Article:
Alltern8's Foray into Digital Distribution: i-Dream

I-Dream, the digital distribution service from Alltern8 offers books, computer games, music photography and comics. It's the latter that interests me the most. With the attention lavished on Longbox, Wowio, Myebook and all things Sony and iPad, it's no wonder you may not have heard of it until recently. i-Dream is currently in Beta and has been live for only two weeks.

At £24.99 a year to sell your work, i-Dream might be more than some creators starting out can justify. The distribution service's minor but joyful feature for me is a 50% discount offered to students, which might help offset some of the damage Peter Mandelson has been doing to their collective creative psyche. Although in Beta, Alltern8 CEO Alex Agricola has promised an early adoption subscription offer for the first year to creators and publishers. His discount? £24.99.

“The price for years membership is set at £24.99, but until we are happy with content choice, it will be FREE. Keep in mind you would be looking at £30-£60 per show, which would have a limited audience of a few thousand if lucky. I-Dream will eventually charge £24.99 but already had a viewing audience of up to 100,000 per month (at present and rising)”

As a creator, I took Alex up on his offer to test it out. i-Dream set-up is a non-app, with simple and quick registration. I also had to ready a sample image file, a cover and the price I chose. For comics, .pdf files appear to be the norm. I sync it up with my Paypal address, and I'm good to get 100% of any sales I make.

Thumbnail images can be uploaded in jpg, png or gif, and preview files must be jpg, png or pdf formats. Main files are currently jpg, pdf, exe or zip, allowing for folders of images or cbr files. In this case, it's recommended instructions on how to get the reader are included. It occurrs to me that this allows the same level of adaptability in production and consumption as most if not all of Alltern8's rivals. Or producer's allies, as I like to think of them.

As we're aware, comics distribution was hurt badly by the exclusivity deals Diamond signed with publishers in the mid-90s, and shops who had no option but to sign with Diamond. Alltern8, as with several digital publishers listed above, offers non-exclusivity. You can sell your comics through i-Dream and other venues as you see fit.

The sale or return field is always going to be more financially secure for publishers than buying retail space. What I think will really work for this is Alltern8's multimedia context. The forums and columns provide i-Dream with supported content. Alex Agricola had this to say,
"Probably the most important message I am getting across here is that the alltern8 and I-dream plan is to become one of the most focused content sites on the net. Hence we have achieved such high net ranks in a short space of time and without millions of monthly visitors (16,000th in the UK, 132,000th in the USA) “