It is the time of the year for Looking Back at total sales and all of that, and John Jackson Miller does some excellent heavy lifting on that score.

But there's something that I don't see any commenter making a point of, and I think it is a REALLY significant impact that people-who-aren't-retailers seem to be forgetting: In February, Diamond began a major warehouse move. More or less the entire month of February there "weren't" reorders on any product shipping from Diamond.

Even once they "fixed" that issue (which memory tells me stretched into early April on many titles), there were HORRIBLE cockups in fill rates, accuracy, damages, etc all through the summer and fall. It wasn't really until 4th quarter that things went ANYwhere close back to normal.

I mean, I can think of a few books from different publishers where Diamond COMPLETELY LOST *all* of the inventory they were SUPPOSED to have on hand.

So while JJ and others are reporting on the Reported Figures, I think it is very important that 2009's figures get an asterisk put next to it because it is a certainty that reported sales DO NOT MATCH to the actual demand on a large number of titles for, probably, half of the year.

I believe that, had that warehouse move not happened, DM sales would probably have been UP overall, by a couple of points.

-B