There are several plug-ins and apps that promise to automate your social media. Plug-ins like IFTTT and plug-ins like Jetpack promise to get your content out to several social-media platforms for you — freeing you to focus on more important things. Sounds great, right? I’m going to argue that it’s not.
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So you’ve decided to start a webcomic. Or maybe you’re launching a new chapter in your ongoing webcomic. The question eventually arises: What’s the best way to launch? There’s a few things you should keep in mind to maximize this exciting time…
DON’T drag this out
Remember “The Child Who Cried Wolf.” Your followers are only going to put up with a finite amount of “coming soon” messages. I would suggest that one or two weeks is plenty of time for pre-promotion. Longer than that is going to try your readers’ patience.
DO craft your message carefully
This is an incredibly fine line to walk. Your objective during this time is to express your excitement about an upcoming event — but not tease the event itself.
What’s the difference? Expressing your excitement doesn’t involve an implicit “go-and-look” share statement. This is a good time to post sketches or teaser images. But you’re not talking about the actual launch yet. Talking about the launch itself does involve an implicit go-and-look statement, and you want to save that for the final posts before the Grand Opening.
DON’T launch with one page
This is this biggest rookie mistake that webcomic creators make. They make a Big Noise about a launch — building an impressive amount of buzz around the event — and then, on the Big Day, they open to a single page.
Unless that single page has an extremely powerful emotional hook, you’ve effectively lost all of the momentum you’ve spent so much time building. This is especially true of your single page is ambiguous — like a longshot of a castle or a pair of feet running through mud puddles. There’s no emotional hook in a page like that — and therefore, no reason for a potential reader to come back for the rest of the story.
Instead, consider launching your webcomic with a well-developed hook. If you’re smart, you will have written the story so that hook happens quickly — perhaps even in the first eight pages. But whether it takes eight pages — or eighteen — you should have enough pages available on your site on Launch Day to captivate readers so they want to stick around for the entire story.
DO consider using a trailer
In the same way that feature film use trailers to entice moviegoers, you could prepare a trailer for your story. It doesn’t have to be animated — it doesn’t even have to be a video — but it should be created with the goal of whetting your potential readers’ appetites for the ongoing marrative.
DON’T get lazy on social media
Remember: Social media is all about sharing. Give your followers a reason to share your posts. And, let’s face it, unless you have a very large existing following of engaged readers, posting: “My comic just went live!” has extremely limited sharing potential.
Why? Because right now, you’re the only one who cares. You need to give your backers a reason to care. What’s that reason? It’s probably closely related to your Elevator Pitch. In other words, what’s your comic about? What makes it special? Why are people going to fall in love with it? Your messaging should be targeted at those concepts — not something mundane like “I just posted the first page.” Tell your followers why they should care.
What are the top three comic strips of all time? Dave and Brad share their lists ‚ and combine to share a list of overall best strips. But first, Dave’s dog has a nemesis, and it’s a cat that channels Paul Lynde.
Questions asked and topics covered…
What are the top three comic strips of all time?
Is it possible to be “too niche”?
If you’re new to webcomics, what’s the best way to start?
How do you change gears on Patreon once your backers have gotten used to certain rewards? But first, did you know Sha-Na-Na opened for Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock?
Questions asked and topics covered…
Changing gears on Patreon
What mistakes would you avoid if you started all over
It happens, from time to time — especially if you’re offering exclusive content on Patreon. Criminals (there’s no other word) access your site and use various means to scrape the content and post it in places people can access it for free. As long as we, as artists, allow ourselves to be undervalued, there will always be people comfortable doing this. So, what can you do to stop it?
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What’s the best process for submitting your work to the Eisner Award committee? Dave and Brad get some great advice from Jackie Estrada, who has been in charge of the awards since 1990.
But first, Brad’s sons ask how they got their names… and the answers are revealing.
Questions asked and topics covered…
Eisner Award advice
Intermittent updates
An “About” page for your cast
Applying the “webcomics business model” to other types of media
I’m just starting out. Where should I host my webcomic? I get this question quite often — both here and on the ComicLab podcast. And traditionally, I’ve pointed people towards building their own website. But I’ve been giving it a lot of thought. And in light of the omnipresence of social media — and the increasing dominance of smartphone users — I’m beginning to suggest a different approach.
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What’s in a name? Quite a bit if you’re trying to name your book. Crafting the right title can have a significant effect on everything from Kickstarter pledges to audience response. And there are some very real pitfalls to avoid.
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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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