Why Comic Book Publishing is Doomed
Here’s why comic book publishing is doomed…
Stopped at the local library today and thought it would be fun to see what comics and graphic novels they had on the shelves. And for some reason, I made the mistake of asking the aging librarians where to find…well, let me just tell you how it went.
ME: Hi, I’m looking for comics and graphic novels.
LIBRARIAN: What?
ME: Comic books, graphic novels. Do you have a section for them?
LIBRARIAN: (loudly to other librarian) He wants to know if we have “comic books”?
And in that moment, I regretted even asking. I could feel their harsh literary judgment scalding me, and I wished that I’d asked if they had a porn section.
LIBRARIAN #2: Graphic novels? YA.
ME: Thanks. I see it…
LIBRARIAN: Go over to that section marked “YA.” That’s for “Young Adults and Teens.” That’s where we keep graphic novels.
ME: Thanks.
LIBRARIAN: Teen section.
ME: Thanks.
Okay. Back to the “doomed” part.
Comic book publishing is doomed if the industry continues to market comics and graphic novels to kids. Kids don’t buy comics like they used to. By and large, adults are buying comics. Don’t believe me? Go to the comic store and observe who is going up to the register to buy comics.
And let’s face it, what adult wants to be shopping or even browsing in the “teen” section of a bookstore or library.
Stop marketing comics as teen literature and make it easier for adults to shop for comics.
Free Isn’t Really Free
Lots of people, including me, use free applications. This blog is on the free version of WordPress.
But free really isn’t free. There’s always a price.
As Google grows, more people register to use their free tools, including GMail, Google Documents, YouTube, and this little tool called “Search.” Yes, and it’s all free. We love free, right?
Google is a for-profit company that has a responsibility to it’s shareholders and employees. The smart engineers who write the code for these free applications…well, they need to get paid. Everyone needs to get paid.
So how does Google make money? Well, right now, they leverage the immense amount of data that they capture every time we do a search. Or they monetize the content of our emails. Or our social networks. Or our video viewing habits.
And it’s all legal and completely above board. It’s right there in their privacy policy, if you choose to read it. It’s really not Google’s fault if you dont read the fine print. Google is an exceptional company, creates a lot of great of amazing products and does a lot of wonderful socially responsible things. But all this is made possible because they also run a hell of a business.
Google, Yahoo, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, WordPress and others offer free services with the hopes of getting a LOT of people to register. Then, they monetize it by selling profiling data about how we use their free services. (Note: Broadcast television and radio work in similar ways. Newspapers charge a fraction of what it costs to print and deliver the paper. It’s all fueled by advertising.)
Many people are thrilled that there’s a free alternative to Microsoft’s Office suite. But when you buy their software, you get a certain amount of protected anonymity. Microsoft isnt data mining information from your private Excel spreadsheets, but free services like Google Documents and Zoho can. The front end of these services are free, but they need to find a way to earn a profit. And currently that’s done by aggregating user behavior and selling it to advertisers.
There’s really no such thing as free. And with Internet applications, free is a temporary concept. Eventually, we will all have to pay.
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