The eight Waiting For Tommy interviews have concluded... some more successful than others, but all a topic of debate and discussion across the message boards. As you read these words, a number of invites have been sent out for the next batch of unfortunates, ready (or not) to be probed, prodded and generally mucked around with for your entertainment.

Until then, something I've been asked to write for some time.

I often hear tales of woe from prospective self-publishers, when dealing with Diamond. Despite some of their titles being pretty darn nifty, they just can't get Diamond to distribute them. And those lucky few who do often find after a few issues, that Diamond drop them.

So how did I, who, let's face it, has lesser writing skills and certainly lesser drawing skills, get handfuls of comics self-published and distributed through Diamond, fresh out of college, without any real experience in the world of publishing and business?

Pull up a chair.

Diamond Comics Distribution are the easiest, most efficient and most profitable way of getting thousands of comics across the USA, Canada, Great Britain and a number of other associated countries. The low amount of comic book outlets compared to most other retail enterprises, combined with just how spread out they are world wide would often mean far higher costs, both financially and in effort, both on the publishers' side and on the retailers' if each publisher had to deal with each retailer one on one. As Future Comics found to their cost. Despite criticism from some quarters, Diamond is responsible for keeping any kind of diversity in most comic shops alive by offsetting the profits on popular titles onto those less popular.

Nevertheless, Diamond is a business and in the business of making money. It doesn't expect every book to sell like X-Men (especially since that figure's been getting lower by the day), but each book has to hold their own. And in this market that can be very tricky.

As a result, Diamond has two measures for distribution and continued distribution of a title. One is the quality of the work, the other is keeping up a number of sales.

In this two part article, I'll be teaching you how to circumvent both and get your title in Diamond's monthly catalogue.

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