Post by amyofdarkness on Jan 13, 2012 16:33:22 GMT -5
Hi Rogo and everyone else! ;D
I'm continuing this as part of a discussion that was happening on the webcomic, and since there's a whole forum here I think it's more appropriate for me to get all the advice I have out in one spot.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it, making a living income on your webcomic will have its challenges and things may start out slow, but if you put the effort into it you can start to see it turn a profit.
It needs to be a combination of getting your comic noticed, and capitalizing on the audience you bring in. On the surface that sounds like you're taking advantage of people, but to make a job rather than a hobby of your webcomic, you have to think of things in terms of how much benefit you're getting.
As I suggested on the webcomic, upgrading the account or getting your own dedicated site is a good idea. Of the two options, observation points out that "your own site" is the best one. Of course, I'm speaking as someone who had their comic hosted on a community site for 8 years now, but that just means I can speak from the experience of community site "glass ceilings".(and I have my reasons for staying but those are beside the point!) They are great for cultivating an audience, but you start to see diminishing returns (and I'll be using that term frequently) the higher your popularity goes. You're vying for attention with literally thousands of other comics, and they're all trying to do the same things.
I'm not suggesting leaving Smackjeeves however, because a mirror can be a big asset in this as well. Unless you get the best account there (I've seen perhaps one really popular comic that has one) where you can host your own ads, directing people to your personal site is in your best interest.
Let's talk about advertisement and the delicate balance of ad placement! Oftentimes, artists and fans alike have a hefty disdain for "advertisement", because of the way most sites have poorly implemented it. But despite the space usage on your site, ads can be a boon to your money making efforts simply because the profits trickle in and allow you some extra money to put into improving your site (or buying ramen when you're unemployed!)
First off, you don't want to beat your audience over the head with your ads. People hate ads because they know they're being advertised to. I used Project Wonderful (when the site I was on allowed it grumblegrumble) and had the ability to approve or disapprove of any ad in my queue, so if an ad was offensive or animated to the point of distraction, I declined it.
Bigger is not always better. Sure, people will put down large bids for a rectangle ad (this is the ad you see that often has TV commercials) but it takes up space, is hard to find a proper place for, and as mentioned, sometimes the ads used in this can be really obnoxious.
Diminishing returns: Alright, forget what I said about Google ads... but don't at the same time. One Google ad is alright, but more than that you'll see very little adding up. What I meant by ripping you off is that they don't have to report the value or number of clicks/views your ads received, so what they decide to pay you is what you get.
Now, what kinds of ads are best? I'll vouch again for Project Wonderful, not only because the bid system, but what other things it offers. You get statistics: You can see where your hits are coming from, what country likes your comic most, what updates spiked the most interest... and you also get the opportunity to meet your webcomic peers through the network. Networking is always a good idea. Connections, you gotta make 'em! I'm also such a proponent of PW because so many web authors use it, and if you have downtime instead of a blank "your ad here" block you can put a default ad that links to any comic you want. It's nice to do someone a favor once in a while
Banner ads are pretty good. These are rather large, but most people are used to them and you can put them in a spot that's not terribly distracting. Because of the versatile nature of this ad, you'll make moderate to high profit off of them.
Tower/skyscraper ads were my favorite. You could put them alongside a page or beneath it in the comment form, and you got the best income from them because they were almost always active. There were bouts of downtime on my banners, but never on the towers! However, your larger page sizes may prove a challenge for placing these, so as much as I would recommend these in another situation, something horizontal seems to be in your best interests, unless you can find a place for it beneath the page.
Button ads/tiny ads are okay in a cluster somewhere discreet, but because of their size people will bid low, and most of the time these were inactive.
How much is too much? Well, I think it's a delicate balance, but I'd say having one of every size on your page is most definitely too much! You need to consider the room for your other links (Twitter, your forum, you DA, anything else) and also give your comic room to be the center of attention. Finding a way to integrate the ads into your layout without sticking out so much (though the ad campaigners would prefer it that way!) is a bit of trial and error.
Bidding/ad price: Some will tell you to set your ad box prices to 0. I wouldn't recommend it, because it doesn't accelerate the way people insist it does! If you want more than a few pennies per week, set the price point at 50 cents or so. When the site I was on didn't suck (detect a thread of bitterness through this?
) I had the bids start at $1.00 US and it got up to $3.00 bids.
Another advantage: you can use some of the income to advertise your comic through the same network, and I highly recommend doing so. The more traffic you get, the more value your web space has to the advertisers.
Advertising your own work: The best method is to find comics in a similar genre or style to yours. I'm definitely the sort of person who'll click on a comic banner that promises monsters and supernatural creatures if I'm already reading another comic about that subject, but I'll ignore a bright fan-servicey high school magic girl banner if it's on the same page as my favorite monsters & demons comic. And as using PW has shown, lots of people operate this way as well.
Social networking sites: I suppose Facebook is good and all, but people often mention Tumblr and Reddit, and Stumbleupon as good tools to use for getting webcomic attention. I'd say that's true but only for a certain kind of comic, and Gravston isn't that kind of comic! Story comics require context through the following and preceding pages, whereas what gets popular on those sites are one-shots that get passed around like Lolcats pics. If you posted a page of Gravston you'd get less "I'm intrigued...do go on!" and more "I don't get the joke". If you got something short and punchy or 4 panels like a newspaper comic, those are good sites. For a story comic, a webcomic toplist is your best option, like TopWebcomics. It never hurts to join lists like that, honestly, you just need to put the banner somewhere so people can vote though!
Alright I think that's enough about advertising! Let's move on to the shop stuff!
Prints: I have a recommendation for Drive Thru Comics. Not only did they offer a good service for selling PDFs, but the print quality on a book I sold through them about 2 years ago was spectacular. Compared to another book of mine that was put out by a "professional" company (how do you make a 126 page manga look like a toaster manual?!) it looked like something you could buy at the comic shop and less like a printout on newsprint from Office Max. Since your comic is already black and white, compiling it into books for print shouldn't cost you too much, but you'll probably clear more profit just offering the PDF's unless you're comfortable charging a lot more for a physical copy, because the production eats up most of the price.
Shops: I have a cafepress store and it pretty much exists to pay for its own account when someone happens to buy something. I set the price point very low (I think maybe a dollar or two over the base price) because I felt like the items there were already too expensive, and it exists only for people who wanted merch from my comic that badly. I've fallen behind updating it, but you probably won't suffer the same motivation issues!
I've heard Zazzle is much better, so you might just want to compare sites and see what one strikes your fancy. There's also Spreadshirt, which actually looks pretty good.
Comic related shirts will please the fans, but try and come up with some cool stuff that can be enjoyed by any random person stumbling on the shop. I know comics like Dr. McNinja put out shirts and other merch that has little to do with the comic, but has the same sense of humor and people can get the joke without knowing it's from a webcomic.
However comic merch has the added appeal of making your fans an army of walking advertisements You can put the comic name on there with an image if that is a benefit you would like to take from it, but just putting something "awesome" on a shirt will do.
I think you can benefit from this one: shirts designed after clothes your own characters wear. Pippa's bear hoodie is a perfect example of this, and if you keep this sort of thing in mind you can put a new design in the comic and then update your store: Hey, you like this design? It's in the store now! Get a shirt with Rip on it because she's awesome!"
Personal experience here, my own readers have been begging me to update my shop with shirts that my own characters wear, so I know this one's a good idea
Recall how I mentioned "Donation drives"? This is always a good idea when you need to raise quick money to put into the project.
Instead of asking for random donations, you set a goal of some sort, or offer an incentive for people to donate.
Doing a drive kept the internet and electricity on at my house when my husband was let go from work. When I started, I did an exclusive poster for each month, and a raffle was drawn from the donators and prizes given out. I got a button maker (the cheapest model!) from Badge-a-Minit, and some snap- badge/fridge magnets from the bargain craft store, and some Bristol "artist's cards", so I made my own merch and mailed it off to the winners. They were small items, so they didn't cost much to mail out.
A method that's probably a little easier would be to do something with the comic in order to spur on donations: set a goal, and state something that will happen should the goal be reached. This can be supplemental story material (like a character origin story or just a side story involving an audience favorite, or even a "what if" style story) or if you can animate, something cute & short animated (I know of some comics who go the animation route which is why I suggested it!) One really clever idea I've seen is the comic Goblins has a character whose fate is determined by whether the donation amount is met by a certain date, and he posts a comic detailing the character's near-death exploits. I'm not sure if you could do something quite like that, but I'm sure you can think of something cool to do at any rate. These are just suggestions after all!
Hooo boy... what else what else... I think that's it for now, I hope this is helping out!
I'm continuing this as part of a discussion that was happening on the webcomic, and since there's a whole forum here I think it's more appropriate for me to get all the advice I have out in one spot.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it, making a living income on your webcomic will have its challenges and things may start out slow, but if you put the effort into it you can start to see it turn a profit.
It needs to be a combination of getting your comic noticed, and capitalizing on the audience you bring in. On the surface that sounds like you're taking advantage of people, but to make a job rather than a hobby of your webcomic, you have to think of things in terms of how much benefit you're getting.
As I suggested on the webcomic, upgrading the account or getting your own dedicated site is a good idea. Of the two options, observation points out that "your own site" is the best one. Of course, I'm speaking as someone who had their comic hosted on a community site for 8 years now, but that just means I can speak from the experience of community site "glass ceilings".(and I have my reasons for staying but those are beside the point!) They are great for cultivating an audience, but you start to see diminishing returns (and I'll be using that term frequently) the higher your popularity goes. You're vying for attention with literally thousands of other comics, and they're all trying to do the same things.
I'm not suggesting leaving Smackjeeves however, because a mirror can be a big asset in this as well. Unless you get the best account there (I've seen perhaps one really popular comic that has one) where you can host your own ads, directing people to your personal site is in your best interest.
Let's talk about advertisement and the delicate balance of ad placement! Oftentimes, artists and fans alike have a hefty disdain for "advertisement", because of the way most sites have poorly implemented it. But despite the space usage on your site, ads can be a boon to your money making efforts simply because the profits trickle in and allow you some extra money to put into improving your site (or buying ramen when you're unemployed!)
First off, you don't want to beat your audience over the head with your ads. People hate ads because they know they're being advertised to. I used Project Wonderful (when the site I was on allowed it grumblegrumble) and had the ability to approve or disapprove of any ad in my queue, so if an ad was offensive or animated to the point of distraction, I declined it.
Bigger is not always better. Sure, people will put down large bids for a rectangle ad (this is the ad you see that often has TV commercials) but it takes up space, is hard to find a proper place for, and as mentioned, sometimes the ads used in this can be really obnoxious.
Diminishing returns: Alright, forget what I said about Google ads... but don't at the same time. One Google ad is alright, but more than that you'll see very little adding up. What I meant by ripping you off is that they don't have to report the value or number of clicks/views your ads received, so what they decide to pay you is what you get.
Now, what kinds of ads are best? I'll vouch again for Project Wonderful, not only because the bid system, but what other things it offers. You get statistics: You can see where your hits are coming from, what country likes your comic most, what updates spiked the most interest... and you also get the opportunity to meet your webcomic peers through the network. Networking is always a good idea. Connections, you gotta make 'em! I'm also such a proponent of PW because so many web authors use it, and if you have downtime instead of a blank "your ad here" block you can put a default ad that links to any comic you want. It's nice to do someone a favor once in a while
Banner ads are pretty good. These are rather large, but most people are used to them and you can put them in a spot that's not terribly distracting. Because of the versatile nature of this ad, you'll make moderate to high profit off of them.
Tower/skyscraper ads were my favorite. You could put them alongside a page or beneath it in the comment form, and you got the best income from them because they were almost always active. There were bouts of downtime on my banners, but never on the towers! However, your larger page sizes may prove a challenge for placing these, so as much as I would recommend these in another situation, something horizontal seems to be in your best interests, unless you can find a place for it beneath the page.
Button ads/tiny ads are okay in a cluster somewhere discreet, but because of their size people will bid low, and most of the time these were inactive.
How much is too much? Well, I think it's a delicate balance, but I'd say having one of every size on your page is most definitely too much! You need to consider the room for your other links (Twitter, your forum, you DA, anything else) and also give your comic room to be the center of attention. Finding a way to integrate the ads into your layout without sticking out so much (though the ad campaigners would prefer it that way!) is a bit of trial and error.
Bidding/ad price: Some will tell you to set your ad box prices to 0. I wouldn't recommend it, because it doesn't accelerate the way people insist it does! If you want more than a few pennies per week, set the price point at 50 cents or so. When the site I was on didn't suck (detect a thread of bitterness through this?
) I had the bids start at $1.00 US and it got up to $3.00 bids. Another advantage: you can use some of the income to advertise your comic through the same network, and I highly recommend doing so. The more traffic you get, the more value your web space has to the advertisers.
Advertising your own work: The best method is to find comics in a similar genre or style to yours. I'm definitely the sort of person who'll click on a comic banner that promises monsters and supernatural creatures if I'm already reading another comic about that subject, but I'll ignore a bright fan-servicey high school magic girl banner if it's on the same page as my favorite monsters & demons comic. And as using PW has shown, lots of people operate this way as well.
Social networking sites: I suppose Facebook is good and all, but people often mention Tumblr and Reddit, and Stumbleupon as good tools to use for getting webcomic attention. I'd say that's true but only for a certain kind of comic, and Gravston isn't that kind of comic! Story comics require context through the following and preceding pages, whereas what gets popular on those sites are one-shots that get passed around like Lolcats pics. If you posted a page of Gravston you'd get less "I'm intrigued...do go on!" and more "I don't get the joke". If you got something short and punchy or 4 panels like a newspaper comic, those are good sites. For a story comic, a webcomic toplist is your best option, like TopWebcomics. It never hurts to join lists like that, honestly, you just need to put the banner somewhere so people can vote though!
Alright I think that's enough about advertising! Let's move on to the shop stuff!
Prints: I have a recommendation for Drive Thru Comics. Not only did they offer a good service for selling PDFs, but the print quality on a book I sold through them about 2 years ago was spectacular. Compared to another book of mine that was put out by a "professional" company (how do you make a 126 page manga look like a toaster manual?!) it looked like something you could buy at the comic shop and less like a printout on newsprint from Office Max. Since your comic is already black and white, compiling it into books for print shouldn't cost you too much, but you'll probably clear more profit just offering the PDF's unless you're comfortable charging a lot more for a physical copy, because the production eats up most of the price.
Shops: I have a cafepress store and it pretty much exists to pay for its own account when someone happens to buy something. I set the price point very low (I think maybe a dollar or two over the base price) because I felt like the items there were already too expensive, and it exists only for people who wanted merch from my comic that badly. I've fallen behind updating it, but you probably won't suffer the same motivation issues!
I've heard Zazzle is much better, so you might just want to compare sites and see what one strikes your fancy. There's also Spreadshirt, which actually looks pretty good.
Comic related shirts will please the fans, but try and come up with some cool stuff that can be enjoyed by any random person stumbling on the shop. I know comics like Dr. McNinja put out shirts and other merch that has little to do with the comic, but has the same sense of humor and people can get the joke without knowing it's from a webcomic.
However comic merch has the added appeal of making your fans an army of walking advertisements
You can put the comic name on there with an image if that is a benefit you would like to take from it, but just putting something "awesome" on a shirt will do.I think you can benefit from this one: shirts designed after clothes your own characters wear. Pippa's bear hoodie is a perfect example of this, and if you keep this sort of thing in mind you can put a new design in the comic and then update your store: Hey, you like this design? It's in the store now! Get a shirt with Rip on it because she's awesome!"
Personal experience here, my own readers have been begging me to update my shop with shirts that my own characters wear, so I know this one's a good idea
Recall how I mentioned "Donation drives"? This is always a good idea when you need to raise quick money to put into the project.
Instead of asking for random donations, you set a goal of some sort, or offer an incentive for people to donate.
Doing a drive kept the internet and electricity on at my house when my husband was let go from work. When I started, I did an exclusive poster for each month, and a raffle was drawn from the donators and prizes given out. I got a button maker (the cheapest model!) from Badge-a-Minit, and some snap- badge/fridge magnets from the bargain craft store, and some Bristol "artist's cards", so I made my own merch and mailed it off to the winners. They were small items, so they didn't cost much to mail out.
A method that's probably a little easier would be to do something with the comic in order to spur on donations: set a goal, and state something that will happen should the goal be reached. This can be supplemental story material (like a character origin story or just a side story involving an audience favorite, or even a "what if" style story) or if you can animate, something cute & short animated (I know of some comics who go the animation route which is why I suggested it!) One really clever idea I've seen is the comic Goblins has a character whose fate is determined by whether the donation amount is met by a certain date, and he posts a comic detailing the character's near-death exploits. I'm not sure if you could do something quite like that, but I'm sure you can think of something cool to do at any rate. These are just suggestions after all!
Hooo boy... what else what else... I think that's it for now, I hope this is helping out!
