Thread by @ComicPerch

A few thoughts tonight for #ComicsGate about digital, and hopefully some new information you may not have considered before. And yes, I'll get it out of the way up front: I really should just do YouTube. But hey, you're in for the thread show now. Sorry. But here we go! 1/23

So, when digital first started being a thing for comics there was this strange revolt on the part of retailers. Retailers were wary that digital would wipe out the LCS, and publishers were bending over backwards to reassure people that this wouldn't happen. 2/23

DC in particular were making these statements at Retailer Summits and to LCS reps that no, digital was something they would try but in no way would it come at the cost of the traditional publishing business. But just about every LCS was worried and saying so. 3/23

It makes sense why. At the time digital comics were becoming a thing, iTunes was sticking a giant knife in the bloody carcass of the brick and mortar music industry who was reeling from music piracy and plunging profits. People were sure the LCS was next! 4/23

I won't go into the very brief and very ugly digital distribution wars, where a few companies all half-heartedly battled to get the rights from Marvel, DC and others to vend their comics. Comixology won, and were promptly swallowed up by Amazon. 5/23

At the time, Marvel's deal was basically a recoupable one. The digital vendor paid $100k up front (yearly) to get rights to comics Marvel decided to provide. The first $100k made would be kept by vendor, and then there would be a 50/50 revenue split back to Marvel. 6/23

Marvel thought this was an amazing deal! But this was a lousy deal. For one, Marvel picked the digital titles they would provide with no assurances. For another, there was no exclusivity for the up-front fee. Finally, do you know how hard it is to make up $100k? 7/23

Here's the math: a digital storefront vendor would need to sell 25,062 titles a year (with no say of the titles given) at $3.99 a pop TO BREAK EVEN. Now you might say, "that's not that many"... except sight unseen in a new platform with competition? IT IS. Yeah, non starter. 8/23

Comixology did bite, although it's not certain if they took that deal or not because Marvel wasn't exactly getting a lot of takers for their offer. Comixology also had some funding coming in and were positioning to be acquired, so they were burning cash as a strategy. 9/23

But the results have been underwhelming. Unlike music, people didn't flock to digital comics unless they were stealing them. The only real star of digital has been Nemesis43 for reasons I'm obviously not fond of. So why? Why didn't digital comics take off? 10/23

Bunch of reasons. Price point was a factor. $4 for a digital comic seemed expensive. $1.49 for a replayable song feels like a better value... many comics aren't reread over and over. More people are trying to get "Let It Go" out of their head than "Falcon #2". 11/23

The readers are also expensive. An MP3 player or iPod is relatively cheap. A tablet costs more. Sure, you can read on a laptop or PC but is that a good experience? A PC is pretty heavy to hold when you're sitting on the toilet. 12/23

The reading experience is also strange. Comics have detail. You flip, zoom in and out, and the attempts to "movie-ize" them (thankfully dead) made reading on digital annoying, not natural. With music you put on headphones, play and then go about life. 13/23

Original "made for digital" titles tended to either be gimmicky (see above note on the "animations" attempt), had nothing to do with continuity and featured lesser-known creators. Maybe it's telling that Injustice (based off a game) is one of the more popular. 14/23

Finally, your core comic audience considered themselves collectors. With digital there is nothing to collect. This is a psychological barrier that will take some time to crack. Music didn't really have this problem... CDs didn't increase in value. 15/23

But for a lot of reasons digital numbers have been kept secret. Some of this is a result of the early deals struck ensuring confidentiality. Some is that the numbers are too small to report on. Some of it is that nobody wants to hype that it isn't working yet. 16/23

But what numbers you can see off of the Comixology lists or Amazon AR tell a predictably boring story: comics that are top sellers in print are top sellers in digital. Digital doesn't magically transform taste. And the sales figures sit around 10% of print on average. 17/23

That means people who use digital as a shield to protect bad selling books need to move onto a new strawman savior. Graphic novels have sales figures you can see, so many Scholastic will be the next frontier to defend why continuing to publish America is a good idea. 18/23

This doesn't mean digital is dead. When tablets and eReaders are cheaper the numbers will improve. Cover price has to drop in the same way movie prices dropped. More famous creators need to create original work. But the biggest hurdle is the psychology of the collector. 19/23

The comic audience IS changing. Newer fans care less about collecting, they see comics as a disposable commodity (this is a whole topic itself). This will help in the transition to digital. But this is not a quick change and is tied a bit to generational tech adoption. 20/23

...unless you're Japan, where digital sales have overtaken print sales of comics. But keep on mind digital comics are HEAVILY discounted there, are collections of content and the whole market is much different. Did I mention the prices are HEAVILY discounted? 21/23

In the long run Indies can gain a lot on digital if they can utilize social media to strategically target buys like mobile games do. At the same time, the current revenue share from Comixology is an absolute joke. You're not going to get rich as an Indie creator. 22/23

So, there you go. Thanks for reading #ComicsGate. And yes, I'm working on moving this to a video. Someday. Maybe. I dunno. #SaveComics #HelpComics #UnderstandComics

I should have proofed better. Meant “maybe” not “many”.