Graphic Novels/Comics

Ingram Makes Color Print-On-Demand More Economical

27 August 2012

From Publishers Weekly:

Ingram Content Group has announced a new “standard color” pricing model for print-on-demand technology that has reduced costs by roughly two-thirds, making color POD an economical publishing option for the first time. Achieved through advancements in inkjet technology, the price drop means that a greater range of book content can be printed in color and done faster around the world.

Depending on the exact dimensions of a book, color POD for a single 120 page trade paperback would previously run in the general range of $12-$13.50, making such books prohibitively expensive.  Standard Color reduces the cost of a single book to the general range of $4-$5, with a short run of 500 books pricing out at below $3/copy for a 6”x9” trade paperback.

. . . .

Laura Baldwin, president of O’Reilly Media, which participated in beta testing the new color technology, said, “POD is an integral part of O’Reilly’s publishing strategy. I’ve seen the first editions off the press, and the quality is excellent. In a changing market, Ingram’s new color POD gives us another option to bring more color books to more readers worldwide while simultaneously lowering our costs.”

Link to the rest at Publishers Weekly

A Picture is Worth a Bunch

23 January 2012

Passive Guy isn’t into the comics or graphic novel worlds, so this may be old news, but a comics publishing platform called Graphicly is either a new big thing or the company just hired a Twitter marketing agency.

The company claims to allow authors to publish their comics or graphic novels to Kindle, Nook, IOS, Kobo, Facebook and the web.



Link to Graphicly

The digital future still is a mystery if you don’t publish “immersive reading”

4 January 2012

From publishing expert Mike Shatzkin:

I have made previous mention of my notion that what has been one very cohesive trade book industry would “trifurcate”: break into at least three distinct businesses: 1) books that are straight narrative text intended for immersive reading; 2) adult books that are not straight text, either very chunkable (like cookbooks or travel books) or highly illustrated; and 3) children’s books. Admittedly, even this is an oversimplification.

This conjecture is built on the reality that we’ve learned how to move immersive reading from paper to screen in a way that satisfies the consumer. A pretty simple technological trick — “reflowing” the text so that it adjusts to the screen size alloted to it — makes the text “work” across a wide range of devices and reader software. There are definitely differences among Kindle and Nook and Kobo and Google and iBooks and they don’t offer precisely the same outputs and features on their own devices or on iOS or Android, but the differences are subtle and apparently most people are comfortable with the various consumption experiences.

So relatively simple conversion from the version prepared for print, which can even be done through automated services like Smashwords or through tools now being offered by The Atavist and Vook (and others), and are handled within the workflows of many publishers at a trivial financial cost, delivers an alternative to the print version of a book that is commercially viable. It isn’t costly, it isn’t complicated, and the person who formerly read her favorite novelist or subject in print could switch to device reading with relatively little pain or friction.

And they have. Ebook consumption has been going up by double or more each year since the Kindle arrived a little over four years ago. (And there is evidence that the growth will continue. Amazon just announced the best Kindle holiday season ever — with over a million Kindle devices sold each week in December and with the single biggest day ever for Kindle book downloads on Christmas Day. — Note “downloads” not “sales”.)

So far, this has worked to the benefit of established book publishers, their authors, and for fledgling new authors as well. Ebooks are generally cheaper than their print counterparts (and sometimes quite a bit cheaper, despite some propaganda to the contrary) but publishers’ margins haven’t suffered. Authors are getting a bit less on ebooks than they did on hardcovers in print, but they get a bit more than they did on paperbacks. There are vocal consumers who protest the agency pricing that keeps ebooks at $9.99 and up during their hardcover life, but Kobo, the only retailer to discuss these matters, reports more unit sales in the agency price bands than at the low end where the self-published authors are.

We would not suggest that stability of prices or royalties or consumer behavior going forward is to be expected; we’re still in a time of great change. But, so far, the publishers of fiction and non-fiction that is delivered as straight text have had a relatively painless switchover from selling 100% of their output in print to selling an average of more than 20% of it in digital form, with shares as high as 50% being reported on some titles in the first weeks after publication.

. . . .

I have been asking publishers about sales of their children’s and illustrated trade material. I haven’t found anybody yet that says they’re going well. On the children’s side, where there have been pockets of success, the one Big Six digital executive who expressed an opinion to me felt that price was killing sales for the ebook versions of successful franchises. Children’s apps from such distributors as Touchy Books are priced quite low, generally $2.99 and less. But many branded titles like Eloise are $9.99 and $12.99 and up! This executive points out that paying that price for a novel you will spend many hours with is much less painful than paying it for a children’s book your kid will work through in 15 minutes or less.

Undoubtedly, another large factor mitigating against converting illustrated print book sales to digital is that ebooks don’t make good gifts and illustrated print books do.

I recently spoke with CEOs of two companies that publish primarily illustrated books. Both of them report being stumped by the challenge of making their illustrated print output into something that will work commercially as an ebook. “Fixed page layout” is the solution du jour, delivering the book page as a unit but where the pinch-and-spread touchscreen technology enables the reader to expand type to make it readable or pictures to make them more visible. Of course, doing that means that the whole page no longer fits on the screen. And that means that the smooth experience devices offer for immersive reading, where page-turning is effortless and one can read the text without stopping to think about the form factor, is interrupted and not nearly as satisfactory for books delivered that way.

More complex page layouts are more expensive to convert, can present thorny rights issues for images, and the books haven’t sold well in digital form. On top of that, the retailers can (and often do) ask for their own specific customization of the files. These factors combine to create a very unattractive commercial equation. Until the Fall of 2011, one ebook retailer told me there were 10,000 or fewer illustrated ebooks in the marketplace, out of a total of many hundreds of thousands, perhaps more than a million, straight text titles. The plethora of larger-screen and color devices that hit the market this past fall created a burst of conversion activity of these titles, perhaps doubling the number in the marketplace during the last quarter. We await reporting on the impact of the new devices and the additional illustrated product in the market, but nobody’s reported any breakout successes yet.

Link to the rest at The Shatzkin Files

Passive Guy thinks the biggest problem with illustrated books is screen size.

There is virtually no difference between the printed size of a trade paperback and the size of a typical ereader screen. However, lots of children’s books and adult illustrated books are much larger. If the iPad doesn’t provide a good experience, PG doesn’t see a good solution for this.

PG would note that comics and graphic novels seem to be doing well in ebook format.

Cultists are willing to see Steve Jobs as a perfect guy

18 December 2011

A book video for a new graphic novel about the lost years of Steve Jobs’ life after he was fired from Apple.

In the end what we hope people will take away from The Zen of Steve Jobs is a complex understanding of Steve. You have Apple fans, and you have Apple cultists. I think the difference is that fans are willing to accept Steve the man, whereas cultists are willing to see Steve as a perfect guy, which he wasn’t.

 

‘Graphic India’ – Indian Comic books take off

13 December 2011
Comments Off

From The Darkleian:

Liquid Comics, which owns one of the world’s largest comic book libraries based on Indian characters by Indian creators, announced today the launch of Graphic India, a new digital platform to promote comic books in India and showcase young artists and writers in the country.

In the same way Japanese anime and manga redefined a generation of audiences worldwide, Liquid believe the creativity and rich storytelling potential of India is ready to take the world by storm.

Graphic India intends to be India’s premiere graphic novel platform and community, leveraging Liquid’s large library of high quality content created by Indian creators, while also aggressively commissioning and showcasing numerous original stories by India’s greatest new visionaries.

“India is home to some of the most creative minds in the world, and we believe that the next Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, JK Rowling or Stan Lee exists somewhere in this country – ready to change the world through their stories. Through Graphic India, we want to find, nurture and promote these creators, leveraging the power of digital media to potentially reach millions around the world,” added Liquid Comics Co-Founder & CEO, Sharad Devarajan. “In the same way Japanese anime and manga redefined a generation of audiences worldwide, we believe the creativity and rich storytelling potential of India is ready to take the world by storm.”

. . . .

Initially, the platform has been launched as an online site at http://www.graphicindia.com/ that features free daily digital comic book chapters, interviews with creators, educational resources for aspiring artists and writers and pop culture film, television and game reviews. Digital comics featured on the site can be embedded and shared across social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

To further spark young Indian creators to look at graphic novels as a meaningful profession, the site is featuring a “Create A Comic Contest,” where the winning idea submitted will be awarded a contract to publish their Graphic Novel and win One Hundred Thousand Indian Rupees.

Over the next few months, Graphic India intends to expand its digital platform across mobile through various partnerships and apps. Beyond digital comics, content will soon include episodic animated shows, digital trading cards and social games based on Liquid’s leading character properties.

Link to the rest at The Darkleian

« Previous Page