Xander in Lost Universe Sales Figures
Circulation as Reported in Publishers' Statements of Ownership
Filed with the United States Postal Service
Gene Roddenberry died in 1991, but his name resurfaced at Tekno-Comix, a short-lived attempt to build series around the names and concepts of celebrities ranging from Leonard Nimoy to John Jakes.
The main Roddenberry title was Lost Universe; this spinoff, Xander in Lost Universe, actually lasted longer, running nine issues (including a zero issue).
Launched with a million-dollar splash of advertising, Tekno gave its titles newsstand distribution and sold subscriptions during its brief run. That resulted in a single Statement of Ownership for the series, which, while appearing too soon to have accurate data on returns and completely distorted by the first-issue volume, gives us some insight into what subscription sales were: only 232 were sold.
—John Jackson Miller
| 1995 | 1996 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Issue Statement appearing in: | #4 Jan | ||||
| Date of filing: | 10/11/95 | ||||
| Issues published during year: | 3 | ||||
| Annual subscription price: | $19.95 | ||||
| Cover price during year: | $2.25 | ||||
| Total Copies PRINTED (avg): | 261,615 | ||||
| Sales through DEALERS (avg): | 110,573 | ||||
| Sales by SUBSCRIPTION (avg): | 232 | ||||
| Total PAID circulation (avg): | 110,805 | ||||
| Samples by MAIL (avg): | 3 | ||||
| Samples OUTSIDE mail (avg): | 7,911 | ||||
| Total FREE circulation (avg): | 7,914 | ||||
| TOTAL DISTRIBUTION: | 118,719 | ||||
| Copies not distributed (office): | 8,348 | ||||
| Copies not distributed (RETURNS): | 134,548 | ||||
| Reported % Paid/Requested: | 93.3% | ||||
| % of RUN RETURNED: | 51.4% | ||||
| Copies existent: | 127,067 | ||||
| SELL-THROUGH at RETAIL: | 42.4% | ||||
Statement history
Xander published its Statement of Ownership in only its fourth issue — fifth, if you count the #0 — and so the data published is mightly skewed. The publisher would not have had a complete picture of returns from the newsstand, and the high sales on the first issue would have greatly distorted average sales. It's possible that Tekno considered it the same title as the preceding Lost Universe book, however. The title did not survive to a second filing.
Understanding Statements of Ownership
The figures above are taken directly from the annual Statements of Ownership, Management, and Circulation filed by publishers with the United States Postal Service. The sales figure is the Average Paid Circulation figure and includes all copies sold through newsstands, comics shops, and postal subscription. It does not count copies the publisher gave away for free, or copies that were kept for office use.
More information can be found in the FAQ section.
