Aspiring graphic novel and comic book writers often don’t have many avenues to self-publish their works and have them available in major digital stores to sell. comiXology announced today that its new comic self-publishing program has exited the beta phase and has officially opened to the public.
comiXology originally announced its move into the self-publishing market back in October 2012, at the New York Comic Con, when it unveiled its comiXology Submit program. Since November, the platform was in closed beta, where it allowed authors to publish their works and sell them side by side with major studios like Marvel and DC. The program will allow creators to submit their work directly to comiXology for publication on its digital platform, which stretches across the web, iOS devices, Android, Kindle Fire, and even a Windows 8 app.
Digital Comics staff writer Brigid Alverson of Good e-Reader asked, “So why does comiXology Submit make sense? For creators, it’s an opportunity to get their work onto what is currently the biggest platform for serious comics fans. Furthermore, comiXology takes its cut on the back end, as a percentage of sales, so creators don’t have to pay up front. Graphicly, a former digital comics distributor that now offers a similar self-publishing service, will publish for free on the web (and take 30% of sales as its share) but charges $150 to make the comic into an ebook and $500 to create an app. ComiXology takes 50% of sales, but there is no upfront cost. (All these percentages are what’s left over after certain outside fees, such as Apple’s 30% cut of all sales that go through iTunes). So essentially, comiXology assumes some of the risk; it could publish these comics and not make a dime. And while it doesn’t make a separate ebook or app for each comic, it does put them in the comiXology storefront, which is the biggest digital comics store in existence right now.
More details of the program will be revealed next week at the South by Southwest show in Austin. Creators interested in submitting works for approval can visit http://submit.comixology.com. Comic book fans interested in finding works by independent creators now available on comiXology are invited to visit http://www.comixology.com/submit.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.