 Before the rise of the direct market, American comic books were sold to News agents through distributors in anticipation that a significant portion of the print run would eventually be unsold, then returned to the distributors who invalidated each returned copy by deliberately damaging the cover for return to the publisher for refunds where the material was pulped.Thus the business goal of the publisher would be to attempt to minimise those returns to maximise their income.By that measure, a sell-through percentage of a print run of roughly 50% was considered break-even by the standard fiscal measures of the comic book market.