Yesterday, Image Comics launched a Humble Bundle (a digital bundle distributor that sells packages over two week spans) featuring a number of their first volume digital collections in one package – Fatale, East of West, Morning Glories and Lazarus, to be specific – for pay-what-you-want prices with additional volumes that you can pick up if you meet certain contribution levels (Chew, Saga and Revival’s first volumes if you exceed the average price and two volumes of The Walking Dead if you pay more than $15). It’s a very attractive package, with proceeds going to a mix of Image, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund or Humble Bundle (you can decide how much goes to which group), and the results so far have been astounding, with over 10,000 bundles sold in the first 9 hours.
Now, I think some people will look at this and think, “hmm…this is just some sort of weird Groupon thing. It’s not a big deal.” But honestly, for me as someone who looks at the industry with a “how do we grow?” mentality, I don’t think people really properly understand how fantastic this really is.
It has always been that as comics age, the books just hang out in long boxes or on retailers shelves around the world, waiting to be sold, with books rarely getting discounted because those retailers have no incentive to do that unless they’re doing a clearance sale. So they sit, age, and rarely if ever get sold.
But with digital comics, they don’t achieve any value until they are in fact sold, and if sold in such a way – meaning not through an Apple or comiXology powered store – there’s no real cost besides whatever cut Humble Bundle gets out of the deal.
When you look at everything in the bundle, every volume is of a book that is on their second collection or later. All of these collections, while still selling (especially “Saga” and “The Walking Dead”) are on the latter stages of their sales curve, and unless one of them suddenly gets adapted to film or TV, likely won’t see any significant rise in sales again.
So what we’re talking about here is a deal in which Image Comics and its creators sell copies of their early, introductory collections – that are likely flat or dipping currently in terms of sales – for often far lower prices (but more than the $0 they were making before) than they standardly are sold for. They are likely being purchased by people who either at this point would have bought these books already if they were going to or or those who wouldn’t have been buying them otherwise, and are trying it out because it’s just an astoundingly good deal. And these people may not be spending a lot now, but if they love what they read, then you know what? They’ll probably read more, either in print or digitally.
In short, Image and its creators are making (a little) money and gaining (a lot of) potential new readers for a number of flagship series without cannibalizing their existing readership, and with absolutely no downside (unless I am completely misunderstanding the deal). This is the ultimate win-win situation, with the added bonus of some proceeds going to the CBLDF, and whole thing being something that could pay huge dividends going forward for all involved.
Even if there was only a small response, I’d think this was a fascinating attempt and a success in a way, but with over 10,000 bundles sold in just over 9 hours, we’re talking about a staggering success. According to Comichron, the top selling trade in March was the Humble Bundle featured “The Walking Dead” Vol. 20 with over 25,000 copies sold, which is a number that this bundle will likely surpass in 24 to 48 hours. It’s astonishing.
If Image included that volume of “The Walking Dead” as a carrot to try and get people to read all of the others, then it’s even more brilliant because that $14.99 title can only be acquired if you spend $15 or more. That means for those who want to buy that book anyways, they get introduced to an array of new series for basically the exact same cost as buying that volume. For Image and the creators, they get that money anyways, and they might create new readers in the process.
In terms of acquiring new readers and creating cross publishing line successes, this is a remarkably ingenious move, and something I hope to see more from other publishers. Bravo to Image and the featured creators (all of whom would have had to agree to the deal to make it happen, I believe) for making this happen. This is prescient, progressive thinking by all involved, and something that could be a firebrand moment for how digital comics are packaged and sold to potential new audiences.
