@The_jackolantern: I'm going to try to answer your question with answer how DC should have done things... and then I might add what I think they should do from this point, which may or may not lead to the same ends... I don't know yet as I haven't thought it all out yet, but let's see shall we...
First off, let's go back a year ago and we can look at the solicits and see what was being sold and how it is being sold. One of the notable things is that every title isn't published every month. That would have to change and we would want to make sure we put a cap on how me titles we publish monthly... Let's say 70. I'm guessing the number is slightly higher than that, but I'm not counting Those 70 from what I can see are not mainly DC mainstream titles. They are one offs, mini-series, non-mainstream, alternate universes, etc. Don't really care about them, but for these purposes let's assume that the amount of titles that DC can publish in 1 month without breaks and such is 52 for whatever reason. (it's not the number is obviously chosen due to the 52 universes thing which was taken from weeks in a year),
Our goal is to attract new reader, maintain old readers, and keep both of them, increasing sales. We need to diversify our titles with characters that more people can connect to and can maintain a readership above 10,000 readers. We also want to go in a new directions and not be bogged down by old canon which will may or may not confuse readers and is full of holes and problems. However, if we do this and none of this catches new readers or worse, old readers leave, we'e screwed. That is our situation more or less.
So since we want to go in this new direction, but we want to maintain old readers, not getting their hate. The first thing we do is look at what titles we have and in doing so determine which titles can be cut/merged, messed around a bit to get rid of as many titles as possible while maintaining that old canon, which can continue to be drawn upon and be written for. Also if we can keep our record of alive.
This is going to become a very long post... right about now so yeah...
First off
Action Comic: We are going to keep it going and turn it into either Superman's Primary book or Zatanna and Superman's joint book. 10pgs for Supes, 10 for Zatanna, returning to the origins of Action Comics since it started both their stories...
Green Lantern Emerald Warrior: The primary book for all GL stuff. The title lending itself to any amount and anyone GL.
JLA & JSA: Merged into new book called Justice or something like that. This can be a vehicle for Green Arrow.
House of El: This title merges Superman, Power Girl, Supergirl, and Superboy together.
Titans: With the age of the sidekicks being older now, we drop the Teen part, and this allows for a merger with Titans/Outsiders
Impulse: This title no longer follows any one Flash, but any and all flashes/impulse/kid flash. Impulse is more stylized and reflects the way all the characters seem to be...also pays homage.
Batman, Inc.: This becomes Bruce Wayne/Batman's Primary book
Batman and Robin/Nightwing: This retains Dick and and Damian working together
Detective Comics: This becomes a book split between Tim Drake, Birds of Prey, and Team Batgirl
This means the following titles would all then be canceled...
GL, GLCorps, JLA, JSA, Zatanna, Green Arrow, Superman, Superboy, Supergirl, S/B, Adventure Comics, Legion ofSH, Teen Titans, Booster Gold, Gotham City Sirens, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Birds of Prey, Secret Six, Power Girl, Batman, Batgirl, BTDK, Red Robin
... and of the 52 titles we now have 43 to work with for our new universe. In this new universe, everything is new, or planned to a degree so that we can take place in various times without disrupting someone else. This allows freedom while making sure everything fits together nice and neat. The first thing I would do in launching this is explain that this is a "New universe" within the 52. It would be Earth-52. For those of us who follow this stuff we know that the 52 universes count 0-51, so we say something like there was collision or something between two universes which created this new one. This starts to give us a new paradigm of how the universes work and says that even though there are "52" universes more could be created or there are more. Secondly. Every issue in this new universe it would be marked What year it is relative to Before or After Superman... So for example Superman's origin story would be marked Year -1 on the cover somewhere. This allows writers to jump around if they like and allows readers to keep things straight... which might be important considering the titles of the launch.
New 52 Launches and here is the books you'd launch that first month
Legion of Super Heroes, Booster Gold and Blue Beetle, Earth-2, Legion Lost, Superman, Green Lantern Corps, All-Star Western, Blackhawks, Men of War, DC Universe Presents, Demon Knights, Grifter, Resurrection Man, The Savage Hawkman, Stormwatch, Swamp Thing, Voodoo, I Vampire, Aquaman
The next month you'd launch...
Batman, Wonder Woman, Talon, The Flash, Green Arrow, Firestorm, and Blue Beetle
Next month...
Mister Terrific, Animal Man, Shazam, Catwoman, Suicide Squad, Gen 13, Deathstroke, Deadman, Firestorm, World's Finest
The next month, with 8 titles left you can fill you can divide them up into titles for villains, or go with the New Earth Titles. At some later point you might use them for other characters which are not in the e cannon on Earth-52.
You have now made everyone happy with a few tweaks to the titles themselves. Obviously you can't tell where these titles would go if they launched like that because it's a different story, but you could fit some of the stories already there into this...for example Mister Terrific and World's Finest. You could say that they got transported several years ago and just never used their powers because their were no Supers here and they didn't want to change the course of history. A few of the titles would take place in the future like LoSH, BG&BB, or in the past like Demon Knights. LoSH is largely unnafected by story telling so that's not a problem as is DK, but BG&BB is a bit of a different matter but because he can time travel he can be in any time he wants and he's a fan favorite...plus he gets things wrong so it doesn't hurt the story telling. More over since he is a fan favorite you can use these two as a way to jaunt between other titles, introducing people to new characters, AND in some cases launching titles for ones that wouldn't happen for some time like Robin or Batgirl. Having Booster jump into that time zone would then allow DC to launch a title for them and it could easily not interfere with other writers because it is only 1 title to keep track of future events in.
With setting the universe at a "new start" the changes that are being made wouldn't be as grievous to people who like the pre-flashpoint era because they are developing that way where as how they are now... they didn't develop that way and are being forced into those round holes even though they are square pegs. Also, by keeping the other titles alive you keep old fans and you have them going "well if you don't like the new one you can continue reading the old ones"
The staggered launch also helps sets a timeline where these characters/event happened slightly before those ones, and keeps interest going as new titles are launched each month. Further the dropping of the whole 52 titles thing allows for more money to be directed where it should be, advertising, and telling people about individual titles. which was a huge mistake that they made. "New" readers only picked up titles they were familiar with and slowly are leaving if not left, where as "old" readers picked up the new titles, but that means that more than likely they're going to have to give up another title due to the recession, or if that isn't a problem it has to be good enough to maintain a readership...which it can't because a lot of them aren't getting the talent, the cross over, nor the time needed to develop an audience. Also another thing the fewer titles does... It keeps titles from being rushed because 1 writer/artists/colorist whatever has been put on 5 or 6 books. That is insane and lowers the quality over all. Obviously if you are trying to output 6 books you aren't going to make them all good and most of them are going to suffer, even if you can technically do them.
How do you correct where we are now on the other hand? That's pretty simple... Any books that can fit in the Pre-flashpoint continuity set aside, cancel all low selling books, bring back pre-flashpoint continuity, place those set aside books in that continuity. Maintain the DCnU as a separate universe with. Phase in characters that can be into either universe, but if it can be, phase it into the pre-flashpoint universe. Release books for the DCnU that flesh out the universe more as far as timeline and such so that writers can write for it without having their work messed with or wrong because they didn't know things they should have. As time passes, let the characters in the DCU age as they should and have the next generation of chars take over. Just as you are doing that move resources to DCnU and have that universe come to Prominence... introduce any 2nd gen characters that are doing great into the DCnU with their own books. That sums up how i would take care of the problems of the DCnU as they stand today, but not completely because I don't want to type any more ^.^
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