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Comic Sales Soar After Artist Engages 4chan Pirates
An anonymous reader writes "Steve Lieber, the artist behind the graphic novel Underground, discovered that someone on 4chan had scanned and posted the entire comic. Rather than complaining, he joined the conversation, chatting with the 4channers about the comic... and the next day he saw his sales jump to unheard-of levels, much higher than he'd seen even when the comic book was reviewed on popular sites like Boing Boing."
Engaging your customer base is good for business...
Those with high sales would see them reduce, and relative unknowns would see them increase.
Thus the resistance at the high end, and embracing at the lower end.
4chan can use their powers for good?
Um... I just don't know how to process that information...
4chan strikes me a bit more like the classic greek gods, capricious, capable of granting blessings and curses on a whim.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Not to mention, way too obsessed with sex and the human form.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
As Cory Doctorow says "my biggest threat as an author isn't piracy, it's obscurity."
What better way to increase sales than making sure that everyone has heard of your work?
is people like gene simmons and lars ulrich trying to convince executives that the real reason their sales suck is because of piracy. I guess this pretty much destroys that line of thinking.
They've done it before (with the Scientologists).
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The summary tries to spin this story as "theft increases sales". In reality the theft just prompted the author to do the smart thing and talk to potential customers.
Apple is a good example of this phenomenon.
I don't think this was exploiting them. This was realizing that there was interest and making the most of it. Personally I'm much more likely to buy something from somebody that recognizes a desire for the product and engages in a mature manner rather than letting lawsuits fly because of poor marketing decisions.
No, because they got to see the artwork and read the story, and then engage with the author immediately afterward, as a surprise. If he just showed up out of the blue, a bunch of jerks would be all "who the hell are you, and why should we care", etc. Others would think he was an imposter, and a ton more would assume it's a crappy marketing ploy.
Steve Lieber is a nice guy and a talented artist, and his comics are worth reading, but let's put this scenario into a little perspective. This is not a case of Steve posting to 4chan and then all the little 4channers running out to buy his comics.
Point 1: Underground could already be downloaded for free from Lieber's Web site, so it being "pirated" on 4chan wasn't that big of a coup.
Point 2: Comic book companies do not track sales on a daily basis. The sales that went "through the roof" were sales of signed print editions from Lieber's Etsy store.
So rather than a massive vindication of 4chan, "engaging your audience," or anything else, I see this more as a case of: A.) creator makes a product available online; B.) author manages (if inadvertently) to find an effective marketing channel for said product; C.) people who spend most of their time online notice the marketing and buy the product.
Pretty simple, really. Engaging his audience helped, but he would have been happy to engage anybody that came his way to begin with. The problem is, "build it and they will come" doesn't really work on the Web. Lieber lucked out that someone else noticed him and chose to promote his product in a way that he couldn't on his own. He was smart enough to pounce on the opportunity.
Breakfast served all day!
I think we're missing the point. 4chan (likley /co/) purchased, reviewed, and raved about a non-cp, gore or furry comic. That's quite impressive! In all honesty, I am doubting the validity of this because as we all know, such a cause and effect with the given circumstances is not possible around the chan. It requires filth, so much so that not even a mountain of dial-soap could be of any help. That's why I am dismissing this article by calling it fluff in attempt to get more sales.
It wasn't the free sharing of this book that boosted its sales. What boosted sales was that the artist got tipped off about it, and had a chance to introduce himself and interact with the pirates, and put a face on "the copyright holder" for them. He was no longer some non-person they could continue to not give a fuck about; he was a human being (and a pretty cool one) whose creativity should be rewarded. It's easy to rip off some anonymous corporation like "Disney" or "Sony" or even "Image Comics", but not so easy to rip off "Steve Lieber" and his co-creator "Jeff Parker". Lieber met them where they lived, and gently poked a hole in their disregard for him as a creator by being a real person. It's a good lesson for other creators... but it'd be nice if more consumers were willing to meet the creators on their own home field as well. If you like a person's work, don't just "share" it with 100,000 of your closest friends: bring them to the creator's web site or Facebook page or whatever, so he has a chance to interact with them like a human being. An artist shouldn't have to engage in detective work to ferret out the people who like his work; if they really like it, they should act like real fans (rather than leeches) and reach out to him.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
No, you’re missing the point. With a physical object, like a house, someone else moving in uninvited would detract from your ability to use the house. With information, it doesn’t, unless you’re a snob... somebody else having a copy of your painting doesn’t interfere with your ability to enjoy it, unless your enjoyment of it was partly based on the fact that nobody else had it in the first place.
It’s more like they copied the blueprint for your house and used it to design virtual houses in SecondLife, which became so popular that people who would otherwise never have known about you came and wanted to buy copies of your blueprint to build real houses.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
This shows that sometimes you will do better when you're actually nice to potential customers, and don't try to ram things down their throats or P. T. Barnum them.
4chan is Chaotic Neutral. They're not in it for good OR evil, they're just in it "for teh lulz".
If anyone in the industry is listening, hear this.
The last three video games I purchased were purchased after first torrenting them.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, will give me more incentive to buy something then a test drive--a test drive that ends with positive results.
You have nothing to fear if you create a worthy product.
And, in terms of reviews of a product, nothing speaks like seed/leech numbers...at least until someone starts gaming THAT as well.
Steve just reminds us that we all have a choice--you can keep paddling into that wave, or you can hop on your board and go for a ride. Either way, that wave is headed for the beach and it just might be the best one of the day.
People underestimate the power of not being a dick.
Seems Steve Lieber has an explanation for why his sales increased (and it's not generalizable to other media - e.g. music, software, movies - which is "native" to digital format):
"The problem is this: I hate looking at the kind of comics I do on a screen. I read plenty of funny comics on the web, but adventure stories just don't work for me online. Heavy brush and ink line art art seems ill-suited for monitors, and the storytelling rhythm is sort of *off*, somehow. I think it's an inferior experience for the reader. Or at least it is for me, but when I'm creating a comic, I'm have to go by my own tastes."
This is why I also think books have done better with piracy than other media - people don't like reading books on their computer screen. Hence, people like Doctorow, who want to sing the praises of piracy, are ignorant of why their media is different from other people's media. I'd find it funny how clueless they are about their own situation if they weren't out there trolling people who make other media.
True
Not so,
What the artist did is called "good marketing".
If the artist had of run in and shouted "Pirates, ha, I'll sue you, and you and your grandma, I'll dig up her grandma and sue her after I finish having my sweet, sweet way with her corpse" the people would have just said "what a douche, I'll just copy his crap".
Instead he walked in and said "so... you like my work, lets talk about it". From this people got the impression that he was creating things because he wanted to, not to make a quick buck. It's not about guilting them into it as you've inferred. If it were that easy the RIAA would have a picture of a kitten with a gun to it's head on every street corner to remind everyone of the "real" cost of copyright infringement. His sales increased because people liked him, this is part of the reason Valve is doing so well, people like them.
This is good marketing.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.