CBR: Tilting at Windmills - Jul 15, 2010

[CBR News]

Brian Hibbs returns this month with news about a meeting DC Comics held for retailers in the wake of their digital comics announcement, leaving Hibbs feeling cautiously optimistic about the publisher's plans.


Full article here (http://comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=27224).

[matthh]

Digital comics are comics. Direct stores sell comics. Direct stores need to get paid to sell digital comics. Having a publisher 'push money back' to direct stores in some vague form of support won't help them pay their bills.

There is no reason why a customer couldn't register with a particular B&M store and have that store get paid every time they buy comics via a DC app (or the store's app.) You could have requirements for checkins (customer has to visit once per week/month/year) in order to get the credit, etc.

Digital comics shouldn't be viewed as competition to paper, they are just a new product you can sell.
--
matthh

[skullduggery]

As far as their getting an accurate list of retailers they can actually send customers to, I would think ComicsPRO could help them with that (at least provide them the addresses of those retailers who are a member). It would be a good start. And it gives an added benefit for a retailer to be a member of ComicsPRO.

[Brian Hibbs]

As far as their getting an accurate list of retailers they can actually send customers to, I would think ComicsPRO could help them with that (at least provide them the addresses of those retailers who are a member). It would be a good start. And it gives an added benefit for a retailer to be a member of ComicsPRO.

Sure, ComicsPRO is doing so, but I'm of the mind that a national geo-location based store finder *has* to be 100% accurate or the entire thing falls apart. Using ComicsPRO's list could get it into... the 60s? Maybe, but not all the way to 100%...

-B

[mistergoodman]

Sure, ComicsPRO is doing so, but I'm of the mind that a national geo-location based store finder *has* to be 100% accurate or the entire thing falls apart. Using ComicsPRO's list could get it into... the 60s? Maybe, but not all the way to 100%...

-B

They can't just hire some interns to check the yellow pages and call the numbers to verify the information?

[NatGertler]

Thing is, DC, Diamond, and everyone else in this industry would benefit from Diamond being able to be a clear filter on this. Yes, Diamond does not know who is secretly a buying club, but they have so much other clear information - they not only have the location of every comic book shop, but they know who ordered what. If a customer wants to find a store that actually stocked BegoniaMan Omnibus, Diamond may not know who has one on the shelves, but they at least know who ordered some in the first place. With so many titles on the market, very few retailers can carry everything; publishers who want to push new customers toward brick-and-mortar sources have three choices

Try to convince a new customer to get into a store twice, once to preorder a book and then months later to pick it up.
Steer customers after the book is released to any store in the Comic Shop Locator Service, knowing that perhaps only a quarter of them ordered the work.
Steer customers to one of the stores that the publisher has learned via outreach has stocked the book... which in most cases seems to be perhaps 10% of the stores that actually stocked the book, thus missing out on a lot of opportunities.

All of these seem sadly far from the ideal case of being able to point customers to the nearest store where the work is available.

[matthh]

Why not enable the customer to buy a digital copy of BegoniaMan Omnibus right away, and then say, 'Want to find out lots of other great comics, click here to find your friendly local comic shop.' Then when the customer goes to the shop, they can register that as their comic shop, and have that shop get a slice of all digital transactions going forward? It would even be trivial (technically) to limit the revenue split only to digital comic sales that take place when the customer is physically in the store.

Seriously, the direct market has got to get into the digital comic point of sale stream or it risks being left behind. That is what direct stores should be asking the publishers for. At a minimum, stores should probably be looking at setting up their own online store/apps (ala comixology) as a way to capture sales revenue.
--
matthh

[Paul McEnery]

Why not enable the customer to buy a digital copy of BegoniaMan Omnibus right away, and then say, 'Want to find out lots of other great comics, click here to find your friendly local comic shop.' Then when the customer goes to the shop, they can register that as their comic shop, and have that shop get a slice of all digital transactions going forward? It would even be trivial (technically) to limit the revenue split only to digital comic sales that take place when the customer is physically in the store.

Seriously, the direct market has got to get into the digital comic point of sale stream or it risks being left behind. That is what direct stores should be asking the publishers for. At a minimum, stores should probably be looking at setting up their own online store/apps (ala comixology) as a way to capture sales revenue.
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matthh

I don't see how that even works, let alone whether it's desirable.

What's clearly in the interests of the publishers is that boutique stores stay in business, not just as a revenue stream, but also as public-facing marketing.

I think we all understand that shopping in brick-and-mortar stores is a more satisfying experience than using, say, Amazon; and more likely to sell things you didn't know you were looking for.

This Saturday, for instance, I picked up the Darwyn Cooke one-off, which I only knew about from seeing it in the store; the new Eddie Campbell (ditto); grabbed an Astro City I'd been saving for later; and all because I was in for a Judge Dredd book I knew had been coming out, because I'd been waiting for the new Rebellion domestic editions (domestic as in for the US market, and no longer costing me an arm and a leg).

Now I knew about the Rebellion editions, and I'd be happy to either buy them off Amazon (or The Book Depository for the Brit editions if that's what it comes to), and those sales would still be made. But the other three would have passed me by. So brick-and-mortar works (which is why I support brick-and-mortar where applicable).

So yes, the transition from the current state of play to a market with fully digital options available does indeed risk killing the goose; and a fully digital market may well support far fewer numbers of geese (especially for oddball shapes like the new Eddie Cambell or Darwyn Cooke). But even aside from that, the brick-and-mortar store is in itself a good thing.

That said, I can't see how what Diane Nelson's talking about is more than a pity fuck for the old guy while the hot young stud's driving her round town in a convertible:

One thing that DC has committed to is to take a portion of the revenues they'll make from digital and to put it back into the retail environment to try and both keep customers in the print space, as well as drive new customers in our direction.

Digital is certainly going to shave the bottom line for every LCS, so the first thing DC/Marvel has to do is stop allowing Amazon to discount new books, and stop pricing books in a way that drives customers to Amazon (e.g. Absolute Planetary is 65 bucks cheaper through Amazon; and that's a top bottle of single malt there).

[Brian Hibbs]

Digital is certainly going to shave the bottom line for every LCS, so the first thing DC/Marvel has to do is stop allowing Amazon to discount new books, and stop pricing books in a way that drives customers to Amazon (e.g. Absolute Planetary is 65 bucks cheaper through Amazon; and that's a top bottle of single malt there).

Complete Truth -- enforcing SRP (or, at least, a rational variation upon it) would make a pretty significant difference.

For Matthh: as a general rule one wants to keep one's own customers within one's own channel. I'm not particularly interested in "handing" my customers to Comixology (or Amazon, for that matter) for a couple of pennies.

-B

[Paul McEnery]

Complete Truth -- enforcing SRP (or, at least, a rational variation upon it) would make a pretty significant difference.

For Matthh: as a general rule one wants to keep one's own customers within one's own channel. I'm not particularly interested in "handing" my customers to Comixology (or Amazon, for that matter) for a couple of pennies.

-B

It strikes me that doing some real marketing once in a while wouldn't be a bad thing, either. I'm not just saying tack a ten-second still at the end of every DVD or a button on every comix movie trail-site that sends you to comicshoplocator.com (although that seems like a braindeadedly obvious thing), but actually buying some goddamn advertising in the local freesheet that sells a hot book and includes in the addresses of all the (participant?) LCS's in the area.

I speak with bitterness here, because DC had a shot at getting out of the ghetto back in the day with proper print advertising (which isn't the most expensive thing in the world) which I was trying to sell them, but they wouldn't bite. That Watchmen market could have been theirs a lot sooner....

But the other big thing is that the LCS has to full-on become a community center. I think returning to the old days of the back-issue rack makes sense for the store, only this time selling used copies of books. That's the plan that's saved the only record stores we've got in the city, and most of the few bookstores we've got left.

It works not only because (as I understand it) the margins on used books are much higher, but because it gets people coming back to the store to liquidate what they've got (and encourages buying something you might not want all that much on the promise that you can at least get some of your money back in trade). All of which leverages the big plus of the graphic novel -- it's a book, so it's got resale value.

The other thing is like what Borderlands have been doing -- creating a cafe society around the store (in a perfect world, I think you and the games store should have bagged that cafe space between you!). The Scott Pilgrim promotion is a good part of that, and party throwing certainly helps (because comics fans are cowardly and superstitious and appreciate all the help they can get in meeting real live humans for conversation.

What Leef's doing over at Mission: Comics and Art -- crossing over with the underground art crowd and selling gallery art -- is another nice touch. I can easily imagine a perfect store being very successful if it combined all these elements (though I also imagine the square footage alone would kill most such endeavours).

Fortunately, we're in a smart city where each of the possible approaches pays off on its own. But I don't think it would kill the Big Two to stump up some conversion cash to key retailers to build the 21st Century Boutique & Community Center. And that strikes me as a whole lot more use than some notional pennies on the dollar scheme.

[mistergoodman]

Complete Truth -- enforcing SRP (or, at least, a rational variation upon it) would make a pretty significant difference.

It would also mean a big drop in online sales, and I doubt the local shops would make up for it. I wonder if those oversized prestige hardcovers like the Absolutes would even be viable if they only sold for full retail.

[NatGertler]

Why not enable the customer to buy a digital copy of BegoniaMan Omnibus right away, and then say, 'Want to find out lots of other great comics, click here to find your friendly local comic shop.'If I have a customer who wants digital, then I want to swerve him to a convenient digital source... and if I have a customer who wants a physical copy, then I don't want to try to appease him with something less than the available thing he wants.

[Brian Hibbs]

It would also mean a big drop in online sales, and I doubt the local shops would make up for it. I wonder if those oversized prestige hardcovers like the Absolutes would even be viable if they only sold for full retail.


We used to sell TONS of Absolutes (and Archives), pounds and pounds and pounds of them. Now we can't even give them away.

-B

[matthh]

Paul said: "I don't see how that even works, let alone whether it's desirable. What's clearly in the interests of the publishers is that boutique stores stay in business, not just as a revenue stream, but also as public-facing marketing."

My whole point is that we need to keep LCS thriving in this new market. But I think the path to that is by getting LCS into digital comics market rather than having them fight against it.

Brian, if you made the same % revenue split on a digital book that you do on paper, would you care which version I bought? You should be fighting for that same % rather than taking table scraps via fuzzy promises of forthcoming marketing dollars...

Great comic shops act as curators/editors, exposing customers to great content in a sea of possibilities. How much more awesome would it be if Comix Experience could sell me ANY COMIC EVER MADE, delivered anywhere instantly, and without me having to argue with my wife about storing longboxes anywhere but the garage? LCS are even more relevant in the digital comic world, and they should get paid the same % for selling me the same comic, just in a different form factor.

[matthh]

Complete Truth -- enforcing SRP (or, at least, a rational variation upon it) would make a pretty significant difference.

For Matthh: as a general rule one wants to keep one's own customers within one's own channel. I'm not particularly interested in "handing" my customers to Comixology (or Amazon, for that matter) for a couple of pennies.

-B
I'm absolutely not talking about handing your customers to Comixology. I'm suggesting that either each Publisher's app should support you taking your % in sales for your customers buying comics inside them.

Alternatively (and less desirably), you could build your very own Comix Experience app and sell digital comics online yourself. This would require the publishers to provide you with the digital media and you selling it. Brian: is this the model that Comixology is operating under? I'm assuming if you can buy digital comics directly from them, that the publishers are providing them the media and taking a slice of their sales...

[Paul McEnery]

My whole point is that we need to keep LCS thriving in this new market. But I think the path to that is by getting LCS into digital comics market rather than having them fight against it.

That doesn't make any sense at all. Why would anyone sell digital comics through yet another intermediary -- or rather, through a vast number of individual intermediaries -- when they can simply sell through a central source or on their own?

To put it another way: why are there so few distributors?

[RyansComics]

I was at the Retailing in the digital age meeting at the 2010 comic con. Jim lee was there with reps from DC and MARVEL and the president of COMIXOLOGY. It sounds like they touched on the same things they did before so maybe this is what you were saying they needed more follow up. Even 6 months after they seem like they don't know whats going on. I would like to see digital downloads in the comics like they do for blu-ray movies. Have a download code or something. Maybe charge a extra dollar for that issue? i'm just saying this whole thing i believe could be easy to figure out. Don't try to make it a seperate market. "collectors" want to collect the book and read it without opening it. this will give you that option. trying to charge 2 bucks for something they already have or can get for free on torrents could be just a small "tax" to get the comic digitally with transitional panels. Thank you.