Having wrapped up his 16th Kickstarter, cartoonist Dave Kellett shares some insights about setting realistic expectations, avoiding paid advertising, and...
It’s an inevitable part of getting better at comics. You look back on your earlier work and cringe. (And the better you’ve gotten, the more intense your regret!) Then, perhaps as you’re considering your first printed collection, the thought crosses your mind: “Maybe I should re-do these…”
You shouldn’t. I’ll tell you why.
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It’s one of the most frustrating parts of promoting a Kickstarter — communicating that long URL. Sure, you’re provided a truncated version. But have you ever tried to point podcast listeners to http://kck.st/2HQTXbr? Luckily, there’s a better way.
URL redirect
When I launched my Kickstarter, I bought the domain newevilbook.com. It’s short, it’s descriptive, and it’s easy to remember. Most domain registrars offer free redirects, so it was quite simple to redirect the domain to my Kickstarter page.
Then, whenever I promoted my Kickstarter campaign on social media, I used that URL. I used it on my website. And I used it on podcast appearances.
As an added benefit, when this campaign closes and the next one launches, I’ll update the redirect, and any old promotion that someone stumbles across will lead them to the new project.
Patreon is a great way to monetize your work on the Web, but it’s inescapable — if you want paying backers, you’ve got to be prepared to make it worth their while. And that means posting often — including exclusive content. But sometimes it’s hard to know what to post when you’re putting everything you’ve got into simply doing your comic. So, what can you post when you’re out of ideas (and time)? Buckle up. I’ve got 15 types of posts that are proven winners — and most of them take very little extra time.
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If you’re thinking about launching a comic, I have ten tips to help you get off on the right foot. (And if you’ve already started, double-check this list to catch some mistakes you may have made early on!)
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Webtoon and Wattpad may soon be inextricably linked. Naver, the South Korean internet giant behind the Webtoon digital comics platform, will acquire Wattpad for a deal worth US$600 million in cash and stocks. The two websites will have a “connected ecosystem” after the acquisition is complete. Neither side has revealed what that means exactly, but The Hollywood Reporter says they’ll share a platform for their combined audience of 160 million users.
Wattpad is a website and app for writers to publish new user-generated stories. It aims to create social communities around stories for both amateur and established writers. In other words, it’s a Webtoons for writers. According to Variety:
Wattpad says its global community spends more than 23 billion minutes monthly engaged with original stories spanning genres including sci-fi, romance, fantasy and horror. To date, around 1,500 Wattpad stories have been published as books or adapted for TV and film. The company’s Wattpad Studios division has developed TV shows and films with studios like Sony Pictures Television, Picturestart in the U.S., Germany’s Bavaria Fiction, France’s Mediawan, Brazil’s Wise Entertainment, Canada’s CBC and Singapore’s MediaCorp. In 2019, Wattpad launched Wattpad Books, which has published 21 books to date.
In October, Naver was fined 26.7 billion won, around $23 million, by South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission for manipulating its search algorithm to give preferential treatment to its own services and contents over rivals. (Source: ZDnet)
Patreon has announced some changes it might make in the way patrons are charged, and it has several creators panicking. Let’s take a look at the proposal, why it’s being considered, and the ramifications of any changes. (Trust me. You’ll stop panicking.)
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I think it’s one of the pervasive mistakes made by webcartoonists today — they’re doing strips when they ought to be doing longform comics. It’s an easy mistake to make, after all. Most of the webcomics that have caught our attention in the early part of webcomics history (2000-2010 or so) have been comic strips.
And that’s why webcartoonists have chosen the strip. And it’s a big reason they may be struggling.
Here’s why…
A comic strip has a very prominent expectation for today’s reader: The strip has to be a free-standing — and satisfying — reading experience. More often than not, satisfying means “funny”. But that’s not always the case. Nonetheless, the reader comes to a strip expecting a plot to be delivered in three or four panels.
And if your writing doesn’t deliver that, you’re losing readers.
A few years back, I critiqued a webcomic called Fried Cheese Balls. It told a story of culture & identity from the creator’s life as a second generation Indian American who split time between India & the US. These include lost-in-translation moments, culture clashes, the dichotomy of being a single child living in a big, multi-family home in India, and celebrations of the absurd.
During the time I was critiquing the comic, it was telling the story of the arranged marriage between his mother and father. It was a fascinating story that shared a lot about the culture and history of India along the way.
There was only one problem — the creator, Arp Laszlo, has chosen to deliver the story in a newspaper comic-strip format. And the story was suffering.
When I reviewed it, I pointed out that the strip were not satisfying reading chunks, and I suggested that Mr. Laszlo consider re-imagining it as a longform comic.
That was several years ago.
This weekend, however, I was delighted to hear from Mr. Laszlo over Twitter.
@guigar Hey man – a couple of yrs ago you critiqued my comic in your forum that I was using the wrong format. You were right 🙂 I started redrawing it as a page: https://t.co/3WtNY8vprG
First of all, the art had matured, but that’s to be expected. More importantly, however, the comic was interesting. It was a much more satisfying experience than the comic had been.
It’s very good.
But longform is harder to succeed at than strips
I really don’t think that’s the case. In fact, I don’t think there’s ever been a better time than right now for longform webcomics. With such factors as the promotional power of social media and the readership’s increased savvy regarding eBooks, I think today’s longform-comics creator has an equal chance of success as a comparable strip creator.
Is the new Fried Cheese Balls perfect? Not really.
The creator is still publishing this comic as if it were 2005. And I would strongly encourage him to read some of the archive pieces I’ll link to below that outline my thoughts on an improved publishing strategy for longform-comics creators.
But that first step — changing from a strip to longform — was a doozy!
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