Kieron Gillen's Workblog » Notes on Longbox

Notes on Longbox

If you’ve been following comics discourse over the last few days, the public unveiling of Longbox has featured prominently. CBR’s article gives all that’s known so far, if you need to get to speed. The basic idea is that it’s an Itunes-esque solution for Comics. As in, it integrates a digital comics-reader with a shopping/subscription model. Like Itunes, the reader works with all commonly used digital-comics formats — and its quality as a reader should ensure a cross-over audience. Basic comics will cost a dollar a piece, though that’s at publisher discretion. It’ll initially support PC and Mac, but planning to expand to Linux, Kindle, iPhone, WiiWare, X-Box Live and anything else they can get it working with. It’ll be going live later in the year, and in a invite-Beta after San Diego.

Jamie and I saw Longbox in an earlier demo at New York Comic Con in February and were impressed. In fact, I was so impressed I made sure that a clause related to this kind of sales was written into the next comic contract I signed. Clearly, I have no idea if it’ll take off. I hope it does. I also think that Longbox does so many things right that it’s got the best chance I’ve seen for a digital-comics-format system to do so. This would be a good thing. In fact, possibly a necessary thing.

On a personal level as a reader, I’m in the market for digital comics and have been for a while. I do fall into the camp which believes that reading on a screen is a little inferior to the print copy. Conversely, I also fall into the camp whose ability to buy singles is limited. Not primarily by money — by space. I haven’t the room. I believe that single issues can be beautiful, life-affirming pop objects — there is a reason why Jamie and I did The Singles Club the way we have. But for most comics, which I buy primarily for the story, I am looking for a reasonably priced, easily accessible way to get hold of them at the same time as they’re available in other places.

More so, the reduced price means that I suspect I’d be following more books than I am right now. If I don’t have the worry of space plus the reduction in price… well, I’d be less bloody picky. I’d follow books which I’d even vaguely like. And most importantly, I’d be sure to find something I’m interested in. In the Indie field, I’ve been looking for a copy of CHEW and OLYMPUS since they came out. And no bloody luck. This immediately solves that for any book on Longbox.

Should shops and the traditional direct market be worried? Yeah, a bit. This could be bad for them. I don’t think it will be.

The thing with the lower price means that even if the talked about voucher systems — where you can get money off a real world trade if you buy the digital singles — don’t emerge, it means that I’m far happier double-dipping and buying both digital singles and trades. I’ll throw away six dollars on single issues which make up a trade and still buy the trade if I love it enough. Right now, only books I absolutely adore do I buy in both formats. If it’s six dollars lost, that would reduce to mere love. Hell — sampling a single issue for a dollar and then buying a trade if it impresses me enough strikes me as fairly likely. Point being, for me, I suspect my purchases in comic shops would at worst stay stable (as in, I buy the same number of trades as before, which is the majority of my purchases) and at best, increase considerably (as in, since I am exposed to more books, I buy more of those books). And this is only talking about the existent comics market. Longbox seems perfectly capable of opening up comics access to many more people, who will eventually want to buy something physical, even if it’s not for themselves. People like giving presents, y’know?

That’s me as a reader of comics. Let’s talk me as a creator, specifically as one half of Team Phonogram.

We have a few problems. Firstly, we make no money. Secondly, our comics aren’t available in enough places. Thirdly, we make no money. I say that one twice, because it’s the biggie.

Let’s deal with the smaller one first: while certain shops stock us very well, the vast majority don’t. Issues disappearing within hours of them arriving is pretty common. We lose any kind of casual floating readership who may just fancy the look of it. If someone reads a story about Phonogram and walks into a shop, they probably won’t find it. They’ll walk out. They’ll probably forget it. And that’s our basal-to-optimistic level. When we get stories about shops who literally refuse to order the comic, we just wince. Even worse, our comic has a considerable readership outside the traditional comics readership. Many of these don’t even live near a comic shop. Many of these may not even know that comic shops exists. Some of them are a bit Emily Aster and will refuse to go into comic shop on principle.

It’d be good to have a way to sidestep that.

The money problem’s the bigger issue. As we’ve talked about before, the single sales of the Singles Club were lower than we’d hoped for. They’re level with series 1, but due to the addition of colour, any profits evaporate. We make no money on the singles. We probably make a loss. We do well on trades — Rue Britannia is just about to go into its second printing. The first printing was about three times what we sell in issues. I suspect The Singles Trade club will do well too.

But long term, that isn’t a solution. At the moment, with our current methods, a third series of Phonogram is entirely impossible. Frankly, Jamie is too old and too talented to starve for half a year again. Even if he was willing, I wouldn’t want to ask him. If we’re going to do a third series, we’re going to have to work out a new methodology for it. We’re chewing over the options, and have a variety of purely hypothetical plans, but…

Well, if we sold as many copies of an issue on Longbox as we do at retail, Jamie would have close to a living wage. If we sold half as many, we’d have rent money. Even if we only sold one copy, we’d make more money than we do now. As I said, we make no money from the issues. While a dollar an issue (minus Longbox’s cut) may seem not enough to someone who doesn’t know the economics of comic production, it really is perfectly acceptable.

In other words, a model where we do all single issues on something akin to Longbox and then, when completed, collect in a real trade for a paper-audience is something which seems feasible. It’s certainly more feasible than what we do now. I suspect a lot of indie creators in a similar position to Jamie and I feel the same.

Will Longbox be a success? I hope so. I hope the big four publishers find a way to work with them, as a system which will be most effective if it’s comprehensive, and I think all publishers would gain a synergy by doing so which would actually help themselves more than trying to do their isolated own things — and actually, as a side-effect, help the rest of the industry too. But I also don’t think it’ll necessarily fail if they don’t – I think it’ll just slow down what I think could be a major step towards rejuvenating and reinventing the industry. Because this is going to happen eventually. I’d rather it happened now.

This post has been brought to you the word “hope”. It’s one of my favourites.

You’re pretty much echoing all my thoughts on this (from a consumer side at least).

1) I will try far more books than I would otherwise, and do so legitimately instead of pirating them like I have done occasionally (with much guilt being felt)

2) If I’m at home bored and have nothing I feel like reading I can go poke around Longbox and just randomly read an issue, I mean it’s less than a dollar!

3) The trade vouchers minimizing “double-dipping” is a HUGE deal.

4) Phonogram is a perfect example of a book where the possible audio/video “back-matter” that longbox would provide would be KEY, you could have links to videos and songs by the artists in each issue

5) Most importantly it could make more Phonogram’s happen, even if 1-4 don’t happen if Longbox makes more Phonogram (and other almost as good books) more financially viable it’s a good thing.

You sound like the Barrack Obama of the comic world. And that’s a good thing.

I would very much be in the camp of in favour for this, as I fall into the category of not a regular comics buyer who doesn’t really live within distance of a decent comic book store – nearest thing is Nottingham which is still a train journey away. And although I bought the trade when I was last there, I would really love the ability to have the issues as soon as possible, rather than having to wait for the trade when it’s done.

And I’m definitely all for a third series of PG. And making sure McKelvie stays alive.

I’m one of your ‘outside the traditional comics readership’ types. I also like physical items though, and would much prefer to buy single issues than digital files.

What I’d really like is to be able mail order single issues of comics, or subscribe by mail like you do with a magazine.

Mostly because those insular fuckers who run comic shops refuse to take standing orders for just one title, or to reserve single issues unless you also order at least three other titles for a minimum period. I don’t want to buy any other comics, I just want to buy this one, dammit!

Why won’t anybody take my money?

This could all be solved by Amazon stocking comics and maybe even offering a ‘subscription’ in the form of pre-ordering a whole series.

we make no money from the issues

Holy god, Kieron.

…I mean, I wonder if there’s a way to get this to talk to iTunes? I wonder if consolidation isn’t the ultimate destination. Like, I’d never use iTunes willingly, thanks to the restrictions on format and disposition, but someone who manages to put all disposable income under one roof…

Here’s the thing: Wouldn’t you just need a website and a link to Longbox? Like, you’d have jpeg/pdf previews of the comic on the website, all the appendices and behind-the-scenes information in one place – in e.g.: Phonogram’s case, including plenty of audio-video – and the actual comic wouldn’t exist as a physical entity until you were ready to put out the trade – or, if you were of a mind to do the extra work – the seamless graphic novel.

You might end up taking comic shops out of the equation, but…honestly…unless you’re making to mine Marvel, how much are you losing? And couldn’t you make up for that loss – or percieved lack of support for retailers – by producing extra material just for comic shops, like a one-shot. A one-shot with a trade voucher in it?

People would still be producing work for little to no money upfront, though, which is bad.

(of course, I appear to have completely forgotten that people, including myself, already make and sell webcomics. But as someone who prefers to put out finished works, rather than serialise pages (which I also do, with Bostin Heroes)…

…I need an artist.

//\Oo/\\

Why not try something like the no publisher model where you say £25 upfront you get all the digital’s as they come out and a trade/discount on the trade.

Plenty of bands are doing that with Patrick wolf on Bandstocks.com and Idlewild doing their own thing.

If the store is done right, and makes it easy for me to find and buy what I want, I’m all for it. I don’t have the time or space to haul away single issues from the FLCS any more myself.

But I won’t touch anything in a closed DRM format. The day iTunes decided to delete every one of my paid apps on my iPod Touch because it decided I wasn’t the owner anymore (8.0-8.1 upgrade fail) just reminded me of why.

Then look at Amazon’s most recent DRM fail – secret download limits set by publishers.

My real books don’t expire or get taken back by the publisher arbitrarily. I don’t want to do less with my digital copies.

I’ve been using Fictionwise.com since nearly its beginning, starting on a PDA. I can still download all the titles I’ve purchased since (since I avoided any protected titles they had) right to my iPod without any problems at all.

As long as Longbox has open format titles for me to buy and download, that’s fine. But I won’t be renting any files that will be artificially obsolete someday.

No money from the original comics at all? Bloody hell, that’s grim?

Matt: I admit, I’ve been playing with a few ideas for One Shots which would only ever really work in a physical format.

Ste: This series, yeah. We made some the last. I even made some on one issue.

Amazon’s not going to stock comics. I wonder, though, if some publishers might move to a POD model which, from the consumer side, amounts to the same thing.

…the first person who says “papercast,” I will throw to the lions.

I still think the Commando/Beano-digest-novella format is the absolute acme, though. I covet it, and would put out all my comics in that format, if I could. Cheap paper stock an’ all.

/Digress

//\oo/\\

I want this to happen! *adds hope to pile*

Just one thing though. They will spell your name right in the full version, yeah?

Interesting. With the various non-commercial apps out there for reading (mostly pirated illegal scans of) comics I’m surprised nobody’s done this yet.
The voucher for trades of series would REALLY sell it for me, for sure. I like my singles, but they’re kind of hard to store. I look forward to the weekly pile of new comics, but at 3 or 4 bucks each, I don’t read much new unless it’s somebody I know is good. At 99 cents an issue I’d totally pick up random stuff for the heck of it.
Integrating it into production software is a great idea…
Anyway, if it supports platforms I use (Macs AND PCs and (to a lesser extent) Linux), I’d totally support it. I already read webcomics on my laptop in bed… I do prefer paper, but a good digital-to-paper gateway would be great.

I’m appalled that you don’t make anything from Phonogram. :/

I’m about to move from a shared flat in London, in walking distance of Britain’s finest comics shop, to living out of London with the wife, in a house which is going to have *quite* enough storage issues already, thank you.

In short – by the end of the year I’ll be desperate for a way of keeping my comics habit going while only getting physical copies of the stuff I really, really like.

This also strikes me as a great way of keeping indie backlist stuff available. No comics shop has room to keep trades of, say, 80s spy pastiche The Trouble With Girls in constant stock, but once those issues were on Longbox they could stay there, available for rediscovery.

Key issue for me is that Longbox remembers your purchases and allows re-downloads in the case of HD crashes etc. That would be pretty vital.

My thoughts on your comic work (I’m an RPS reader) is, essentially, “oh, that sounds really intersting – but I have no clue where on earth I’d get it from

Being able to try the first few issues via the magic of the internetwebs would be a Good Thing

I’ve picked up the first two Phonogram 2 issues (my first ever comics), but getting any more will require a £5 bus ticket. Which rather increases the barrier to entry a little too far for me.

If Longbox is what it takes for me to finally get my hands on Phonogram 2, then I’m completely behind this.

Especially since I cringe whenever Kieron mentions the money issue.

I’m not really sure what to say about Longbox.

In an ideal world, I’d prefer both hard copy and digital comics – personally I prefer hard copy, but the world is going digital, and I frequently hear from friends who have kids that don’t own hardcopies of anything, be it comics, music, films or games.

I’m enough of a pack-rat that I’ll choose a place to live based on how much stuff I can store there, but I’m probably becoming anachronistic.
I think it’ll be a shame if monthlies go totally digital, but I can see it happening eventually, and as long as there was an eventual hardcopy collection, I could live with it (whether Diamond would survive without monthly comics is another much bigger question – I suspect they couldn’t).

In the meantime, Chew #1 second print is out next week, Diamond still has extras so get your store to order it now! It’s very good.

I really hope they manage to make this work. I’ve had to go cold turkey on single issues for the last 2 years purely due to space.

The tpb voucher scheme sounds particularly good.

I worry about whether there’s a viable business model here though. At 99c an issue it really relies on people buying multiple issues at once otherwise they’ll probably be losing most of each sale to credit card charges (I remember Slave Labor citing this as a major problem with their download service a couple of years ago). Itunes can get around this because of the shear volume of sales it does (and lots of album sales) but the comics market is a fraction of that, especially if Marvel & DC aren’t on board.

A subscription model along the lines of emusic (X comics for £10 a month etc.) could get around the credit-card fee problems, but then you lose a lot of the impulse buy appeal :-/

Here’s hoping they’ve worked out some happy compromise.

(Or I guess there could be an Xbox-live-style “2000 comic credits for £10″ approach. Everybody loves that…)

Speaking as someone who loves comics, but has no friendly local comic book store to buy singles from (hell, I’m not even sure there’s one in the enterity of Finland) I’d welcome an opportunity to sample more comics without having to shell out for the entire trade or suffering the guilt of torrenting with open arms.

“When we get stories about shops who literally refuse to order the comic, we just wince.”

Why would any comics shop do this? Do they not want to sell some comics to people who are looking to buy comics?

Really, we have no idea. We’d love to find out.

I mean, I’ve got some guesses. It could be as complex as they feel the 5 months delay was enough to wipe their hands of us for our unprofessionalism. It could be as simple as they can’t be bothered ordering comics people want.

I think some comic shop owners are just, well, assholes. They’d rather save a few minutes by not taking orders than order a book and have somebody who didn’t previously come to comic book stores start showing up for that one issue, thus wasting still more precious precious time taking their 4 bucks a month. (They might potentially pick up other books later, but who cares? They also might not!). It’s a shortsighted policy, since I don’t think the number of comic shop customers is exactly growing these days… They could cultivate a customer base (and even if that guy they ordered a series for doesn’t come back when it ends, isn’t the goodwill and potential word-of-mouth business worth the trouble?) or they could sit on their nothing-but-X-Men-and/or-Batman-reading steady customers and that guaranteed income and not have to put any work into it. I think they just don’t care.

I’ve been lucky enough to live near good comic shops, but lately I’ve discovered that my local places have been the exception… Alas.

Own up, Kieron. The only reason you’re linking to the story is that Singles Club is featured in the screenshots.

Seriously though, I love this idea, vouchers or no. I like my single issues and browsing at the comics shop, but I don’t have the space or inclination to keep them in good condition. And, yes, it has sometimes been a chore to find Phongram – annoyingly, the dreaded Forbidden Planet is about the only place in London that reliably has stock. It would be awesome if the text of the comics were searchable as well, but that’s probably asking too much.

could you not sell the comics as an itunes song with free digital booklet like they do with some albums. Also the singles club would maybe have worked better as a subscription service. I live in Bristol and even there you can’t always find it. Even .pdfs or .cbrs and a paypal thing through the website (maybe without the extras of the physical copies) would sell and without copy protection they’d probably spread to enough non comic indie fans to more than make up for any sales lost.

MetaMagical: Yeah. It says much that even in the city it’s set it’s difficult to get hold of.

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