DC Comics Same Day Digital Go On Sale at 12:01AM On Wednesdays

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DC Comics released a statement to retailers that reveals their “Same Day Digital” comics will go on sale as early as 12:01am ET on some digital devices, with a 3am ET Comixology release on Wednesdays.

Note, all of DC Comics’ comic books are not “Same Day Digital.”

To better deliver on “Same Day Digital,” we are announcing a revised sales practice going forward – comiXology digital sales will begin at 3:00am Eastern on Wednesdays at the earliest, through our DCE/CX apps and websites, effective next week.

Keep in mind, total parity is proving impossible across all channels. Other eBook partners (Amazon, Apple, B&N) will still begin ingesting our weekly content early Wednesday morning. But these ingestions occur randomly and with less precision thancomiXology’s – some weeks certain titles could release with any one of these platforms in certain parts of the country as early as 12:01am Eastern, but on other weeks (as we have learned already) we will be further back in their lengthy queues and our titles will release several hours later into Wednesday.

The announcement appears to have caused some tension with retailers, which warranted the following response from DC Comics (found below).

It’s been long thought that eventually all comic books will be sold digitally the same day they are made available in stores.

Retailers seem to being dreading this; however, most comic book readers already purchasing the physical copies seem loyal to do so — as long as the price for the digital copy remains the same.

At the same time, readers who do purchase digitally, complain the price should be lower as it cuts out the distributor and middleman.

Presently, DC Comics does offer their digital comics at a discount after a certain amount of time has lapsed.

This also brings up the matter of allowing retailers to sell comic books on Tuesdays, the same day DVDs go on sale, as a majority of retailers do receive their shipments from Diamond on Tuesdays. However, that is a special deal between retailers and Diamond, as Diamond lets retailers go through their shipments a day early to make the Wednesday sale less of a headache, in exchange for not selling them early.

Via Bleeding Cool:

DC Entertainment remains committed to the evolution of the comics business, and we will continue to adapt our practices to keep up with new growth opportunities, new consumer behaviors, and new partner protocol.

We understand that some of you were disappointed by our recent digital periodical sales announcement. We want to reaffirm our commitment to partnership with the direct channel, and reiterate that we will give you as much notice as possible while balancing the net impact of announcements and confidentiality agreements.

To better deliver on “Same Day Digital,” we are announcing a revised sales practice going forward – comiXology digital sales will begin at 3:00am Eastern on Wednesdays at the earliest, through our DCE/CX apps and websites, effective next week.

Keep in mind, total parity is proving impossible across all channels. Other eBook partners (Amazon, Apple, B&N) will still begin ingesting our weekly content early Wednesday morning. But these ingestions occur randomly and with less precision than comiXology’s – some weeks certain titles could release with any one of these platforms in certain parts of the country as early as 12:01am Eastern, but on other weeks (as we have learned already) we will be further back in their lengthy queues and our titles will release several hours later into Wednesday.

Digital releasing varies widely – by title, timing, tablet, and town – minimizing any specific effect on your sales opportunities. Moving forward, we will closely track these release patterns, as part of our ongoing consideration of our sales practices. It may be of interest to note that, so far, the majority of sales on the comiXology platform between 12:01am and 9am Eastern have occurred outside of North America. As ever, we encourage you to contact comiXology about your store becoming an Affiliate partner.

Through great content creation at DCE and great partnership with you, we’ve done what is viewed as impossible – grown print and digital at the same time, creating new comic fans along the way.

Thank you for your continued support,

DC Entertainment