I find it somewhat ironic that, at the same time publishers are scrambling to fill ill-advised budget gaps left by their blind co-dependence on Borders, HarperCollins decides to play hardball with the one channel that offers the maximum combination of discoverability and NON-RETURNABILITY.
Brook's worldbuilding skills are impressive, her Iron Seas setting rivaling Cherie Priest's Clockwork Century for potential stories, and I daresay its backstory is actually a bit more compelling, despite my general preference for American-flavored steampunk.
If your core pitch is your "innovative" business model and not what you publish and for whom, your 15 minutes are almost up.
"No licensing fees to Apple means we can pay our creators more while offering readers lower prices."
If there’s one area of publishing where the “game-changing” hype around the iPad has substance, it’s comic books.
While comics have been in digital formats, legally and otherwise, for years, few would argue that Apple’s sleek tablet is the first platform to offer an optimal digital reading and purchasing experience, from comiXology’s innovative Guided View (TM) Technology that powers some of the most popular apps (including Marvel and DC), to the potential for expanding the audience beyond its hardcore, superhero-centric base.
WE BELIEVE that reading widely and reading fluently will give children the reading stamina to deal with more challenging texts they will meet in college, at work and in everyday life. And every child should be able to choose and own the books they want to read for that choice builds literacy confidence—the ability to read, write, and speak about what they know, what they feel, and who they are.
–Richard Robinson, Chairman, President and CEO, Scholastic Inc.
The just-released 2010 Kids & Family Reading Report™ conducted by Harrison Group and Scholastic has caused a bit of a stir thanks to one relatively minor data point that’s been highlighted more than any other, perhaps best illustrated by the AP’s misleading headline that reads more like Huffington Post linkbait: “Survey: Children like e-books, parents not so much.”
From a fragile network of brick-and-mortar direct market retailers and the often fickle tastes of hardcore, social media-savvy fans, to online piracy and the tantalizing possibilities of the iPad, comic books have been out on the bleeding edge of the digital transition for years.
While some comics publishers have had success expanding beyond the limited (but non-returnable) direct market into mainstream bookstores, ICV2 reports the first half of 2010 saw continued challenges in the once-booming graphic novel market. Manga, which represented 35% of all the graphic novels released in the U.S. in 2009 and accounted for a similar percentage of sales in the category, has been hit especially hard:
Graphic novel sales in the direct market have declined by double digits every month in 2010 so far with the exception of February, when they posted a 1% gain.
Graphic novel sales appear to be down in the bookstores as well with Yen Press’ Twilight graphic novel the only breakout hit. The other bestselling movie-driven graphic novel in the first half of 2010, Marvel’s Kick-Ass Hardcover posted sales that were less than 10% of what Watchmen achieved during the same period in 2009…
After two years of double digit declines in sales of manga, American manga publishers have formed a coalition with their Japanese counterparts to battle the illegal Internet distribution of unlicensed manga via scanlation sites where translated versions of manga often appear just days after publication in Japan. The coalition has had some success in shutting down some of the main aggregator sites, though it’s far too early to see if sales will be boosted by making it somewhat more difficult to read manga for free online.