Dark Horse Circumvents iTunes, Plans to Sell Direct
"No licensing fees to Apple means we can pay our creators more while offering readers lower prices."
Comics Publishers Recognize Digital Opportunity
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.
Digital Natives and Ebooks: Missing the Point
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.”
Can Digital Expand the Audience for Comic Books?
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.
Goodreads Takes Next Step in Social Reading
Americans spend nearly a quarter of their time online on social networking sites and blogs, according to the latest Nielsen research, and the most conservative estimates predict eBooks will represent at least 10% of book sales by the end of the year, but one question that’s not been clearly answered yet is whether there’s any demand to bring the two together.
Goodreads, the largest social network specifically for readers, claims a dual mission: “to get people excited about reading,” and, via their Goodreads Author program, “to help authors reach their target audience — passionate readers.”
The site boasts 3.6 million members who have added more than 100 million books to their virtual shelves and created more than 30,000 groups covering a variety of interests.
“Weird and Wonderful”? Me, on the Future of Publishing
The above tweet led to a fun interview over the at the Book View Cafe blog, “Weird and Wonderful: Digital Book World and Guy LeCharles Gonzalez,” with author Sue Lange asking me some interesting questions that really made me think hard to solidify some of my ideas about the “Future of Publishing” and what it means for authors and publishers.
There’s a lot of fluff and blather right now that makes it sound like eBooks are a magic bullet and simply uploading your book to Amazon makes you an independent author.
Most of that fluff and blather is coming from new intermediaries who take a smaller cut than traditional publishers, while putting your eBook on a virtual shelf where no one who doesn’t already know it exists will ever find it. And, of course, some of them will also upsell you on services to help you market your eBook and increase sales, for which they’ll get their cut.
In a lot of ways, it’s basically Vanity Publishing, in a shiny 2.0 coat.
I also explain a few things about Digital Book World, make the argument “that marketing is, first and foremost, a publisher’s responsibility,” and talk a bit about my own writing and how it has evolved over the years.
Killer iPad Apps: ComiXology
It's been two weeks since Steve Jobs' "magical and revolutionary" device officially went from fascinating Rorschach test to tangible consumer appliance, and while some of the hype around it being the savior of book, magazine and newspaper publishing has thankfully died down, there's no debating that Apple's App Store has had a significant impact on how we value and consume digital content. That impact will likely increase with the introduction of the iPad, and it's especially noteworthy for publishers who are looking to iBooks and the "agency model" to counter Amazon's pegging $9.99 as the benchmark for eBooks. Savvy…