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doronjosamaPreparing for A-Kon, which means I am answering some email, and in my email box, I discover Diamond Distribution has finally decided to standardize what they want for bar codes. To whit, ONLY UPC bar codes will be allowed on floppy comic books (periodicals). ISBN or EAN bar codes will not be accepted on any floppy comics. (Previously, when they started the "you must have a bar code" rule in 2007, they accepted other types of bar codes; as long as it scanned, they did not care.)
Well, fortunately, this doesn't really affect us at Radio any more. We've always just used the ISBNs we'd already purchased- and yes, we were using them on our floppy comics. But, we no longer make floppy comics- everything is perfect bound and graphic novel/doujinshi style now. To be more precise, we don't make floppy comics that are meant for Diamond or the Direct Market. (We still publish Genus: Male as a floppy, but did not even bother to solicit via Diamond. We knew it would not generate enough orders through comic shops to make it over their new minimum order cutoff. It's been selling just fine through Haven, specialty furry outlets and through direct sales on our website. But I digress...) So, even though we are using ISBNs on our books, we should be fine. They're book format, after all, which is what Diamond wants from us.
What worries me about this is that UPC bar codes cost considerably more than ISBN or EAN bar codes. We're talking a *LOT* more. This bodes very poorly for anyone new starting out in comics, if they want to make your standard 24-to-32-page comic book. Your average small press publisher is usually doing comics as a labor of love- they are pouring their sweat, tears, hard work and likely all of their disposable income into just getting the comic *printed*- having to invest anywhere up to $2500 on top of printing costs into getting a UPC bar code for a comic that Diamond might not even carry.... well, that's going to be a huge barrier for most people. (If they even know they need such a thing... and that $2500 fee is a possible annual membership fee for UPC membership- it ranges from $158 to $2500 annually, depending. The codes are another charge, and when I last looked them up, the smallest "pack" was a hundred or so.)
There have always been barriers to traditional publishing; they just got higher.
So, I guess work on those webcomics and publish nothing but graphic novel collections, kids! It's the only way to go anymore! Well, if you want to use an ISBN on your book and have it get into comic stores!
PS I thought about copying and pasting the information from the email into this post, but wasn't sure if that would be kosher. As much as this worries and upsets me in regards to the future of independent comics in the Direct Market, I am not a Diamond hater. They're our business partners and we value what they do for us. I understand that they are only doing what they feel they must in order to survive- the economy is bad all over for everyone. Business is business.
OH! And Edit to Add: Diamond owns Alliance Distribution, the big gaming distributor that we use at the store I work at for the Day Job. I have noticed that while Diamond insists on bar codes on *everything* (seriously, everything has one), we get things through Alliance constantly that don't have bar codes on them. Or ISBNs. Or EANs. Or any kind of thing that can be scanned at all. It's frustrating on the retail end, but always makes me go "WTF?!" as a publisher. Why don't gaming items need to conform to the same standards comics have to conform to?
Well, fortunately, this doesn't really affect us at Radio any more. We've always just used the ISBNs we'd already purchased- and yes, we were using them on our floppy comics. But, we no longer make floppy comics- everything is perfect bound and graphic novel/doujinshi style now. To be more precise, we don't make floppy comics that are meant for Diamond or the Direct Market. (We still publish Genus: Male as a floppy, but did not even bother to solicit via Diamond. We knew it would not generate enough orders through comic shops to make it over their new minimum order cutoff. It's been selling just fine through Haven, specialty furry outlets and through direct sales on our website. But I digress...) So, even though we are using ISBNs on our books, we should be fine. They're book format, after all, which is what Diamond wants from us.
What worries me about this is that UPC bar codes cost considerably more than ISBN or EAN bar codes. We're talking a *LOT* more. This bodes very poorly for anyone new starting out in comics, if they want to make your standard 24-to-32-page comic book. Your average small press publisher is usually doing comics as a labor of love- they are pouring their sweat, tears, hard work and likely all of their disposable income into just getting the comic *printed*- having to invest anywhere up to $2500 on top of printing costs into getting a UPC bar code for a comic that Diamond might not even carry.... well, that's going to be a huge barrier for most people. (If they even know they need such a thing... and that $2500 fee is a possible annual membership fee for UPC membership- it ranges from $158 to $2500 annually, depending. The codes are another charge, and when I last looked them up, the smallest "pack" was a hundred or so.)
There have always been barriers to traditional publishing; they just got higher.
So, I guess work on those webcomics and publish nothing but graphic novel collections, kids! It's the only way to go anymore! Well, if you want to use an ISBN on your book and have it get into comic stores!
PS I thought about copying and pasting the information from the email into this post, but wasn't sure if that would be kosher. As much as this worries and upsets me in regards to the future of independent comics in the Direct Market, I am not a Diamond hater. They're our business partners and we value what they do for us. I understand that they are only doing what they feel they must in order to survive- the economy is bad all over for everyone. Business is business.
OH! And Edit to Add: Diamond owns Alliance Distribution, the big gaming distributor that we use at the store I work at for the Day Job. I have noticed that while Diamond insists on bar codes on *everything* (seriously, everything has one), we get things through Alliance constantly that don't have bar codes on them. Or ISBNs. Or EANs. Or any kind of thing that can be scanned at all. It's frustrating on the retail end, but always makes me go "WTF?!" as a publisher. Why don't gaming items need to conform to the same standards comics have to conform to?
