CB Cebulski on the Marvel $.99 sales

[chaosfist]

I am very certain that CB "Yashida" is not in charge of digital licensing and I doubt he is in charge of pricing strategy. But, as Editor-in-Chief, he would be aware of both, at least. He is new and in his defense, he probably hasn't had time to get familiar with what's going on with this particular sales channel.

Or he knows what he is talking about and is telling the truth. Do you have any evidence that it's as you say it is?

[Brian B]

Or he knows what he is talking about and is telling the truth. Do you have any evidence that it's as you say it is?

I have common sense. He’s Editor-In-Chief. He knows about pricing. He is certainly given goals for his books and the like. He would not be in charge of negotiating digital licenses. He’s not a lawyer. His job isn’t directly selling licenses. Get real. Look to sales, marketing, legal and whatever area of Disney-Marvel has to do with licensing for those corporate functions.

[Brian B]

Why would he care? Does he get paid a percentage of each book sold? Or is he getting a salary to do a job. If it's the latter he had nothing at all to complain about and even if it's the former because those books produce the same revenue for Marvel according to CB. It's only the LCS owners who have anything to complain about and to me it's like Blockbuster complaining about Netflix or Red box. We are a free market society here in the US. Customers will always choose the cheaper better option.

For Marvel, Jim Starlin is an independent contractor. He may get some kind or royalties or have gotten a payout of some kind from Marvel for his work and characters, in addition to royalties and incentives for his more recent Marvel work. He is not a salaried employee of Marvel. We don’t know what his agreeements with Marvel are, though we do know he had some beefs with how he was treated vis-a-vis Thanos. Now, he doesn’t seem to be giving voice to those issues anymore. There likely was some kind of agreement reached. For current books he has with Marvel, again we don’t know what his page rate is and we don’t know his incentives. It’s likely digital rights would be treated entirely differently than bonuses for copies sold. Digital rights and licenses are not sold for the same amount as paper copies. Jim Starlin might indeed get upset at Amazon selling digital “books” at costs that affect sales of physical copies, depending on how his digital rights are assigned and depending on any royalty or incentive he might get for physical copies sold. We’d need to know what his agreement with Marvel is or what their standard rates are to make a real guess on that.

I think the comics store owners, the little guy, has a lot to complain about with Marvel over 99-cent digital “trades” being sold by Amazon. That’s a giant of a company taking money away from the little guy. Marvel might not like it either. We’ll see.

[Coin Biter]

Why would he care? Does he get paid a percentage of each book sold? Or is he getting a salary to do a job. If it's the latter he had nothing at all to complain about and even if it's the former because those books produce the same revenue for Marvel according to CB. It's only the LCS owners who have anything to complain about and to me it's like Blockbuster complaining about Netflix or Red box. We are a free market society here in the US. Customers will always choose the cheaper better option.

As I understand it, these days Marvel creators typically receive royalties on trade paperback sales (and even digital sales). Obviously that wasn’t always the case. How it would work in a case such as this, I don’t know, as I haven’t seen the contracts, and am not familiar with the niceties. Is it for example a fixed sum for digital comics provided to Amazon/Comixology/ a percentage on digital sales through those platforms (consistent with what Jim Zub wrote some years ago), a share of hard copy trades ordered by retailers? I doubt of course that it would be a vast amount. However, this IGN post also suggests it might result in less money for creators: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2018/03/1...l-comics-sales At the moment, it is speculation, of course; it would be interesting to see an actual creator comment on any of these recent sales - not sure if they’ve done so. A lot of them were annoyed by Comixology Unlimited, I recall.

As to whether a free market economy exists in the US or for the matter the UK, where I live, is another matter Yes, a consumer will choose a cheaper version of a product (absent other factors; some will never wish to abandon print). But there’s a reason why the US was a pioneer in competition law, especially to attempt to curtail the absolute freedom of a dominant party in an economic sector; a free market economy actually trends towards becoming less free over time through the activity of economic participants. I’m not saying Amazon are doing anything wrong, but stating that it’s a free market economy is hardly the beginning and the end of the debate, as practices which are of initial benefit to consumers can have a negative impact on consumer choice in the longer term.

[Coin Biter]

What is remarkable about these sales are how undiscriminating they are.

Not just your bog standard recent trades, not just the Starlin GN, but even the Vision Director’s Cut digital volume. Vision! This is a title which was a bit of a sales catastrophe as a monthly comic, but was widely expected to do great guns as a collected edition, given the universal critical acclaim and the involvement of Tom King. Put on sale for 99 cents.

[Raye]

If you are still buying the product then you are taking money/sales from the comic stores. Now you might not care, I might not care, but as the comic stores are the traditional source of these products, if you start buying them from somewhere else, then they loose money as those products are still sold they just don't get the money from their sales.

Though it isn't our responsibility (or the publishers, for that matter) to keep comic shops afloat, it's the comic shop's responsibility to adapt as best they can to a changing market. If they are counting on people acting against their own best interests in terms of cost and/or convenience in order to keep them afloat out of some sense of loyalty or charity, then there is a problem there. Granted, the day and date steep discounts are a rather extreme example, but the basic idea there remains true. I jumped ship to digital years ago, and if it wasn't on Comixology, I'd be reading on whatever other digital platform(s) arose in it's place, even if it was fractured, because I prefer the experience of buying and reading digitally, regardless of cost. But, as with Steam, I rather like having everything in one place rather than having to manage a half dozen comics reading apps.

We knew this was coming, it happened with the music industry, movies, TV, etc. already, even video games, a digital format to start with, have had this happen, though only in terms of distribution for them. So there's no reason to expect it wouldn't come to comics. As new ways to consume and/or distribute media come along, older forms will fall by the wayside, it's just the way of things. For people attached to the old ways, that sucks, to an extent, but it is doubtful print will vanish entirely. As we have seen with music, physical copies including vinyl and even 8 tracks are still being made, but the stores are fewer and sell in lower volume. The publishers bent over backwards to appease the retailers, which delayed the inevitable, but it is still inevitable that they will lose ground to digital.

[Brian B]

Though it isn't our responsibility (or the publishers, for that matter) to keep comic shops afloat...

On an individual basis of comic shops, this is probably true, but if publishers want to keep the comic shop, direct sales distribution model, then publishers need to keep the business model viable. Otherwise it will fail and no longer be a way to sell comics, if that’s something the companies want to do.

[Raye]

On an individual basis of comic shops, this is probably true, but if publishers want to keep the comic shop, direct sales distribution model, then publishers need to keep the business model viable. Otherwise it will fail and no longer be a way to sell comics, if that’s something the companies want to do.

IF they want that model. If is the key thing here. Their job is to create and sell comics, there is no reason they have to be primarily in print, particularly if their fanbase would prefer digital. I don't think we are there yet, because this is a very nostalgia heavy audience, and a lot of them are like, paper or nothing, and I think the publishers realize that. But that will change, the paper or nothing crowd will become the fringe, publishers will focus their efforts where the most readers are, and the comic shops will have to deal with not being catered to by the publishers above other markets.

edited to add - and as I said in my original post, I doubt print will vanish entirely. It will just be even more of a niche market than it is now, and I would expect to see a price disparity (not counting sales) between digital and print. the lower the print runs, the higher the cost to print per issue, and at a certain point, there will come a point where they won't be able to maintain price parity, paper will have to become a premium specialty item, along with a premium price for the people who just can't live without print and collectors. This is likely years off though, because the publishers have been catering to the comic shops until digital could become a viable thing... but it will happen.

[rpmaluki]

What is remarkable about these sales are how undiscriminating they are.

Not just your bog standard recent trades, not just the Starlin GN, but even the Vision Director’s Cut digital volume. Vision! This is a title which was a bit of a sales catastrophe as a monthly comic, but was widely expected to do great guns as a collected edition, given the universal critical acclaim and the involvement of Tom King. Put on sale for 99 cents.

I bought that Vision Director's cut for a dollar on Comixology. I have been buying digital for as long as I got into comics. I don't live in the US so comic book shops are practically non-existent for me. I'm almost left without a choice except to go digital. Even if I did have a choice I'd probably stick with digital for single issues except for the GN. Just like books, I buy digital but every now and then I love the feel of turning pages. However, when it comes to comic books, I realise I actually don't like floppies at all. As the poster before me has said, the move to digital is inevitable at this stage. The hard copies industry will never die out completely but there will come a time when they no longer dominate the industry, it would be in everyone's best interest to work together and embrace the future in order to survive.

[Coin Biter]

I bought that Vision Director's cut for a dollar on Comixology. I have been buying digital for as long as I got into comics. I don't live in the US so comic book shops are practically non-existent for me. I'm almost left without a choice except to go digital. Even if I did have a choice I'd probably stick with digital for single issues except for the GN. Just like books, I buy digital but every now and then I love the feel of turning pages. However, when it comes to comic books, I realise I actually don't like floppies at all. As the poster before me has said, the move to digital is inevitable at this stage. The hard copies industry will never die out completely but there will come a time when they no longer dominate the industry, it would be in everyone's best interest to work together and embrace the future in order to survive.

I buy almost exclusively digital myself*. Hell, I even bought the Vision Director's Cut edition (although I already own Vision as it happens, in the non Director's Cut format).

So I'm not averse to the future. But 99 cents/ 69 pence in the UK for a prestige collected edition? It's fantastic for the readership, but this - and other such massive discounts - raises serious questions for the industry/industry participants.

*There remain unanswered issues about digital, of course. The biggest one to my mind is the fact that you're only buying a non-transferable licence. That in itself may justify a significant discount - but I don't think that's why it has been done.

[JKtheMac]

He was asked about the digital sales, so the answer is about the digital sales. If he was talking about non-digital sales, he could easily have responded with "Amazon isn't selling for 99 cents in physical copies." Instead, he said "we sell it to them for the same price."



First off, I do care about whether my local shop is able to stay in business or not. Second, that's entirely changing the subject. Someone wanted to interpret his statement. I explained what the statement meant and why it likely wasn't a true statement. The fact that the statement was meant for retailers as opposed to consumers is irrelevant.

And I absolutely call bullshit on that last sentence. It's possible there's no duplicity under two circumstances: One, he doesn't know what he's talking about or, two, Marvel sells the digital copies for the same price as they sell physical copies in the direct market and, when Amazon sells a digital copy for 99 cents, Marvel is making the same price in that sale as they would have made in the sale of a physical copy. I got the impression that you did not believe that latter theory was true. Given this, if you believe there's no duplicity, then you must believe that he doesn't know what he's talking about. I wasn't disputing the claim that Marvel was aware of this issue and looking into it, but that's not the part I was focusing on.

When somebody asks you a question it is up to you if you answer directly or answer with your company's best interests at heart. Just because he deflected to discuss how they sell paper books doesn't mean he is lying, it means he is deciding to emphasise the positive message that all books are sold with the same discounting scheme. See, even that is a slight distortion. Amazon probably have the top tier discounts available due to volume orders, and stores rarely can. But he isn't lying he is choosing how to preset his case. It is called media management.

The only way he can be accused of lying is if he actually said "we sell digital copies to Amazon at the same rate we sell paper to the stores." He categorically didn't say this. He didn't even imply this, despite your assertions.

Frankly you are twisting his statement more than he was spin-doctoring.

[JKtheMac]

I think "Akira Yoshida" is at the most charitable interpretation conflating things here. I have no idea what the digital license cost is to Amazon, but no way does it cost the same per copy as new hard-copy costs comic store owners. Also, Marvel sold Comixology/Amazon a license. They might have to wait for the license to run out or wait for an opportune time to end it, but there's also no way Marvel doesn't at the end of the day control pricing for its books. Again, I'm giving "Yoshida" the benefit of the doubt on his confusion here.

Unless we have a complete transcript or a recording of what was asked and answered, (which if anyone has that I would love to read/listen), I don't think we can judge if he was conflating anything. I think the worst we can accuse him of is media management, something I have been calling for at Marvel for many months. Their ability to deflect media criticism has been atrocious recently.

[JKtheMac]

True.
What happened to the argument for the rising price of comics being that you're buying physical art?

Digital should not cost the same as physical, for several reasons:

1. A never-ending supply. Infinite copies. These will never 'sell out'.
2. Marvel continues to profit on these infinite copies years after release. Unlike physical copies where their money is taken in three month's before the comics are released and they have no other profit from them after sold to the retailer. Hence, why in physical comics stories and events are quickly hyped, sold and then forgotten.
3. There's no collectors market in digital. No resale of copies from user to user. Comics in digital are bought primarily just to be read and not slabbed and flipped. They have no physical value.

Digital is just an alternate medium for comics.
Just like there is a difference in price between softcover and hardcover books, dvd and blu-ray, vinyl and cd, there should be a difference in price between digital and print. Simply because one of the two requires more production and is a collectable form for the media.

Until digital makes a like profit with paper (I imagine it doesn't even make a profit) this argument about infinite quantities and scale is somewhat redundant.

[rpmaluki]

I also don't get these massive discounts. they seem rather counter productive. It works fine for me as a consumer since I don't have a lot of disposable income to throw at comics every month so I do appreciate this but like you, I do see how worrying this is for the industry. As much as no one can stop the future, there will always be a market for floppies and actual books as opposed to switching completely to digital. I'm kind of hoping they release the entirety of Black Bolt (which I have bought digitally) as a single GN so I can have the hard copy because the art is simply too amazing to look at on a tiny device/computer screen. With the comic book shop industry being rather very small where I am from, I don't know if I'll actually be so lucky to get it even if it Marvel does release it as a complete book.

[JKtheMac]

Some general notes:

CB is not the publisher. He is nothing to do with digital licencing of comics, he has some input into the pricing strategy in that he will be putting together a line with this strategy in mind and his insight would be listened to. Tactical planning and strategic feedback if you will.

His job is partly to maintain relationships with the media, and to be part of Marvel's relationship with stores. In cases like this he will be briefed on what to say and he will deliver the company message to these people, and he will seek to do it in a clear, charming and friendly manner. Sometimes when you are briefed to say something and a awkward question arises the default answer will be given. This is much the same as why politicians often don't answer the questions, or rephrase the question before answering.

What is definitely clear, the digital pricing of individual books at Amazon is driven by two things. Amazon prices get adjusted based on a computer algorithm based on what is selling. Amazon sales are designed to promote and highlight their line and their ability to do this will again be scrutinised and measured by the various algorithms. Unless Marvel/Disney force it into the contract with Amazon this kind of promotion policy is nothing whatsoever to do with Marvel. It is standard operating procedure for Amazon.

Disney have already been at loggerheads with Amazon and the media never fully exposed what the feud was all about. They guessed, probably partly correctly, that it was to do with percentages on new products, but the automated Amazon pricing system is fundamentally different to any other online retailer that Disney continued to work with, so discounting of new product may also have been an issue. If something is pre-ordered heavily and also has interest with searches, wish-lists, etc. it will automatically be sold at a lower price as soon as it is released. Disney have always based their pricing on exclusivity and Amazon's deliberate policy of discounting out of the gate is somewhat challenging to this.

How long the standing arrangement with Amazon has been in place is not easy to tell as a bystander. Amazon may have inherited the Comixology contracts when they purchased them. They may have drawn up new ones at some point since the purchase. I would bet the Comixology contracts still apply. It is even possible any wider deal may be handled by Disney due to the fractious working relationship they have with Amazon.

What we can tell is Comixology was a start-up style company, that was not making huge profits, and probably always planned on selling up as a going concern. Amazon bought them because they perfectly dovetail with their plans to deliver digital content directly to their own hardware. Amazon will most likely continue to discount however they want. Marvel may not be able to do much until their current contracts expire. On that date I expect Marvel comics to be more clearly a product of Disney. I fully expect Marvel Unlimited to be integrated into a wider digital offering from Disney, and I expect individual digital issues to either have different contracts or a different distribution model.