I was playing around with the LMC Facebook page (which I have resolved to start using more regularly) and came upon the “Create an Ad” page. Now, I don’t have the money to be running ads, but out of general curiosity, I decided to see what went into the advertising process. I was soon prompted to “choose my audience,” and things got interesting.
It occurred to me that I could do a (wildly unscientific, but still notable) survey of the self-identified comics fans on Facebook. I decided to set some national and linguistic boundaries— which is to say I stuck with English speakers in the US and UK, which is basically the reach of Diamond distribution. And here’s what came up:
1,167,780 people
- who live in one of the countries: United States or United Kingdom
- who like #Comics, #Comic book, #Graphic Novels, #Graphic novel or comic books
- who speak English (US), English (UK), English (Pirate) or English (Upside Down)
Then came the part I was really curious about. I toggled the “Gender” radio buttons from “All” to “Men” and then “Women”.
- Male comics readers comprise 732,300, or 62.7% of the readership
- Female comics readers comprise 429,320, or 36.7% of the readership
- And roughly .5% do not identify (on Facebook at least) as either gender.
So as comics publishers move forward—possibly even, say, attempting a relaunch or salvaging a reboot—they would do well to remember who more than a third of their potential audience is.