Ever since Apple announced it earlier this year, the iPad has been hailed as the Savior of Everything, from Savior of the Publishing Industry to Savior of the Comics Industry.
In reality, it’s neither of those.
The publishing industry has to contend with a few issues before ebook readers (like the Kindle and to an extent, the iPad) really come in to their own—and thanks to infighting and bickering, they probably never will.
The first is price. When I can go on Amazon.com and preorder Stephen King’s latest book “Under the Dome” for $9.99 before it’s released or $16.99 for a Kindle edition, something is wrong. Granted, the book was only $9.99 for preordering it; as of this writing, “Under the Dome” is $20 new on Amazon.com.
What exactly is being paid for here? The e-reader is bought and paid for, and the bandwidth to transfer the book to the device is as well. That $16.99 price tag is ridiculous, even with the book costing $4 more now. It is a fact that ebooks cost a lot less to produce than real physical books—their cost should reflect that.
Some will remember the pricing spat that Amazon and Macmillian had earlier this year: point in case. Until the publishing industry starts to agree on a universal pricing point for books, nothing will get done.
There’s also the fact that for most bibliophiles and reading addicts, absolutely nothing beats the feel of a book in the hand. Physical books are less hazardous to the environment, and they have the bonus feature of never running out of battery life to boot.
Comic books, on the other hand, are a different beast entirely from either the publishing or newspaper industries.
Unlike (most) books, they’re episodic, so the tales told within aren’t self-contained.
While I love the stories they tell (“The Long Halloween” is one of my favorite Batman tales), I hate the fact that I generally have to wait till the next issue comes out to find out what happened.
As a result, I’ve never been a big fan of comic books. Of the characters and stories, yes, but not of the industry’s distribution model itself. Purchasing weekly comics simply isn’t my thing: never done it, never will. Collecting them isn’t particularly attractive either.
For years, the comic book industry has been struggling. Revenue from movies like “The Dark Knight” and “Iron Man” pull in a lot of dough—sadly, more so than their weekly comic sales.
When the iPad was announced, popular science blog io9.com hailed it as the possible “savior of comic books”.
On launch day, it seemed as if the iPad could be just that, thanks to Marvel rolling out a nice new Marvel Comics app on the same day.
However, just like the publishing industry, until Marvel (and DC, whenever it gets on board) won’t be successful in the digital realm until they find a workable, sustainable distribution model.
Possible ideas could be a slightly-more-expensive print comic with a code to get the same issue digitally, or maybe offering a discounted ‘yearly’ subscription to certain comics. Offering the ability to buy ‘tpb’ (trader paperback, or the collected version of an entire comic run) versions of comics would do a lot to appease on-again-off-again comic fans like me.
Both the publishing and comic book industries have been slow to adapt to this new digital age—and they’re not the only industries lagging behind. There’s an ocean of hungry media consumers out there, just waiting to be tapped…they just need to find out the right way to do it.