Let's see, they cancel a book several times as an answer to its low sales, and when they finally decide to give it some attention we're sposed to get on our knees an' **** them even if they coulda done somethin' long ago? Not how this world works, bunky. To quote an article I just read:
"Joe Quesada has, in the past, defended the prioritisation of the top-selling titles on the basis that money spent advertising the big sellers generates more of a return for Marvel than money spent advertising smaller books. This is probably quite true. But it doesn't quite answer the complaint. For one thing, if it's not considered worthwhile to promote these smaller comics, the logical conclusion is that it's not worth publishing them at all. Just run with a slimmer, focused line instead.
Looked at the other way, if you're going to bother publishing marginal titles that clearly need the advertising support, then you need to commit that support even if the financial benefits are not immediately obvious. The objective of creating new titles or reinventing existing characters as potential lead characters is, one imagines, to create moneyspinners for the future. The promotional budget needs to be seen as a long-term investment. Readers need to be re-trained to believe that these new titles are worth checking out. Some form of vehicle for new stories needs to be created. If you're going to publish an anthology title then you need to pair the exciting new story with something that's actually going to draw a crowd. At the very least, the logical approach is to cut down to, say, one new book a month and promote it properly."
You want a book to sell, you need to tell people why they should buy it. Advertising isn't a magical bullet, but it's CRUCIAL in business.
