Ka-Blam Digital Printing is launching a print-on-demand distribution service to direct market comics shops.~Barry Gregory
A bit of disclosure, Ka-Blam.com Printing is part of 01Comics which was the first publisher to publish our first offering, Zero Hunters, several years ago. So, Barry & Jenni Gregory and the rest of the Ka-Blam crew are good people in my book. When they started Ka-Blam, POD (print-on-demand), was still somewhat in it's infant stages in the scheme of things in the sense that there weren't many around at the time and the main one I knew about was Lulu.com which I used back then to see how one of my comics would look in print form. Anyway, the cost back then (haven't checked it out for quite a while) was astronomical for single issues. So, when Ka-Blam went live, needless to say that they were going to be my POD of choice because:
A. I knew Barry
B. The cost was very reasonable and single issues were an option now.
What sealed the deal for me was the day I got my first samples of Zero Hunters #1 from Ka-Blam. I was blown away by the quality. I ended up upgrading to cardstock covers for all our books and I have to say that the quality of these books is better than 90% of the books out there by traditional printers. So, don't let any naysayers start you off with a negative impression of POD books. You'll be seeing for yourself when comic shops start carrying our books and many others, which brings me back to the purpose of this post.
For those of you that follow the industry you know that small press has the deck stacked against it. And now that Diamond has raised their benchmarks again, it was probably going to lay waste to those small press publishers and creators who were for all intents and purposes barely hanging on before the new benchmarks. Well, this bit of news from Ka-Blam is news we all needed in this rather bleak time. Now, make no mistake, it's still going to be an uphill struggle for small press and many still won't make it. Profits will still be small and no one will become rich monetarily, but at the very least it gives us a chance to continue on and have print copies available as opposed to going 100% digital.
At Cinemacomics, that was our business plan anyway--singles issues through Ka-Blam and trades through Diamond and other distributors. But, now with this new distribution system we may also be able to do single issues and have them available for comic shops. And, they will always be available:
No benchmarks. No thresholds. No minimum orders. No prejudice against offering items again … as matter of fact your items once listed will always be available. ALWAYS.~Barry Gregory
So, if you are a retailer reading this check out what ComicsMonkey has to offer. If you are a fan and you want your retailer to carry not only Cinemacomics books, but other indy books, please direct them to the ComicsMonkey site and help spread the word.
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