Friday, November 13, 2009

Bang For Your Buck

And now, a rant.

DYNAMO 5 #25 came out a couple weeks ago. It's our 25th issue, and the finale to a storyline that's been playing out for 6 months or more. It also sets up the next story arc, and changes the characters in a pretty substantial way. As a way to do something extra for the fans, and to go into more detail addressing said changes, we beefed up the issue to include five 5-page stories, each spotlighting a different member of the cast. This more than doubles the size of the book, with all-new, original content. It's not filler. It's not reprints. All the stories were written by me, and are in continuity. Because of the extra page count, we raised the price for this issue to $4.99, which is $1.49 more than our standard $3.50 cover price. That's more than 100% more content for only 42% more dollars.

And yet, there seems to be a disconnect whenever the book was discussed online, on message boards, on blogs, or on podcasts. I'd read/hear people talk about the higher cover price, and then they're shrug it off, like, "Well, it's the 25th issue," or something. The folks making these statements were always very complimentary about the book. Don't get me wrong -- they're fans. And they were talking it up, trying to get other people interested in the book. And I just think that would be much easier if they had said, "This issue is twice as big as a normal issue, and it only costs you $1.49 more."

I love our fans, and I love that people are talking up the book online. And we'll be counting on them to help spread the word when we return from hiatus. I just wish there wasn't that odd disconnect. But it's no big deal. Like I said ... a rant.

5 comments:

Sphinx Magoo said...

Speaking of pricing... Any chance you might consider having Dynamo 5 available on iPhone/iPod?

$4 might seem a bit much to me, but $1 or $2 might be a price point I'd be more comfortable paying. I just finished reading Viper Comics' "Middleman" series and I'm starting "The Astonishing Wolf-Man"; each issue of those series comes out to about $1 or $2 using comixology's app. I'd really like to be able to pick up "Dynamo 5" and some of your other work in the same way.

Any chance this might happen?

Jay Faerber said...

Dynamo 5's already available on the iPhone with iVerse Media, and we've signed up with Comixology, as well. I'm not sure how quickly they'll be able to get the book up there, but the first few issues are up from iVerse right now.

Caine said...

I didn't even notice the price. I went into my LCS picked Dynamo 5 and Anna Mercury off the shelf paid what the cashier said and got busy reading. Didn't bother me one bit.

You've probably been asked this, and may even have a post you can direct me too, but did you do the change just to shake things up? Keep it fresh?

Forum Member: BlaqueSaber

michaeljsmith said...

i thought is was a deal - the back-up stories were incredible and reminded me of the Noble Causes Extended Family series to some degree.

You nailed issue #25

Jay Faerber said...

@Caine - Yeah, the change was just to keep things interesting. It's something Marvel and DC really can't do, since they really have to maintain the status quo, so I wanted embrace the freedom we have at Image.