Shaenon [Garrity] is self-publishing the first volume of Skin Horse, and she's getting a submission packet together for Diamond Comics Distributors. This is a line from their submission guidelines: 

If you publish comics, Diamond generally receives a discount in the range of 60-70% off the US retail (cover) price.

If we offer a 70% discount, I'm sure that Diamond is more likely to consider listing Skin Horse in their catalog, but we'll only get $4.20 per copy sold (minus whatever shipping costs we incur getting the books to Diamond). If we offer a 60% discount, we'll make $5.60 per copy sold -- still not great, since we're self-publishing this, but I always prefer making more money instead of less money when possible.

So, the question is: Is offering a 70% discount going to greatly improve our chances of getting listed in Diamond's catalog? Is only offering a 50% discount a guarantee that they won't even look at the book and will automatically reject it?

Given Diamond's new standards, what can we do to improve our chances apart from putting Wolverine or Barack Obama on the cover? Are any self-publishers getting picked up by Diamond at all right now? Are there any other alternatives to Diamond if we want to get into comic shops (apart from the traditional method of hauling books from store-to-store and trying to convince the owners to carry it)?

Thanks for any advice.