CORRECTION: It was brought to Bam Smack Pow’s attention that Red Giant Entertainment’s Giant-Sized line of four series mentioned in this post will always be free, supported by ads, with one issue hitting every Wednesday starting in December. The original post follows.
It’s not likely to get much widespread publicity in an industry dominated by its biggest players, but Red Giant Entertainment might have hit on something that could become a trend in the months or years to come.
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As Bleeding Cool discovered, Red Giant is shipping 900,000 copies of four new titles launching in December. If that sounds like a lot of copies, you’re not wrong. In the current comics market, the top-selling single issue doesn’t always move 100,000 copies in any given month.
So what makes this relatively unknown publisher think it can move this many comics? Is it just a case of unfounded optimism? Hardly. Red Giant is selling these comics in a little different way: it’s giving them away for free, as the content has already been funded by advertisers.
No one is suggesting that the Red Giant comics will actually end up in the hands of 900,000 people even though they’re literally being given away, but you can’t deny that it’s a bold move with very little downside. It takes something special to attract attention when Marvel, DC and a few other companies combine to control so much of the market, and this almost guarantees more readers give the books a try than if they had been launched in a more traditional manner.
The problem might be convincing people to pay for issue #2 once they’ve become accustomed to getting the first one without paying. As mobile game developers can tell you, it’s very difficult to put the free-to-play genie (or maybe free-to-read, in this case) back in the bottle once it’s out.
Still, if this works for Red Giant, expect to see other companies at least consider giving this tactic a shot. And if that happens, you can pretty much guarantee that along with things like partnerships with Loot Crate, the list of “top-selling” comics each month is going to take on a whole new meaning.
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