Here’s the thing: I have never seen an official disclosure about the terms of sale. Now, before we go any further, I’ve seen a few angry comments aimed at Steinberger about his choice to sell to Amazon. And then in April 2014, Amazon bought them. It was near the top of the charts on iTunes. What’s going on at Amazon overall (which may have exacerbated the Comixology situation)Ī Short History of Amazon Gaffes with ComixologyĪs we all know, when the iPad dropped and became the preferred reading device for digital comics, Comixology took off like a rocket.A short history of Amazon gaffes with Comixology.Here’s how we’re going to break this down: It is, however, incredibly damaging to consumer confidence and not exactly what you might consider “putting the customer first.” The silence encourages speculation, and so, here we are.
Amazon very rarely comments on anything, so their silence on the Comixology situation is not unusual. The first thing we all need to agree on is that we don’t really know what’s going on at Amazon at the moment. I haven’t been in the rooms at Amazon, but I can speak as someone who’s worked in the general space. Roberts at Marvel when I interned there in grad school. I’ve been attached to a couple of digital comics/publishing startups and once upon a time wrote, lettered and packaged a digital comic strip for the Chicago Tribune Media Group. David Steinberger told me the first book was the only citation they could find to back up Comixology’s original business plan when they won that first pitch contest. I’ve been away from the site for a bit, so first a little background on why I got tapped to talk about the state of digital comics as the Amazon fallout is reigning down: As a semi-reformed academic (I’m speaking at USC about entertainment marketing and fandom next month), I used to teach eBusiness at Columbia College Chicago and wrote three books on The Economics of Digital Comics that have been taught at the college level. Because transparency is not a word that’s been uttered about Amazon’s plans for digital comics. It’s time to take a deep breath and look at what we do and don’t know.
With Amazon kicking the Comixology staff to the curb in a staggered layoff, there are a lot of wild rumors flying around.
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