Comixology Update

As we small-press folks were informed last year, Amazon decided Comixology worked too well for too many people, and they had enough of that nonsense. Submit (the upload and catalog portal for small-press guys) was going away. The good news: Everyone, including us, could upload through the Kindle Create software because, bad news, Comixology was moving to the Kindle. That shift went live this week, and it is a bag of rotten apples. 

My previous uploads are gone. All my sales records are gone. My publishing umbrella is gone. I had to recreate my digital files and upload them to the Kindle system, and each trade took, no lie, a half hour to process on their end. That was only part of the new submission process. The previous Comixology was much easier to deal with on our end.

Luckily, and maybe not for long, there doesn't seem to be any of the previous quality control Comixology used. Someone on their end would give your files a look-see and approve your upload. That might take two weeks after the OK, and the OK might take a few days. That was a wonderful improvement over the earlier days where it might take a month for upload approval. There was also the occasional editor note from an anonymous Comixology button-pusher who writes to say your art doesn't look finished. That was a lovely day for your (newly) humble host.

But the new user interface is junk. Finding comics, and finding new comics by small publishers like us, is near impossible. This is the first week of the rollout, and one hopes the massive, unhappy feedback will nudge Amazonology to make updates. Or not. This is the default comics app and universal comic store for anyone with an good online signal. Where else do you and I go? Might we see improvements? Only if they consider it worth it, and we've already seen what they considered unnecessary. Things like clarity and instinctive navigation.

Look to the right, if you would. There's the link for my books on Comixology. No trade is more than $4. You can, as of this posting, buy my four trades (300 pages) for less than $20. You can also buy physical copies for a little more on my online store. I appreciate your business either way.