Webcomics Community
Main Content => The Business of Webcomics => General Webcomics Business Topics => Topic started by: Matt on January 08, 2010, 03:55:55 AM
-
I saw an empty forum. I posted in it.
Okay, so a large slice of the boards here are devoted to the Business of Webcomics. I fully understand. I'm sure you'll all agree, when people give you advice, or a critique, it is always important to weigh the advice up. Factors like, is the person in question actually profiting from his webcomic, are they 'above me' in terms of readership and experience, are they actually a squirrel randomly pressing keystrokes.
So, forgive me, I am not at all familiar with you guys, nor your webcomics. I have about 6 that I read regularly. As an artist that is willing to glean tips from those that are profitting from their webcomics, superior in terms of readership and experience, and are certainly lacking in squirrel-like features, I want to know your qualifications for giving advice, as it were.
Here are some questions. Answering them will help people like myself make decisions as to whether the advice that you give is worth much.
• How long has your webcomic been running, and what is it's readership? (unique views a week, or something like that)
• How are you doing in terms of webcomic business? (Clearly, I'm not asking for hard numbers for that would be rude, but try not to be too vague and do be honest)
• What percentage of your genome is of the Sciuridae family.
Okay, enough squirrel related revelry.
(Edit: Changed the title to something a little nicer)
-
Well, I can't speak for everyone else, but I come to this table wearing two hats. One of them is a cartoonist, yes. And I'm currently making jack off that. But the other is a Freelance Web and Graphics designer.
So why should you listen to anything I have to say?
Because I come at this with an education that can be applied to our hobby quite successfully. I'm trained to make your website, Logo, brochure, etc marketable and appealing to your target audience. Part of that is understanding basic marketing and human behavior. I can't tell you "This is what you need to do to be a success." And really, no one can. But i can tell you "These are some mistakes you DON'T want to make".
I also can't tell you "These website changes will increase your readership Guaranteed". What I CAN tell you is"Your website is cutting in to your readership retention/sales, and these are the largest flaws." If those sound like the same statement, welcome to the subtlety that is design.
How long has your webcomic been running, and what is it's readership?
N/A
How are you doing in terms of webcomic business?
N/A
What percentage of your genome is of the Sciuridae family.
2%
If you have a degree or are a student of marketing itself however, we'd love to have you on board to help consult more specifically on those matters.
Hope I answered your questions.
~Erebus
-
Thanks Erebus. You make good points.
If you are indeed not a webcomic artist, but instead a freelancer graphic artist, web designer or published writer, then of course, the three (two) questions in the main topic should not apply.
-
This is actually a good question but I hesitate to agree to the presumption that the quality of someone's advice is on proportion to the level of thier success.
As I joked in your intro thread I have some wonderful advice on a lot of things that you might not want to do simply because I did them and can quantatatively explain why they don't or won't work.
There may also be other factors.
Still, disclosure seems fair, but my story over the last 15 months or so is kind of a long one. So it will have to wait until I have a little more time.
The short answers to your questions are though: I have two comics, one is on hiatus. That one has 46 comics that were dispersed over a roughly five month period before the artists life imploded and I had to go on hiatus (like I said, long story). The other comic has been running weekly since November 9th of last year. We are working on a 3rd comic to be relased in the next month or two (although this little adventure may slow things down a bit) and I'm cutting out the artist (Or trying to anyway) as I do fairly well with 3D animation (can't draw to save my life as evidenced by the newer comic which I call Badly Written, Badly Drawn) and so I'm converting all the characters and sets over to 3D models so I can run the comic; sans artist.
My business has been a total loss as I am not actually selling anything. Fortunately, costs have been fairly low. I've probably spent less than $400 all told and I have the sites, some T-Shirts and Prints for promotion and butload of some very nice glossy business cards.
I am less than 3% squirrel though far more squirrely than that answer represents.
I think Trevor (TakaComics) is probably the most experienced staff member right now in sheer time and work. We will be hearing from him quite a bit.
Lastly my readership varies. I did a guest comic for Questionable Content that got me over ninety thousand unique visits over a three day period. If I could get that many to visit every day Icold buy a house with the merch that would be sold. Shortly after that wonderful time the artist left and things got very dark and lonely at Remedial Comics. Right now I get about 13-1400 unique users in a week. If I'm lucky. My blogs are pretty good (I think) I can write a bit. So there's that.
-
How long has your webcomic been running, and what is it's readership? (unique views a week, or something like that)
My comic has been running about a year and a couple months. I used to do Monday thru Friday, but I now only do 3 times a week - MWF. I get somewhere between 30 and 60 uniques a day, however, I haven't done a ton of marketing, and my comic is very difficult to grasp for new readers. I hope to change that soon, but finding my audience has proven more difficult for me due to the nature of my site.
How are you doing in terms of webcomic business? (Clearly, I'm not asking for hard numbers for that would be rude, but try not to be too vague and do be honest)
Usually when I go to cons, I make back most costs. As for being out one year, I find that that is good. I do not have a store, so I don't have any online sales as of yet.
However, I will offer this counter to my lower looking numbers: I work in art, and have for as long as I've had my comic. I have been commissioned quite a few times right out of college, and I am able to pay off my college loans by working from home. For being 23, I'm very lucky and happy with my situation. I can offer business advice in art in general, not just webcomics. I went to school for Graphic Design and Illustration, and did comics for my Senior Show even though the teachers didn't like them at first. I've given lectures to students about being in art, and am now planning on doing panels for next year's conventions.
-
Great to have you here TakaComics, I'll definitely be paying attention to what you might have to say.
Since I let you guys go first, like the brave person that I am, I'll step up.
I have no webcomic, so no readers, and certainly no business.
I have done paying contract work a good number of times to create art for video games, mainly in the concept art department though I've also done some box art for a published indie title. Little of this work has been cartooning, but all the concept art done has been for characters and creatures, good fun just to be creative with someone else's rough guides. I'd like to think my artistic ability is satisfactory.
I'm also a web developer and web designer. I develop websites in Python, I have only had one contract job for this though, and I am working on that right now. :P My web design skillset is your standard stuff, I can theme Wordpress, write standards compliant xHTML and CSS and create pretty looking site graphics with Photoshop. Photoshop is my friend. Oh, and I'm also learning Javascript/JQuery, which so far has been rather delightful.
-
• How long has your webcomic been running, and what is it's readership? (unique views a week, or something like that)
I've been doing Bardsworth for over 4 years now, and before that I worked on a now-deceased webcomic for about 6 months (I left due to creative differences). The readership fluxuates between 3000 and 3500 (closer to 3000 because of a long hiatus I took this summer due to moving across the country) unique visits per day. Demographic-wise, I range all over the board - younger kids, college students, and adults 40+ years.
• How are you doing in terms of webcomic business? (Clearly, I'm not asking for hard numbers for that would be rude, but try not to be too vague and do be honest)
About 2 years ago I was making some pretty decent headway. I had just printed my first book and was making decent sales on it, and people were donating like crazy. Unfortunately, I noticed that once the economy tanked, my sales and donations dried up. This past year has been pretty bad, both in online sales and in convention sales (although I did have one very good convention experience at ConnectiCon, where I pretty much broke even). However, I don't think I can entirely blame the economy. I haven't put out any new merchandise in regards to the comic, mostly due to not having any time beyond my day job and working on the comic itself. That's something I hope to change this year.
In addition to the comic, I am also run a fairy art site (http://www.fairymagik.com) with my wife, and we've been promoting that alongside my comic at conventions. I actually sell more merchandise through that than I do for the comic, so by pulling people in with the one venture, I can make them take a look at the comic, since the demographics that one or the other are pretty much the same. We'll see how well that does this year.
• What percentage of your genome is of the Sciuridae family.
I like pie.
-
• How long has your webcomic been running, and what is it's readership?
I've been doing Shattered Myth for about Nine months now, M-W-F plus a small launch buffer has put me at around 150 strips. It's only been late twice (by hours) and I've never missed an update. A fact I'm fairly proud of actually. As far as readership goes, I average somewhere between 60 and 80 unique views a day. I don't seem to get a lot of hits but my average pageviews is usually close to 5 pages a visit which gives me hope for the future!
• How are you doing in terms of webcomic business?
Shattered Myth hasn't really gotten to the point yet where I'm pushing the business end of it. I've got a small store setup with prints and originals and a single basic shirt design but I don't have the readership to kick it into gear yet and I'm realistic about that. If I can get the quality of the writing and art up, the rest will come naturally to me.
I make no allusion to "Art for Arts Sake". To me, it's entertainment and and entertainment business at that. I have a degree in Commercial Art with a minor in Business Management. Shortly after graduation I realized Graphic Design now also meant Web Design so I got some schooling in web development as well (Admittedly, it's a little rusty now). My first job out of college was in Licensing of Intellectual Properties (ok, mostly NFL and MLB stuff) where I learned a lot about Building a Brand, dealing with manufacturers & Buyers, and WAY too much about the legal mumbo jumbo involved in licensing IPs. To me, your webcomic is a Brand, not just a free comic. You have to build it into that over time, starting with the product, then the audience. Robert Khoo isn't a genius, he's a salesman who saw potential in an untapped brand (ok, so he's a REALLY, REALLY good salesman).
My current day job is at a Graphics shop specializing in T-shirts/Garments and Signs. I'm hoping to put all that stuff from each job to good use one day for Shattered Myth. I can make my own banners, flyers, bus cards, t-shirts, stickers, etc. as I need them or in bulk for discounts from the boss (unless he's miffed at me at the time-I'll have to learn to suck up just before conventions). I'm counting on this job to make my initial jump to "Business" a little more affordable.
And I'd say I'm about 2-3% squirrel, but mostly in my fluffy butt.
-
• How long has your webcomic been running...
I'm responsible for a lot of webcomics (see http://www.chriscrosby.com), but there's only two active currently that I'm a creative part of...
* SORE THUMBS (http://sorethumbs.keenspot.com): Mon-Wed-Fri since March 2004 (I'm the co-creator/writer)
* SUPEROSITY (http://superosity.keenspot.com): Daily since March 1999 (I'm the creator/cartoonist)
and what is it's readership?
SORE THUMBS gets about 400,000 unique visitors and 3 million impressions monthly. SUPEROSITY gets about 25,000 unique visitors and 100,000 impressions monthly.
• How are you doing in terms of webcomic business?
SORE THUMBS provides a regular living wage for myself and the illustrator/co-creator, 90% of it from advertising revenue. (SUPEROSITY is a labor of love.)
• What percentage of your genome is of the Sciuridae family.
I refuse to dignify that question with an answer.
-
Cebronix I would love to talk to you about the T-Shirt thing. Maybe get you to write an article. I'm primarily interested in a laymans discussion on the pitfalls of dealing with a print on demand like Spreadshirt versus going to a print shop and if going to a print shop the kind of printing available and the requirements for each of those.
I have some knowledge in this area but I'm no expert and I know from dealing with an on demand once that the types of on demand can have some complex and confusing requirements.
Let me know if you are interested in discussing this. I think it would make a great article.
-
• How long has your webcomic been running...
I'm responsible for a lot of webcomics (see http://www.chriscrosby.com), but there's only two active currently that I'm a creative part of...
* SORE THUMBS (http://sorethumbs.keenspot.com): Mon-Wed-Fri since March 2004 (I'm the co-creator/writer)
* SUPEROSITY (http://superosity.keenspot.com): Daily since March 1999 (I'm the creator/cartoonist)
and what is it's readership?
SORE THUMBS gets about 400,000 unique visitors and 3 million impressions monthly. SUPEROSITY gets about 25,000 unique visitors and 100,000 impressions monthly.
• How are you doing in terms of webcomic business?
SORE THUMBS provides a regular living wage for myself and the illustrator/co-creator, 90% of it from advertising revenue. (SUPEROSITY is a labor of love.)
• What percentage of your genome is of the Sciuridae family.
I refuse to dignify that question with an answer.
Holy shit I say!
-
Holy shit I say!
And we haven't even totally figured out how to make merchandising a steady revenue stream for us, either! We've come up with a couple of big-selling shirts over the years and our book sold decently, but merchandising isn't 80+% of our income like it is for most webcartoonists. Probably because we aren't focused on merch so much that we throw a new shirt design at the wall every couple of weeks to see what sticks, but who knows.
There's always more to learn.
-
I know the Wigu creators company "Topatoco" has really taken off this year. They tweeted that they bought something like $275k in postage last year. That's a lot of merch.
From what I've seen from guys like Jeph Jacques and Randy Milholland thier accessibilty to the fan base really drives thier merchandise sales. They give thier characters new t-shirts fairly often and then thier fans ask for those shirts.
That has got to be incredibly rewarding.
-
Yeah, the growth of TopatoCo is truly incredible.
Very happy for Jeff Rowland, he deserves the success.
-
Rob:
I'd be more than happy to share what I know about ordering/printing t-shirts and stuff. I'll put something together next week & send it your way.
-
Do you think we could have a talk over an IM or something before you get started. There are some suggestions and some things I know I've been confused about that I would like to offer up; mostly because I'd love to see them explained.
All my contact info is here under my avatar. I have all three IM's and you can catch me through GMail IM as well through my e-mail address [email protected]
Let me know. ;)
-
For T-Shirts, Brunetto's got the best rates and service, IMHO. http://www.brunettotshirts.com/tshirts.html
They do all of the TopatoCo shirts, I believe. And they've done most of my shirts.
-
LOL. Indeed. Brunetto is right down the street from me. I've used him myself and his stuff is Primo! In every sense of the word. Last time I was at his place it was literally... floor to ceiling "Cogito Ergo Nom" shirts from Questionable Content. Kieth (I think his name was Kieth... it's been awhile I forget) goes, "yeah I don't think Jeph's going to be able to go to any cons right now because he doesn't have any shirts. These are all to fill orders that were placed already." Then I peed, just a little. Not on any of the shirts though. I think.
They also have fantastic prices.
That said, there are certain file requirement that have to be met for even helpful places like Brunetto. Not only that but to buy a minimum order of a single color shirt from Brunetto is like $150 for 12 shirts (which is completely reasonable but it brings up all kinds of supply chain issues like, what sizes do you buy? You won't know what people want until you sell them will you? Also, where do you keep your inventory?) which can be a real hunk of change for some of us. And as you add colors the price goes up (as you increase your order there are volume discounts though which come off the shirts themselves and the work Brunetto does which does make a great difference in profit margin).
Additionally, you have to get special permission from him to print more than four or five colors (I can't remember if it's four or five but I'm leaning towards five).
What I feel like I want someone to write an article about is this sort of setup (for those who can afford it) as well as the print on demand places that have MUCH stricter rules about their file requirements (and honestly after the vector nightmare I went through, not knowing the first thing about Illustrator and trying to get Spreadshirt to approve an image I wanted printed and never getting them to I'd like a real discussion on what it takes to to get those files set up for the dye cutters they use) and offer different kinds of printing than the silkscreen Brunetto does, as well as the different color and quality options.
If I had unlimited funds I would definitely stick with Brunetto and I would hire a graphic artist to get all my files in order before printing and rent space to store my inventory and heck, maybe even sign on with Topatoco (and if my hits were still in the 90k for that one magical weekend I had a guest comic up at Questionable Content and my artist hadn't run out on me might just be able to do that). But as of right now I'm seriously considering a much smaller venture with maybe a Spreadshirt store with just a couple shirt designs and maybe a coffee mug or something. If I can figure out the file issues.
So I'd love to see something really comprehensive that covers everything in simple terms that any chowderhead can understand. Because the folks at Spreadshirt (and the other place I tried whose name escapes me) and their instructions make me want to kick a puppy.
-
Here are some questions. Answering them will help people like myself make decisions as to whether the advice that you give is worth much.
• How long has your webcomic been running, and what is it's readership? (unique views a week, or something like that)
• How are you doing in terms of webcomic business? (Clearly, I'm not asking for hard numbers for that would be rude, but try not to be too vague and do be honest)
• What percentage of your genome is of the Sciuridae family.
I'm tempted to just quote from Beetlejuice in regards to my qualifications, but I don't feel like looking up his whole spiel. So I guess I'll just be frank.
My comic has been running, on and off, since September of 2000. I've never really had a good sense of my readership. My traffic fluctuates greatly, obviously, depending on when I'm actually updating. Right now, I mostly have a couple dozen friends and acquaintances reading it. Probably a few random people. I don't get much feedback or comments on my site. My best year was, by far, 2006, when I was able to maintain a M-W-F schedule for six months or so. I had a decent amount of people reading then. Fans responded to a survey or two, posted some comments. It was nice.
I've made barely any money on my comics, and I've sinked way more money into my creative ventures than I have earned. I've never had enough traffic to make much on ads, but I do fun Project Wonderful spots currently. I've done a couple conventions where I sold a few print on demand comic books (3 pamphlet issues and one trade paperback) and some sketches. I sold several more copies of the comic thru one of my local comic shops.
That's really about it. Grimstone has always been more of a hobby / experiment for me. A learning experience. I'm working on some new strips right now, hope to start updating again soon. And I've got another project that I'm going to be more serious about, so I'm waiting until I decide just what route I want to go with it before I put anything out there.
-
My webcomic has been running for 3+ years. (It was also a print comic from 1993-2000.) Considering that it is a long-form, black-and-white, once-a-week, Blogless, Twitterless comic-- in other words, doing everything wrong from the How To Make Webcomics model ;) -- I think I'm doing OK. Comic Rank (http://comicrank.com/) currently lists me at 1550 readers, which is as good a popularity benchmark as any.
I'm pretty happy with how I'm doing, business-wise. I don't sell a lot of merchandise for the main reason that I don't have that much for sale. I printed up 250 print-on-demand copies of a 144pg collection of my comic last May, and sold out of most of them during the convention season (I mostly attended local shows last year, and my last show was at the end of September). I got copies in a few stores, mainly local ones or out-of-town stores that I was able to visit personally over the course of my travels. I'll be doing an offset print run this spring, which should last me a little while longer this time!
-
This is all fairly illuminating, but isn't there some sort of danger in assuming that someone's advice or casual observation is more or less valid depending on how big their e-peen(tm) is next to yours?
-
KidGalactus, I don't think there is much danger. I know I'd rather take advice regarding book printing for someone who has printed three already than the guy who has done a Lulu.com run. Everyone knows the positions of authority that Brad Guigar and Khoo hold, but not everyone is so notable. Obviously, just because someone is notable doesn't make their advice 'more valid' as you say, I think there is a lot to be learnt from the webcartoonists who have messed up and are kind enough to share where they went wrong.
All this thread does is to let would-be question-askers see people's credentials, to help them weigh advice for themselves.
-
I think your post actually supports my original point, but whatever.
Fair warning though, the first time I try to help somebody and they're like 'well what are your webcomic credentials? I didn't see you post in that thread' I'm going to fly off the handle at them.
Fair warning is all. Now I'm leaving this thread
-
KidGalactus, I don't think there is much danger. I know I'd rather take advice regarding book printing for someone who has printed three already than the guy who has done a Lulu.com run.
Ah, but some people won't be ready for a full-on offset print run and will be looking to do print-on-demand. So for them, they'll want to ask someone who has used print on demand, mostly for recommendations on who has the best product.
Obviously, just because someone is notable doesn't make their advice 'more valid' as you say, I think there is a lot to be learnt from the webcartoonists who have messed up and are kind enough to share where they went wrong.
Agreed. It is good to learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of others. Really, that's one of the ways authorities become authorities. They learn just as much from where they went wrong as where they went right.
-
How long has your webcomic been running, and what is it's readership?
Since 19 October 2008 (M/T).
4250 visits/day + 900 RSS feed subscribers. Comicrank reports 8800 regular readers.
How are you doing in terms of webcomic business?
Advertising revenues are quite good, the sales of book and merch not so much.
What percentage of your genome is of the Sciuridae family.
60%?
-
How do you find out how many people subscribe to your feed? That'd be nice to know.
-
How do you find out how many people subscribe to your feed? That'd be nice to know.
I’m using Google FeedBurner. It automatically reports your subscriber numbers on the admin panel.
-
• How long has your webcomic been running, and what is it's readership? (unique views a week, or something like that)
Just over one year. My average visits per day 1,448. Average page views per day 6, 441. Comic Rank has me at 2,316 readers.
• How are you doing in terms of webcomic business? (Clearly, I'm not asking for hard numbers for that would be rude, but try not to be too vague and do be honest)
I think you should ask for hard numbers, honestly. I make roughly $.30 - $.50 a day in advertisements. I pull in between $10-30 a month in donations. The comic doesn't pay for itself yet.
• What percentage of your genome is of the Sciuridae family.
I don't write El Goonish Shive...
-
I started Funzietown back in Fall of '08. I updated twice a week until the end of March when I stopped updating at all. I made one comic in July and then restarted in December. I've been doing one or two updates a week since.
My readership fluctuates each day between zero and infinity. By infinity I mean around 10.
Google ads made me about $50 over several months, but they don't pay you anything until you break $100.
My original intent was to monetize my comic, but since that wasn't working out, I decided to give that idea up and do it as a hobby. That took a lot of stress off and made me comfortable with a weekly posting schedule (on no specific day). I dropped the Google ads from my site since they occassionally posted ads that I found inappropriate for my my hypothetical audience of alleged children. It also means that I can experiment with drawing styles, tools and techniques that lead to wide differences in my characters from strip to strip. Very few readers + no profit motive = do what I want.
I am really only just learning to draw, so I now view my comic as a vehicle to have fun and practice.
As for the Scuridae family (also known as the "varmint food-group": I haven't checked my traps today, but if I ever do catch one of the little buggers, you can bet I'll strap him down Robot Chicken style and force him to read my comic!