Powered by I will prepare top-down analysis of your comic-based business, including: Art and writing Social media Crowdfunding Marketing/promotion Then...
When you’re starting a new story, it’s very tempting to deluge your reader with all of the details of this new world you’ve created in your head. After all, you’re excited to share it with them — and there’s a lot to share! But beware the infodump! Like a casual date that gets too clingy too fast, it’s bound to turn off your audience.
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Today’s episode is sponsored by Bonjoro — an amazing app that enables you to quickly send personalized welcome and thank you videos to your readers, clients, patrons, or backers. This week, Brad and Dave talk about the cartoonists who — knowingly or unknowingly — guided their careers. Plus — is it better to work on comics piece-by-piece or set up an assembly line?
Questions asked and topics covered…
Who were the cartoonists who wrote you a map for your career?
Step-by-step approach or batch?
Seamlessly combining character, plot and theme to create emotionally resonant stories
Tell me if this has ever happened to you. You have a deadline or an assignment is due, and you can’t get an idea — there are no ideas! I have good news for you…
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Today’s episode is sponsored by Bonjoro — an amazing app that enables you to quickly send personalized welcome and thank you videos to your readers, clients, patrons, or backers. This week, Brad and Dave welcome “Crabgrass” creator Tauhid Bondia. Plus — how do you know if you’re good?
Today’s episode is sponsored by Bonjoro — an amazing app that enables you to quickly send personalized welcome and thank you videos to your readers, clients, patrons, or backers. As Twitter launches a subscriber service, we discuss how every platform is introducing subscriptions. Also, after a decade of social-media dominance of the Internet, what happens NEXT? Then, we spend the rest of the hour discussing Patreon best practices.
Questions asked and topics covered…
Twitter launches Super Follows
Everything platform is becoming Patreon
What happens AFTER social media?
Are comic conventions coming back — and would you go?
Artfol is a new social-media platform that is positioning itself as “a social-media network for artists.” Eschewing the traditional algorithm approach, it promises an improved platform for creative people. Ironically, it’s because of that approach that I give Artfol a high probability for failure.
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The traditional tax deadline today. However the IRS has extended the deadline to May 17 due to the COVID pandemic. (This does not apply to state and local taxes.) But what if you owe money and can’t pay? Don’t make a bad situation worse. This could end very badly if you handle it improperly.
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A cartoonist was sharing some advice they got on a recent webinar. The instructor suggested that a comics artist should keep a reader moving through a book by placing something enticing at the end of the page. This is a wonderful way to approach a book. It’s fantastic! It’s downright TREMENDOUS! …if the year is 1983 and you’re signed by a print publisher. But… since it’s the year 2020 and you’re trying to build an audience on the Web, let’s talk about strategic layoutbased on story beats.
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The ’Ringo Awards have opened nominations for this year’s awards. Click this link to nominate your favorites — and share it with your readers, encouraging them to nominate their favorites!
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FREE FRIDAY! Today’s post is available without a subscription! For years, I’ve advocated against printing calendars to sell to readers. The logic is very simple. You have an incredibly narrow window in which to offer this merchandise, and after that window closes (sometime in mid-January), your stock is completely unsellable.
See, the problem with printing a calendar is that it’s incredibly difficult to foresee the correct number of units to print. Of course, you can do the print-on-demand (POD) route — as I’ve recommended in the past — but the profit margins on POD projects are notoriously small and the best (in my opinion) option for POD calendars, Redbubble, stopped supporting calendars altogether.
This strategy — including them as Kickstarter Stretch Goals or Add-ons — circumvents that entirely.
By piggy-backing your calendar onto a successful Kickstarter campaign, you start out knowing approximately how many calendars to print because the orders have already been placed. You can print enough to satisfy your Kickstarter backers, and you can include a small number of extras to sell later.
By getting the money and the orders upfront, you can print the calendars using an offset printing process or a high-quality digital one. That means higher quality, and more satisfied customers.
And, most importantly, you start the print project in the black. You’ve already paid your costs through the Kickstarter. So any extras you sell between now and next january as pure profit. If they don’t sell in time, you simple pulp them or throw them in as extras in all of your February orders. Or you can send them to your top Patreon backers. Or gift them to family. It doesn’t matter. You’ve already turned your profit.
If you — like me — have been vexxed by readers asking for calendars — or stung by printing calendars that didn’t sell within their window — this is an excellent tool to have in your back pocket when your next Kickstarter comes around.
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