Posted in: Comics, Digital, Recent Updates | Tagged: app, Comics, digital, graphic.ly, graphicly

Fallout From The Graphic.Ly Switch From App To eBook Publishing

That's still the big news today — Graphic.Ly leaving the arms race they'd been having with ComiXology over day-and-date replication of the direct market online (that they were never going to win), and becoming a service provider for publishers. They will now be turning comics into eBooks across formats in a very user friendly fashion.

So who will feel the impact?

Readers, some of whom  have paid hundreds — even thousands — of dollars to download and read comics on Graphic.Ly now have an aborted App on their iPad. Those following ongoing series will now have to switch their reader of choice to continue, and there will be no natural flow for the series they have been reading and collecting. There is no way to move the comics they have bought on Graphic.Ly to ComiXology or any other reader. Be thankful that at least you can still access the comics you bought, if Graphic.Ly had gone bust, that would have been in doubt.

One wonders if another digital distributor will be able to do a deal that would allow all of Graphic.Ly's users who wish to continue reading comics in this fashion to transfer their purchases to another service. It would be quite an undertaking, but it might be in the interests of the industry to put aside worries from users of other comic apps that one day the same might happen to them. Right now, some people are wondering what happens to all the comics they've bought if ComiXology ever went down. Some words of comfort might be in order.

It's also a truism that when a comic, a comic store, a comic publisher goes away, not all of the custom transfers to a rival. Some of it gets lost. The industry should fight to stop that happening again.

In taking this move, Graphic.Ly is leaving the ComiXology fight but going up against a whole new market of people who have been doing this sort of thing for a while. Smashwords comes to mind – though they take a percentage of sales as opposed to Graphic.Ly's $150 flat fee. It's also getting easier and easier to do this kind of thing yourself without anyone else, than it was to get your comics into an App. But do you get value for money? Steve Broome breaks it down and says, unless you have the tech skill, probably.

Also graphic.ly is not taking any of the sales percentage, but this does not spare you from the revenue share that you'll find at each store. That's 30% at amazon for any book priced at less than $2.99, 70% otherwise, which is the same as itunes.

Look for publishers to move away from single issues when dealing with Graphic.Ly. A five issue mini-series would cost you $750 to prepare, a graphic novel collecting those five issues would cost $150.

Graphic.Ly also seems to be leaving behind a number of smaller publishers who want that online direct market App experience and now find themselves shut out. ComiXology are, for want of a better phrase, more picky about what they make available. Smaller publishers find it harder to get their work on the system. I expect Comics Plus might take this opportunity to step up, but they have an even lower profile than Graphic.Ly. Indeed, Graphic.Ly was seen as ComiXology's only potential rival in this market, now it seems ComiXology will be taking an even larger market share. The Diamond Of Digital Apps.

You know what, I think I might just have to try this for myself…

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