought it would fill space. Quality control, where it exists, seems to consist largely of checking whether the press release comes from a sufficiently major publisher. Some are uninformative. Some are repetitive. Some are trivial beyond belief. And some are just plain delusional.

So, with that in mind - three press releases I am particularly bored of reading.

1. OUR NEW BOOK #1 Has Sold Out At Diamond

Who the hell cares? Well, to judge from the comments threads, quite a few people, but only because they don't fully understand the ordering system. Here's how it works. The publisher solicits a book. Retailers place orders for the book. Once the publisher has got the orders in, he has the book printed. At that point, he decides how many copies he's going to print. He'll always print a few extra, to allow for damaged ones. And he might, or might not, do some more.

Selling out at Diamond simply means that the publisher has sold all the copies he printed. Since he already has the order figures by the time he sets the print run, this is not an achievement in any way, shape or form. In order for it to be remotely meaningful, you need to know how big the overprint is. Sometimes this information is included. Usually it isn't, and what does that tell you?

'Selling out at Diamond is not an achievement in any way, shape or form.' Marvel print to order as a general policy, and have an incredible nerve putting out these press releases at all. Not that that seems to stop them - for example, here they are announcing that LAST HERO STANDING #1 has sold out.

DC are more hit and miss - they do overprint, and sometimes to a significant degree. But sometimes not. Here's their press release for HAWKMAN #41 - details of the overprint are conspicuously missing. Oh, and it's not just the big two - here's a similarly uninformative effort from Image, hyping DEADWORLD #1.

2. Creator You've Never Heard Of Signs Exclusive Deal

I mean, I'm sure their mums are interested, but...

Some creators are A-list, big name talent, capable of selling virtually any (relatively mainstream) book they choose to work on. When they change companies, it's a big deal. Some creators aren't quite at that level, but still have a loyal following who will be interested to know where they're going. You can see why these guys merit a press release.

'Once upon a time, the PR press release was a noble art.' But in practice, Marvel and DC seem willing to sign any halfway established pro to a two-year exclusive deal, frequently with so many exclusions and exceptions that "exclusive" turns out to mean little more than "not working for the other guys any more, though we couldn't care less about his indie work". There are a lot of guys out there on exclusive deals who, frankly, aren't all that prominent, or are working in the sort of roles where they're not exactly going to build a huge following.

Now, that's not to say that there aren't good reasons for signing these guys up. Publishers need a solid overall stable of talent. And of course, many of these are talented guys who simply aren't as prominent. To an extent, you might see this sort of thing as an attempt to build stars. But when publishers are putting out press releases to announce that they've signed a colourist for three years, you have to wonder who is supposed to care.

3. Completely New Publisher Set To Turn Industry On Head

Uh-huh.

These ones come along from time to time, and they're usually rather depressing. At best, they badly misread the audience. At worst, they make you fear for the author's sanity. As a general rule, it's insanely difficult for new publishers to make it in the direct market. If you're targeting the direct market core audience then it's virtually impossible. If you want to do a new superhero universe, god help you.

Now, having said that, launching a new publisher is not impossible. If you're aiming for the indie crowd, or pitching yourself at the level of, say, Image or Dreamwave, and you've got a credible selection of talent, then it's achievable. But it's still difficult, and one of the hurdles that need to be overcome is to build retailer confidence. Because if they don't order your comics, it doesn't matter how good they are.

'These press releases make you fear for the author's sanity.' Getting the retailers' attention is difficult enough. That might explain some of the more over-the-top predictions of certain triumph that we get from time to time. But not all publicity is good publicity. You need to generate the right impression: i.e., we are a competent publisher that has a decent product and knows what to do with it. Confidence needs to be tempered with realism, or the average reader will simply assume that you're an idiot.

For the most part, these releases tend to come from micropublishers who really should know better than to give up the day job. Every so often, though, a publisher who by all rights ought to have a fair shot at success gets it horribly wrong. Alias Comics, in principle, ought to have a better shot than most. But it does itself no favours with press releases like this one. It gets off to a bad start with a misleading headline, and then blissfully announces that their May launch was "a very strong showing".

Now, Alias only had three comics in the Top 300 in May. In fairness, they also had a couple of low-price books that weren't eligible for the charts. But of the full price books, the top seller was 10TH MUSE #1, which sold fewer than 5,000 copies. JUDO GIRL #1 did 3,605, and PARKIN'S LAND #1 didn't even clear 2,000. By any sensible definition, these are bad numbers.

Alias don't see it that way, though, and solemnly maintain that this is very good indeed. They also claim to be "on [their] way to becoming one of the comic book industry's foremost publishing houses". That's just... demented, frankly. Alias is looking increasingly like a rather ugly trainwreck, and while their problems are clearly far more profound than an inane press release, it certainly hasn't done their image any favours.

Some people would be better off if the news sites didn't run their press releases at all...

Paul O'Brien is the author of the weekly X-AXIS comics review.

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