Patreon Hot Seat — Nefarious
This is the second of a series of Hot Seat critiques in which we’ll be discussing members’ Patreon outreach. Next up…
Nefarious
The content you are trying to access is only available to members.
This is the second of a series of Hot Seat critiques in which we’ll be discussing members’ Patreon outreach. Next up…
The content you are trying to access is only available to members.
August was an excellent example of the tremendous value offered by a subscription to Webcomics.com. My readers got early alerts on issues that would impact their businesses, helpful tutorials, insightful analysis, and meaningful feedback on their work. Here are some samples of what you may have missed…
I saw significant uptick in Patreon backers whose payment came back with the Fraud tag this month.
Luckily, we’re all pretty creative people, so if we can get ahead of the curve, perhaps we can nip this in the bud. So let’s start brainstorming some proactive measures. I’ll offer a few to start things off…
Editor’s Note: Using the strategies presented in this post, I saw a decrease in fraudulent charges of nearly 100%. [Subscribers can read the entire post]
This is the first of a series of Hot Seat critiques in which we’ll be discussing members’ Patreon outreach. First up… [Subscribers can read the entire post]
It’s no secret. I despise some of the default navigation buttons that are included with webcomic CMS packages. The ones (as seen on the right) that come with ComicsPress are especially high on this list.
Personal aesthetics aside, using the default buttons kinda makes your site look like every other webcomic. It labels you as generic. Making your navigation buttons fit the look of your Web site is the first step towards separating yourself from the pack.
Although these instructions are written with Comic Easel in mind, I’m assured that the instructions are directly transferable to ComicsPress users. [Free Friday! Read the entire post without a subscription!]
I have to admit, I was captivated by their Facebook ad. Ripl offered an easy way to create animated posts for social media. The examples were swank, and the promise of increased social-engagement was too good to pass up.
I was disappointed by the results. [Subscribers can read the entire post]
Tapastic’s “incubator program” has a lot of webcomics newcomers starry-eyed.
Let’s drill down on some details. [Subscribers can read the entire post]
The crowdfunding video is a deceptively difficult nut to crack for many of us. It’s a crucial aspect of a successful crowdfunding campaign. But we cartoonists don’t tend to exactly excel in the skills required to do this well. Recently, my friend, Dave Kellett launched a Kickstarter campaign that featured a video that was done so well, I wanted to use it as a case study in Doing Things Right. [Subscribers can read the entire post]
If you create exclusive content for Patreon backers, you may be interested in Patreon Marker — a Web app that puts an invisible watermark on the files your backers download. If you find that your exclusive work has been uploaded elsewhere, you can use the Patreon Marker app to read the file and discover who pirated your work. [Subscribers can read the entire post]
You see it every day — especially if you’re a member of any webcomics-themed Facebook groups. It’s ubiquitous. It’s pointless. It’s almost entirely useless. But more importantly, it belies a huge lack of understanding about the nature of promotion.
It’s cartoonists promoting their work to other cartoonists.
Let’s discuss why it’s so bad — and more importantly, let’s identify some much more effective methods of promotion! [Free Friday! Read the entire post without a subscription!]
Wanna do better at social media? It can be boiled down to two sentences.
Like less. Share more.
[Subscribers can read the entire post]
In an earlier piece for Webcomics.com, I emphasized the importance of personal branding on social media. I said:
Is [my personal brand] accurate? Yes and no. All of the [descriptions] above are truthful, but my presentation of them is decidedly one-sided.
For example, if you follow me on social media, you’re going to hear a lot about my successes. I’m going to post positive stuff all day long. You’re going to hear much less about my failures and shortcomings. Is that because I don’t experience them? Hell, no.
It’s because I know why I’m on social media.
And it ain’t to tell you about my failures.
Let’s talk some more about that… [Subscribers can read the entire post]
Note: This post originally ran last year.
In February 2015, I published a post that asked if webcomic creators really needed to host a comments section on their sites. By May of that year, I reported that I had curtailed commenting — and it had numerous positive side-effects for me. This release from NPR.org made it even more clear
Here’s an analysis of what that means to you…
[Free Friday! Read the entire post without a subscription!]
Sadly, it’s not uncommon for me to see a GoFundMe campaign to help a family in need raise the money for an astronomical medical bill. But recently, I saw a GoFundMe campaign that sought the funds to launch a print comic book. My initial reaction was shock. This was a commercial enterprise in a place typically reserved for charitable donations! But beyond that, it made me sad to think that someone could have such a vast misunderstanding of simple business basics.
Here’s why I think that using GoFundMe to launch a new project is poorly thought-out… [Subscribers can read the entire post]
I’ve been writing for this site since 2009, and I see a lot of webcomics. I initiate critiques, I get asked to do portfolio reviews at conventions, and I do comic consulting. I do it because I like it. I love talking comics, and I like having the opportunity to pass along the things I’ve learned by doing this for so long. AND, as I often say — here and to my classes at Hussian School of Art — I’ve already made all the mistakes so you don’t have to.
In seeing all of those webcomics, I see a lot of the same mistakes pop up over and over again. So I want to isolate the top five — not in a “boy are you a loser” way. Rather, since many of these are so widespread, my hope is that we can take some big steps to eradicating these six.
Number one should be no big surprise…
We’re headed into September, and the kids are headed back to school. If you’re a parent, that probably means that the time you’re able to devote to comics just tripled. Let’s talk about using it wisely.
The content you are trying to access is only available to members.
I’ve been writing for this site since 2009, and I see a lot of webcomics. I initiate critiques, I get asked to do portfolio reviews at conventions, and I do comic consulting. I do it because I like it. I love talking comics, and I like having the opportunity to pass along the things I’ve learned by doing this for so long. AND, as I often say — here and to my classes at Hussian School of Art — I’ve already made all the mistakes so you don’t have to.
In seeing all of those webcomics, I see a lot of the same mistakes pop up over and over again. So I want to isolate the top five — not in a “boy are you a loser” way. Rather, since many of these are so widespread, my hope is that we can take some big steps to eradicating these six.
Number one should be no big surprise…
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. If you improve your lettering tonight, your readers will perceive you as 100% more professional tomorrow. There’s a lot of good information about lettering — both hand-lettering and digital — on this site. It’s worth your time to read through as many of those posts as you can. But here’s some bullet points:
• Don’t let your words touch the lines of the word balloon. Ever.
• Keep an equal margin inside the word balloon (between the text and the lines) — all the way around. If you have more space at the top and bottom than you have on the sides, your balloons will feel awkward.
• When word balloons get huge, chop them into smaller balloons.
• Never, ever cross word-balloon tails. Ever.
• The words inside balloons should look like units — not as separate lines of text. If they look like separate lines, tighten up that leading (the space between lines of type). This Hot Seat critique of House of Madness does a good job of explaining this.
• Don’t use Comic Sans. It’s not a very graceful lettering font. And, seriously, with the number of affordable (if not downright free) comic-lettering fonts on sites like Blambot.com and Comicraft.com, there’s just no excuse.
• Word balloons that span the width of a panel — especially if they’re only one or two lines of type — look awkward. Use them sparingly.
• If you use a funky font to denote an alien voice or an ancient text, that’s fine. As long as it’s legible. It may look exactly like Renaissance script, but if I can’t read it, it may as well be gibberish. Same goes for the old “use a weird voice for the alien/robot/’other’ character.” Try this instead — challenge yourself to describe that character’s “otherness” in the words and phrases the character chooses. It’s waaaaay more powerful than a funky font.
• If you’re hand-lettering use an Ames Lettering Guide. It’s cheap, it’s easy, and it’s indispensable.
Write it. Put it away. Come back to it later. Re-write it.
Nothing is very good in its first draft. That’s why they’re called first drafts. If you’re not re-writing your material, chances are, you’re posting stuff that’s not very good. When you’re re-writing, look for stuff like…
• Spelling and grammar mistakes. I’ll point it out before anyone decides to “out” me. I’m as guilty on this one as anyone else. It doesn’t mean you can ignore this tip, though. It just means I need to pay attention to it just as badly as some of you do!
• Edit, edit, edit. This is comics, people. It’s all about quick, rewarding entertainment. If you can say it in fewer words, you will — nine chances out of ten — improve the reader’s experience. Usually that’s because saying it in fewer words means making better, more descriptive word choices. And that’s Good Writing.
• Remember the visual! We cartoonists have a secret storytelling weapon. We’re presenting images along with out words. Let the two word together. And if the visual is doing its job, get the words out of the way. In other words: show, don’t tell.
• For those of you doing humor: Don’t step on your punchline. Decide where the funniest part in the comic is, and after that — stop! If you write something after the punchline — and it’s not as funny or funnier than the punchline — you just ruined your joke.
With WordPress theme/plugin combos such as ComicsPress and Comic Easel, this stuff should be easy, but it’s not always.
• First screen appeal. We’ve discussed it a lot. Basically, it’s like this. First-timers aren’t likely to scroll down. And if you need to scroll down to read a comic, it’s going to have an adverse effect on how long someone is going to read through your archive. You need to get as much of your site onto the reader’s first-screen view as possible. And that means…
• Ditch that huge header graphic. I’ll be honest with you, the sites I think work the best have a logo to the left of a leaderboard ad across the top of the site. And, really, I don’t know that a comic needs much more than that for branding. After all, the comic itself is going to carry a lot of that responsibility.
• Put the navigation buttons as close as possible to the comic itself. Personally, I like to see them snug underneath the comic. I also prefer standardized arrows over text (a deficiency I keep meaning to address in my own site).
• The About page. Man, you’re missing out on an excellent opportunity to cement a possible new read if you don’t have this.
Yup, it’s part of webcomics. It’s a big part of how marketing and promotion are done. Not comfortable? Get comfortable.
Here’s the irony: It takes almost zero writing skill. People aren’t looking for the Great American Novel at 140 characters at a time. They want to know about you. What you’re thinking about. What you’re doing. How you feel about that. It doesn’t have to be deep or inspirational or funny — but those kinds of posts are extremely powerful when they come along. But 85% of it is simply sharing your life in bits and pieces.
We discussed this earlier this week. It’s definitely worth a read if you haven’t yet. In short, cargo-cult mentality involves mimicking the actions of successful people — without understanding why those people are doing what they do. If you’re planning your first T-shirt run before you’ve built a sizable audience with your comic, you might be someone who could fall into this category.
If you’re just starting out, you should be concentrating on making an awesome comic — and then doing it with frequency and consistency. Only after you’ve mastered that should you allow yourself diversions such as merchandise.
Hands down, this is the single most important concept to understand for webcartoonists. Nothing is as important as this.
Every day a certain number of people come to your site for the very first time. And they make their decision on whether they will read the comic based on the comic that is posted on that site on that day.
If that comic doesn’t…
• Make sense
• Have importance
• Make an impression
…those readers will leave. And they won’t come back.
“Hey, but what about my archive?”
Have you ever gotten into a disappointing experience and then felt the overwhelming urge to extend that experience?
Neither have I.
Neither will your readers.
They’ll only read your archive if today’s comic intrigues them into doing so.
If you’re doing a longform comic, that may mean that you have to rethink your publishing approach.
If you’re doing a strip, that means every day has to be fantastic. (Or as close to fantastic as you can possibly get.)
If you’re posting something that relies on knowledge of one (or worse — several) days of archived backstory, you will lose that first-time reader on that day.
And if you consistently miss the opportunities to convert those first-time readers, your site will fail to grow — and, potentially, wilt and eventually die.
Sadly, it’s not uncommon for me to see a GoFundMe campaign to help a family in need raise the money for an astronomical medical bill. But recently, I saw a GoFundMe campaign that sought the funds to launch a print comic book. My initial reaction was shock. This was a commercial enterprise in a place typically reserved for charitable donations! But beyond that, it made me sad to think that someone could have such a vast misunderstanding of simple business basics.
Here’s why I think that using GoFundMe to launch a new project is poorly-thought-out…
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Note: This post originally ran last year.
In February 2015, I published a post that asked if webcomic creators really needed to host a comments section on their sites. By May of that year, I reported that I had curtailed commenting — and it had numerous positive side-effects for me. This release from NPR.org made it even more clear…
NPR is making an announcement today that is sure to upset a loyal core of its audience, those who comment online at NPR.org (including those who comment on this blog). As of Aug. 23, online comments, a feature of the site since 2008, will be disabled.
With the change, NPR joins a long list of other news organizations choosing to move conversations about its journalism off its own site and instead rely on social media to pick up the slack. But NPR stands for National Public Radio, so a decision to limit “public” input at NPR.org seems especially jarring.
The decision should not be taken to mean that NPR does not value audience engagement, said Scott Montgomery, managing editor for digital news. “We’ve been working on audience engagement, user connections, in a variety of ways, for many, many years, certainly going back to even before the internet. It is a part of public media. It’s important to us,” he told me.
But at this point, he argued, the audience itself has decided for NPR, choosing to engage much more via social media, primarily on Twitter and Facebook, rather than in the NPR.org comments section.
“We’ve reached the point where we’ve realized that there are other, better ways to achieve the same kind of community discussion around the issues we raise in our journalism,” he said, with money, and spending it efficiently, part of the issue. More than 5 million people each month engage with NPR on Twitter, compared to just a fraction of that number in the NPR.org comments. “In relative terms, as we set priorities, it becomes increasingly clear that the market has spoken. This is where people want to engage with us. So that’s what we’re going to emphasize,” he said.
Here’s an analysis of what that means to you…
For starters, it’s yet another indication that we’re living in the Post-Ad Age. (I’ll say it again… if you’re still publishing webcomics the way it was done a few years ago, you’re making a big mistake.) Think about it. There’s two reasons to encourage reader comments — Community Building and Ad Revenue. Now that ad blockers have all but killed of anything but the most aggressive advertising, the ad revenue isn’t there to support it.
Back in the day, a webcartoonist could look at a flame war as it broke out on his or her forum and take solace in the fact that it was generating pageviews — and therefore, ad revenue. That’s not the case any more.
But what about Community Building?
Your readers — the vast majority of them — are already spending the majority of their Web-related time on social media. And the overwhelming majority of that is spent on Twitter and Facebook. They’re there. They’re already talking. They’ve already built communities of their own.
If they talk about your comic on their social media, you gain in organic reach what you may have lost in ad revenue.
Put more simply, by encouraging these conversations to take place on social media, you increase word-of-mouth advertising. Do you lose control over the conversation? Maybe. A little.
But let’s face it. Few of us actually used our “control” when we hosted reader comments on our sites. And furthermore, the very act of maintaining a significant social-media presence means that we wield a certain amount of control based on what we choose to share and what we choose to ignore.
Here’s what I mean by that. First, if you’re doing the work you need to do on social media to promote your comic, you’re going to gain organic reach — that is, you can reach a large number of people without paying for an ad or promoted posts. In Twitter, that’s a large number of followers. For a Facebook Fan Page, that’s a large amount of Likes (that you didn’t pay for).
So, when a fan initiates a conversation on social media that you would like to amplify, your retweet or share will do so nicely. And when there’s someone crabbing about something you’d just as soon see drift to the bottom of the social-media sediment, you can simply ignore it. Unless that person has an organic reach that rivals your own, it will die its own natural death.
And, of course, you can encourage — and participate in — the commentary that accompanies your own social-media efforts. This is particularly powerful in the algorithym-driven Facebook. Every like, share, click and comment causes facebook to send that post to a wider and wider sphere of viewers.
The two reasons for hosting reader comments — Community Building and Ad Revenue — are easily dismissed.
Agree? Disagree? You’re welcome to share your thoughts in the comments below.
For now. 😉
In an earlier piece for Webcomics.com, I emphasized the importance of personal branding on social media. I said:
Is [my personal brand] accurate? Yes and no. All of the [descriptions] above are truthful, but my presentation of them is decidedly one-sided.
For example, if you follow me on social media, you’re going to hear a lot about my successes. I’m going to post positive stuff all day long. You’re going to hear much less about my failures and shortcomings. Is that because I don’t experience them? Hell, no.
It’s because I know why I’m on social media.
And it ain’t to tell you about my failures.
Let’s talk some more about that, shall we?
The content you are trying to access is only available to members.
Wanna do better at social media? It can be boiled down to two sentences.
Like less. Share more.
The content you are trying to access is only available to members.
July was an excellent example of the tremendous value offered by a subscription to Webcomics.com. My readers got early alerts on issues that would impact their businesses, helpful tutorials, insightful analysis, and meaningful feedback on their work. Here are some samples of what you may have missed…
Patreon’s header image gets sliced and diced more than Wolverine’s keyboard. It gets re-sized depending on the monitor-resolution of the person visiting your Patreon page, and it gets cropped ruthlessly when you post a link to your page from Facebook or Twitter.
When Patreon updated its site layout, it introduced some dead zones into the header. And, to be honest, Twitter has been showing the header preview more similar to Facebook’s presentation. So, an update has been long overdue.
So here’s an updated Photoshop template to help you make the most of your header. [Subscribers can read the entire post]
It sounds like a weird webcomics riddle, doesn’t it? “When is a complaint actually a compliment?” After all, as webcartoonists, we’ve always prided ourselves one the granular level of interaction that we maintain with our readers. Both the original “How To Make Webcomics” book and the updated version, “The Webcomics Handbook” devoted an entire chapter to it. One could argue that it’s a definitive feature of webcomics.
So, it stands to reason that when readers complain, we webcartoonists become very concerned.
And we do — we should.
Except when we shouldn’t.
Here’s what you need to understand…
I see this advice getting passed around on Facebook quite frequently: “If you include a link to your website, the Facebook algorithm will kill your post.” Let’s talk about how accurate this advice is — and some Best Practices for promoting on Facebook.
First of all, let’s try to understand the issue a little more clearly.
[Subscribers can read the entire post]
Reader surveys are an excellent way to get a better feel for your audience. Does your comic skew towards female reader? Do they tend to be younger or older? What are their other interests? would they support a Kickstarter for a new book? What rewards would make them Patreon backers?
In fact, we’ve posted a helpful DIY tutorial so you can ask all of the questions you need to ask — without paying for a potentially-expensive service like SurveyMonkey.
But what if you’re not getting a very healthy response from your readers? Should you seek out additional respondents? Advertise for more input? Solicit other cartoonists?
Be very careful, your quest for more information could result in your getting very, very bad information. And that’s downright dangerous. Here’s why…
[Free Friday — You can read this entire piece without a subscription.]
We launched another critique series that focuses on Patreon campaigns. It’s becoming more and more important to get this right.
Facebook is announcing a new initiative — The Street — which will offer news on a subscription-only basis. Via Reuters:
(Reuters) – Facebook Inc plans to launch a subscription-based news product, and will begin initial tests in October, TheStreet reported on Tuesday, citing the social media company’s news partnerships head Campbell Brown at a conference.
The feature is likely to allow publishers to create a paywall on Facebook’s Instant Articles and guide readers to a publisher’s home page to opt for a digital subscription, according to TheStreet report.
This follows a trend that I’ve been talking about here on Webcomics.com for years. As ad-blockers continue to constrict passive revenue, Web publishers will have to turn to more active-revenue means. That means more subscriptions and more crowdfunding.
So, the question is… have you prepared for this — and if not, what do you need to do to be prepared?
I have some thoughts.
Merry Christmas — and Happy New Year!
Set down the sunblock, and step away from the pool. It’s time to start planning for December and January.
I know it’s hard to get into the spirit, but this is the time to start working on merchandise for the holiday shopping season. In recent years, webcartoonists have offered an increasing compliment of holiday goodies that have ranged from specialty T-shirts and mugs to holiday-themed greeting cards. And let’s not forget to add calendars to that list. Those will start appearing in stores by November — at the latest!
So, let’s take a closer look at some of those specialty products, and how we can start working now to be ready to compete when the snow falls.
[Subscribers can read the entire post]
Recently, I saw a webcartoonist asking for advice on convention banners. It’s a deceptively tricky topic — and it’s something I see done poorly at con after con.
Before you shell out your hard-earned dough on another convention banner that doesn’t work, take a little friendly advice:
The primary purpose of a convention banner is to attract attention to your table. Therefore, you need to get everything as high as possible. Putting important information at the bottom of your banner is a mistake — especially if the banner is going to be placed on the floor behind your table. Think about it. No one sees anything below the middle of a vertical banner from the aisle.
For the same reason, any type that’s not readable from about 20 ft away is too small. Make that type big!
And here’s one that has become even more important as webcomics have grown — do you promote the comic or promote the creator? There are pros and cons either way. But make your choice consistent. If the banner promotes the creator at the very top, be sure that the listing in the program matches. After 16 years of conventions, I can’t tell you how many problems I’ve caused for myself by bringing my “Evil Inc” banner to a con that I’m listed in the program as “Brad Guigar.”
You’d think I’d learn…
[Free Friday — You can read this entire piece without a subscription.]
Q.: The time it takes me to draw, ink, and color a single comic is usually between 3-6 hours, am I going too slow? I’d like to be able to do more comics per week, but I work full time and I want my comics to stand out from the stick figure, copy and paste comics I come across.
A. You’re asking the wrong question.
[Subscribers can read the entire post]
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 do a decent drawing on the inside cover (or an inside page) of a book? 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…
[Subscribers can read the entire post]
I’ve been saying it for the better part of the year — if you’re still doing things the way you did three years ago, you’re making a big mistake. Here are five “traditional” approaches to webcomics that you need to re-think… today.
[Free Friday — You can read this entire piece without a subscription.]
The National Cartoonist Society has made it easier for young people to join their organization. The Young Professional Program — nicknamed “The 27 Club” offers full membership for $27 to anyone under 27 years old.
Here’s what you need to know…
Lately, I’ve been re-doubling my efforts towards blogging. There are two reasons. First, with two updates a week, it’s not only more important to take that opportunity to try to get my messages across, but it’s much easier than when I was doing a daily strip. Secondly, now that my business has shifted from a ad-supported to a subscriber-supported model, it’s crucial that I try to make that blog a bigger part of my outreach.
What I have found is that I have been able to use my beefed-up blog as part of a greater social-media strategy as well. And it’s all thanks to a very simple HTML tag.
[Free Friday — You can read this entire piece without a subscription.]
You see it every day — especially if you’re a member of any webcomics-themed Facebook groups. It’s ubiquitous. It’s pointless. It’s almost entirely useless. But more importantly, it belies a huge lack of understanding about the nature of promotion.
It’s cartoonists promoting their work to other cartoonists.
Let’s discuss why it’s so bad — and more importantly, let’s identify some much more effective methods of promotion!
It’s an effort that is almost 100% wasted. I know, I know… you’re hoping that someone will like your comic enough to cross-promote with you. And that’s not without merit. But you’re going to find that cross-promotion with other (good) comics usually comes as a result of one thing: making a super-good comic.
You can’t cajole someone into promoting you. You can’t guilt it into happening. Well, you can… but the cross-promotion won’t be very valuable.
Nope, the only cross-promotion that’s worth a damn is when a fellow creator sees your work and LIKES it.
“OK, wise guy… how is this other creator going to see my comic if I don’t promote to cartoonists?”
Easy. She’ll see your fans talking about how great you are on Twitter. He’ll see the Facebook posts doing the same. They’ll hear your work being talked about at conventions or in private online conversations.
And, chances are, they’re going to want to give you the same leg-up that someone else gave them. And they’ll promote your work. Besides, that kind of promotion works both ways. When I re-post someone’s work that I think is particularly strong, I’m just making my own social-media feed that much better. So I’m always looking for work that I think is good. It brings more followers to me.
Until your comic is good enough to generate that kind of action on its own… you’re not ready for cross-promotion.
OK… besides the fact that doing so immediately makes you look like an amateur who doesn’t understand promotion…
This is the reason I disallow self-promotion on Webcomics.com: All of those self-promotion posts get in the way of more important things. Let’s say you have an online group of cartoonists. There are all kinds of important issues that this group can crowdsource. What’s the best digital-drawing software? What’s the appropriate price for a commissioned illustration? Who’s got the best Web hosting?
And there are some groups — on Facebook and elsewhere — that (along with some healthy moderation) could actually be decent resources for this. But they fall flat repeatedly. Why? Because the feed is choked with self-promotion. You have to weed through so much crap, it’s hard to get to the useful content.
That’s why I turn a blind eye to the “sneaky” self-promotion that goes on in the Critique section of the Webcomics.com forum. It’s not blocking any useful content. All it does it alert me to the fact that we need to be talking a lot more about promotion that actually works.
To that end, let’s talk about good promotion.
Although you probably don’t want to hear it, I’m going to say it anyway. The best promotion is a two-step process:
Step One: Do a tremendous comic.
Step Two: Make it easy for people to share that comic.
You have to earn Step One on your own. But Step Two is simple. You need social-media sharing buttons directly under your comic — and as close as possible. This tutorial will show you how in an easy step-by-step format.
Pair that with your own social-media outreach, and you’ve got it covered. Post your comic (or links to it) on Twitter and Facebook — along with any other social media you’re comfortable with. That would include Instagram, Pinterest, Google Plus, an appropriate Reddit category, and so forth.
That’s it. But that first step’s a doozy.
If you’re going to promote, pick a target. And unless you’re doing a comic about cartoonists, that target isn’t going to be fellow creators. Who would be likely to read and enjoy your comic? What kinds of demographics does your work appeal to?
Now, many of you are going to say one of two things.
One: My comic appeals to everybody! I don’t limit my audience.
Two: I don’t know anything my demographics, and I don’t know how I would find out!
Let’s take the second one first. It’s an easy fix: Ask them!
BUILDING A READER SURVEY
You can easily build a reader survey in Google Docs. Go to Google Drive and select New -> Google Forms. You can now set up a number of questions to learn more about your readers. Better yet, you can control the format those answers arrive in — such as multiple choice, checkboxes, choose from a list, short answer, etc. When you’re done, you can generate a public link to the questionnaire to provide to your readers. After they complete the form, their answers are entered into a private spreadsheet that contains all of the readers’ answers. The result: an easy-to-read snapshot of your comic’s readership.
LEARNING YOUR READERSHIP DEMOGRAPHICS
“My comic appeals to everybody! I don’t have a demographic!”
Sure you so. You just have to look a little harder.
First of all, use that readership survey we just discussed and look for trends.
Secondly, look at your Web stats, and see which comics received the greatest traffic. Which topics, when you write about them, generate the most interest among your audience? Which updates get linked to the most. This can all be done using Google Analytics, and Webcomics.com features a treasure trove of GA tutorials to get you started.
Thirdly, check your social media feeds. Which comic updates get retweeted the most? Which topics, when you write about them, get the most Likes and Shares? I’d even suggest taking it beyond the comics themselves. for example, when I talk about my family on social media, I get a big response. That’s an indication that the topics of parenting, child-raising, fatherhood, etc. resonate well with the people who follow me on social media.
The best way to promote to a group is from the inside. That doesn’t mean joining an online group — say a Facebook group or an online message board — and start banging the promo drum. And it doesn’t mean jumping into every conversation and crow-barring a reference to your comic into an otherwise-interesting discussion.
In fact, it’s just the opposite. Promoting from within a community means becoming a genuine part of that community — and active and engaged member of the group. Your comic should be secondary. No loud references. No pointing and shouting “Hey! Look at this!”
Rather, effecting promotion in this regard will come in the form of thoughtful, meaningful engagement. It should always be easy to find your comic through your engagement, but it shouldn’t be the main point. The end result: People will want to find out more about this person who is a new part of their group, and they will discover your comic on their own. And since you weren’t jamming it down their throats, they’ll be significantly more open to it.
Here’s a great example. Two people join a Facebook group because it’s a community of people that match a portion of their comics’ demographic. The first person posts unsolicited promotional messages that point to her comic. She doesn’t engage in the group beyond that. In fact, the only time she posts, it’s “Hey! Look at me!” She might drive some traffic to her site, but that traffic probably doesn’t stick around and give her numbers a steady rise over time.
The second offers her thoughts on the topics that are posted, and she posts new topics that are directly related to the interests of the group. As a result, some of the members of that group click over to her Facebook profile — which contains a prominent link to her comic. I’ll argue that the traffic she gets using this method is much more likely to become long-term readers that raise her site’s traffic gradually over time. Why? Because they discovered you. (Or at least it feels that way to them. I won’t tell if you won’t.)
Quick: Go you your Facebook page. Are there links to your comic under the About tab? You’d be surprised how many people are missing this crucial part of making Facebook effective (from a social-media marketing standpoint).
It would be easy to write “never buy ads” and leave it at that. Because — really — that’s pretty close to what it boils down to. But it’s actually more complicated than that. You shouldn’t buy an ad unless you’re prepared to do the necessary legwork to ensure that your message is properly targeted.
Read this post from the archive. One member wrote what it took to run an effective ad campaign on Project Wonderful. It’s a significant amount of work. But he’s describing exactly what it takes to not waste your money on online ads.
But most people I consult with don’t want to do that. They want to think that buying an ad for their comic through PW will be naturally effective because it will show up on other webcomic sites — and therefore, “people who like comics” will see it. I’ve described in an earlier post how I think this approach is flawed. But it’s not so much that this kind of thinking is wrong — because that’s open for debate. It’s inefficient. And when you’re spending your hard-earned money on something, efficiency counts.
Need another reason to keep your ad dollars in your pocket? I’ll make it simple for you. Social-media marketing is significantly more effective. And it’s free.
Finally, there are all sorts of ways to cross-promote your comic with other creators. You can join a collective, but I would strongly warn you against joining any collective that takes any amount of control over the business aspects of your comic (or the creative ones, for that matter). This archive post spells out why I feel so strongly about the matter. Join all the Web collectives you want — just don’t give them control over your business. It’s asking for trouble. And understand the game before you get in — every collective has doers and users. Inevitably, some of the members of the group will get more than they contribute (and some members will get less).
A better way of cross-promoting is to establish genuine relationships with other creators. This isn’t a plug-and-play process. It’s not going to come as a result of a quick e-mail to someone asking to exchange links. It’s actually more about meeting other creators, networking and building friendships. But beyond the personal stuff, here’s a thought. If you want someone to promote you, promote them. This works especially well if both creators have similar levels of traffic. This post from the archive lays it out fully. The more you promote others, the more willing they will be to return the favor — without being asked.