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I've been thinking more about my "Digital comics need to be 99 cents" thing....

My basic premise is that 99 cents is the price we need to get new readers so as to not scare them away, BUT there is absolutely no reason why publishers need to use this month's current comics to capture new readers. All comics are "new" to new readers.


The biggest trick is getting new readers to try those 1st few comics and hook them. This is going to take several things:

1) Some kind of marketing/demand generation that is compelling

2) Stories that do not read like a confusing mess & are a complete satisfying read (e.g. do not read like the middle chapter of a larger story so the reader feels like they walked into the middle)

3) A price that will not scare the new reader away. They will not want to risk too much on something new.

So, there's no reason that this needs to be done with this month's brand new comics. In digital, you can point people to anything, so take something that meets these criteria that is a year old, price that set of "back issues" at 99 cents, and do your marketing campaign to drive readers to those titles.

If you successfully hook readers, then they can switch to buying "1 month after release" comics for $1.99 -OR- if they are really hard-core hooked they can buy "day of release" for $2.99.

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Another really interesting part of the pricing model DC has proposed is the $1.99 vs. $2.99 thing.......

How many people are REALLY going to fork over the extra buck to get the comic day&date. Certainly this decision already goes on for real comics with people who decide to wait for a box to come from DCBS or SciFiGenre.com or some other mail-order supplier vs. driving to the shop on Wednesday to get the comic for full price.

I can see maybe people really wanting to buy an "event" book like Flashpoint or "Fear Itself" as quickly as possible and would be willing to pay an extra $1 for it, but if they are getting 20 books a month will they pay an extra $20 to get them all "day & date"????

Maybe instead people will pick their top 3 or 4 favorites & pay the extra buck for those and everything else they'll just wait a month & get the cheaper price.

There is no worry that the book will be sold out & unavailable, which can happen at an LCS if you wait a month (unless this is done purposely to drive demand at some point).

I also wonder if the publishers start to notice that people are only willing to pay the extra $1 for the "big events" are we going to start seeing even more of these kinds of stories in an attempt to get those extra digital dollars.

Just some musings on my part.

I think the answer is a varied pricing model. I do not think $0.99 should be the mantra for digital comics. I think $1.99 is a fair price and it allows flexibility for sales. Here is my idea for the pricing model.

1. $2.99 seems fair for the gotta have it right now people. There are plenty of people who still go to comic stores and pay cover price for comics

2. $1.99 for those smart enough to wait or do not have a need to read the latest comic.

3. A subscription plan for those who want to buy an individual title, pick ten books a month for a set amount, and an all you can eat model.

Let's look at the model that seems to out there via Comixology and others.

1. New Ready Friendly issues eventually become FREE. That is, there is always some intro issue that can be immediately downloaded and tried.

2. Subsequent issues up to within say, 3 months of current are 99 cents.

3. 'New' issues are 1.99 or 2.99.

4. There are occasional 'big' sales where large swaths of back catalog go on sale for 50% off or 99 cents or something similar.

I think this model works fairly well. It mirrors what the e-book platforms do too.

Downside for DC is that, from our perspective, they are jumping in at the 'New Issue' point for DCU 4.0. That seems to be what we see.

I wonder if DC won't do something really cool along with it, like offer Flashpoint #1 for Free and all the mini's for 99 cents each so that if people want to get material to lead into the Day and Date stuff at compelling prices, they can.

We are maybe too fixated on the price for D&D without considering ALL the material that is available in digital.

As a semi-seasoned digital reader (on Kindle & iPad), I prefer the drug-dealer model:

Issue #1 (or first book) is FREE. Yep! You may have to sign up for an account but if you want to read a book, we'll give you that first book for free.

Everything after that is going to cost you. And if you're enjoying it, you'll happily pay it.


Yeah, I'm being silly here, but am I? I've picked up a couple new book series (regular book books) because that first book was FREE on my Kindle. The writing was good, the story was compelling, and I wanted to know what happened next. The same is true for comics. I hadn't considered picking up the DDP Sheena series (much as I love the ol' pulp characters) but wound up picking up both trades as a result of a freebie from Comixology (ditto a couple other series on there).

Now this model isn't really necessary for DC on flagship books like JL, Superman, Batman, etc. but would be VERY cool to see on new and unproven books they may want to try. Even creating a "zero" issue and putting it out there digitally...

Trev wrote: 2. Subsequent issues up to within say, 3 months of current are 99 cents.

4. There are occasional 'big' sales where large swaths of back catalog go on sale for 50% off or 99 cents or something similar.

These two ideas would be great for readers like me (and I'm not the only one out there) who don't care about day and date and are happy to wait to get the most bang for our buck.

Y'know...tightwads!

A "digital dollar bin" would be great to see, and would probably get some serious business from me.

For me the biggest barrier related to price is the lack of ownership. If I pay for a digital book and it's on my tablet, and my tablet dies - how do I replace that book? Can I read it on my tablet, phone, desktop, laptop, work machine at lunch, friend's house, etc? Or do I download it to my tablet and that's it? For me, what solves these issues is a subscription based model that allows me to read as many comics as possible for one (low) price, like Netflix has for movies.

One of the greatest strengths DC and Marvel have is the years and years of back issues. They're not worth much in digital format if you have to pay per issue - but they could be worth millions (or, dare I dream - billions) in a Netflix model, where you're only able to read books that are a year old for the subscription price. And then there could be tiered pricing, allowing you to read x new books a month, where x increases as your monthly fee increases.

boshuda wrote:For me the biggest barrier related to price is the lack of ownership. If I pay for a digital book and it's on my tablet, and my tablet dies - how do I replace that book? Can I read it on my tablet, phone, desktop, laptop, work machine at lunch, friend's house, etc? Or do I download it to my tablet and that's it? For me, what solves these issues is a subscription based model that allows me to read as many comics as possible for one (low) price, like Netflix has for movies.

One of the greatest strengths DC and Marvel have is the years and years of back issues. They're not worth much in digital format if you have to pay per issue - but they could be worth millions (or, dare I dream - billions) in a Netflix model, where you're only able to read books that are a year old for the subscription price. And then there could be tiered pricing, allowing you to read x new books a month, where x increases as your monthly fee increases.

most apps I've seen provide you the ability to 'sync' your purchases to whatever device you're on, as long as the account is the same. I have comixology on my iphone and ipad and both have whatever I've purchased on them. If I install the app on a new device, the first thing I do is sync purchases.

BobBretall wrote:I've been thinking more about my "Digital comics need to be 99 cents" thing....

The biggest trick is getting new readers to try those 1st few comics and hook them. This is going to take several things:


2) Stories that do not read like a confusing mess & are a complete satisfying read (e.g. do not read like the middle chapter of a larger story so the reader feels like they walked into the middle)


So, there's no reason that this needs to be done with this month's brand new comics. In digital, you can point people to anything, so take something that meets these criteria that is a year old, price that set of "back issues" at 99 cents, and do your marketing campaign to drive readers to those titles.

If you successfully hook readers, then they can switch to buying "1 month after release" comics for $1.99 -OR- if they are really hard-core hooked they can buy "day of release" for $2.99.

------------------------------------

How many people are REALLY going to fork over the extra buck to get the comic day&date. Certainly this decision already goes on for real comics with people who decide to wait for a box to come from DCBS or SciFiGenre.com or some other mail-order supplier vs. driving to the shop on Wednesday to get the comic for full price.

I can see maybe people really wanting to buy an "event" book like Flashpoint or "Fear Itself" as quickly as possible and would be willing to pay an extra $1 for it, but if they are getting 20 books a month will they pay an extra $20 to get them all "day & date"????

Maybe instead people will pick their top 3 or 4 favorites & pay the extra buck for those and everything else they'll just wait a month & get the cheaper price.

There is no worry that the book will be sold out & unavailable, which can happen at an LCS if you wait a month (unless this is done purposely to drive demand at some point).

I also wonder if the publishers start to notice that people are only willing to pay the extra $1 for the "big events" are we going to start seeing even more of these kinds of stories in an attempt to get those extra digital dollars.

Just some musings on my part.

I think you have hit two key points that are related more than you think, and are controllable by the publishers and/or editors. Paying a higher price to read something as soon as it comes out only makes sense if there is a good reason to read it as soon as it comes out or an excitement to get it now. The style of current stories creates almost no desire to get the next issue immediately. If anything it creates the exact opposite effect. If one thinks a story was written for the trade or will read better in a trade, you will wait and get the trade, maybe. That is if you remember or still care when that trade comes out. With the news cycle in comics being with solicits and not the books currently out, no one cares about the books available this week and really no one cares about the books last week. What are the chances you are excited about the books from six months to a year ago still when that trade comes out? For a lot of us I think it is low because what we want at that point, and what the publishers are selling to us it the thing still a few months out. One of the reasons I think events sell so well is not because we like events, but they are marketed throughout not just months ahead of time. An event book is what is hot last week, this week, and next week; most single issues are only what was hot a few months ago, and a few months in the future, but never in the present.

I think if you buy a $2.99 physical comic, you should be able to download a copy for free.

They often do this with vinyl.

There's no way I'd buy a digital comic for more than what DCBS sells the physical for, not to mention the dollar bins at cons that hold tons of near-current comics.

boshuda wrote:For me the biggest barrier related to price is the lack of ownership. If I pay for a digital book and it's on my tablet, and my tablet dies - how do I replace that book? Can I read it on my tablet, phone, desktop, laptop, work machine at lunch, friend's house, etc? Or do I download it to my tablet and that's it? For me, what solves these issues is a subscription based model that allows me to read as many comics as possible for one (low) price, like Netflix has for movies.

This is my main concern as well. I know my physical comics will always be there (unless there's a fire I guess), whereas the fear of a hard drive failure or some other inevitable hardware meltdown causing the loss of my comic collection would be devastating.

The more I think about, isn't the basic problem with comics is that you don't get a complete product? A typical person is used to buying a movie or book and getting a story. Even if they pick up a movie with a sequel, they're typically still are standalone. But with comics you have to wait a month to continue a story every time, and usually that one issue gives you 5-10 minutes of story. I know this falls into the topic of old comics [where each issue typically wrapped things up themselves] vs. new comics [multiple issue story arcs], but I'm trying to say that I think this is the most pressing issue rather than price.

So that typical person may think "I pay 2.99 and get a snippet of a story, then I have to wait a month, then pay 2.99 again, then wait ...". Doesn't seem worth it for them maybe. So I don't know if it's even price that is the issue, it seems to me most people don't want to wait a month in between stories.

Stephen King, back in '99 or so, decided to publish a story online in episodes. Each chapter, or whatever you call the divisions, would cost 0.99 but you could also download them for free. He wanted to see if honesty would prevail because as long as enough money came in he'd continue to do it. I think it lasted for 3 episodes, then it stopped because too many people were getting it for free, or not getting it at all.

That analogy doesn't equate perfectly, but it just shows that even 0.99 for chapters of a best selling novelist world-wide was too much and people would rather pay for a whole story than wait it out......or it shows people like stuff for free, but you can download most popular comics for free too, especially if people don't even have to scan them.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

I believe the mainstream publishers will have to stay at the 2.99 price mark for new releases indefinitely. They could use the 'drug dealer' model by introducing the first story of an arc for .99c to try to get you hooked and then the rest of the issues at 2.99 ... which would probably benefit both the digital and physical book sales.

But to really kick start digital sales I think the 99 cent price point is needed. Yes it acts as an impulse buy at that price but more importantly it would get readers to become comfortable with buying digital books. Based on some of the posts, there is a fear that the digital books can be lost due to device failures.

I think what would be a nice kick start would be for comic publishers to start using foot notes again in their stories when the stories reference old story/issues or reoccurring villains. This would allow readers who want to know more about a character or how an older story is relevant to the one being told to grab the digital back issue, at 99 cents, to find out more. This would allow the publishers to wring more sales out of issues no longer being printed and get the masses used to buying comics in a digital format. Win win. Unless you worry about it impacting (publishers) sales of trades with older stories.

Only question would be what's the cut off date for setting the 99 cent price tag. Five years ?

abysslord wrote:The more I think about, isn't the basic problem with comics is that you don't get a complete product? A typical person is used to buying a movie or book and getting a story. Even if they pick up a movie with a sequel, they're typically still are standalone.

Soap operas are really more of the model for comics than movies or "regular" TV shows. The monthly books generally exist on getting people hooked and then getting them to keep on coming back for more of the story.

Where comics went off the rails was in making each individual episode difficult to jump into for new readers and also having a preponderance of issues feeling like an incomplete snippet of a story.

It's fine to have a chapter of a story, but as John has said on the show more than once, you need a chunk of story that is like an episode of a TV show, not a snippet of story that's like the 7 minutes between commercial breaks.

There is another cost here that I really haven' t heard mentioned much and that is the cost of an iPad or other tablet. An iPad 2 starts at $499 for the 16 GB version and goes up from there. I currently have an iPod Touch that I use primarily for music and podcasts (including the ones from CBP) and I personally think the screen is far too small for an enjoyable comic book reading platform. I know people do it but it just doesn't cut if for me.

If I had an iPad I guess I would download some comics to read on it but I can't justify the cost since my iPod does all the same things as the iPad.

Anyone else in this situation?

Gilgabob wrote:There is another cost here that I really haven' t heard mentioned much and that is the cost of an iPad or other tablet. An iPad 2 starts at $499 for the 16 GB version and goes up from there. I currently have an iPod Touch that I use primarily for music and podcasts (including the ones from CBP) and I personally think the screen is far too small for an enjoyable comic book reading platform. I know people do it but it just doesn't cut if for me.

If I had an iPad I guess I would download some comics to read on it but I can't justify the cost since my iPod does all the same things as the iPad.

Anyone else in this situation?

In another thread I mentioned the size of the iPad and iPhone market. I would say this isn't a case for comic readers to buy tablets but for tablet owners to buy comics. If you happen to be both, well great.

Comics alone is not a reason to buy a tablet but it could be a benefit of ownership. Therefore the cost of the iPad isn't a factor right now. You'll either have one or you won't.