Line Webtoons partners with Patreon

For the better part of a year, Webcomics.com has been posting articles discussing the end of the ad-supported webcomic. Here’s a significant indication of what we’ve been talking about for the last twelve months: Line Webtoons is partnering with Patreon. From the Mary Sue:

Today, LINE Webtoon announced that Patreon has been integrated into their Discover platform, so that readers can directly support the writers and artists they love by becoming Patrons, without having to leave their Discover page. Even better, LINE Webtoon is willing to put their money where their mouth is. According to their press release, LINE Webtoon “will make a monthly pledge to creators who publish at least two updates per month on Discover and who have more than 3,000 subscribers and 5,000 monthly page views per chapter in the U.S.”

In addition to that, if you’re already a web comic creator on Patreon, LINE Webtoon invites you to to join LINE Webtoon as either featured creators or as Discover creators who will participate in LINE Webtoon’s patronage investment program.

I’ve said it before: Webcomics are moving to a patron/subscription model. This is one of a long line of confirming indications, in my opinion. If you haven’t re-thought your digital publishing approach — and factored out the effect of advertising — you need to do so now.

by on August 3, 2016
Posted In: Marketing / Social Media
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August To-Do List

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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by on August 3, 2016
Posted In: To-Do List
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Archive Dive

Cargo Cults

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.

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.

by on July 29, 2016
Posted In: Business
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5 Changes You Need to Make… Now

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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by on July 27, 2016
Posted In: Business
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Lettering Hot Seat: Open Call

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:

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by on July 25, 2016
Posted In: Hot Seat critiques
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Letting Comedy Ferment

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:

You’re not pushing hard enough

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:

  • You did not conjure lightning. The gag you wrote, as it stands, is not funny.
  • This isn’t a joke; it’s the framework for something better.
  • In re-writing this joke, you may not arrive at the same punchline (or, if you do, you may not use the same set-up to that punchline).
  • Don’t let yourself off the hook.

At a certain point, you might just realize the following:

  • The writing comes a little easier. That’s because, I believe, your subconscious mind has been hacking away at the problem.
  • Your original gag really wasn’t that funny. And you can see it much more clearly now.
  • Improving the gag doesn’t feel so much like tampering with something precious the way it did when you first wrote it.

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.

by on July 23, 2016
Posted In: Writing
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Webcomics.com Poll — “If I could hire just one position…”

The newest Webcomics.com Poll asks…

If I could hire one person to help my webcomics business, it would be a(n)...

View Results

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If you answer “Other” please be hit the Comments section to tell us what that other position would be!

by on July 23, 2016
Posted In: Uncategorized
4 Comments

Webcomics.com Poll — Income Sources

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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by on July 23, 2016
Posted In: Marketing / Social Media, Webcomics.com Poll
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