Posted in: Comics | Tagged: bobs burgers, Comics, DRM-Free, dynamite, entertainment

What Is The Demand For DRM-Free Comics? One Example Bob's Burgers

Published Thu, 28 Aug 2014 07:00:27 -0500

Last updated Thu, 28 Aug 2014 09:05:03 -0500

Seems like two of my recent stories are merging into one here. Yesterday we told you that Bob's Burgers sold out at the distributor. And Last week Dynamite announced their DRM-Free digital site with a 10 books at $.10 each sale… and I even went through and downloaded a book and reviewed the whole process.

But I was curious just how important it was for readers to be able to get DRM-Free comics. How many people who read digital comics would bypass Comixology to go to Dynamite's own site and down load the book. I was able to get a somewhat surprising answer.

While chatting with Nick Barrucci (CEO of Dynamite) last night, he was still beaming about the sellout and said that the issue was even out selling the other books on the digital site. Well, I grabbed onto that thread and pulled. Bob's Burgers #1 was uploaded to their site at noon eastern time and at 8:30 EST had sold 283 copies.

Now compared to the 23,000 physical copies sold in shops, that doesn't sound like a lot. But when you look at the next selling book on their site… Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time #1… it's only sold 200 copies, it's been on the site for a week since the initial launch and it's priced at only $.10 cents. Bob's Burgers #1 is priced at $3.99. This shows there is both a demand for DRM-Free comics and for Bob's Burgers.

At this point I don't think anyone has a good idea of exactly how many digital readers there are out there or how many want those books to be DRM-Free. But when you can get almost 3oo sales in 8 hours on a book priced at $3.99, over and above the sales at comic shops and Comixology, you have to believe that it's a market worth serving.

And once more with the link to Dynamite Digital.

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