The pricing isn't very competitive, and therein lay some of the digital problem.
The problem isn't that it isn't competitive, but it's a barrier to entry.
A regular comic these days is either $3/$4 depending on the title. If I only get 10 minutes out of a comic, I'm paying $24/hour for my entertainment, that doesn't compare with movies or console games at all. It's no wonder that kids are going elsewhere for entertainment, and that's what is missing from this hobby. There's no future generation replacing those who do lapse for whatever reason. That's why the numbers are dropping.
In addition, the publishers are too worried about their "partners" who own the local comic shop as well to do anything noticable in price structure to make a difference in the digital market.
The comic that you buy at the store is NOT bought direct from DC/Marvel (yes, I assume most of you know this, but I'm going to spell it out in case someone doesn't) but from Diamond Comics (the ONLY mainstream comic distributor - some might say monopoly), they allow the store to get the comic from that at a variable discount (45%-52.5%) based on volume.
So, your comic store is buying the comic for half of what you are paying for it. Standard for many businesses. Nothing wrong, the owner is stuck with whatever mistakes are made in the ordering as well as whatever you put back on the shelf after indicating that you will buy it, etc.
So, the $4 (using the $4 comic because it rounds a bit easier) comic cost the store $2 (plus a share of shipping, staffing etc, but I'm going to discard that for now - this isn't an attack on the comic store)
Diamond also probably doubled up on their numbers as well, so I'm going to assume that they bought the comic for $1-1.25 or so from DC/Marvel/etc. Diamond doesn't have that much risk as most comics these days are printed to order, if there are 3000 comics ordered, Diamond probably gets 3030 (to cover damages, etc).
So if Diamond is paying $1-$1.25 for your comic from Marvel/DC/etc, why am I paying $4 to comicology to read a comic from them when I can get the physical and possibly re-sellable comic for the same price.
If Marvel/DC wanted to make digital a serious option for more comic fans, they'd set something up at no more than $1.50 and some sort of subscription for 12 issues for $12 or some such. The publisher likely stands to make the same amount of profit on a digital sale at $1.50 than they do on a physical comic sale at $4.00.
[please don't get me wrong, I've worked in 2 comic stores in my life, I love the industry, and my current comic shop owner is a good friend of mine that I play hockey with and I want his business to grow, but I'm looking bigger picture here]
With the dwindling numbers of a best selling comic, I have to figure that the 80K that buy a "best selling comic" will continue to buy a physical copy, they've already continued in the hobby when it's shrinking, these are the folks that want the physical copy in their hands. You have to find a way to get more people back into comics, and you can't do it buy raising the prices to make money every time the sales numbers slip hoping that another $0.50 on the cover will make up for the last 10K buyers you've lost.
Make digital $0.99, heck make it $0.99 a year after it comes out if you don't want to rob customers from your brick and mortar stores (which I don't think the case is), but you have to make it cheaper or in 10 years, there won't be an industry.
Kevin
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