Earlier this week we told you about Multiple Eisner Award Winning Skottie Young putting a digital copy of his book, The Adventures of Bernard the World Destroyer, up for sale on his website for $2.
Well, he was not alone.
Harvey and Eagle Award winning Chris Eliopoulos put his own collection up for sale on his website. The price? Also $2.
Eliopoulos' popular and funny webcomic Misery Loves Sherman was collected in a 129 page book featuring three Sherman strips per page. Normally that book will run you $15.00, but if you want to download the PDF and read it on your computer or on your fancy iPad you can head on over to Eliopoulos' website and pick it up for two bucks.
Two dollars for a collected edition? It's too good to pass up. I already bought both collections.If you want to see more of this kind of thing then you should too.
For more with Chris Eliopoulos, check out our Talksplode episode.
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This is an interesting new model for creators to follow. I wonder if that $2 bux goes directly in the creators pocket or if he kicks back anything to the publisher? If its pure profit for the creator i wonder if its almost the same he’d get as a royalty from that $15 book.
I picked this up the other day when Eliopoulos tweeted about it. It’s really a great plan. I love buying things directly from creators and if they want to sell their stuff at a $2 price point than I’m more than happy to go along with that.
Plus, it’s 129 pages. Amazing dollar-to-time ratio.
@wallythegreenmonster There is no publisher. It’s all Chris in this case.
@josh —yeah i got that for this title. I was wondering more across the board. I wonder if all creators would be able to do this with creator owned work if they indeed had a publisher like Image, Darkhorse, Oni etc.? That was really what i was getting at.
Could this become the comic creators version of “the merch booth” at their shows (aka the pure profit center)
@wallythegreenmonster It depends on the deal they get. At Image, the creator owns the rights. There could be a digital clause. At other publishers, it works like a regular deal where the creator gets a percentage of digital sales. Every publisher and every deal is unique.
Done and done!
Bought. Should be fun.
@josh –thanks for that info…
I know from my experience working in publishing that there are often those weird clauses about future media forms (i’ve even seen intergalactic clauses) and digital rights etc.
yeah this seems like a great model, but like everything there is no one size fits all solution. Totally awesome that creators are going direct to consumer. I’m totally in on that.
Purchased and downloaded.
The major publishers have been offering $2 for a digital comic sold through a specific application and DRMed to hell and back so that your access is controlled by the distributor. That’s been a tough pill for me to swallow at times, but when I saw Scottie’s deal with no DRM and 70+ pages (although, to be fair, about 30 of those pages consisted of nothing but a number), I jumped at it because I’ve enjoyed Scottie’s work, and, hey, it’s only 2 bucks. I was not familiar with Chris’s work, but I took a quick look at his site, read a few strips, and decided that it was very promising and, again, only 2 bucks with no crazy restrictions. I snapped that up, too. I am curious about the profitability of this as well. I hope it works out well for both of them. And if it does, I hope publishers take note. I don’t know about Scottie’s stuff, but it seems I could read the entire run of Misery Loves Sherman on the website, but I was thrilled to be able to avoid all of that clicking around and get the strips packaged in a way that I could read them wherever I want. I hope I’m not the minority in this. While mainstream publishers are putting out an encumbered product to avoid their work being pirated (which is already being done in spite of their efforts), people seem perfectly willing to pay for this product which is already available legally for free. So I really hope this model works out well for the creators because it seems like it could be terrific for consumers. These are the first two digital comics I’ve purchases where I had no reservations about forking over my money. I hope it’s the first two of many.
but wait didn’t he have to spend money to scan it and host it and post etc?
Further proof digital copies Should be cheaper.
Well done.
I bought it.
@ericmci If they’re sold straight from the creator as a PDF download with no extras, then yes, this price is appropriate.
@conor Ok explain to me then exactly why digital copies of say the Fantastic Four – a current issue
shouldn’t be cheaper than a physical copy with the production and materiel costs and physical distribution costs?
At least noticibly cheaper.
@ericmci I already explained pricing to you the last time you brought it up.
And then you left out any actual figures on why your argument workedl.
Is it the cost of the app? Hasn’t marvel recouped that dev cost by now?
Is it the hosting fee? Isn’t Eliopoulos face with that same cost maybe more so wihtought a traffic discount for such a high bandwith requirement that Marvel would have.
Is it paying an intern which marvel stock piles for jobs like this to format an already digital file
to play in their player for the “extras”
Vs The ink- the printing press running – the gas for the trucks the wages for the delivery people across the country and internationally.
Seriously man- it just doesn’t seem to add up in anyway- but if you have Actual figures and cost analysis I would love to see it.
I believe you also said there wasn’t anyway The big two would ever lower prices b/c that’s just how much it costs to produce a book.
Additionally – How is it that Archie comics are able to accomplish a lower priced digital product then?
@ericmci –Its capitalism. Prices are set for what the market will bear. Everyone is trying to figure that out digital publishing still.
There is no law that says expenses+%markup=required retail price.
@ericmci Okay…
Costs – I can’t give you costs. If I did I’d probably get fired. That’s proprietary.
Hosting – Eliopoulos isn’t hosting the books, he’s allowing you to download the file. He doesn’t have them up and viewable.
Interns – I have no idea how ComiXology works, but with Graphic.ly, Marvel sends over their file which is then worked on by a team of paid employees.
I see that you think not doesn’t add up no matter what anyone with actual knowledge of the situation says, and I’m sure that’s not going to change.
Will prices go down for digital books eveer? Yeah, eventually they probably will once systems are in place and companies find a way to do things cheaper and/or other revenue streams are discovered. But we are still in digital comics infancy.
That’s right – I did say paper prices would never go down because never in the history of comics had they ever gone down. Also, DC lowered their prices by cutting costs by removing two story pages, something that had also never happened in the history of comics.
@ericmci I can’t explain Archie because I don’t know their business but I do know that they have FAR fewer titles than any other big company and sell FAR more of them in paper form. They can probably afford to be a bit more experimental. But again, that’s speculation.
@wally I totally agree with that.
My argument isn’t that there aren’t costs associated with making digital comics it’s that maybe
there is good reason to believe that they could and should be cheaper than a physical product.
Especially on a long term basis past setup costs.
If a company like Archie with it’s volume can manage this – it would seem to validate that idea.
Done.
Downloading the file from his site- is hosting- still bandwith costs. And really just a small part of the point I was trying to make.
Just saying as for the rest- I’ll take it offline- enough hijacking on my part.
Downloading a file requires bandwidth and a web host…
@muddi900 Yes it does, but not nearly to the extent of the bandwidth it takes to host a viewable book in multiple formats.
Thanks to everyone for downloading.
Costs. Well, it cost me a lot of time and money in the sense I could have been doing other PAYING work, so I *think* that justifies a certain cost. I’m not Marvel and don’t have the overhead costs, etc. I don’t have to pay someone to do the book, edit the book, composite the book together. I do it all myself which saves a lot. I don’t have to pay a printer or a retailer or distributor. I don’t claim to know what Marvel’s costs are, but it just being me, it’s simpler.
Now, I have paid for my website which is not a huge cost, but enough. Then I used a web app called Fetch that would automate the Paypal link as well as the e-mail link to the order. Save me tons. The cost? $5 a month for under 25MB of storage. The PDF is almost 10. So, I have room for another book as well.
So, really, what makes it cheap is being a small business and doing it myself. And, if enough people buy, I’m on my way to a new distribution chain.
speaking of multiple formats– How about an android app for graphic.ly
I know it’s in the works – but android is gigantic at this point.
Elio deserves your two bucks! He’s got Disney trips to plan!
Awesome, always wanted to read this but never got around to it. SOLD.