Posted in: Comics, Comixology | Tagged: amazon, comixology

"I Thought We'd Have More Time"- Fallout Of Amazon & Comixology Part 3

Former Program Manager at Amazon and Comixology, Scott McGovern, tells us all what went down last year as frankly as he can.

Former Program Manager at Amazon and Comixology, Scott McGovern, has previously been very frank about the circumstances behind the mass firings at Amazon and Comixology in January earlier this year. Now he is prepared to be just as candid, or more so, about the omnishambles that went down over the merging of digital comics publisher and distributor Comixology with its owner Amazon's regular service. Yesterday, he took us through the first part of the lead up to the switchover. He followed through, tweeting out part two. And last night, gave us a part three – a final chapter. He wrote;

"Wrapping up this behind-the-scenes look at Comixology, Amazon, and migration. As always, thoughts/opinions are my own, and do not represent Amazon, Kindle, or Comixology in any way, shape or form."

"In the lead-up to migration, I had started to see a trend: Attrition. Glassdoor had us at 75-150 employees, and I never checked to see how accurate that was. The range was right, IMO, but over the last couple years, people were leaving. Not just David/Chip, but others on different teams at CMX. People were just moving on, as they do. And it didn't look like a lot of those positions were being re-filled. Everyone else had to pick-up the slack. This meant work would slow down, especially post-migration. It took me a little while after migration, to articulate to myself exactly what was missing from the new experience: A) Shopping cart B) Series Subscriptions for non-US customers. C) Store/merchandising for non-US/UK customers D) Guided View on the web reader. In addition, the sales page needed a lot of work. The old sales tab on CMX had worked smoothly for a number of years. Occasional errors, yes, but nothing that couldn't be handled. The new page was a lot more work, and pricing issues were now common and noticeable to the customer. Not something I was pleased about, to be honest. We announced some updates in Sept '22 to the sales page, but it took a lot of work to get there, and there were still things I wanted to do."

"The lack of series subscriptions for non-US customers drove me nuts – NUTS. My time at a comic store, 10+ years ago, had taught me that this is a core function for comic customers. While there, I had used the CMX pull list. It wasn't perfect, but it -worked-. Customers loved the ability to control their sub's on the pull list. It was the pull list I was first hired to work on when I got to Comixology, so I was always a little attached to it. I knew that it would lead to new customers, and new sales for DM stores. Knowing that we had just taken away that ability for a large group of digital customers? Ugh. "How can we still be a comic book store, if you can't subscribe to series?" – Me. Coupled with the lack of site for those same customers, and everything else that was going on…"

"It was frustrating for me, personally and professionally, to see what had become of the site, and, frankly, all our hard work. I wasn't the only person who felt this way, so everyone was pushing to try and get updates out. The afore-mentioned attrition didn't help matters. It felt like updates were taking longer to get out, compared to back when we had the old site. We were learning how to work with other teams at Amazon, and we were dependent on their time and resources. Some could help, some didn't. Challenging, but understandable because there's only so many hours in the day for all of us, and like Comixology, everyone at Amazon was constantly (mentally, physically, emotionally) shifting back and forth due to the pandemic."

"Then we lost purchasing on our Google apps. I had heard about potential Google/Amazon IAP-loss, in fall 2021(ish?) publicly like everyone else. But I figured that Amazon and Google would find a way to make it all work. Yeah, no. I had no, zero, zip insight into any of that. However those decisions were made, it was way up the chain of command, as far as I can tell. And since we had built the new app to include in-app purchasing, that meant that time building the new mobile apps was partially wasted. Customers raged years ago when we took away IAP on the iPad and iPhone, now we were doing it again, and AFTER migration? I don't think any of us were thrilled about how that worked out."

Sending out updates on social media seemed to help a a little. This isn't very standard at large tech companies, IMO, but we pushed to keep doing this. Part of that reason is because of Have Heart. Post-buyout (2014), as we integrated with Amazon, we learned about the famous leadership principles. The most important is Customer Obsession. Comixology decided to create its own: Have Heart. It was about having empathy towards our customers, co-workers, the industry and ourselves. I know that for me, getting updates out the door, and communicating to our customers about those updates was an example of Having Heart, but there was also a sense internally, that the damage was done. I was not one of them. I thought we'd have more time. Even now, I'm looking back and saying to myself, "How did I miss the signs? It was all right in front of me and somehow, I, who have never been accused of being positive, was the optimist." Time, time, time, see what has become of me. I think I was one of the few optimists in that regard. See, the tech industry, as a whole, had slowed down hiring in early '22 and it looked to me like Amazon would do the same. I figured there'd be layoffs in Q1 '23. I misread the tea leaves."

"I figured – in my opinion – it would take another 1-2 years to get the store experience back to where it was, pre-migration. Between attrition and the migration, I assume that the higher-ups at Amazon would give us a pass. I was wrong."

"A lot of effort went into the updates we put out last year, and I was aiming to do a bunch more this year. I was ideating some projects and a number of moonshots as well. But sometimes, it just felt like getting those updates out the door took forever. I mean, credit my lack-of-perspective. I don't come from a Tech background, and it took me years to figure out how to succeed/work at Amazon. But there was so much more I wanted to get done."

"And that WE at Comixology wanted to get done. I liked selling comics. I've done a lot of it. I know how to sell print, I know how to sell digital, and there's only a handful of us with that level of experience. I wanted to put that experience to good use. We all did. Maybe the odds were stacked against us from the beginning? I don't know. But we really tried to make improvements & updates last year. I wish we could've done more, and I hope we'll see some in the future. I really thought we'd have more time."

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