[...] platform, more seem interested in not dealing with the diversity of formats. (Unless they’re Dark Horse, who’s rolled their own strategy and seems to be doing quite well with it.) Handing those [...]

[...] an issue is too much to pay for a virtual read they don’t own. Companies prefer $1.99 or even cover price ($2.99 or $3.99), although many run regular online sales, where a selected group of titles is [...]

[...] of the month, when Dark Horse announced it was moving to same-day digital release, there was confusion over their pricing. It took several days and a good deal of retailer anger before they clarified that digital comics [...]

[...] expected, given the recent outcry over the Dark Horse pricing confusion, the IDW press release was careful to note that “All new digital comics will be offered at [...]

Speaking for myself only, I’d rather have MORE customers spending LESS, because it gives me more chances to sell them something ELSE :)

“Brian, given your immense experience in this area, I’m curious to know — how would you conduct a real-life experiment to determine if digital customers are additive instead of replacing print comic buyers? Or how would you answer that question?”

“More than I have time to do for free”, I guess? Though, oddly today I did just write an email to a big two publisher about some digital metrics I’d like to see reported at the ComicsPRO meeting, during their presentation.

-B

———

I can only speak for myself as a reader, but I hate “floppies” (too fragile, too difficult to store, and I hate, hate, hate how the ads interrupt the story), so I haven’t bought any in five years or so. And before that it was only sporadically.

I am, however, buying digital versions of some of DC’s new titles (no storage issues, no ads, and I love reading them on my iPad). I actually cancelled all of my previous print magazine and newspaper subscriptions (New Yorker, Economist, NY Times, Wall Street Journal) and re-subscribed to them as iPad only delivery because of this.

So I’m someone who was not buying print floppies but who is now buying digital.

When it comes to works I want to keep I still buy collected editions. And I usually buy them from Amazon. I have a local comic shop that I frequent occasionally (a well-regarded shop, too) that 85% of the time doesn’t have what I’m looking for when I go there, and if they do have it, they can’t compete on price with Amazon. On top of that, on Amazon I don’t have to deal with the weirdo, socially awkward customers, the garish and cramped store layout, and the obnoxious television playing all the time.

Despite liking the new digital comix reading experience, digital comix are too expensive. I’m not paying for printing costs, warehousing costs, or shipping costs, so they should not be priced the same as print. If I decide to stop reading comix digitally at some point because they are too costly, I’m NOT going back to print periodicals. I would be a lost customer, which I don’t think is good for the industry.

I sympathize with retailers. But it’s not my job to subsidize your business. You need to make my experience shopping with you superior to other alternatives. Even though I read prose books digitally (with my iPad Kindle app), and buy a lot of physical books from Amazon, I still buy other physical books at brick and mortar stores as well because the experience of shopping there is pleasant. I rarely get that from comic book shops (and the few that do are a minimum of an hour or two drive away).

Just the two cents of a reader.

I didn’t go into this when I posted (moving too quickly this morning, sorry), but regarding book sales vs. periodicals, I think there are two more factors that have to be considered. The first is, why would you consider sales over the same period of time? Books have the potential to sell over a longer time period than periodical comics do because they’re less time-sensitive. Very few people are making lists in December, for example, that say “hey, you should seek out this comic issue from February”, but plenty of best-of lists include books from earlier in the year.

I know, you’re going to say that that’s not always the case, and I agree, when one of the two biggest superhero publishers can’t keep their books in print, that’s a problem.

The second point is the pricing. I would imagine publishers and retailers care more about profit than pure sales numbers. If I sell 20,000 copies of something at $4 and 5,000 copies of something at $20, then I’ve done less work to make more money in the latter case. Which ties into your point about how discounted digital pricing can be dangerous — you have to sell more to make the same amount of money.

Brian, given your immense experience in this area, I’m curious to know — how would you conduct a real-life experiment to determine if digital customers are additive instead of replacing print comic buyers? Or how would you answer that question?

I think rather that it is that there is extremely little “time sensitivity” to Archie comics, nor, for most stores, any number of collectors who purchase Archie comics serially.

I can say that a year+ old Archie comic is as likely to sell as a new this week Archie comic o the demographic who purchases them (largely prepubescent girls who don’t have iPads anyway)

“In his store, at least,”

In any store, Johanna. Compare the sales of (virtually) any serialized comic with the same sales of books (feel free to combine bookstore and DM, even), in the same relative period of time, and it’s pretty clear that this is the case in the overwhelming majority of cases. It is easier to sell a cheaper product, then a more expensive one.

-B