Good to know, thanks. My concern is if most readers wait for physical to become available again, then fandom will be out of sync with what's going on in the books. Not to mention for example X of Swords #1 would sell great when fresh for EVERYONE, but maybe not so much if the physical is released months after the digital. Perhaps it's indeed best for them to halt everything and then catch up later with faster releases.
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Yeah, I don't see any digital release happening till the retailers bring more sales in order.
So when are we going to get the next release? Surely we can't wait until the Covid-19 virus pandemic is over, that would take many more months.
Nope. No digital for me. (I completely ignore the "Free Digital Content Offer" tab. I've already paid for the book in my hands therefore the digital version of the very same book is not free).
I can wait.
I have more than enough books and comic books to keep me occupied during the haul, however long it may be.
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I'm kind of sad, because I was really excited for WiFi #2 (obviously). But it makes sense, if you think that some people being in quarantine means they don't have a flow of income, therefore using your savings to buy comics at this moment would be counterproductive to them.
Yeah, the industry needs to sort its shit out when it comes to boosting digital sales. Time to start targeting demo-specific sites and social media for major titles, and then include previews of minor titles in the major books for spillover.
Agreed. They need expand their digital reach by embracing social and other targeted forms of media. But, as I said before, publishing is such a small part of the business for Disney anyway, I’m not sure they care that much about sales in that area. At least as a corporation. It’s a content farm for them. That’s why I bet they’ll keep it going and won’t stop producing comics until the stores all reopen. But I guess we’ll see.
We may not get any next week, but they will announce some sort of plan that allows them to keep cranking out comics and selling them digitally, as well as possibly direct to consumer at some point (going around Diamond). Simply put, the publishing sales are a drop in the bucket for them. But they cannot afford to shut down the content factory for films and Disney+ shows. Just look at how much from the modern era has made its way into those films, and soon the shows too. Civil War, Thanos’ “children” (The Black Order), Winter Solider, Falcon-Cap, etc.
If I don't get to Read Empyre next week I'll be furious! I don't even purchase physical copies of comics. Marvel needs to get with the times.
I assume you do know that Marvel.com has had a digital store for years, which I have synced with Comixology. There are still a lot of sales through the shops. They don't want to completely shut off that revenue stream esp when you can still get one time special issues that move over 500,000 in one month like Detective Comics #1000 did at $9.99 . Industry wide, sales for 2019 were $529 million
Last edited by Iron Maiden; 03-29-2020 at 10:58 AM.
So if digital readers can get new comics while physical comic readers have to wait temporarily, the position is just make everyone wait? It’s a choice. Just like anything in life. If you choose to wait for the stores to reopen, that’s your choice. If people choose to buy them digitally before then, also a choice.
One problem with putting sales on hold is the timespan. More accuratly the timespan in relation to plan for the year. Most predictions on Corona say we are not yet at the height. So we have weeks and probably months before it starts getting better. With the increase of temperature accounted for.
A 2 week delay is no big thing. A month is ok but more trickier. Will we delay all comics by a month or speed up the scheduele to catch up? Will customers afford that? How important is the summer events like sword of X. Before they happen issues have to catch up. Does it matter if it happens this summer or this fall?
Will people forget or move on from comics? How long break can stores and customers take before it hurts to much?
In the end selling comics are not the most social event. It doesn't require for a lot of people to physically meet to make or sell them. Perhaps it's better if stores take a little time to reorganise a temporary way of selling printed comics wihtout much social interaction. While I personally prefer going digital it might be to much a strain if we speed that process up.
I’m not sure what the lead time is on hard copies, but one compromise might be to release digital copies then omnibuses when the physical shops reopen, which could be in six months, certainly no less than three months.
Of course, quite a lot of specialist retailers won’t survive, rent and business rates and the rise of Amazon and the like has made their position more and more precarious over the last decade without Covid-19.