Content exchange: Cross-promotion made simple

Content exchange: Cross-promotion made simple

With social media on a steep decline, many of us are scrambling to find ways to replace its benefits. One...
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Incorporating an oddly shaped panel into a vertical-scroll comic

Incorporating an oddly shaped panel into a vertical-scroll comic

Building an audience on the web means adapting to the vertical scroll. But that doesn't mean giving up innovative page...
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Webcomics Confidential: Draw larger

Webcomics Confidential: Draw larger

I took a question on Twitter recently: "Would it be wrong to draw my comics on A4 paper? I find...
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November To-Do List

November To-Do List

It's time to get started on (*choke*) the penultimate month of 2024.If you plan to offer new merchandise for the...
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ComicLab Ep 359 — Should your readers be your writers?

ComicLab Ep 359 — Should your readers be your writers?

BlueSky is beginning to feel like Twitter did ten years ago! Engagement is up, conversations are genuine, and follower counts...
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Understanding social media

Understanding social media

Social media is among an independent artist's most frustrating elements. We struggle for engagement, wage constant battles with "The Algorithm,"...
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Writing humor

Writing humor

Writing comedy is a challenge that is made even more daunting by the fact that humor itself is completely subjective...
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CMYK vs RGB

CMYK vs RGB

If you're saving your comics in RGB mode, you may be making a potentially expensive mistake. The content you are...
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ComicLab Ep 358 — “Help! I’m not funny anymore!”

ComicLab Ep 358 — “Help! I’m not funny anymore!”

Cartoonists Dave and Brad share some thoughts with a young humor writer trying to find their Funny. Also: Is BlueSky...
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ISBN — a beginner’s guide

ISBN — a beginner’s guide

An ISBN is a 10- or 13-digit number used to identify a book from a specific publisher. Once your book...
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Archive Dive

Friday Archive Dive: SEO

Today’s Archive Dive comes from last year when we talked about Search Engine Optimization.

Don’t let anybody misinform you: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) matters, and it matters a lot.

Although it should go without explanation, here’s why: Google is the Number One Web site in the world (with an estimated 900 million unique visitors a month). Yahoo is Number 3, and Bing is Number 10.

And most of those people are on those sites for one reason and one reason alone: They’re looking for content. It boggles my mind that the same people who are yearning to extend the reach of their comic beyond the “webcomics community” can’t see the value of SEO. It is — absolutely — your ability to reach new readers. And that’s what we’re all trying to do, right?

So, SEO… if you underestimate it, you’re making a grave mistake.

To that end, I wanted to share ten tips I’ve collected to help you move towards optimizing your site’s SEO potential. They’re easy, intuitive, effective ways to improve your ability to grow your site.

Read the entire post and comment there.

by on June 6, 2014
Posted In: Archive Dive

Graphic.ly leaves behind unpaid creators?

According to Comics Alliance, the closing of Graphic.ly has left some participating creators with doubts that they will get paid by the one-time ComiXology rival. From the story:

You wouldn’t be alone if you believed that Graphicly shut down in 2012, when the company switched from being a digital comics platform to an ebook distributor. Now that it has officially closed its doors. the company has reportedly left quite a few comics creators in the lurch in regards to payment for works they published through Graphicly.

The post features links to a Comics Beat story that alleges that Graphic.ly’s financial woes have been longstanding, as well as a piece that quotes Graphic.ly participants who allege, in some case, that they never received payment from Graphic.ly.

Did any of the members of Webcomics.com participate in Graphic.ly? If so, what were your experiences?

 

You wouldn’t be alone if you believed that Graphicly shut down in 2012, when the company switched from being a digital comics platform to an ebook distributor. Now that it has officially closed its doors. the company has reportedly left quite a few comics creators in the lurch in regards to payment for works they published through Graphicly.

Read More: Graphicly Closure Leads To Unpaid Creators | http://comicsalliance.com/graphicly-closure-unpaid-creators-digital-comics/?trackback=tsmclip

You wouldn’t be alone if you believed that Graphicly shut down in 2012, when the company switched from being a digital comics platform to an ebook distributor. Now that it has officially closed its doors. the company has reportedly left quite a few comics creators in the lurch in regards to payment for works they published through Graphicly.

Read More: Graphicly Closure Leads To Unpaid Creators | http://comicsalliance.com/graphicly-closure-unpaid-creators-digital-comics/?trackback=tsmclip

 

You wouldn’t be alone if you believed that Graphicly shut down in 2012, when the company switched from being a digital comics platform to an ebook distributor. Now that it has officially closed its doors. the company has reportedly left quite a few comics creators in the lurch in regards to payment for works they published through Graphicly.

Read More: Graphicly Closure Leads To Unpaid Creators | http://comicsalliance.com/graphicly-closure-unpaid-creators-digital-comics/?trackback=tsmclip

by on June 4, 2014
Posted In: Business, Digital publishing
1 Comment
Hot Seat critique

Hitch It / Ditch It: Al One

This is the latest installment of the current round of Hitch It / Ditch it HotSeat critiques. The rules are simple. I go to your site and list one thing I think you’re doing very well, and then I talk about one thing you might be able to do better. As always, this serves merely as the starting-off point for a larger discussion among the members.

The content you are trying to access is only available to members.

by on June 4, 2014
Posted In: Hot Seat critiques
3 Comments

Guest Posts

I’m really happy to see that some members of the site are starting to submit guest posts/columns! And I want to make it worth your while to do so, so (as you’ve already seen) I’m going to offer a little promotion from the site as a thank you. Each guest post will be accompanied by a small box that identified you as the author and links to your comic. You can even upload your comic’s logo.

We’re looking for tutorials, and webcomics-related news. But we’ll also happily consider opinion pieces and posts that call for the members to engage in a deeper discussion of a webcomics-related topic.

The content you are trying to access is only available to members.

by on June 3, 2014
Posted In: Uncategorized
5 Comments

June To-Do List

It’s June. Comic Con International is only weeks away. Many of your readers are out of school and enjoying summer. And maybe your own kids are, too. There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get cracking.

Comic Con Checklist

The content you are trying to access is only available to members.

by on June 3, 2014
Posted In: To-Do List
 Comment 

Best of May, 2014

If you’re not a member of Webcomics.com, here are some of the topics you missed out on last month. If you’re curious about joining, we’ve just made it easier than ever with a $5 trial membership. You’ll get full access to the site for thirty days so you can see what you’ve been missing. At the end of the trial, you can choose to re-subscribe ($30 for 12 months of access) or walk away with no strings attached. You will not be re-billed unless you choose to subscribe.

The links will lead you to content that is “subscription-only” content, but I like to link to it for the people that see something intriguing, join, and then want to delve into what they missed.

Best of the site

Critiques: The Webcomics.com critiques are a great way to discuss the craft of cartooning in real-life terms and situations. This month, we offered our popular Hitch It / Ditch It critique. I reviewed the comics/sites of participants and identified one thing that I thought was exemplary about their work as well as one thing that I thought could stand improvement. Then the members joined in for a fuller discussion.

Square expanded the features of its popular credit-card-processing app with the ability to process transactions offline.

Mailbag Q&A: Is it too soon to run ads on my site?

Disqus: A bug was reported that caused text ads to appear — even though users had opted out of that part of the Disqus service. We discussed the bug, and asked a more important question: If the text ads are unobtrusive, you it make sense to opt in to such a service?

WordPress Pro-Tip: Auto Embed. We discussed how to use WordPress’ auto-embed feature to make quick work of posting blogs with extra media features, and we provided a comprehensive list of sites enabled for this feature.

Syndicate content to Tumblr: We identified a quick-and easy way to automatically post your site’s content to Tumblr.

PageRank Status: This tutorial showed how to keep your site’s PageRank status in full view.

eBay hacked: When eBay announced that their site had been hacked, we were out with an alert and instructions on how to protect yourself.

Photoshop Pro-Top: Rotate Canvas.

Graphic.ly closed

#YesAllWomen: Could reading the #YesAllWomen hashtag feed make you a better writer?

Photoshop ProTip: Tool Presets. (Step-by-step tutorial)

ComicsPress and Comic Easel beta testing: Our members were given the opportunity to help test out the new versions of these popular webcomics stand-bys.

Best of the Forum

Should I re-draw old comics before publishing a book?

How do you fight burnout?

Patreon/PR advice needed

Scanning line art into Manga Studio

Easy 3D comic set

How to format desktop wallpaper

Watermark usage

Dropcards for video

Resolution and file size

Discount to distributors

The Tumblr problem

Setting a minimum bid on a Project Wonderful ad space

Surface Pro 3 review

Screen recording software

To Do List app

by on June 2, 2014
Posted In: Information
2 Comments

Webcomics.com poll: Making money

This week’s Webcomics.com Poll asks about some of the more popular revenue streams available to webcartoonists. To participate, scroll down the right-hand column and click on as many responses as apply to you. There are sure to be a large number of answers that do not appear on the pool. Feel free to discuss them in the the Comments section of this post.

Last Week’s Poll

Last week, the Webcomics.com Poll asked how many times per week you updated.

The content you are trying to access is only available to members.

by on June 2, 2014
Posted In: Information
└ Tags: 
2 Comments
Archive Dive

Friday Archive Dive: Don’t Look into the Camera

Today’s dive into the Webcomics.com Archive comes from last year, when we discussed the overused approach of drawing a character looking directly at the reader.

Upon delivering a line, either the speaker or the character being spoken to looks directly out of the panel, into the eyes of the person reading the comic.

In film and TV, this is generally avoided. And I’m careful to say “generally” because I know full well that some TV series (most notably BBC’s “The Office”) use it to tremendous effect.

And there are times when I can justify using it as a cartoonist.

Once in a blue moon.

Read the entire piece and comment there.

The content you are trying to access is only available to members.

by on May 30, 2014
Posted In: Site News
Hot Seat critique

Hitch It / Ditch It: RocTer

This is the latest installment of the current round of Hitch It / Ditch it HotSeat critiques. The rules are simple. I go to your site and list one thing I think you’re doing very well, and then I talk about one thing you might be able to do better. As always, this serves merely as the starting-off point for a larger discussion among the members.

The content you are trying to access is only available to members.

by on May 29, 2014
Posted In: Hot Seat critiques
2 Comments