Just a handy reminder: If you pay estimated income taxes, your second-quarter payment is due on Monday, June 15.
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If you’re writing a longform comic, you know the challenge all too well. You’re telling a continuous story, but many of your readers are coming in at the middle. Every day, someone is reading your comic for the first time, and that might mean they’re discovering you on Page 12. If you’re going to build an audience successfully, you need to include two things in every update.
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Out of all the social media newcomers, Substack has shown the most promise. It’s an email newsletter delivery system with social media and subscription features. But like every platform, it has its own norms, quirks, and community expectations. So, let’s discuss Substack’s best practices.
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Should cartoonists hire a social-media manager? Brad and Dave discuss the pros and cons of outsourcing social media and ultimately argue that most creators should handle it themselves. They explain why social media is an extension of a creator’s voice, how direct engagement provides invaluable feedback about audience-building and marketing, and why improving your promotional skills makes you a better cartoonist overall. Along the way, they discuss shyness, self-promotion, audience growth, and the dangers of trying to be everywhere at once online.
Topics Covered
• The ComicLab newsletter and the “Five to Grow On” feature
• Whether cartoonists should hire a social-media manager
• Why social media is part of a creator’s artistic voice
• The value of learning promotion instead of outsourcing it
• Why creative people often resist marketing and business skills
• How marketing skills can improve artistic skills
• The dangers of trying to maintain every social-media platform at once
• Brad’s “2-2-1” approach to social media
• Platform-specific posting strategies and why one-size-fits-all promotion fails
• Social-media feedback as a tool for improving your work
• Shyness and discomfort with self-promotion
• The “lipstick on a pig” problem: when promotion can’t compensate for weak work
• Why making a great comic remains the most important marketing strategy
• Dave’s upcoming Reddit AMA and his Hugo Award nomination
• Using award nominations as promotional opportunities
• Hugo Awards promotional support versus other industry awards
• BlueSky starter packs and audience growth
• Why cartoonists should do more cross-promotion
• Whether creators should put award nominations on book covers
• How long to keep promoting a completed comic project
• Managing inventory and promoting older books
• Long-tail sales and evergreen products
• Using older books as bonuses, stretch goals, and loss leaders
• When it makes sense to retire promotional efforts
• Whether different creative projects need separate Patreons, newsletters, Substacks, and social-media accounts
• The benefits and drawbacks of splitting projects into separate brands
• Cognitive load, burnout, and managing multiple audiences
• Using separate platforms to measure the success of different projects
• When creators should keep projects under one roof and when they should branch out
You have enough work to collect into a book. You know how to collect estimates from a printer. You may have even started working on the cover. There’s just one problem. How do you know if you’re ready to launch a Kickstarter?
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A few years ago, a lot of cartoonists moved away from their own websites and started putting all their energy into social media. It seemed like the smart move — after all, that’s where the people were. But now, after watching their posts get buried by algorithms and their audience growth hit a wall, more and more creators are heading back to something they can actually control: their own site.
The good news? Running your own site gives you complete freedom. The bad news? If you want people to find it — especially through Google — you’ve got to think about SEO. And that’s tricky when your content is mostly made of images. Don’t worry, though — there are some solid, doable ways to get search engines to notice your comic without turning it into a blog
There are several strong strategies a webcartoonist can use to significantly improve SEO…
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It’s June. We’re nearly halfway through the year already!
The content you are trying to access is only available to members.With both Brad and Dave nominated for awards this year, the guys spiral into a surprisingly deep conversation about awards, marketing, ego, and whether creators should plaster “award nominee” stickers all over their books.
Later, they tackle a listener question about using 3D models, digital sets, and reference material in comics production — leading to a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at how both creators actually build comics pages in tools like Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop. Along the way, they discuss why imperfections matter in cartooning, how typography affects visual storytelling, and why “cheating” is often just another word for “working smarter.”
A ComicLab listener submitted a question for the show: “Some successful artists honestly believe that others aren’t successful because they didn’t ’put in the work.’ They don’t acknowledge the complex machinery of creative industries. What are your views on Survivor Bias in the creative community?“
Buckle up…
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Offering an original illustration inside a book — as part of an Artist Edition — is a tremendous way to drive sales and/or Kickstarter pledges. But… have you ever tried to draw a decent drawing on a book’s inside cover (or an inside page)? It’s not easy. And — depending on the coating you used on your cover/pages — the ink doesn’t always take to the surface very well. There’s got to be a better way…
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