Bluewater Productions announced today their partnership with ComicFleaMarket.com, who will be exclusively distributing a number of their comics -- including some of their biographies as well as titles like "Vincent Price Presents" and "Legend of Isis: Revenge of Horus." I chatted with Bluewater's president, Darren G. Davis, today about the decision, why he feels more indie publishers might turn to this route in the future, and the perils of distributing graphic novels to "big box" retail chains.
MTV Geek: What made Bluewater decide to switch some of their titles to ComicFleaMarket.com?
Darren Davis: This is a way to get our specialized and niche titles that haven't met Diamond's new sales benchmarks to the readers. We aren't trying to alienate comic book retailers; they can order the titles through the Comic Flea Market site.
Geek: How did Diamond's new benchmarks make it harder for Bluewater to distribute their comics through them?
DD: It's really difficult, because according to these benchmarks your comics have to make a certain amount of money, or they won't issue you a purchase order. I get it -- they're a bigger company. And if we have a book that only sold 500 copies, there's no reason why they should distribute it. But it just doesn't help me as a publisher. But I don't condemn them for it.
Geek: Would you say that Bluewater has some titles with loyal fans, but in a smaller, niche way?
DD: That's one of the reasons why we did the biography thing...it's not like we wanted to be this big biography company. But we noticed that sales of "10th Muse," "Legend of Isis," all these other books started going down, so we needed something to keep us alive. And the biography sales really keep us alive. Read More...
