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MIT on Comics and Micropayments
Snotty Pippen writes "Henry Jenkins, Chair of MIT's Comparative Media Department, has posted 'Comics
and Micropayments: An Interview with Todd Allen.' Todd Allen is a
professor/consultant with a
book on the business
of comics. The two discuss a number of online business models and web
comics, ranging from the print-to-web migrants like
Girl Genius and
Finder to the print-to-web download
of Flying Friar; the long tail as a
driving source for reprints & back-issues; and PayPal's effect on micropayments.
All-in-all, a fairly comprehensive round-up of the industry."
1. Get mentioned in a book by an MIT guy
2. Get a link from slashdot
3. ???
4. Profit!
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
If you have not read Finder then you are missing the best thing going on in independent comics today. Aboriginal Sci-Fi, set in a future world with a mix of technology and industrial-age mentalities. It helps to read everything in order, and only the recent stuff is available online. If you don't want to start with the big 2-book, 14-issue trade paperback that begins the whole set (called "Sin-Eater"), let me recommend just purchasing "King of the Cats", or seeing if your local library has it. It's her best book, just four issues, and is almost guaranteed to get you hooked. I've been reading this title now for close to years, since it first started, and it's the only thing I continually come back to, month after month.
modern choral music...
You guys forgot "web to print". Song of Songs is made by an independant Toronto artist. He has been making the comic and posting the pages online for people to download for quite a long time. Now that the pages are all done it has been printed up and it's selling in stores around Toronto.
It's completely independant, so it will be interesting to see how successful it is outside Toronto and internationally.
http://songofsongsthecomicbook.com/
(I'm not affiliated with the kid in any way. Just posting AC because I don't have an account.)
...really isn't valid, from my point of view. You can download a stand-alone, complete song from iTMS for $0.99. Do most cartoonists who use micropayments give you the entire issue/volume/story for that price? I know McCloud sells the entirety of The Right Number (http://scottmccloud.com/comics/trn/intro.html) for $0.25, but I'm not sure about other artists. If they don't sell the entire issue for a small price, the analogy falls apart, since you're not getting something stand-alone for a micropayment. I also think the iTMS analogy is invalid in that music is not a niche market, while webcomics still are, for the most part. Personally (as a webcartoonist), I don't think micropayments are a viable means of "making a living", but some cash can be made. This reminds me of a quote, either by Jerry Holkins or Jon Rosenberg, that basically stated that if someone was willing to pay $0.15 for a comic, they'd pay $3.00.
Seriously, I've seen some really good comics die online because the author didn't keep a regular update scheculd. VG Cats almost went this way, but managed to recover.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
1. Yes, it is possible to sell comics/books/movies/music on the Internet, despite the fact that TEH NOOBZ R TEH PIR4T3ZING.
2. Yes, it is possible to make a living selling comics/books/movies/music on the Internet.
3. The Internet is not a dump truck
4. The big giant media companies are not interested in sales, revenue, copyrights or customers. They want control.
5. The only reason more stuff isn't being sold online is because big giant media companies are pricing their product "money grab" instead of "good value."
6. The independent guys have development and payments down. Once they get marketing, it's over.
7. The Internet is a series of tubes.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
As mentioned in the article, BitPass requires you to put a minimum of $3 into your account when you open it. Obviously this seems stupid if you only want to spend a nickel. I understand BitPass's plight--it probably costs them a minimum $0.30-0.40 in fees to process a credit card. However, If you remember the early days of Paypal, they burned through some serious VC funds by basically throwing millions at people to get them to signup. It worked and paid off in spades big time. If BitPass wants to ever be a contender, they're going to have accept the fact that they'll need to bleed money for a year or two.
Entrepreneur : (noun), French for "unemployed"
Maybe it's just me, but I don't think so:
When I hear the word "micropayments", I reach for my revolver.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
...you need more sleep when you glance at a Slashdot title and see: "MIT on Chronic and Micropayments" Skochie Bochies! :)
"1. Yes, it is possible to sell comics/books/movies/music on the Internet, despite the fact that TEH NOOBZ R TEH PIR4T3ZING."
Oh I happen to know that idependents are being pirated. The thing is that piracy affects an independent more than a big company.
"2. Yes, it is possible to make a living selling comics/books/movies/music on the Internet."
Jolly good...for a minority.
"4. The big giant media companies are not interested in sales, revenue, copyrights or customers. They want control."
Of their stuff. You always leave that part out.
"5. The only reason more stuff isn't being sold online is because big giant media companies are pricing their product "money grab" instead of "good value.""
Oh is THAT why you're not putting your money were your mouth is, and start selling on the Internet.
"6. The independent guys have development and payments down. Once they get marketing, it's over."
Well that miracle of miracles, holiest of holy, the internet will fix whatever ails the world. After all nine out of ten advocate the "new and improved" business model for big business. So it must be good for the small guy.
"If BitPass wants to ever be a contender, they're going to have accept the fact that they'll need to bleed money for a year or two."
I have a better idea. How about all the people with these "suggestions" burn through some of their capital and become a contender. If all these ideas are good enough to tell others to take a risk*? Then they're good enough for the poster to follow.
*Let's pretend that the suggester doesn't benefit from their suggestions. e.g. The dot boom.
...to flesh out the end of a very long tail. ;-)
Just yesterday I read an announcement about a new service called Drive Thru Comics. Like the interview, they're describing it in terms of iTMS.
Not surprisingly, it's mostly small-press, but there are at least some names I recognize.
He's awesome and all, but c'mon. Maybe President Hockfield has a totally different take on webcomic micropayments. Or maybe there was a vote at the last faculty meeting to not conduct this interview.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Please. A bet can have a good expected value and still be a gamble. Suppose the lottery jackpot is $2 million, and each $1 lottery ticket has a million-to-one chance of winning. Then the expected value of each ticket is very good indeed. But that doesn't mean you should cash out your $100K 401K to buy lottery tickets: the expected value of your lottery tickets may be $200K, but you still only have a 1 in 10 chance of scoring the $2 million jackpot. A good bet, but not one you should make unless you can afford to lose. That's gambling by any measure.
Nostalgia Zone Comic Store is the "LONG TAIL"
in operation. All back issues in the online store. Some other
comic stores do the "long tail" back issue market, but there are only 3 that do it well.
From what I've seen (I read ~100 webcomics on a regular basis), the most successful, money-wise, webcomic artists are the ones that don't use micro-payments. Despite all the comics I read, I don't read any that require micropayments, because I could never get enough into the comic to justify it. If a comic I already enjoyed moved to micropayments, I wouldn't mine paying for it, but to pay for a comic before I know if I'll enjoy it just seems silly, especially with the huge number of free ones out there. The best approach I've seen to this was Narbonic, which had a significant portion of the early comics available for free, which got me to pay for it (though it is all free now), since I had an emotional investment in the characters.
Really though, most webcomic artists that do it for a living use advertising and merchandise sales, and are very successful at it. I was a bit astounded at the trend toward micropayments that started about 2 years ago. The big question to me is "why?" Why automatically alienate a large portion of your potential audience when the alternative has been proven successful many times?
My only thought is that maybe it's better for those mid-sized comics that don't have enough readers to pull in a lot of money in advertising, but I can't see that micropayments would really be much better, when it would be a significant barrier to the growth of that audience.
Remember kids, tin foil doesn't work, so use LeadHat.
Back issue comic store and
a couple others do the "Long tail" of the online retail business in comics. Most online
comic stores have a teeny back issue stock, there are only 3 that I know (including
nostalgiazone.com) that have a substantial stock online. We rarely sell more than
a couple of the same back issue in a month, a huge inventory of everything ever
published is needed to survive.
- Micropayments do not
work and we stay away from Ebay and especially PayPal, too much fraud, hassle,
and too big a cut. Credit cards are the currency of people that do survive and
continue in the business, they take a big enough cut as it is. Micropayments are the
"perpetual motion machine", some sort of faith based economics that no one will do.
Who is going to fill out a whole bunch of bank information to look at a three cent
web comic, then find it sucks. It is an invite to fraud with the customer on the
hook, not the bank. Phishing with a capital PH.
- Google ads are almost worthless. We do a couple for fun, but not profit. Yahoo ads we
do not even bother with.
- A good back issue comic search what we use for people to buy the comics, if
they can't find it in your inventory, you can't sell the item.
- And we sell 'em cheap, piles of comics for a buck or less each.
Hey, a friend of mine has the "Benny" Featured Comic. :)
They can't sell it and add DRM to the comics, thats a key feature to make it a success. But i have to agree that we need a bigger screen for this, maybe an iPod pro or a real bookreader device. I don't need this portable device but i can understand why Apple will wait for it to offer PDF downloads. Euh, except for the CD booklets that is. ;)
Hear, Hear!
I love webcomics, but I get hooked by stumbling into them and reading the archive. If there are two webcomics I am interested in, and for one I have to pay 15 cents to get started and the other is free, guess which one I am going to read? If there is some reason I am pushed to try the one with the micropayments ok...but a small flash ad from Keenspot is not going to hook me for even 1 cent.
I have been very tempted by premium subscriptions for extra content or by special x page episodes for a buck or two from comics that I already read, but I'm not likely to pay for one that I haven't read yet.
Also, I am one of those webcomic readers that will purchase merch...even if it's a little overpriced...to support a comic I read regularly.
"I'm out of the collector "phase", I don't need/want boxes of comics in my basement."
You still haven't addressed ALL the advantages of print over digital. There's a reason libraries and bookstores still exist. And it has little to do with being a "collector".