The best days to launch/conclude a Kickstarter

The best days to launch/conclude a Kickstarter

While recording an interview for the marvelous Story/Comic podcast, I discussed my strategy for secretly launching a Kickstarter to Patreon...
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Webcomics Confidential: ‘You have the audience you deserve’

Webcomics Confidential: ‘You have the audience you deserve’

Many of us seek a magic hashtag or "One Weird Trick" to game SEO and drive readers to our work....
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ComicLab Ep 362 — Your content is not your community

ComicLab Ep 362 — Your content is not your community

When comic creators try to market their comics, they often confuse what their comic is about with who it's for....
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Remove your first panel

Remove your first panel

If you've been a reader of Webcomics.com for a while, you know how much I loathe "magic number" advice. But...
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Key dates in the upcoming holiday shopping season

Key dates in the upcoming holiday shopping season

From Black Friday to New Year's sales, here's a guide to help you prepare your online store for the holiday...
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Webcomics Confidential: How long should it take to draw a comics page?

Webcomics Confidential: How long should it take to draw a comics page?

A person starting to do comics asked a question in a forum for creators: "How long does it take you...
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Comics Consultations

Comics Consultations

Powered by I will prepare top-down analysis of your comic-based business, including: Art and writing Social media Crowdfunding Marketing/promotion Then...
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ComicLab Ep 361 — Let’s talk about your bits and pieces

ComicLab Ep 361 — Let’s talk about your bits and pieces

When a listener asks about Kickstarter strategy, the ComicLab guys are divided! Dave favors the traditional webcomics approach. Build your...
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Reddit posting strategy

Reddit posting strategy

This is an excellent time to start an account on Reddit — or to dust off a profile you haven't...
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Clip Studio tutorial: Adding highlights to black hair

Clip Studio tutorial: Adding highlights to black hair

Drawing a person with black hair can be tricky. If you're not careful, you can end up with someone who...
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Vertical-scroll eBooks

For a while, I’ve been an advocate of converting your comics into a panel-by-panel scroll for smartphone users. I think it’s a good reading experience for Instagram, and I think it’s a good use of the multi-image post feature on Patreon. If you’ve taken that advice, then you’re already prepping the files, and I have another way for you to use these files. And if not, I’m going to give you another reason you should.

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by on June 1, 2020
Posted In: Digital publishing
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Implementing Patreon’s sales-tax controls wisely

When you look at Patreon’s sales-tax implementation, you get the feeling that there’s something very clever going on. Let’s talk about reading the signals and mitigating the effects that sales tax will have on your backers.

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by on May 21, 2020
Posted In: Crowdfunding
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ComicLab Ep 126 — Supportive Life Partners

Today’s show is brought to you by Wacom — makers of the incredible Wacom One! This week, Dave and Brad talk about their most important creative partners — their wives.

Questions asked and topics covered…

  • Let’s talk about life partners
  • Logo design
  • Staying creative when life is tough

Brad Guigar is the creator of Evil Inc and the editor of Webcomics.com
Dave Kellett is the creator of Sheldon and Drive.

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by on May 21, 2020
Posted In: ComicLab
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Copyright, Fair Use and YouTube

Although the central theme is YouTube, this video has tons of information directly applicable to webcomics. It’s well worth your time. Hat-tip to Cory Casoni for passing it along.

https://twitter.com/CoryCasoni/status/1261099298462171136
by on May 15, 2020
Posted In: Business
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ComicLab Ep 125 — Lore Olympus vs Webtoons

Today’s show is brought to you by Wacom — makers of the incredible Wacom One! Recently Webtoons spoiled a reveal in “Lore Olympus” that the creator, Rachel Smythe, had been building towards for years. With that in mind, Dave and Brad return to the topic they broached at the beginning of the year— “Should you build your audience on Webtoons?” 

Questions asked and topics covered…

  • The problems with building an audience on Webtoons
  • Midtown Comics and DC Comics step up to fill the void left by Diamond Comics Distributors, establishing two new distributors — UCS Comics Distributors and Lunar Distribution, respectively.
  • Comics featuring dentists, lawyers and doctors are shoo-ins for original-art sales
  • Is a three-panel comic inherently better than a four-panel comic?
  • Four-panel storyline strips face an uphill battle in audience-building in today’s social-media-dominated publishing landscape
  • Coverting social-media comments into Patreon backers

Brad Guigar is the creator of Evil Inc and the editor of Webcomics.com
Dave Kellett is the creator of Sheldon and Drive.

Listen to ComicLab on…

by on May 14, 2020
Posted In: ComicLab
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Canceled Comic Convention? Time to get Creative!

Are you worried about the revenue you may be losing because most of the upcoming convention season is being canceled? Since 2013, I’ve been arguing that comic conventions are losing propositions for most of the creators who were still participating in them. There are other — better — ways for independent creators to make money. Here are five strategies to replace – and hopefully even exceed — the revenue you’re missing from canceled comic conventions.

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by on May 13, 2020
Posted In: Conventions, Crowdfunding, Merchandise
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Court ruling finds that public social-media posts are… well, public

In March 2016, Mashable approached Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Stephanie Sinclair to license one of her photographs for $50. When Sinclair declined, the company downloaded the photo from Sinclair’s Instagram page. A copyright-infringement lawsuit ensued. The case never reached trial. In a summary judgement, the Southern District Court of New York ruled that Sinclair didn’t have standing to bring a copyright lawsuit. Let’s talk about what that means for creators using social media to post their work.

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by on May 11, 2020
Posted In: Business
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