Dark Musings
DARK MUSINGS #31  – DIGITAL COMICS SHOULD BE 25% COST OF PRINT by Andrew Zar 1/31/12 I tend to find myself watching the mainstream comic industry with a sense of longing – longing for it to wake up and become competitive.  The recent push of “same day as digital” from the big 2 is good – it is a forward step – especially considering that embracing digital has been like pulling teeth.  But I’m still shaking my head – how can they possibly consider selling digital for the same price as print?  It is total sabotage of the concept of digital comics. There is a basic fundamental truth: when you buy a printed comic, the lion share of the cost is the printing and distribution.  But when you buy a digital comic, those costs do not exist!  In nearly every other market that handles this fact, you see much cheaper prices when getting content digitally. Compare, for example, purchasing a DVD for $15 or watching that same content on pay-per-view for $3.  A similar principle is in play there too.  Also, renting DVDs is another method that allows customers to view that content for well under $1 – and that method is just not available for comics.  You can disagree and tinker with these numbers all you like – but customers understand this value proposition on pure instinct – they know what is “worth it” and what is not. So, what is the magic number for a digital comic?  A new digital comic from “the big two” runs around $2.99 for a 20 page issue.  That is both print and digital. That price just doesn’t make any sense in digital format.  I’d argue it should be $0.74 – but I can see the target of $0.99 as a likely rally point here.  If you take that concept a bit further, then a graphic novel that collects 10 issues (so 200 pages total) – the digital price target would be $9.99 instead of over $29.   It becomes a little clearer in that context that digital comic pricing is out of whack.  $29 for graphic novels in digital format is… well… ridiculous.  At $10 it would be more reasonable… but I suspect $7.50 or less is the real target that the marketplace would actually embrace.  So, it is just a matter of time before the big 2 proclaim digital comics as “too small a market” to invest in – based on their “results” of selling digital comics.  Just remember, if you setup an online movie rental system and charged $15 per rental, you wouldn’t get many sales.  And, in that case, it isn’t the market that failed – it is you.  The big 2 are not out to make digital comics work as much as they are out to make sure they don’t hurt the print market.  And be very leery of decisions made about a market based on flawed strategy.  So you say to me: “put up or shut up!”  Agreed!  At DarkBrain, we just opened up individual digital sales of all our graphic novels for the first time!  Also, our digital comics are at price points far cheaper than the printed versions (roughly 75% less).  This way, digital consumers know the value is more in line with the costs.    And, guess what, the profit margins on each book are… practically the same!  Because, you see, print and distribution is the largest cost of any book.  That’s just a fact. Till next time, Andrew Zar The above image is from our upcoming The Butcher series, Copyright 2012, DarkBrain, LLC, All Rights Reserved.  Pencils by Renato Camilo, inks by Henrik Horvath.

DARK MUSINGS #31  – DIGITAL COMICS SHOULD BE 25% COST OF PRINT
by Andrew Zar 1/31/12

I tend to find myself watching the mainstream comic industry with a sense of longing – longing for it to wake up and become competitive.  The recent push of “same day as digital” from the big 2 is good – it is a forward step – especially considering that embracing digital has been like pulling teeth.  But I’m still shaking my head – how can they possibly consider selling digital for the same price as print?  It is total sabotage of the concept of digital comics.

There is a basic fundamental truth: when you buy a printed comic, the lion share of the cost is the printing and distribution.  But when you buy a digital comic, those costs do not exist!  In nearly every other market that handles this fact, you see much cheaper prices when getting content digitally.

Compare, for example, purchasing a DVD for $15 or watching that same content on pay-per-view for $3.  A similar principle is in play there too.  Also, renting DVDs is another method that allows customers to view that content for well under $1 – and that method is just not available for comics.  You can disagree and tinker with these numbers all you like – but customers understand this value proposition on pure instinct – they know what is “worth it” and what is not.

So, what is the magic number for a digital comic?  A new digital comic from “the big two” runs around $2.99 for a 20 page issue.  That is both print and digital. That price just doesn’t make any sense in digital format.  I’d argue it should be $0.74 – but I can see the target of $0.99 as a likely rally point here. 

If you take that concept a bit further, then a graphic novel that collects 10 issues (so 200 pages total) – the digital price target would be $9.99 instead of over $29.   It becomes a little clearer in that context that digital comic pricing is out of whack.  $29 for graphic novels in digital format is… well… ridiculous.  At $10 it would be more reasonable… but I suspect $7.50 or less is the real target that the marketplace would actually embrace. 

So, it is just a matter of time before the big 2 proclaim digital comics as “too small a market” to invest in – based on their “results” of selling digital comics.  Just remember, if you setup an online movie rental system and charged $15 per rental, you wouldn’t get many sales.  And, in that case, it isn’t the market that failed – it is you.  The big 2 are not out to make digital comics work as much as they are out to make sure they don’t hurt the print market.  And be very leery of decisions made about a market based on flawed strategy. 

So you say to me: “put up or shut up!”  Agreed!  At DarkBrain, we just opened up individual digital sales of all our graphic novels for the first time!  Also, our digital comics are at price points far cheaper than the printed versions (roughly 75% less).  This way, digital consumers know the value is more in line with the costs.   

And, guess what, the profit margins on each book are… practically the same!  Because, you see, print and distribution is the largest cost of any book.  That’s just a fact.

Till next time,
Andrew Zar

The above image is from our upcoming The Butcher series, Copyright 2012, DarkBrain, LLC, All Rights Reserved.  Pencils by Renato Camilo, inks by Henrik Horvath.

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