From what I've seen mentioned, the background digital publishing costs are nearly the same as publishing physical comics. I don't know if it's been officially stated anywhere though.

Be glad that it's not every other page like with floppies and that it's actually comic-relevant and not toothpaste or something.

>>77475703
>background digital publishing costs
What the fuck could those possibly be? The electricity to run the scanner?

>>77476200
Well there's no scanner for new books. They take the digital files and send them over. Everything is already done digitally.

But the actual contracts of the publishing rights and shit like that. And it's not just Comixology, there's also Google and iBooks and whatever other places they have deals with. That adds up.

Just FYI, you didn't "buy" this comic, but rather you only "rented" it. IIRC, DC Comics is not one of the comics publishers who permit DRM-free downloads on Comixology, so you have no ownership over your "purchase".

>>77476243
Except they don't delete the books from your computer or your mobile device after you buy the comic. Even if they revoke the license you'd still have a copy unless you delete it from your device or by clearing your cache. There are no DRMs preventing you from extracting those copies.

Basically you've explained the process is probably the dumbest way. You don't need an actual "download" link to own it. It takes like 2 seconds to figure out how to copy the files and make a backup.

>>77476200
Do you think it costs comixology nothing to run their website and their business? Think about all they have to do, how often they have to update it with new info and comics, and how many secure transactions they need to process.

The "guided view" way of reading comics? Somebody has to design how that'll work for every issue (I'm not sure if comixology staff do that, or the publisher and their staff).

The comics being submitted to comixology, whether by DC or Marvel or self-published (through Comixology Submit) need to be vetted for content, assigned an age rating, categorized by genre, by authors etc.

You need staff for tech support, for customer service answering emails all day about user issues, etc.

And yeah, I'm just talking so far about comixology. Not Dark Horse Digital, or Image Digital, or Marvel Unlimited, or anything else.

Digital comics distribution isn't the most simple thing in the world. (Although some independent creators have very simple bandcamp-esque set ups that are pretty nice)

>>77477621
Oh, and T bh i have no idea how much any of that costs. I just know it definitely wouldn't be negligible

>>77476200
LCS and Diamond Distribution take a significantly lower cut than Comixology and Apple.

Physical comics may cost more to make, but they're also making more money per issue sold than digital.

>>77477655
Also in the case of physical, their sales are based off of LCS pre-orders, not actual units sold. So in cases like a #1 issue or with incentive variant covers, the publishers will sell way more issues physically then will actually get sold to consumers, but will still make the same amount of money either way. On the other hand, digital profits are per issue sold, so they don't have that extra buffer of LCSs over-ordering issues.

>>77477746
I think that's just Marvel, actually.

>>77477869
DC does incentive variants too, but it's mostly on events.

>>77477914
They don't do inventive variants as often as Marvel, but they definitely still do them. Multiversity had incentive variants out the ass, and the upcoming TDK3 has some of the most insane incentive variants I've ever seen. I'm talking 5000:1 variants.

Selling just one of those variants would make DC more money than an issue of Prez.