52issueMy friend Eric Burns has recently started blogging again on Websnark, his blog that largely covers webcomics and comic books. In a post today, Burns looks at DC’s plans for same-day digital availability of every issue of every book starting with its “reboot” later this year, the “New 52”. While at first glance it looks like great news for those who prefer their media digital—especially since print comics are no longer as widely available as they used to be—Burns finds it runs up right against one of the same problems that has dogged print versus e-books: the matter of price.

Comic books used to be available for purchase in every grocery or corner drugstore—but, much as with paperback books, the selection has waned or vanished altogether. Now the only way to get physical comics, apart from subscribing through the mail, is the “Friendly Local Comics Shop”—which could be an hour’s drive away. Needless to say, same-day digital availability could shift a lot of business away.

But, Burns points out, even as local comics shops may be headed for extinction, this is simply another step in the general trend of business moving on-line that’s been affecting many physical retail stores. The real bad news involves DC’s tone-deaf digital pricing initiatives.

The disaster comes, as it sadly often does, by a fundamental lack of understanding of online economics. A lack of understanding all too common in corporations, even when they develop an online presence. In the end, too many executives expect the digital version of a product to be the same as the physical version — only with a significantly better profit margin.

First, Burns explains, the digital version of the comic will cost the exact same $2.99 the print issue does. (Mainstream print publishers have learned this lesson, at least since the coming of Amazon—while consumers may complain about $12-$15 e-books, there’s no denying that they are less expensive than $26 hardcovers.) And the price shows no sign of declining over time.

Burns uses the example of the comic book “maxi-series” 52, which ran from May 2006 to May 2007. The series has long since been collected into a set of four trade-paperback graphic novels, with retail prices of $19.95 each. He could get them for cover price ($79.80) at his Friendly Local Comic Store, or for 10% off with his member discount at Barnes & Noble ($71.80). Or he could get them from Amazon for $13.59 each ($54.36), or if he went used he could get them for $9.95 each ($39.80) from an Amazon marketplace member with Amazon Prime free shipping—which, as he points out, means that DC doesn’t make one red cent off of his purchase.

But if he goes through Comixology, which handles DC’s digital comic sales, he finds that only the individual issues of 52 are available, and altogether cost a total of $102.49—over $20 more than the graphic novel collections, and without the additional commentary and other extra material the graphic novels incorporate. Which means, as a disbelieving Burns recounts, that he could perfectly legally acquire the entire series, plus all the extra behind-the-scenes stuff the on-line version leaves out, for almost $63 less than the cheapest on-line version, if he bought the used graphic novels—without any money going to DC at all.

And 52 is just a convenient example.

Go through the DC store on Comixology. It’s everywhere. Stuff from fifteen years ago? $1.99 Stuff from 1985 with the cover price of 75¢ still on the thing? $1.99.

And, as Burns points out, DC’s competitor Marvel offers a $60 per year all-you-can-read subscription service, which lets him read anything and everything Marvel has on-line for $40 less than DC wants for just 52.

Burns suggests that DC should go to a system of discounting older works to make them more attractive for people to buy on-line, and incorporate additional graphic novel material when it becomes available. This would give customers incentive to purchase the digital works even of older content, and give DC money that it would otherwise not see.

This certainly strikes a chord with me. I never could get into comic books when I was younger—my parents wouldn’t buy them for me. And it’s hard to blame them. The thing about comic books was that you had to buy every one and follow them religiously or you’d get lost. There was no way to catch up; libraries didn’t exactly stock them. It was financially not unlike a cigarette habit (though, granted, a lot better for your lungs). All those “cheap” issues added up financially over time, as Burns’s calculations for just one 52-issue series shows. And that, at least, doesn’t seem to have changed much.

And there’s an elephant in the room that Burns didn’t address: Internet comic book piracy. Comic piracy is rampant on-line, and it’s easy to see why. You don’t have to OCR comic books; you just scan them, zip them, and you’re done. Anyone with a scanner can do it, and many people with scanners probably do. There are commercially-sold comic book reader applications for most platforms, including the iPad, for the most commonly-used formats.

Everyone has to make up his own mind whether he can justify illicit downloading—but among those who do feel they can justify it, “unfair” pricing of digital content is one of the most commonly-heard rationales. If DC doesn’t address this issue, it may be sowing the seeds of more trouble down the road.

I suspect that, given a few years, DC will probably come around to offering lower digital prices. It took a few years for publishers to recognize that consumers wanted to pay less for paperback and backlist titles (and they could afford to make backlist titles cheaper, given that they had already paid for themselves a long time ago). And while in some cases there may be more lip service paid to the idea than readers would like, publishers at least seem to acknowledge that as books get older, the e-books should get cheaper.

1 COMMENT

The TeleRead community values your civil and thoughtful comments. We use a cache, so expect a delay. Problems? E-mail newteleread@gmail.com.