The Rippaverse × Hachette Book Group deal is not a mere direct market deal. The "direct market" is the specialty distribution ecosystem that is specific to comics.
The trade book channel is something much broader: general bookstores, big-box retail, public and academic library systems, library wholesalers, and INTERNATIONAL markets. That is where Hachette operates, and that is the channel this deal opens up. HBG will be handling Rippaverse Publishing's worldwide retail and wholesale sales and distribution across all of it. We already put out graphic novels and collected works, but this also applies to our children's books, novels, memoirs and much more.
That said, comic shops do benefit as well, they'll now be able to access our books through their existing distribution channels. We're grateful for every shop that has carried our titles through our old retailer portal, and we're glad they'll have more pathways now.
But the larger and more consequential part of this deal is the trade side. We're going there. That's what makes this announcement what it is.