Social Reach of “Game of Thrones”

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Far be it for anyone to accuse us of not being a cheerleader for the HBO series. We definitely want it to do well, and we like to cheer it when it does do well. Our facebook fan page is nearing 5,000 people, but the Game of Thrones series page just passed 1 million. I don’t know if it is the fastest to 1 million ever, but it did seem pretty fast.

I decided to do some analysis comparing Game of Thrones social reach to some other acclaimed cable TV shows.

I included Breaking Bad and Mad Men, even though they’re not on premium channels, because they are perennial emmy competition. I also included a handful of shows that are off the air now, those have been marked with an asterisk.

Surely the number of Facebook likes a series has will depend on the genre and the demographic it appeals to. The younger the demographic, the more wired the demographic, the more likely you are to get the Facebook love. However, parents and even grandparents are getting on Facebook now, the world changes.

Why is this sort of metric important? Well, Facebook is the new water cooler, this is where people get recommendations from their friends, this is where people discover new media and new content. The number of facebook likes lends itself both as an indicator of a show’s success, and as a predictor of future viewership growth. The more fans you have, the more new fans those current fans can introduce.

So, Game of Thrones is doing pretty good. It is no Dexter, no True Blood, but it spanks Boardwalk Empire, and destroys shows like Camelot and The Borgias, and even The Tudors, which had years to gain fans.

To be fair, shows that have been on for 6 seasons have had more time to accumulate fans. So I did another graph, I did total air time for a series, from the date of the premier to today, rounding it off as necessary to keep things simple. In the case of series that are now off the air I did premier to finale dates, or simply gave them credit in years for the number of completed seasons.

So this graph shows the average yearly number of likes a show has received since premiering.

Here, Game of Thrones knocks the pants off of everyone. The only close competition is The Walking Dead, which I liked, and thought was a decent show, but the writing wasn’t nearly as good. Often in that show the characters did really dumb things, and there were a couple plot holes. Of course I am almost assuredly biased, and in truth they aren’t even that close.

So, this is just another metric that shows how successful Game of Thrones has been. Let us hope it keeps up.

Ice to start shipping Wednesday

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Ice will be leaving our facilities and going out to customers starting Wednesday. At that point it won’t quite be “in stock” because we’ll be playing catch up for a week or so and moving the bulk of them (that are left), to our Michigan warehouse from our LA warehouse. But, by the second week of August it should be to the point where any new orders would ship within 24 hours. Thank you everyone for your patience, especially those of you who ordered way back last October.

On the Damascus Longclaw, we have some final prep to do so we have to wait until they’re trucked here to Michigan, so those won’t go out for another week to 10 days or so.

Ice Update

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We are going to start processing orders for Ice, so you may receive a shipping confirmation. This does not mean your order has shipped. It merely means we have printed the label. We have so many orders to get through that we want to print all the labels up in advance so that the swords can get back out as soon as possible. So, when you see an email and see an email saying your order has shipped, you can get excited, just not too excited.

This is also your last chance to change your address if it has changed.

All of this is applicable for the Damascus Longclaw as well.

A Dance with Dragons almost here!

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If you’ve not ordered it yet (and plan to) what are you waiting for? It is not too late to order from Amazon and have it delivered to you on the 12th, you don’t even have to get out of your pajamas.

In related news, guess which 5th book in a fantasy series is #1 on Amazon right now? A Dance with Dragons. Considering Amazon’s huge sample size that probably means it is the #1 book in the world right now. Guess what number 2 is? The 4 book boxed set of A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows. So, the top 5 selling books worldwide right now are the 5 A Song of Ice and Fire books. How cool is that? I’m giddy about it and I’m not even George R.R. Martin.

In other related news, a week after A Dance with Dragons is released, the 2012 ASOIAF calendar will be released. In previous years this has sold out, leaving many fans without one, so I would order it soon.

Finally, please remember, NO SPOILERS. Please do not post a comment on any post on this blog referencing anything from the plot of A Dance with Dragons until at least August 12th, giving everyone 1 month grace time to read it. If you post a spoiler it will be deleted anyways, so just don’t do it. If there is a cool sword in ADWD you want us to manufacture… don’t email us, please, we’re readers too, and maybe we’re not reading as fast as you, we have swords to ship out and everything afterall. So, just wait, wait until August 12th, then we can all talk about it. Thank you.