Brad Guigar
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Marjorie, I think you may be conflating pornography with obscenity.
Pornography is any depiction of sexual behavior that is intended to arouse sexual excitement in its audience.
Pornography has been regulated by the legal standards that govern the concept of Obscenity, which refers to things society may consider disgusting, foul, or immoral, and may include material that is blasphemous.
Any representation of sex could be called pornographic, but not all pornography is obscene.
Although porn falls under “free speech,” the U.S. Supreme Court has established that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment.
Of course, that leads down the path of “what is obscene?” — which if going to be a different answer for different people )and different circumstances).
If they’re already interested in you, the pressure’s off. Your cover letter doesn’t have to be any more than a polite introduction and perhaps a little passage explaining the samples you’ve enclosed. Sign off with a cheerful note about being excited about working together and you’re good to go.
You might find this post and this one to be helpful.
Here’s a snippet:
Wallpaper Page
The wallpaper page that you make PayPal redirect to should make it clear that this is a wallpaper download page, and it should offer several sizes and proportions of wallpapers to meet the varied needs of your readers. Offer to make a special wallpaper for anyone who needs a size or proportion not listed on the page.
I think we can all agree that exposure is good,
Actually, no we can’t.
Because exposure, by itself, is worthless.
Exposure only has worth when it can be harnessed — in other words, when that exposure can be used to drive people to your site or merchandise.
So as soon as I hear someone tell me that the Number One reason to do something is exposure, it’s a red flag for me.
Thus the curmudgeon’s “‘Nuff said.”
However, I’m totally open to the possibility that the kind of exposure that Tumblr offers could be made beneficial. And that’s what I meant by:
Nonetheless, this is something that — like anything else — you can experiment with. If it doesn’t work, move on. If it does… do what I’d do… gloat! 😉 (And share your findings here, of course…)
Just don’t be yet another one of the thousands of creators who was conned by the lure of Exposure.
…exposure…
“‘Nuff said,” says the curmudgeon inside of me. 🙂 Nonetheless, this is something that — like anything else — you can experiment with. If it doesn’t work, move on. If it does… do what I’d do… gloat! 😉 (And share your findings here, of course…)
Just did a little research, and I confirmed what you’ve probably already assumed: MangaStudio does not support scanning directly into the app. Instead, you’ll have to scan using Photoshop — OR scan using a scanner driver such as Mac’s Image Capture. The drawback there is that you won’t be able to follow some of the steps listed in the Photoshop tutorials I’ve posted/published.
However — and I can double-check this — I beleive you can accomplish all of those steps with the much cheaper Photoshop Elements
.
A few thoughts:
Look at how your ad appears on your site.
See how the background of the ad is almost exactly the same as the background of your site?
…Like a chameleon might change the color of its body to match the background that it’s standing in front of…
…when it wants to hide?
Get it? 🙂
Also, the video:
It’s short and to-the-point, and that’s good, but it’s non-stop talking head visuals. I’d love to see the video sprinkled with some images of your comic and the Web site to kind of break up the monotony.
And you keep breaking eye contact to read your script. That’s unsettling. Think of how you feel when you’re talking to someone who can’t maintain eye contact. You feel like you’re being lied to, right? Memorize your script and keep eye contact with the camera. That’s a biggie.
I’m working on a tutorial on shooting video, since it’s a skill that’s being called into play more and more often for webcartoonists these days. I’ll front-burner that.
Finally — and most importantly — stop watching your Patreon numbers and go back to making strong comics. The more that happens, the more people will gravitate to the Patron structure you’ve already implemented.
Kickstarter is a sprint. Patreon is a marathon.
The European comics market is extremely attractive — and very competitive. My usual negotiating advice is to start your bid higher than you expect and allow yourself to be negotiated down (a little). And have qualified legal counsel look over the contract to make sure you’re not losing important rights.
Then, if you decide it’s a good fit, give it a whirl.
I’ve gotten the impression from a handful of people who say there is no situation where it is okay to post an artist work on tumblr.
My impression is that those people are in the minority. As for me, I’ve learned a long time ago to avoid personal rules that have the word “never” in them. With the notable exception of Comic Sans. 🙂
This really isn’t anything unique to tumblr. It’s been a problem since the beginning of putting original art on the internet. It’s all fixed, or all mostly fixed by putting a URL on the work itself, watermark or whatever. Which is what everyone should be doing about work they care about anyways.
That’s an excellent point!
One of my students actually hides her signature in her images. Then, according to her, if there’s ever a question of ownership, she simply alerts the offender of the hidden signature — which cinches her claim.
Otherwise I can’t think of a reason I wouldn’t recommend it to another artist to build a following.
Devil’s Advocate question: It’s only a “following” if you can harness it, right? In other words, people reading your work only has value if they can find out how to support your comic. If they’re reading the comic on another site — and never exposed to your messages (merchandise, Kickstarter, Patreon, con appearances, etc.) — is a Tumblr following worth anything? Without that Community Building, your comic is completely disposable… read, lol, click away… So, where’s the up side?And I’m asking this question honestly. My familiarity with Tumblr is minimal, so I’m very interested in hearing your response — and more importantly, the reasoning behind it!
What about using Google Sketch Up? You might even be able to pick up some of the elements that you need in the 3D Warehouse.
Just to make sure there’s no confusion, I’ll reiterate what I’ve said in my previous posts.
And as soon as you’re earning money over a certain threshold ($400 in net profit per year), you need to claim it on your income taxes (as part of a Schedule C), and that *may* constitute business earnings in the eyes of any one of your benefit sources.
If your health benefits are jeopardized by starting a business, it is foolhardy to advise you to start a business. $400 really isn’t a lot of money.
You should avoid earned revenue completely — at least not until you have a rock-solid understanding of how much money you may earn without risking your compliance.
But, as I explained in my post, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t post a webcomic. As I advised, you could start a webcomic (as I advised) on one of the free hosting services and see whether you actually can do a webcomic.
The fact is, most people can’t, and the vast majority of the webcomics that are launched are abandoned well before the first year.
So until you see that this is something that you can actually pull off, it’s pointless to talk any further.
If that happens, and if you’re showing the potential to start earning money, then — and only then — would I advise placing ads on the site and consider generating revenue — and again, I would be sure to get a thorough understanding of how doing this will affect your benefits.
Ditto Magic Addict’s post. And that’s something that’s been repeated here often. But it needs to be repeated more.
The question you have to ask yourself (and the question I’ve asked myself in regards to my own Patreon) is this: What do they have that I don’t?
And it’s really not an unfair question… and totally not sour grapes — especially if you answer it honestly.
So… in my own case. Why is the Evil Inc Patreon struggling to pass $200 when the SFAM Patreon is rocketing past $2,000?
Here’s the short list:
• He’s earned a HUGE social-media presence.
• His Patreon campaign has been going on for longer than mine.
• He’s got a comic that appeals to a broader audience than mine does.
• His Patreon campaign had tons of emotional appeal.Then I look around at other campaigns that have succeeded where mine has faltered. What else to I see?
• An Activity feed crammed with extras.
Looks like my work is cut out for me.
Maybe yours, too. But the answers for you might be a completely different list.
Sure. Start there, and then see where it takes you. If you start to see strong response to your work, then consider taking the subsequent steps towards becoming a business. But first you need to prove (to yourself) that you cam post strong work consistently and frequently.
