Why Ecomics are going to change how authors make money

Submitted by rmorrill on Fri, 03/12/2010 - 07:16

: Image via Wikipedia

We are not going to talk about the consumer here, but with the modern state of lock in on the Sony, Barnes and Noble reader, Kindle, and the IPAD, ebooks are going to rock for publishers and artists. The reason – no secondary market, you cannot resell an ebook, you cannot trade it, you cannot loan it, and you simply cannot do much with it at all other than read it. If you lose it, then you have to go buy another copy new rather than try to pick up a cheaper copy on the secondary market where no one in the food chain, publisher/artist/distribution network makes a dime off the book.

Robot 6 and Forbes wrote a great review on the priorities of the Apple Book store, and honestly, comics and graphic novels make sense, this is a high priority product and one that will make a huge difference with ebooks. I have said for years that ebooks need to have a color screen, and with Ipads hitting the consumer on April 3rd, 2010, the game is on. The kindle while not dead and the Sony reader is not dead either, they are in for a huge run right now, the Ipad is simply a black and white screen killer.

Citing findings by the Busted Loop mobile media research firm, the website states that Apple's iBookstore will designate about 20 main categories, including "Fiction & Literature," "Reference" and "Cookbooks." Below those will be more than 150 sub-categories; "Manga" will fall under the comics section. Source: Robot 6

This is one of the biggest reasons for the recent pivot that we have made as a company; we need to start publishing ebooks because realistically we see the comic book market changing. The comic book market is going to fall into two tiers, which we describe here. This is the reason for Dead Tree Comics, and why we need to start getting the smaller comic book artists into these systems now, this is the future of comics. The color screen changes all, add to that the lock in on specific devices means someone who owns a kindle and an Ipad will have to purchase two copies of the book. For some it might look like a never ending gravy train, for others it might be the only income after the fall from popularity and mega sales.

While the problem is going to be in the secondary market and a lot of second hand comic book sellers are going to go out of business over the next 30 years as back catalogs get digitized, there is an opportunity for smaller publishers to truly crack open this market. The entry right now before all the larger publishers get into the game, the Marvel’s, DC’s, VIZ and Tokyo Pop is phenomenal for a company that is willing and able to get licensed copies of brand new authors into the system. We have a sweet spot right now in the market because these companies are so huge they cannot move fast. Smaller printers who are more agile stand a chance of having a market segment to themselves for a while, meaning new authors and authors that are willing to license their works have an opportunity for readers to discover or rediscover them again.

If you are interested in being published, Dead Tree Comics is simply for you, if you are interested in waiting for the larger publishers to get on board, then enjoy the wait. In the mean time, the competition for comic book artists just got hot after a decade of the same old thing. In the longer run

Why Ecomics are going to change how authors make money

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