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[John C]

First off, I apologize in advance if this looks like spam.  I am indeed going to pat myself on the back one or twice, but I'm mostly looking to pick the collective brains of a knowledgeable group.  Hopefully, I've built up enough goodwill here that I can get away with it.

Condensed version:  I'm looking for names of small-press publishers that don't already sell digital comics (or other periodicals).  Ideally, they've already thought about it.  Super-ideally, someone knows the specific person to talk to.  If you're busy, you can stop reading here.

Otherwise, I just finished a major project, and I'm looking for a change of pace.  Being a programmer, and having given a lot of thought about digital comic distribution over the last few years (thanks in large part to people here), I figured it was high time I tried putting this stuff into practice to see if I can help companies get where they need to be.  So, I've started work on a system that'll serve up pages to subscribers, allow downloads, handle backstock intelligently, protect against piracy, keep out of the customer's hair, and all those wonderful features.

Of course, there's a problem with that.  I don't know anybody in the comic book industry, especially not in production.  So, I'm asking for information.  If anybody knows of a small company that hasn't yet gone digital, I'd greatly appreciate a pointer to them.  I'm pretty much looking for someone to help me correct any bad assumptions in the economic model and let me use them as a test case.

(When it's closer to fully operational, I'll also post a link here, in case anybody would like to see what I'm trying to do.)

Oh, and the project I just launched (here's the spammy part!) is a freeform project management system:

http://www.emanagr.com

If anybody has need of something that stays the heck out of your way when you work, or you know someone who does, check it out.  Not to be obnoxious, but I happen to think it's a nice new take on a market saturated with garbage.  Drop me an e-mail if you have questions or want to curse me out for releasing such horrifying artwork...

And yes, sorry again about the advertisement.  But I actually partly designed it with the teams of scanners and editors here (and you should be able to use it for that purpose without running into the limits of a free account), so I thought it worth bringing up.

[Yoc]

Hi JC,
Yeah, you've proven you're not any typical spammer so no worries.
I can't help with you question but I wish you well in your efforts!

Please let us know how things go,
-Yoc

[narfstar]

Richard is a nice guy and might be interested. I have been comminicating with him since the first issue of Superpimps (not porno soon in TPB and I recommend it)
http://www.dialcforcomics.com/home/

[John C]

I'll definitely touch base with Dial C (and anybody else that looks like a good lead) on Monday.  If I get a productive day today or tomorrow, I might even have a sample--the system already allows for online reading and downloads.  The rest is business process.

[John C]

For those who wanted to see what I've been working on, I'll warn you first that it's EXTREMELY slow, and second that it's a little delicate.  I'm working on a faster, stronger, better version (it's all a matter of configuration--I hate web work, sometimes), but I wanted to show off the functionality.

Take a look yonder:

http://comics.emanagr.com

I populated the system with some of the smaller-size Avon and Ace books, and right off the bat, you can click through to read page-by-page through low-resolution, low-color, watermarked "try before you buy" preview of all the books.

When you get tired of that, you can create an account--I'm not asking for any personal information, except an e-mail address for confirmation.  When you activate your account (which I imagine would cost a nominal subscription fee for a real publisher), you get to see larger and clearer page images.  You can also comment on the books (I may add a social networking aspect, if that's something publishers want to support), and, most importantly, download the issues.

Caution:  Downloading does work fine, but it's the part that needs the most reconfiguration.  Again, it's very slow, and somewhat fragile.  If you click the link, please DO NOT navigate away before you get the next page (up to five minutes).  Go get a sandwich or play with the dog.  You can also open up other tabs or browser windows, but seriously, stay on that page once you click.

You'll be led to the download page, where you'll be asked to "pay" for the book.  In reality, this would hook into somebody's shopping cart.  Here, click the link and it'll fake out the database.  You can then download a CBZ archive, as many times as you want, just like you would here.

The two keys that (I hope) bridge the gap between publishers and customers are the pricing and the anti-piracy measures.

- Prices (as you might notice if you poke around enough) automatically diminish over time to a minimum threshold.  By definition, an authoritative source is in competition with illegitimate distribution, and the longer information stays expensive, the more likely it'll be stolen.  But I figure that most people would be willing to spend (say) fifty cents on last year's comic.

- Each archive is built custom for the downloader.  The watermarking is invisible to the user and presents no inconvenience, but the system can figure out who "leaked" a book.  So if someone packages the week's issues into a torrent, you can scream at them, rather than whining about that gul-durn innernet.

If anybody has questions or comments (like if you didn't believe me when I told you not to navigate away from that page, and need me to reset things for you), drop me an e-mail (the envelope icon to the left).  And again, if anybody knows a smaller publisher who might want to work with something along these lines, send them my way (or me theirs).

Thanks for indulging me.

[narfstar]

It worked and it was not that slow

[rez]

Worked ok here also.
Very little wait iffin you would dare consider a few seconds a 'wait'.

[bchat]

Prices:  Although I personally think that $1.99 is a little high for a digital comic to start-off with, I like the idea of the automatically diminishing prices.  If a book is any good, people aren't going to want to wait for the price to drop to 50 cents, and new readers will want to get caught-up to speed rather quickly and cheaply, so, in other words ... Smart Idea.

The watermarking is invisible to the user and presents no inconvenience, but the system can figure out who "leaked" a book.  So if someone packages the week's issues into a torrent, you can scream at them, rather than whining about that gul-durn innernet.

Are you saying that "the system" watermarks each download individually?

[Yoc]

Interesting start JC, good luck with it!

[John C]

Prices:  Although I personally think that $1.99 is a little high for a digital comic to start-off with, I like the idea of the automatically diminishing prices.  If a book is any good, people aren't going to want to wait for the price to drop to 50 cents, and new readers will want to get caught-up to speed rather quickly and cheaply, so, in other words ... Smart Idea.

Thanks.  And you're probably right about the prices themselves, but that's just an example.  That sort of thing is best left to the actual publishers and isn't any of my business.  However, I didn't quite pick it out of a hat; I've noticed that (I might take another survey, now that there's Kindle penetration) digital books tend to run about a third cheaper than hardcopies.  So, for a horrifically overpriced three dollar book, its electronic counterpart would be two bucks.

(The declining prices are also meant to help, here; I'm adding tracking information for the sales so that the publisher can see what prices are useful.)

That said, I also made sure to open the configuration to titles and individual issues.

The watermarking is invisible to the user and presents no inconvenience, but the system can figure out who "leaked" a book.  So if someone packages the week's issues into a torrent, you can scream at them, rather than whining about that gul-durn innernet.

Are you saying that "the system" watermarks each download individually?

Yes.  There's a tiny bit of information hidden among the pixels (technically, it's more steganography than watermarking) that differs for each user, which I can also extract to see who owns that copy.  I see a couple of uses for it (like tracking marketing campaigns), but the main purpose is really to make the publisher comfortable with digital distribution by telling them that they can find and cut off anybody who's distributing their stuff.

And yes, there are several ways to bypass that protection, but they require multiple open accounts (costing money) or reducing the quality of the overall image.  Either way, the publisher has the better product, either because it's available first or because the image quality is higher.