Henrik Rydberg, CEO of GlobalComix, spoke at the ICv2 Insider Talks at New York Comic Con, discussing the insights he has gleaned about digital comics in a presentation followed by a conversation with ICv2 columnist Rob Salkowitz.
Rydberg, who became GlobalComix CEO in March (see “GlobalComix Appoints New CEO“) said he sees digital comics as a part of a larger ecosystem that includes comic sales, other media, and merchandise, and he discussed how digital comics play into that ecosystem in different countries:
- In the U.S., most of the money comes from comic sales, with a slim chance that some of the IP will be picked up for movies. “It happens, but it’s hopes and dreams for most,” Rydberg said.
- In Korea, the focus is on growing the fanbase by creating weekly readers, so while a small amount of money comes from readers paying for comics, the larger fanbase translates into more merch and transmedia opportunities.
- In China, comics are basically free. “Paywalls are friction, and who wants to pay?” Rydberg said. “It’s all about maximizing the fandom.” Those fans, in turn, spend money on merchandise and events. “It’s all about the merchandise for the Chinese,” he said. “The content is just a way to build fandom and create a market.”
- In Japan, there’s an established pathway from manga to anime, and because the cost of producing anime is lower than live-action, more and more of it is being made. Anime, in turn, grows the fandom, which increases drives more manga sales as well as merchandise. “So they are able to sell across this value chain and monetize it in many different ways,” he said.
“We shouldn’t be just looking at how do we sell more books but take a more holistic view of what is our role in the ecosystem and how do we maximize it,” Rydberg said. “This business is done together, through partnerships. Online can help with discovery and reputation creation. We can help with community engagement and innovation, foster or create that audience, and then that gives validation to invest in transmedia and create merchandise.”
GlobalComix started out as a subscription-only service and later added the ability for users to purchase individual titles. Subscriptions monetize sampling, he said, but they don’t allow users to spend more when they become more engaged. “We have a publisher who’s doing both subscription and book sales, and what the combination of both does is it creates additional effects,” he said. “About half of their revenue was generated from the low interest samplers, but when we give them an opportunity to buy, a good portion of them buy a book, and once they buy one book, they tend to buy more, and this conversion rate from buying again and becoming people who buy a series is high, because you’ve given them a good hook. They love the IP, and I’m sure these people want the hoodie, or they want that thing in their shelf. They want the visible goods to go with their passion because, it’s not just about digital content consumption, but fandom, and that fandom wants to be expressed in all different kinds of ways, not just content consumption.”
On the other hand, GlobalComix had a publisher that initially only permitted sales of individual books and later opted in to the subscription as well. “Part of their library went into subscription, and that subscription added 17% more revenue to them, which on itself doesn’t seem a lot,” he said. “But it almost tripled their whole-book sales. They were not even giving out the content free; they’re monetizing that behavior, but opening up the funnel to their IPs and their stories enabled them to triple their sales.”
Rydberg also offered some insights into the digital comics audience worldwide. “I’m surprised by the amount of reading that goes on in the daytime,” Rydberg said. Most likely those are mobile phone users who are dipping in and out on breaks from work. However, the most frequent time for reading is in the late night, when reading digital comics outstrips TV, YouTube, and podcasts in popularity.
Romance is the most popular category by far, with horror coming in second in North America and Europe, thrillers in South America and the Middle East, and sports in Africa.
In terms of format, a slight majority of GlobalComix users stick to a single format, while 44% read comics in multiple ways. About half of manga readers are comfortable with webtoons as well, and vice versa. And while readers of manga, graphic novels, and webtoons are willing to sample single-issue comics, fewer than 30% of readers who prefer single comics will move to other formats as well.
Source: ICV2
