We’re well into the second half of the year, believe it or not. Now’s a great time to start planning the rest of your 2016.
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This is a re-post from the Webcomics.com archive. If you’ve ever been curious about the kind of information, tutorials and advice that you’ll get as part of your subscription to Webcomics.com, this is a good example.
If you’d like to join the site, you can get a 12-month subscription for $30 — or you can get a one-month Trial for $5 … with no obligation after your 30 days expire. For less than three bucks a month, you can get a steady flow of information, tutorials and advice targeted towards your webcomic business — plus a private forum to discuss issues with other professionally minded cartoonists.
This post was contributed by Scott Kurtz. It originally ran on Webcomics.com in 2010.
I was talking to Kris Straub about this and expressing frustration in the response we often get during the Q&A portions of our frequent comicon panels. No matter how long we discuss the importance of putting the work first during the panel, one of the first questions asked is always about some specific form of monetization. “How many T-shirts do I make?”
Kris asked me if I ever heard about cargo cults. And I hadn’t so I looked it up.
Cargo cults sprang up after World War II along islands in the South Pacific. Japanese and American soldiers invaded these islands, set up bases and soon after, all these amazing material goods and technology started falling out of the sky on a regular basis. Goods that the indigenous tribes shared in from time to time. After the war, the soldiers packed up and left and the air drops stopped. So the tribesmen started emulating the soldiers, assuming that if they acted the way they did, the goods would start falling from the sky again.
So you have these military bases made out of straw and wood popping up on these islands, with natives making uniforms and wooden guns and marching in formation looking up and waiting for more stuff to fall out of the sky.
And that’s what’s happening to a group of people in webcomics. There are a lot of people emulating all the wrong things in the hopes that in doing so, they’ll bring themselves success. And to make matters worse, discouraging these people only seems to make their resolve stronger.
I see aspiring cartoonists with barely 100 regular readers looking to print books, make plushes, spend hundreds of dollars traveling to conventions. Why? Because they’re observing successful webcomickers doing the same and thing and falsely believe that by emulating these practices, success will follow. I promise you it won’t. Emulating those practices before your work can property support it won’t bring success, just unsold inventory an unrecoverable investments. And ultimately it’ll bring discouragement, resentment and ultimately it might lead to giving up completely.
Strong content will provide a creator with ample opportunities to monetize it. And when the time comes for your work to start supporting that monetization, the tips and tricks you learn here can hopefully be put to good use. But emulating these practices before the time is right, is counter to your goals.
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.
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It’s time for another Hot Seat, and it’s been a while since we discussed some cartooning fundamentals, so let’s do a Lettering/Word Balloon Hot Seat.
I’ve often said that improving in this area can make a “Meh” comic look great overnight. And I’ll bet you don’t give your lettering half as much thought as you ought to. So let’s dig in. If you want to participate, hit me in the Comments section below with the following information:
The content you are trying to access is only available to members.
You don’t need a subscription to read today’s post!
This is a re-post from the Webcomics.com archive. If you’ve ever been curious about the kind of information, tutorials and advice that you’ll get as part of your subscription to Webcomics.com, this is a good example.
If you’d like to join the site, you can get a 12-month subscription for $30 — or you can get a one-month Trial for $5 … with no obligation after your 30 days expire. For less than three bucks a month, you can get a steady flow of information, tutorials and advice targeted towards your webcomic business — plus a private forum to discuss issues with other professionally minded cartoonists.
Writing comedy is a challenge that is made even more daunting in the fact that humor itself is completely subjective and impossible to define.
In the “How To Make Webcomics” book, our chapter on writing outlined a few frameworks for comedy — tried-and-true constructs that can be used as a general funny-idea generator.
But, in looking at several webcomics by Webcomics.com members, I keep seeing the following mistake:
Several of you are working so hard to get to the Funny that once you reach it, you’re so releived that you immediately collapse.
But getting to the Funny just isn’t good enough. If you want to stand out, you need to get to the Funnier.
Here’s a thought on that…
I’d like you to experiment with the following process.
Write a joke to your best ability.
Let it sit for one week.
Return to the joke and re-write it with the following in the back of your mind:
At a certain point, you might just realize the following:
This is a much slower way to write, and to be sure, you may want to establish a pattern in which you’re writing first drafts on Monday and then addressing last week’s drafts on Tuesday, etc. But I’d like to see if this approach has any verifiable results in those of you who would like to improve their humor writing.
The newest Webcomics.com Poll asks…
Loading ...If you answer “Other” please be hit the Comments section to tell us what that other position would be!
The results of the annual Webcomics.com Poll on income sources were jaw-dropping — and they reflect a sea change in the webcomics business model. The majority of respondents — 54% —reported crowdfunding newcomer Patreon as one of their primary sources of webcomics-related income.
We’ll talk about what this means and compare it to previous polls that asked the same question…
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For the past year I’ve been helping to beta-test a new app that helps you protect your copyright over downloadable content. Blasty is simple, easy-to-use, and effective in stopping unapproved downloading of your work.
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Recently, I saw a webcartoonist asking for advice on convention banners. Here’s my advice:
The content you are trying to access is only available to members.
You don’t need a subscription to read today’s post!
This is a re-post from the Webcomics.com archive. If you’ve ever been curious about the kind of information, tutorials and advice that you’ll get as part of your subscription to Webcomics.com, this is a good example.
If you’d like to join the site, you can get a 12-month subscription for $30 — or you can get a one-month Trial for $5 … with no obligation after your 30 days expire. For less than three bucks a month, you can get a steady flow of information, tutorials and advice targeted towards your webcomic business — plus a private forum to discuss issues with other professionally minded cartoonists.
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.
I’ve been pretty dour on calendars as merchandise in the past, and, truth be told, I’m still not a huge proponent of the practice. As I’ve stated before, calendars have a very limited shelf life. Few people buy them after January. That means you either have to have a very strong, dedicated readership to pitch to or you have to go Print-on-Demand (POD) which brings the unit profit way down.
I am a fan of the calendar-creation tool at Lulu.com, and Redbubble.com seems to have a pretty snazzy set-up for calendars, as well. So, as long as I don’t invest too much time on it, I can usually justify putting out a POD calendar.
Lulu gives you a choice between two sizes: a large-format calendar that measures 13.5 x 19 inches and a standard-sized one at 11 x 17 inches. The Redbubble calendars are 11.7 x 16.5 inches.
For a step-by-step walkthrough of Lulu’s calendar-creation tool, read this archive post.
The large-format calendar (like the sample on the right) has a spiral-bound spine at the top, holding sheets of 13.5 x 19 -inch stock.
Dates: Are you confirmed on any convention appearances for next year? Semi-confirmed? Put it on the calendar! (Just make sure to be clear if any of these are tentative dates.) Other dates to note:
Pricing: Lulu allows you to set your own royalty, but try to keep the final price as close to $20 as possible (for the standard size). $30-range for the larger version.
Of course, you could buy a larger number of calendars for yourself, driving the unit cost down, and then try to sell them for a larger profit on your own site. You can do this through your POD vendor or you could invest in an offset print run. However, you risk buying too many and then being stuck with them in January when sales dwindle.
Of course, you can always use them as a loss leader to drive sales to your store later in the month.
When I released my 2010 calendar, it was November. And, truthfully, I figured this was plenty of time. One of my readers was very upset with me for releasing it so late.
I was perplexed. I couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to purchase a calendar before November, and yet, there was clearly a segment of my readership who had already completed their calendar-shopping for the year — and given the choice, they would have chosen my offering if it had been available.
So, this year, I offered my calendar in early-October. And my sales have been brisk.
But my new recommendation is to release your calendars at the beginning of September! I’ll get into why in a moment.
I realize that this advice is coming to you too late for this year, but you can put it in the back for your head for next year. (I’ll try to have a Friday Archive Dive on this post next year to remind you!)
But there’s an even better reason for having your calendar out early: Conventions!
How did I overlook that?!
I brought 20 calendars to New York Comic con this year, and I was sold out either Saturday night or early Sunday. They flew off the table.
Calendars have an edge on the convention table:
If I had those calendars on my table in Baltimore the month before, I’m convinced that I would have made a killing.
About midway through the convention in New York, one guy who was buying a calendar asked for a sketch inside it — the way I do with books.
How did I overlook that?!?
Thinking on my feet, I asked him what month his birthday fell in. He said “April,” and I flipped the calendar open to that month and did a special sketch, with one of my characters delivering birthday wishes.
Every calendar after that had a special sketch on purchaser’s requested month.
Even if you’re not planning to attend conventions in September, October or November, you should still plan to have your calendars prepped and available by September because if you do, you can order yourself a small stack and offer them on your Web site as Artist Editions.
Most storefront solutions include a way for the purchaser to communicate with the merchant. In PayPal, it’s “NOTE TO MERCHANT.” Advise your readers to indicate the month they want the illustration drawn in — and any birthday messages (if this is a gift for someone else, for instance) — and you’ve got a rock-solid early-Fall merchandise offering.
And your sketches could be simply your characters, or they could deliver birthday wishes, or they could contain references to the person’s astrological sign… the possibilities are endless.
Heck, you could do a very limited number of calendars with sketches on each day and sell it for a premium price.
A few years back, I launched a couple of Christmas cards and the response was so overwhelming, I vowed to start earlier the following year so I could take advantage of this opportunity better.
Designing Christmas cards — and let’s note here that the term “Christmas card” is being used as a catch-all phrase for all of the holiday cards that get purchased during the winter holidays — is a lot like designing T-shirts.
No one is going to buy one with your character(s) on them. No one is going to buy them with your strip re-printed on them (unless maybe it’s a single-panel comic).
What they are going to buy are cards that express your unique sense of humor or your identifiable illustration style. It’s perfectly fair game to swipe a punchline from a strip. And it’s perfectly OK if the card has little-or-nothing to do with your comic.
Take the this good advice about designing great T-shirts and apply it to your Christmas card concept.
Like I said, I produced two that year. Both are posted a little further down. The first one is related directly to the theme of my comic, but had content that had not appeared in the strip (yet). The second one was completely unrelated to the comic. Both sold well, although the one that matched more closely the “Evil Inc” theme sold a little bit better.
When you think about it, designing a greeting card is very similar to creating a two-panel comic. The cover is the first panel and the inside can be the second panel.
In fact, it’s an incredibly effective two-panel comic because it’s impossible to look ahead to the punchline and ruin the build-up. You can build a nice amount of suspense that will charge the pay-off nicely. For example…
Of course, you can also approach it as a single-panel comic — with a nice, themed message on the inside.
The usual online printers are already offering specials for people printing greeting cards for the holidays. PSPrint has offered as much as 60%-off. Overnight Prints has offered 50%-off on holiday-related printing.
Make sure appropriately-sized envelopes come with the order. If not, buy some, and factor that expense in to your final price.
Remember, you’re shipping off someone’s greeting cards. They need to arrive in good shape. I bought these cardboard boxes from Uline last year, and they performed beautifully.
