ICv2 caught up with Dark Horse CEO Mike Richardson and Director of Online Marketing Matt Parkinson who explained Dark Horse’s two-pronged digital initiative. Dark Horse is selling its comics as downloadable apps through the iTunes Store and on the Web through the Dark Horse Digital store as permanently accessible content that customers can visit whenever they have access to an Internet browser.
First off, tell us about the reading experience that your digital program provides.
Richardson: “I think it’s a great reading experience. First of all let me tell you our books look great on all the readers. Customers will have two choices of how they want to read the material. They can opt for the page-turning experience or they can have a guided, panel-to-panel experience.”
Parkinson: “Panel zoom.”
So on the iPad the reader might want to view the pages, while on the smaller devices the panel zoom might be preferred?
Richardson: “Yes.”
Is the content bought on one platform viewable on the others? Is it portable?
Richardson: “We have two different ways to buy the material. One is through the Apple store where we have an app that works for all apple devices, the iPad, the iPhone, the iPod Touch, all those devices. So that’s the Apple experience. Then you have the Dark Horse Digital Store, which is accessible on the Web. You create your account and then it’s accessible to most modern smartphones.”
Parkinson: “All smartphones with modern Web browsers.”
Richardson: “Any browser can access the Dark Horse Digital Store.”
Parkinson: “It’s cloud-based, so once you create an account with Dark Horse Digital you will be able to read your comics on whatever you’ve got—iPad, laptop, desktop—your collection stays with you wherever you go.”
Is that all on a browser?
Parkinson: Yes that’s correct.
What about the stuff from iTunes Store?
Parkinson: “Those are downloads.”
Apple’s rule that they announced late January or early February was that any content you offered through the app had to also be available through the iTunes Store. Does that mean that the Dark Horse content is parallel between what is available on the iTunes Store and at the Dark Horse Digital Store? Is it all the same?
Richardson: “Yes.”
But if you would want to read it in both places, would you have to buy it twice?
Parkinson: “No, that’s not true. Once you create an account, your account goes with you.”
So you could read it on the browser of your iPhone or iPad?
Parkinson: “Yes.”
One of the things that you announced in February that was different from other company’s digital initiatives was that the price of $1.49 was the result of your ability to bypass the commissions that Apple charges to sell things through its store. Now that you have to sell some percentage of your offerings through the Apple store, will the pricing remain the same?
Richardson: “That will be a discussion, but basically with the Apple product, they give us the prices. We don’t have the freedom to choose our own prices. So all the product that is purchased through the Apple store will be consistent with the pricing of the other comics that are sold there.
So the prices will be different between your Web and iTunes offerings?
Richardson: “Not initially, but we are putting plans together that I would rather not talk about now for pricing.”
So what you said was that initially the iTunes pricing will be consistent with the way other companies sell, so comics will be $1.99?
Richardson: “Yes, though we are providing a lot of free books.”
The pricing at the Dark Horse Digital Web Store will be the same as iTunes?
Richardson: “Initially that is correct.”
Parkinson: “But we will be releasing a number of ninety-nine cent issues as well as entry points to get into various series.”
There were three groups of content that weren’t referenced in your initial digital release that people were wondering about, namely your Frank Miller content, your Buffy content, and your Star Wars content. What plans do you have to bring that stuff to digital?
Richardson: “Well it’s a new world for licensors as well as publishers, and we are working out those deals. It’s important that we explain to licensors that digital publishing is not a new income stream. It is literally the same income stream that’s moving from one delivery system that’s paper to another one, which is electrons. That’s a point we are trying to make with a number of people that we work with. As you know, comic sales are shrinking as digital sales are growing.
It is great to see Lone Wolf & Cub available digitally. Does Dark Horse have plans to make any other manga digitally available?
Richardson: “Absolutely. We will have some announcements shortly.”
Other publishers are creating property-based apps. Does Dark Horse have plans to do any property-based merchandising of your digital content?
Richardson: “Yes, that is part of our long term strategy, though there’s none of that in the launch. We have ambitious plans and we have a certain number of people on staff to achieve those plans, so we will just have see when all the assorted different approaches come into play. I would love it to be this year.”
You also talked about retail promotions—content that could only be obtained by visiting a retail store—when do you plan on launching the first of those?
Richardson: “Well we are definitely hot on that and we will have it soon. There will be announcements soon because we are working on it even as we speak.”
So not at launch, but sometime in the next few months?
Richardson: “Yes, this is an important part of our approach. We want to be friendly to the retailers. We see them facing some of the same issues that publishers are, and we want them to realize that we know they are the people who have helped to make Dark Horse successful, and we want to create some very retailer-friendly programs that retailers will embrace.”
Now that you are getting your feet wet selling your content through a third party store with iTunes, are you considering selling your content through comiXology or Graphicly or for devices like the Kindle or the Nook?
Richardson: “Well, for instance the Nook, we are talking to them and seeing if we can work out a deal. They weren’t number one on the list, but we have been talking with them. My goal would be to eventually have our material available in as many outlets as possible. So yes, we are looking at those now. We are busy working on an Android app.”
But at first it’s just iOs and the Web, with Android coming later?
Richardson: “That’s correct, that’s the order we have it down for.”
Is there anything else you would like to say about your digital launch?
Parkinson: “I think that it’s important to note that this is all proprietary technology. It was all done in-house. To go back to your first question, we really want to present the best reading experience possible, and that was definitely why we chose to develop this technology in-house. In addition to that we are really excited about the fact that at launch we will be launching with about 300 titles, that’s including free issues, ninety-nine cent issues and $1.99 comics.
How is your reading experience better than that of your competitors?
Richardson: “As you know, some of the outlets for digital content have an editorial position on certain books. So one of my priorities was to have the opportunity to have control over what is or what is not involved with our content. Setting up our own digital store gives us that opportunity.”
Are you talking about editing?
Richardson: “I’m saying that some people that we will be working with have editorial guidelines that we have to follow in order to sell our material with those people.”
Like Apple?
Richardson: “Well I’m not saying who, I’m just saying some of the people--and with the Dark Horse Digital store, we are able to make our own decisions.”
So there will be stuff on the Web that you won’t be selling through the iTunes store?
Richardson: “I am just saying that we have control of our own content at our Web store.”
