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Webcomics As Business Model
oddjobs writes "It's not the most groundbreaking article, but the Chicago Tribune does a pretty good job of looking at the state of webcomics-as-business-model. They mention the usual suspects (Marvel, McCloud) but most hopeful is Unbound Comics, which is selling comics collected in Adobe's e-book format. Fans of the 80s book Dalgoda take note."
Quoth Piro from MegaTokyo:
:)
With our hosting change, our hosting expenses have also gone up dramatically. We don't really know where it will settle out at, but we are keeping our fingers crossed. Before people start asking, we will NOT be asking for donations or having a paypal donation button - MT will survive like any other good property, based on it's ability to sell a reasonable amount of merchandise. If you would like to support MT, please visit our store and buy some swag
Also note Scott Kurtz from PVP, who is selling original sketches for $300-$400 a pop on ebay.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
7It's no secret that comic book publishers make zero profit on back-issue sales; that's entirely the realm of the collector. So why shouldn't Marvel, DC et.al. get into the business of providing their own back-issue archives in downloadable eBook format?
It's perfect, really. The publisher gets paid for books they otherwise wouldn't want to reprint. They could even include new advertisements between the pages, although I'd rather pay more for an ad-less eBook myself. Fans get the back issues they want to read at a fraction of the cost and hassle. Collectors will still get top dollar for the most collectible original, physical publication. Store owners don't have to worry as much about sealing their back issues in taped bags. And the entire industry gets a low-cost kick in the butt.
Of course, there are some losers. Store owners who earn money from non-collectible back issues will have more trouble selling those, even as the collectible back issues become more valuable to fans. Publishers may not make as much money from trade paperbacks collecting popular stories -- then again, there's really no substitute for the printed page, especially where several issues are concerned. But I think the potential increase is worth it. And, of course, the publishers themselves may have to buy back their own back issues in order to make them available online.
Still, it would be an excellent way for Marvel to cash in on the long-running popularity of the X-Men, or DC and Batman, or Dark Horse and Aliens. I can think of plenty of fans and even not-so-fans who'd happily pay $2 per back issue of a known hit when new paper issues of unknown ones are priced at $3 apiece.
I've been doing an online comic now for just over two years. I have a regular following of readers, manage to get decent traffic and the feedback I receive has generally been good. However, I have not made one dime from this venture and I can't imagine that I ever will.
This is partly due to the fact that the online advertising model is dead and/or severely flawed. Last year I grossed (yes grossed) around $3 and my poor readers suffered a bevy of pop-ups, pop-unders and other flashing menaces. Likewise the model of pay-per-download just doesn't work -people won't pay to be mildly entertained when then they can get the same stuff for free.
Ultimately, this caused me to abandon the comic, ending my adventure in online comics just as quickly as it began. Then something unexpected happened. People actually emailed me wondering what happened to the comic. For some unknown reason, they actually cared that my tiny contribution to the world of online comics vanished. And for me, that was enough to try and bring it back. So this February it returns.
If there's a point to any of this, it's that not everything has to be about money. The internet can be more than a virtual marketplace, if only people are willing to work at it. Sure, I'd love to make money from this, but just knowing that people get some enjoyment out of something I do has its perks. And it's good enough for me.
DigiSquid Design.
I wouldn't be so sure about that either. I would gladly pay for good, accessible products, that doesn't infringe on my privacy, take away my fair use rights, doesn't try to abuse my trust in any way, and make available a convientent method for making payments.
I did too... so I paid for it, and I got screwed. Lucky for me, I got screwed out of only $10 and the time I invested setting up my photo album and captions and stuff. Lots of people were using it to host images for ebay, and paid a lot more money for a lot of extra storage. They lost a lot more than I did.
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
Anyway, we of course have been trying to deal with this making money thing for 6 years at WebComics. We've had competitors come and go (like toonscape.com and mycomics.com) which all thought they could make lots of money I guess. As with most messed up web companies, the problem is very simple, they just spend too much money. The web lets you do things so efficiently and a company has to take advantage of that.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.