Coronavirus knocks out direct market - Diamond stops deliveries

[skyvolt2000]

Interesting. I am not sure that is the right move, but I guess it depends on what Marvel does. Even though I agree with DC (8+ years has shown digital grew in addition to physical and no signs it caused any loss to physical at launch or since) retailers are a different bunch and if they feel burned by a publisher, as it is sometimes pointed out the retailers are the customers and could shelf a lot less DC.
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Like some retailer is really going to do that. Unless those books are Batman titles, Dc is NOT going to care if Cyborg or Wonder Twins is not stocked at a store.

DC knows they got these retailers. When they cried over REPRINTS with very little new content being sold at Wal-mart, to the point of buying out Wal-mart's stock. DESPITE being told those new stories would see print in books for LCS.

For all the fussing and complaining about variants-it's DC and marvel variant stocked all over the place not Vampire Tramp's 10 variants a month nor Elvira or Red Sonia's collections of variants.

They don't have the guts to do because they don't want to miss a chance to overprice something with a DC or marvel logo.

I mean in return DC can stick to them by doing something major in that book that is being boycotted by stores.

I'd guess they'll try mail-orders or something first. They've resisted changing production to benefit from digital formats or seasonal OGN's and that'd probably be a time consuming and costly effort. They won't want to do that when they've gone months with little to no revenue.

If all the OGNS are batman and friends-don't expect huge sales.

If very few folks can get those OGNS don't expect folks to both with them.

If very few stores stock them don't expect high sales. What good is 12 of those ads in a DC book? Why doesn't Target have those ads? Why doesn't my school district have those ads?

[Jadeb]

Not quite sure what you are getting at, other than maybe if DC/Marvel don't release digital books over the next two weeks they will go bankrupt? That is not going to happen, both of these publishers are more than big enough to outlast this. Several much smaller publishers have already commited to no digital. Also, the small amount they make from digital is not going to pay the costs for the creators on those books. Remember, DC says they are two completely different audiences, digital sales will not go up anything noticeable.

How many shops could stand to lose even 25% of sales for two months or more? I imagine most will lose substantially more than that. Even if DC manages to move some product to stores, this is looking like it could be the end of the direct market as we know it. So what then? Do we support comics continuing in some form, even if not our preferred form, or do we keep demanding print?

[skyvolt2000]

Demanding print and only print, though, may be the end of print.

Print still rules because it is a PHYSICAL product that one can see and touch.


Here is the nasty reality folks forget-not everyone has access to digital. A NASTY reality my school district is learning now and will really learn it when lawsuits arrive.

That is why it has not taken over. Especially if it's the same price as the physical copy.

As sales charts show, barely any characters have enough of a following to keep a title as it is.

Maybe something as QUANTITY control could help.

Maybe moving beyond the direct market could help. Since it wants to exclude folks who seem to have no issue finding fans in other media.

[cranger]

Like some retailer is really going to do that. Unless those books are Batman titles, Dc is NOT going to care if Cyborg or Wonder Twins is not stocked at a store.

DC knows they got these retailers. When they cried over REPRINTS with very little new content being sold at Wal-mart, to the point of buying out Wal-mart's stock. DESPITE being told those new stories would see print in books for LCS.

For all the fussing and complaining about variants-it's DC and marvel variant stocked all over the place not Vampire Tramp's 10 variants a month nor Elvira or Red Sonia's collections of variants.

They don't have the guts to do because they don't want to miss a chance to overprice something with a DC or marvel logo.

I mean in return DC can stick to them by doing something major in that book that is being boycotted by stores.

Heh, yeah it would be more noise than action, but DC is at a point where they need retailers to push their books more, and put more copies on their shelves for walk-ins to be exposed to. I am sure you point out all the time how shops order shelf copies of Batman, 10 deep, and nothing else gets a chance. Those 10 copies of Batman would disappear, those are often lost dollars to retailers. That is not to say it would go to zero, but we saw the after effect of the Bat Wedding and the begin of the decline of Batman sales. That was not purely just readers dropping it, that was retailers moving investment away from the title by ordering less for the shelves.

How many shops could stand to lose even 25% of sales for two months or more? I imagine most will lose substantially more than that. Even if DC manages to move some product to stores, this is looking like it could be the end of the direct market as we know it. So what then? Do we support comics continuing in some form, even if not our preferred form, or do we keep demanding print?

You made some statement about how demanding print being the end of print. I am still not sure how you mean that. Also, I am not telling anyone to not buy digital. Far from it. I only point out that people who for any of a number of reasons do not get behind digital are not "fake fans". If they offer it and you buy it and like it, that is awesome. I won't be here shaming you for it

[Jadeb]

You made some statement about how demanding print being the end of print. I am still not sure how you mean that. Also, I am not telling anyone to not buy digital. Far from it. I only point out that people who for any of a number of reasons do not get behind digital are not "fake fans". If they offer it and you buy it and like it, that is awesome. I won't be here shaming you for it

If people refuse to buy anything other than print comics, and there is no longer a distribution network for print comics, that means there will be no print comics ... and quite possibly no comics, period. Something has to change.

[cranger]

If people refuse to buy anything other than print comics, and there is no longer a distribution network for print comics, that means there will be no print comics. Something has to change.

Well that has nothing to do with people demanding print comics. So I am still not sure what demanding print comics is going to do to cause harm. People demanding print comics, if anything, will let the publishers know the market will survive and take measures to support it throughout this.

edit: let me make this short, spell it out for those of us who are slow lol

[Jadeb]

Well that has nothing to do with people demanding print comics. So I am still not sure what demanding print comics is going to do to cause harm. People demanding print comics, if anything, will let the publishers know the market will survive and take measures to support it throughout this.

Sure it does. If digital comics have sufficient audience to be profitable, they will continue. If they don’t, they won’t. At this point, I fear print is facing a true catastrophe. Maybe I am overreacting, but I fear the direct market will be dead before the end of the year. So we can support what DC manages to put out, or we can refuse to do so. That’s each person’s prerogative, but I don’t believe demanding print will get you more print.

From my perspective, print’s best hope is for DC to carry on digitally to support the trade market, and hopefully figure out how to continue floppies in some fashion. But there has to be sufficient financial incentive for WB to carry on at all.

[Ascended]

How many shops could stand to lose even 25% of sales for two months or more? I imagine most will lose substantially more than that. Even if DC manages to move some product to stores, this is looking like it could be the end of the direct market as we know it. So what then? Do we support comics continuing in some form, even if not our preferred form, or do we keep demanding print?

Things will have to get a lot worse for a lot longer before the direct market is beyond recovery. It *could* happen, but if we get to the point where the direct market is beyond saving then we're going to have far bigger problems to concern ourselves with. Publishers and retailers aren't going to face this alone, there's stimulus and forgiveness packages to take advantage of, etc. The businesses who were close to bankruptcy in the first place might not survive, but most probably will.

What this might very well do however, is reinforce that publishers need to move beyond the direct market and find viable and profitable alternatives. They'll survive a few weeks or months with no floppies on the shelf but it won't be a comfortable position. Let's not forget; while some of these IP's are multi-million dollar properties the publishing arm of DC is not.

So once the dust settles and publishers aren't focused solely on their short-term survival, they may very well decide that it's time they invest more in bookstore OGN's and digital products designed for digital audiences. DC's research is correct (and a five minute Google would've proven this anyway); the direct market audience is not the same as the digital audience. Digital has plateaued where it has largely because DC failed to design their product to match the audience; they just scanned their regular comics into a computer and thought that would draw new readers (which is f*cking stupid, even students would've known better).

But after this? Publishers might realize that they need to take serious action now, rather than just playing out the direct market until it's completely dead and then worrying about where to go from there. So maybe we'll see digital books designed for those audiences and more OGN's, designed for those audiences, with the marketing to back it up. And if they do, it's about gods damn time because they should've gotten serious about this years ago.

As for the direct market; it'll survive covid19 and publishers aren't going to abandon it afterwards. They'll squeeze every penny out of the direct market until there's nothing left. And make no mistake, the direct market is most definitely dying, but it's not going to die today or next week, or even next year. Not unless sh*t gets seriously serious. At worst, this pandemic has just accelerated that death a little bit, but it's still not likely to happen in the immediate future. But without investing in other distribution models now, and doing it smart, then the death of the direct market will be the end of comics.

[Jadeb]

I hope you’re right. But the direct market consists of small businesses that are already skating by on razor-thin margins. I won’t be surprised if it’s dead in four months.

That said, I have continued to buy floppies because I love floppies, and I don’t want any comic shop to fail. So I really do hope you’re right.

[Ascended]

It'll all depend on what kind of help they get from the government, banks, etc., and how long this pandemic lasts. Things *could* get real bad, but I don't think we have any reason to get real worried about the long-game yet.

Look at it like this; the economy was stable with a GDP growth rate around 2-3%, which isn't spectacular by any stretch but is far from bad. Unemployment looked great. And a strong economy is trump's biggest selling point. This is an election year. The party in power knows that if the economy falls apart, they won't win in November. They can hide their mistakes in dealing with this pandemic but they can't hide an economic collapse. They'll do everything they can to make sure businesses survive this pandemic and the impact on the economy is as small as possible.

Some retailers are going to go under. The guys who were barely hanging on in the first place probably won't make it through no matter how forgiving the banks are. But for the most part, I think we'll be fine as long as this doesn't last through the end of summer. And if it lasts that long, we'll have bigger problems to deal with.

[Kevin Street]

DC's statement on digital releases: "Here's where we are on digital. All our data shows the digital consumer and the physical consumer are two different audiences. For now, we're going to continue to release digital comics, but will revisit this if the pipeline for physical distribution continues to be challenged and disrupted."

https://bleedingcool.com/2020/03/29/...irus-shutdown/

I don't understand just which comics DC is going to publish digitally, but if we're talking about new comics and not just trades or something, then this is wrong. There are two comics scheduled to come out on Wednesday that I want to read. They're regular purchases for me, but I will not be buying them digitally when comic book stores are struggling to survive. When all this is over and the stores can open again, I'll be really, really happy to buy physical copies of Lois Lane #10 and The Dreaming #20, but not until then. We have to work together if we're going to get through this.

[DragonPiece]

I don't understand just which comics DC is going to publish digitally, but if we're talking about new comics and not just trades or something, then this is wrong. There are two comics scheduled to come out on Wednesday that I want to read. They're regular purchases for me, but I will not be buying them digitally when comic book stores are struggling to survive. When all this is over and the stores can open again, I'll be really, really happy to buy physical copies of Lois Lane #10 and The Dreaming #20, but not until then. We have to work together if we're going to get through this.

At this rate, it won't be till May at the earliest. But I commend your committment to your comic shop.

[Kevin Street]

I've been going to my local comic shop since the day it first opened, at least 32 years ago. No virus is going to kill that.

[vasir12]

https://www.newsarama.com/49628-dc-s...-stoppage.html

I wonder if they'll be any noticeable increase in digital sales this week.

[Digifiend]

I don't understand just which comics DC is going to publish digitally, but if we're talking about new comics and not just trades or something, then this is wrong. There are two comics scheduled to come out on Wednesday that I want to read. They're regular purchases for me, but I will not be buying them digitally when comic book stores are struggling to survive. When all this is over and the stores can open again, I'll be really, really happy to buy physical copies of Lois Lane #10 and The Dreaming #20, but not until then. We have to work together if we're going to get through this.

That Newsarama article confirms it's everything that would normally have been out.