Image moving from Diamond to Simon & Schuster distribution
ComicBook announced Image is changing from Diamond's distribution - which they'd relied on for much of the past 3 decades since their founding - to Simon & Schuster beginning next year:
Though Image is still associating with Diamond distribution for overseas sales, this might spell the end of Diamond in a number of years, and it'd be for the best. The industry has to learn not to allow just one service to monopolize the business, and how to best adapt to new standards going forward.
Beginning in January, Image Comics will partner with Simon & Schuster for an exclusive international distribution deal in the bookstore market, the publisher announced today. The deal will go into place in January 2024, for titles on sale that month (which will be solicited in the direct market beginning in October). Previously exclusive to Diamond Book Distributors, Image Comics will join Viz Media, Boom Studios, and many other graphic novel publishers on the Simon & Schuster distribution client list. Image Comics will continue its relationship with Diamond Book Distributors to serve the UK and International Book Market.I wonder if this means they're going to make the switch to paperbacks altogether, and abandon any pamphlet formats they still go by? That'd be getting somewhere. Better still, however, is if they're willing to show the courage to distance themselves from that "union" several employees formed, which was more for the sake of censorship than ensuring better wages for employees and contributors. The purpose they're going by, at Image's expense, does not make for a healthy business.
[...] "For the past 20 years we have been able to establish a foothold for our trade paperbacks and graphic novels in the book market thanks in no small part to the support and efforts of Diamond Book Distributors," said Eric Stephenson, Publisher at Image Comics. "Over time, our needs and backlist of titles have grown and our increasing footprint in the marketplace has us excited to take this next step with Simon & Schuster to build a more robust infrastructure for our titles there."
Though Image is still associating with Diamond distribution for overseas sales, this might spell the end of Diamond in a number of years, and it'd be for the best. The industry has to learn not to allow just one service to monopolize the business, and how to best adapt to new standards going forward.
Labels: indie publishers, msm propaganda, sales
