$3.99 for floppies on fancy paper, or $1.99 for floppies on newsprint?

[Trey Strain]

If you lower prices to try to sell more units, the first question you have to ask is where are the additional sales going to come from? If they lower prices is there going to suddenly be an influx of people who never went to a comic shop before rushing in to buy the products? Are Wednesday Warriors who buy habitually going to give up their habitual buys and suddenly start buying the products instead just because they are cheaper? A few regular customers may buy additional books keeping their spending the same, but some may drop their buys because of dissatisfaction with the physical product as well. If getting x amount of revenue by selling y number of products is the norm, why make a change where you have to sell 2y number of products to generate x revenue? Where's the incentive? Where's the guarantee that sales were increase and that you won't still sell y number of products but now only get 1/2 x revenue? Sure your % of profit may remain the same, but the actual dollars and cents you generate won't and that is more important to the bottom line than profit percantage.

-M

As I responded to you earlier, you don't have to sell more units to make this work. That's because you're slashing production costs.

If that's not clear, let me give you an example. Let's say it costs you $9 to make something, and you sell it for $12. But then you find a way to make it for $3 and you start to sell it for $6. You don't have to sell more units to make that work, although you would sell more.

If you try to argue that something that's already working won't work, then you'll be fighting an uphill battle.

[Carabas]

No, not at all. With Alterna, the TOTAL PRODUCTION COSTS of the floppies dropped by two-thirds with a switch to newsprint. Not just the cost of the paper. You use a different ink with newsprint, but it's less expensive, not more.

As for the expense of the collections, who cares? The people who buy those things are the ones who tend to be blase about the costs.

No.
The production cost increased by 100%.
They didn't have a production cost before. They didn't switch. They're new to the whole floppy experience.

Anyway, how about getting better paper instead of crappier?
Because this glossy, ultra-thin, smears the ink crap we're calling expensive paper in this thread? I don't think it's very expensive at all. It's bottom of the barrel paper, unless you want to timewarp into newsprint.

I have never even seen a European comic that uses anything even remotely like it.

[cranger]

Because this glossy, ultra-thin, smears the ink crap we're calling expensive paper in this thread? I don't think it's very expensive at all. It's bottom of the barrel paper, unless you want to timewarp into newsprint.

DC? Marvel?

I've never had any problems with DC paper quality, but Marvel comics I try to be very careful handling. IDW, on the other hand, is pretty solid.

As for the OP, while I prefer the feel of newsprint, and I suppose the side effect of which art styles are suited for it are also a bonus, I just don't think that would matter to a company like Marvel or DC who print in such high volumes that printing costs are pennies per comic.

[Lee Stone]

3. Not likely, if the final goal is to collect the works in trade and the trades will be the product with the longer shelf life. If you are paying for cut rate quality product, you'll get cut rate quality product. That means the art will be prepped for the final product (i.e. the digital and trade editions) not the transitory product i.e. the newsprint floppies. They will already will have to pay to redo the colors for the trades (and likely retrain colorists how to do hand separations for the newsprint increasing labor costs in the production computers to do things that used to be quicker, easier and less expensive on computer but that now have to be done by hand to accommodate the engravings necessary for newsprint printing processes, they're not going to change art production as well and create the need for alterations for the trades and/or digital output as well.

4. Is this how collectors treated comics in the Silver and Bronze Age once their value as a collectible is known and that there was a collector's market for them? Sure some people treated them that way, but what's left in the market place is those with the collector's mentality, and they never treated the books that way no matter what the price or format, so why would they start doing that now? The mass audience who treated comics as cheap reading material is long gone from the market, and not likely to come back even if they become cheap products again, because despite price or format they are still niche products sold in a specialty destination shop that isn't accessible to the mass audience and in fact there are large swaths of the US where you can only get them via online or mail order because there are no shops that sell them. Lowering the piece and changing the format isn't going to change the availability of the product to the marketplace to regain the audience who would treat them like cheap reading material to be shared.

You're making huge assumptions based on your preferences here rather than on how the market has actually operated for the last 25-30 years and the behavior of the customer base and producers in that market during that time.

Also a lower price point dis-incetivizes distributors and retailers from carrying your products and giving shelf space to them when there are other products that make you more.

If I am a shop owner who sells 100 copies of Batman and makes $200 dollars from it, and you half prices and I still sell 100 copies but now only make $100 for it, where's that other $100 going to come form. Multiply that across the DC line and how much less revenue am I going to get from selling the same amount of product? Is my landlord going to lower my rent because you lowered prices? Is UPS going to charge less to ship those books? Will my electric bill go down? Insurance? Will sales increase enough to cover the shortfall? Or will hey decline as people who don;t like the change drop the book because they wanted a better quality physical product? Will gains outweigh such losses of customers? If I have less coming in, I have less to buy inventory for the shop with? What an I going to cut? Books that make me more money or less? Will I still carry shelf copies of those books that only earn me half of what they used to or will I give it to something else. The shop is DC's customer not the reader. It is shop owners and their orders that determine the success of the book and those numbers do not reflect actual end sales to customers. If retailers cut order you cannot buy copies they do not have. If the loss of revenue from less money generated by your second biggest line means you don't have cash flow available, something has to give or you go out of business. Most shops operate on razor thing margins to begin with and cash flow is a a major concern. A drop in revenue is a killer blow for a lot of shops. Every shop that closes is less books sold by DC in whatever format the floppies are sold in.

If you lower prices to try to sell more units, the first question you have to ask is where are the additional sales going to come from? If they lower prices is there going to suddenly be an influx of people who never went to a comic shop before rushing in to buy the products? Are Wednesday Warriors who buy habitually going to give up their habitual buys and suddenly start buying the products instead just because they are cheaper? A few regular customers may buy additional books keeping their spending the same, but some may drop their buys because of dissatisfaction with the physical product as well. If getting x amount of revenue by selling y number of products is the norm, why make a change where you have to sell 2y number of products to generate x revenue? Where's the incentive? Where's the guarantee that sales were increase and that you won't still sell y number of products but now only get 1/2 x revenue? Sure your % of profit may remain the same, but the actual dollars and cents you generate won't and that is more important to the bottom line than profit percantage.

-M

All the more reasons why collectors have nearly ruined comics for casual readers.
At least we still have our local libraries.

[ed2962]

This viewpoint is completely foreign to me and I will need some time to properly process it. Perhaps an "I can haz free ponies" interwebs meme with a cute kitten on it would change your mind.

[IMG]Attachment 60025[/IMG]

I don't not want a cute kitten either, but if the choice is between meme kitten and a pony I will take the kitten.

[MRP]

As I responded to you earlier, you don't have to sell more units to make this work. That's because you're slashing production costs.

If that's not clear, let me give you an example. Let's say it costs you $9 to make something, and you sell it for $12. But then you find a way to make it for $3 and you start to sell it for $6. You don't have to sell more units to make that work, although you would sell more.

If you try to argue that something that's already working won't work, then you'll be fighting an uphill battle.

How is adding a second coloring phase, retraining employees skills that they no longer have, adding labor to the production of books to ready them for newsprint production vis-a-vis regular offset printing, having to invest in infrastructure to acquire newsprint paper stock and presses that aren't currently available int he quantities you would need slashing production costs? The paper might be a little cheaper, everything else, especially in the short term to make the transition is going to increase production costs. If you don't understand that, you aren't looking at the big picture. If I have to add whole new division of employees to my production department I am not going to lower production costs by changing to a marginally cheaper paper stock (if it's available). If anything, companies are trying to reduce staff not increase them and moving towards more automated/computer assisted labor rather than more in-person labor intensive production processes, which works against the viability of your idea. Your economics don't work because you are willfully ignoring aspects of the picture that don't fit your model, but are integral to the kind of transition you want to see DC make. Staff increases and employee training cost a lot of money and those can't be avoided with the change you want to make, so they ar eNOT going to reduce production costs, in fact, they may increase them.

-M

[Trey Strain]

How is adding a second coloring phase, retraining employees skills that they no longer have, adding labor to the production of books to ready them for newsprint production vis-a-vis regular offset printing, having to invest in infrastructure to acquire newsprint paper stock and presses that aren't currently available int he quantities you would need slashing production costs? The paper might be a little cheaper, everything else, especially in the short term to make the transition is going to increase production costs. If you don't understand that, you aren't looking at the big picture. If I have to add whole new division of employees to my production department I am not going to lower production costs by changing to a marginally cheaper paper stock (if it's available). If anything, companies are trying to reduce staff not increase them and moving towards more automated/computer assisted labor rather than more in-person labor intensive production processes, which works against the viability of your idea. Your economics don't work because you are willfully ignoring aspects of the picture that don't fit your model, but are integral to the kind of transition you want to see DC make. Staff increases and employee training cost a lot of money and those can't be avoided with the change you want to make, so they ar eNOT going to reduce production costs, in fact, they may increase them.

-M

I've posted a link TWICE in this thread that explains all that. I don't want to annoy the mods by posting it a third time, so I'll ask you to search for "Peter Simeti On Alterna Comics’ Newsprint Renaissance"

Alterna has been selling comics on newsprint since May, and has thrived.

DC doesn't need to wait around until Marvel does it too and forces DC to react. The one that does it first will gain a big advantage over the other.

[MajorHoy]

I've posted a link TWICE in this thread that explains all that. I don't want to annoy the mods by posting it a third time, so I'll ask you to search for "Peter Simeti On Alterna Comics’ Newsprint Renaissance".

But, how long have they been doing printed comic books? Has anybody actually bought/seen any print copies? Do they use any known writers or artists on these books?
Just because they've started publishing their comic books on newsprint paper doesn't mean it will succeed in the long term.

[BaneBreaker]

But, how long have they been doing printed comic books? Has anybody actually bought/seen any print copies? Do they use any known writers or artists on these books?
Just because they've started publishing their comic books on newsprint paper doesn't mean it will succeed in the long term.

I have a couple issues they've released. As far as "known", not sure, unknown to me, but maybe known to others.

[Trey Strain]

Alterna didn't go all in on newsprint immediately. Right now they're publishing about 60 titles, and by next fall they' be publishing about 100, with about 25 on newsprint. Publisher Peter Simenti said of the switch to newsprint, "We’ve seen a 300% increase in sales for graphic novels as well because of it"

DC should follow a similar path by phasing it in.

[MajorHoy]

Alterna didn't go all in on newsprint immediately. Right now they're publishing about 60 titles, and by next fall they' be publishing about 100, with about 25 on newsprint. Publisher Peter Simenti said of the switch to newsprint, "We’ve seen a 300% increase in sales for graphic novels as well because of it"

You're talking 60 individual printed (not just digital) titles? How frequently do they publish these sixty different titles? How many pages of story are there per an issue?

EDIT: A couple of quick checks don't seem to show sixty different comic book titles all published in 2017.

* http://www.comicbookdb.com/publisher.php?ID=2562
* http://www.ipgbook.com/alterna-publi...tion_Date_2017

[Bor]

You're talking 60 individual printed (not just digital) titles? How frequently do they publish these sixty different titles? How many pages of story are there per an issue?

EDIT: A couple of quick checks don't seem to show sixty different comic book titles all published in 2017.

* http://www.comicbookdb.com/publisher.php?ID=2562
* http://www.ipgbook.com/alterna-publi...tion_Date_2017

Its really strange yeah.

[dancj]

No, not at all. With Alterna, the TOTAL PRODUCTION COSTS of the floppies dropped by two-thirds with a switch to newsprint. Not just the cost of the paper. You use a different ink with newsprint, but it's less expensive, not more.

As I responded to you earlier, you don't have to sell more units to make this work. That's because you're slashing production costs.

If that's not clear, let me give you an example. Let's say it costs you $9 to make something, and you sell it for $12. But then you find a way to make it for $3 and you start to sell it for $6. You don't have to sell more units to make that work, although you would sell more.

Have a look at this site: http://www.jimzub.com/the-reality-of...-owned-comics/

This site shows that the production costs of the comic are currently 26% of the price of the comic.

That's for an indie comic rather than the big two. If anything, the bigger publishers would get a better deal with the printer and that might even go down.

So they produce for $1 and sell for $4 (on the comics that sell for that much). If they dropped that $1 down to $0.33, that would save them $0.67. If they sold the same number of copies, and halved the price, then between the publisher, the distributor and the retailer, that's $1.33 lost per issue.

[CaptCleghorn]

Have a look at this site: http://www.jimzub.com/the-reality-of...-owned-comics/

This site shows that the production costs of the comic are currently 26% of the price of the comic.

That's for an indie comic rather than the big two. If anything, the bigger publishers would get a better deal with the printer and that might even go down.

So they produce for $1 and sell for $4 (on the comics that sell for that much). If they dropped that $1 down to $0.33, that would save them $0.67. If they sold the same number of copies, and halved the price, then between the publisher, the distributor and the retailer, that's $1.33 lost per issue.

The premise ignores many facts such as what is actually meant by production costs. Other major aspects such as distribution and creator salaries are also ignored. None of those change. There's also a difference between paying work-for-hire and creator owned talent.

You might as well be talking about free ponies as that is another unrealistic notion.

[Brandon Hanvey]

Part of the reason Alterna can slash their costs of production using newsprint is they were printing in low quantity. Their titles tend to debut at slightly below 3000 copies such as Croak, Amazing Age and Lilith Dark did in May. But then drop off the top 400 charts afterward. Which for a small indie publisher are pretty good numbers.

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomi...7/2017-05.html

Another reason is they don't pay a page rate. On Singles, Alterna partially funds print runs with advertisements and pays a 80% of profit royalty after they recoup printing and shipping costs. It is similar to Image's set-up. Though most would say Image has the better deal.

https://www.alternacomics.com/submit-your-comic

Newsprint can reduce cost. But at the quantities DC and Marvel are doing would probably only save at most about $0.15 or even less. Marvel and DC have contracts with national printers that get them low cost-per-unit due to volume. While I can't say for sure what those numbers are, my 15 years of experience in the print/pre-press industry says its probably below $0.35 an unit.

We can get a little insight into printing cost with Print Ninja's printing calculator. They are a overseas printer that prints all kinds of books including comics. They are used by a lot of indie/small press publishers.

http://www.printninja.com/pricing/comic-books

Say we go with a comic that uses 70lb gloss for the inside pages (similar to what most mainstream comics use) with a quality of 30,000 we get $0.36 per unit. For a comic with 55lb uncoated paper (the thinnest Print ninja uses which is typical novel/textbook paper), we get a unit cost of $0.32. We save 0.04 by using the thinner paper. You also pay slightly less in shipping, about $200, when going with the 55lb.

As said above Marvel and DC are most likely paying less due to long-term/high-volume contracts with national printers. So they should be be able to beat Print Ninja's cost-per-unit.

But let's say they can lower the cost of a comic by switching to newsprint. They can't go that far if they are already paying less than $0.35. But let's say they can lower their cost per-unit by $0.10. Though that would be after a period of switching pre-press and printing facilities which would initially raise due to change in work-flow and processes.

So DC/marvel are paying $0.25 per-unit instead of $0.35. No way would that translate into being able to lower the cover price to $1.99. They would still have to pay the creative team their page rates which wouldn't lower due switching paper (though the colorist would have to color things differently due to the limitations of the thinner/rougher paper). You'd reduce your profit per issue by a $1 or $2 while only reducing costs by $0.10. You would most likely pick up some more sales due to the lower price. But you'd have to more than double your number of sales to make up for the reduction of profit.