five months after the diamond digital program was announced, a plan for physical comic stores to sell online comics, we finally have some details. A press release reveals that the program will launch in September.
The reason for the delay? According to Dave Bowen, director of diamond Digital, they want “to get every detail of this launch right.” good plan. It’s kooky enough to start that bugs would likely kill it. After all, the appeal of digital comic shopping is downloading titles instantly, whenever you want them — forcing customers to travel to a shop to get a code to download an issue is somewhat convoluted in comparison.
The only likely customer scenario I can imagine is that there might be some appeal to browsing. A customer already at a comic shop sees an issue, flips through it, and makes a decision he doesn’t want the book but will pay to read it. So he gets a download code from his retailer, considering that he’s already at the shop.
Not very plausible, I know, considering that it would require a merchant being ready to advertise to customers that the codes are available. and once the customer downloads through iVerse Media, the merchant partner, their information is available to that vendor, for direct advertising of future issues or related titles, to get directly from them. Anyway, in September,
“Diamond’s retail comic shop customers will be able to pre-generate codes redeemable for new digital comics. … lots of of the comics in the program will be available first from comic shops or will consist of special perk material unavailable elsewhere. Participating stores will be able to sell a large range of new comics, digital back issues, and digital backlist graphic novels. A crucial feature of the initiative is the print plus option, which allows consumers to purchase a digital companion copy of a print comic book, normally for just 99¢ more.”
Well, that’s another positive — merchants can stop stocking back issues so deeply (although lots of already have, considering that that market was killed by ebay). I’ve been a proponent of the double-copy system myself, considering that it works better in our household, but tacking another dollar onto a four-dollar comic isn’t economically feasible. five bucks for 20-some pages of story is simply stupid, and I don’t believe it uses enough value to compete successfully with complimentary — especially once you add in taxes and gas costs these days.
Back to diamond Digital. The project has been in beta testing considering that it was first announced, and the “Beta test group, an international assembly of a lot more than fifty businesses… suggested lots of great ideas and improvements, including added functionality in support of the individual merchant web-site based part of the initiative. The advanced group, companies with existing sophisticated e-commerce web sites, are beginning to integrate our API into their processes.” I would love to read a service case on this, but I suspect the details will never be released.
The actual codes up for sale in store locations will start beta testing in August. a lot more information is available from DiamondDigital.com. Logins will be available in September for all diamond accounts, and participating publishers will be able to “see how their material is being represented, monitor their sales, and gauge the effectiveness of the program.”
More than 30 publishers are promoted as participating, but the American big Two, DC and Marvel, are not among them. The greatest names are Image, top Shelf, NBM, IDW, and Archie. The latter two are significant as participating in just about every digital distributor out there. The program is said to be launching with “dozens of new releases and nearly 2,000 back issues”.
Retailers get 33% of the copy price for a digital sale. considering that they’re selling the codes, that indicates they take in, let’s say, $1.99 for a particular issue code. Then, the week after a customer redeems the code, the merchant is invoiced for the product. considering that they keep 33%, that indicates that diamond then bills the merchant $1.31. No idea how that money is split up between Diamond, iVerse, the publisher, and let’s not forget: the creator. This also seems to supply an interesting loophole/bottleneck. If the customer doesn’t enter the code, then the merchant never gets billed, and they keep all the money. I don’t know why a customer would do that, though.
The FAQ (link no longer available) is fascinating in the situations it postulates:
For example: A consumer gets a comic. You then say: “Hey, you can also get a print plus version for an extra $0.99. considering that you’re getting a print copy, you qualify. If you pay for the print plus version too, we’ll give you a code for a digital edition.”
For example: A consumer wants to get a title, but your shop is sold out of the print edition. You can say: “Henull