Digital Comics - How much would you pay?

[NaveenM]

We've been spending a lot of time here talking about comics and their price point, and how expensive a form of entertainment print comics have become.

So I wonder, how much would you pay for a digital copy? In particular, I'm talking about a downloaded comic, in PDF or whatnot. You would own it, it would sit on your HDD (or wherever you put it).

This, as opposed to Graphicly or Comixology, where the comic sits on their servers and you access it. It seems the typical comic on those services is $1.99. So would you be willing to pay more for a product you have full possession of?

You can answer through the poll, but it would be nice to hear everyone's opinions.

[Jason Arthur]

Well, a comic issue is about 5-10 minutes of entertainment and usually doesn't comprise a full story.

Kind of like a song on an album.

.99 cents seems reasonable.

[SuperMonkey]

If I were inclined to do such things, I'd think 99 cents is a fair price for a 22-pager that is, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent. Non-physicality and the perceived "cheapness" of digital products, no matter how correct that perception may be, impacts the price that people are willing to pay.

So, yeah, 99 cents.

On a side note, even though I'll never spend the money on them, I'm really digging this thing DC is doing with the polybagged comics with the download codes inside. Very nice!

[MBirkhofer]

PDF? 1.99.

Digital copy bullshit. .99C at most. (If not at all, cause that shit is retarded.)


I want full on Steam like system.

I want a pdf hard copy on my system. I want an account I can log onto anytime, and re-download for free any comic I previously purchased.

[JimCampbell]

FWIW, I'm in the process of writing a blog post about this very issue, and one of the (many) things I think is wrong with the current digital distribution model.

Cheers

Jim

[Secret Agent]

99 cents is good. I don't usually buy digital comics because they seem to want the same price as a physical book. I'm not doing that.

I'd also offer a free preview. Let them see 6 or so pages so you can hook them and then ask for the 99 cents to continue reading.

[NaveenM]

One of the problems with print is the revenue eaten up by the distributor. But digital has it's own distribution-like costs, which are

1. Transaction fees
2. Digital storage fees

I think this is why some of the digital services set a standard price of $1.99 per issue. It's still anywhere from 33% to 50% less than print, so from a consumer's point of view it's better, but it's still not as low as the consumer would like for something intangible.

However, when you consider you don't have possession of the product and it's sitting on someone else's server, the buyer might think twice. I think that's the advantage of PDF -- it's cheaper, and you're in possession of it.

[Aaron Walther]

Originally Posted by SuperMonkey

On a side note, even though I'll never spend the money on them, I'm really digging this thing DC is doing with the polybagged comics with the download codes inside. Very nice!

Except that they are charging an extra dollar for the download codes. That's outrageous. DC should be giving away a digital copy free of charge with every comic and the plain digital versions should not cost the same as the printed books.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, comics need to get back to being impulse purchases and that means selling it as cheap as can be. You might as well price it at .99 because lets face it, it's very unlikely you're going to be raking in any bucks no matter what you charge.

[SuperMonkey]

Originally Posted by Aaron Walther

Except that they are charging an extra dollar for the download codes. That's outrageous. DC should be giving away a digital copy free of charge with every comic and the plain digital versions should not cost the same as the printed books.

"Should", sure. And I should be a millionaire with enough power to make that a reality, plus a few Porsches and a beach house in Hawaii. As much as I despise digital, I think it's cool that DC at least seems to slightly give a fuck about the future of the LCS market, as evidenced by the new system.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, comics need to get back to being impulse purchases and that means selling it as cheap as can be.

From a business standpoint, you're absolutely right, though you must understand that if the Big Two do that, they are burning 95% of the bridges they've spent the last 30+ years establishing. From a creative standpoint, when that happens I'll be heading downtown to busk for corn-dog money. Because that is not a kind of storytelling market I want to be a part of.

[CHWolf]

Originally Posted by NaveenM

1. Transaction fees
2. Digital storage fees

There should be a free digital comic store with no fees!



...

[Aaron Walther]

Originally Posted by SuperMonkey

From a business standpoint, you're absolutely right, though you must understand that if the Big Two do that, they are burning 95% of the bridges they've spent the last 30+ years establishing. From a creative standpoint, when that happens I'll be heading downtown to busk for corn-dog money. Because that is not a kind of storytelling market I want to be a part of.

I'm speaking specifically to indie and self publishers, not Marvel or DC, though they should still be doing everything they can to get the impulse purchase.

On a side note, I still don't understand your fear of a larger comics market.

[SuperMonkey]

Originally Posted by Aaron Walther

On a side note, I still don't understand your fear of a larger comics market.

I'm not afraid of a larger market. I'm afraid of what you think it would take to get there, which appears to be a complete and utter destruction of most of the fundamentals of the Big Two's years of popularity (talking just about them now) and, in the comic market at large, making every story an inconsequential self-contained one-shot. That works for some stories, but many stories demand a serial format (most of the ones I'm interested in telling demand it, in fact, as I'm sure most of the people here do) and shoehorning them into a system like that can only reduce everything to devolved, Silver Age-style simplistic crap. Try to imagine Watchmen as a potboiling airplane novel and you'll see what my fears are founded in.

[Steven Forbes]

Originally Posted by MBirkhofer

I want a pdf hard copy on my system. I want an account I can log onto anytime, and re-download for free any comic I previously purchased.

I was thinking along the same lines...

And then I came to my senses.

Let's say you had a physical copy of a book. Then your house catches on fire. The book has been destroyed. You're out the money paid for the book, and you're out the book, as well. Will you expect a store to give you a book for free, even if you could prove that you bought the book previously?

No.

The system you describe needs to be paid for. Part of paying for that is buying the book again if the file becomes corrupt or the hard drive crashes and needs to be wiped or anything like that. It's your book, so you can make as many digital copies of it as you wish, but if you want another copy from the source, then you should have to buy it.

That keeps everyone in business: the distributor (and everything that goes into digital distribution) and the creative team, so they can continue to create comics.

Now, with that being the case, and that we're talking about owning a book but not having a physical copy of it, I would pay $1.49.

-Steven

[SuperMonkey]

Originally Posted by Steven Forbes

I was thinking along the same lines...

And then I came to my senses.

Let's say you had a physical copy of a book. Then your house catches on fire. The book has been destroyed. You're out the money paid for the book, and you're out the book, as well. Will you expect a store to give you a book for free, even if you could prove that you bought the book previously?

No.

It's different with digital, though. In the scenario you describe, the store would actually be out one copy of the book in question, and thus would lose revenue. With digital, the distributor is only out the .003¢ or so in electricity it costs to wire the book to you. In other words, there is not a finite number of copies from which you are receiving yours. The potential number of digital copies of a given book is only limited by the free hard drive space of the known universe. Lack of scarcity = total loss of value.

If only everyone had just taken the time to read this, we could have avoided this whole silly fight.

[Steven Forbes]

Originally Posted by SuperMonkey

It's different with digital, though. In the scenario you describe, the store would actually be out one copy of the book in question, and thus would lose revenue. With digital, the distributor is only out the .003¢ or so in electricity it costs to wire the book to you. In other words, there is not a finite number of copies from which you are receiving yours. The potential number of digital copies of a given book is only limited by the free hard drive space of the known universe. Lack of scarcity = total loss of value.

If only everyone had just taken the time to read this, we could have avoided this whole silly fight.

I still don't believe that you should get a second copy for free.

The distributor still has to have the space on their server. There's a cost for that in space, time, electricity, and having to maintain the database of what you (the customer) bought. None of that is free.

Then, there's the fact that you bought it from a single place. You want them to stay in business? That takes revenue.

I admire what Wolfie is doing, but if it takes off the way he wants it to, then I believe he will start charging. Bandwidth costs money, and he's not getting anything out of it except goodwill towards man. When that starts to negatively impact his pockets, I believe he will charge to at least cover his costs, not necessarily to make a profit.

Look at it from a business perpsective, instead of a consumer one. We're creators, but we all also must become businessmen, because that is what will be able to keep us doing what we love best.

Just like every Marine is a basic rifleman, every creator should be a basic businessman.

-Steven