Brad Guigar
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I think you introduce a lot of possibilities for confusion — and that’s a story killer. I wouldn’t do it unless I had an incredibly good reason.
Drop a line to the Toocheke creator Brian Leetoo. He’ll be happy to help you. toocheke@gmail.com
I recommend the Dymo LabelWriter 4XL.
(Affiliate link)
Every time I do the math on this, the numbers just don’t add up.
I can do the same thing, more effectively, with better quality, and keep more of my pledge — without Merch for Membership.
Kickstarter is the far better option for merchandise-related crowdfunding.
Pricing physical merchandise is a little easier in this sense because you have a unit cost to start from. Digital goods are a little different. In cases like those, I tend to look around at comparable items from other creators.
We devoted a couple episodes of ComicLab to this topic, so start here:
Then, read this:
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Bottom line:
(1) Do a good comic.
(2) Post your comic on social media so people can read the entire comic on that platform. (In other words… don’t post a link to the comic… don’t post a teaser panel to the comic…post the whole comic!)
(3) It doesn’t matter when you post the comic, that’s not the world your readers live in. This is.
(4) Repeat Step One.
Here’s the crux of the question: Do you want to be a web designer or a cartoonist?
To do the level of work that you’re talking about, you’re going to have to spend copious amounts of time/energy learning web design — time you could (should) be using for comics.
Or you could shift to a WordPress theme/plugin like Toocheke (which I strongly endorse) and employ the benefits of someone who actually *wants* to be a web designer who created a solution for your problems.
The bigger question is: Why do you want a publisher for your comic?
If you self-publish, using a Kickstarter, you stand to make more (exponentially more) money.
A publisher is going to take the lion’s share of the profits, yet anything a publisher can do today, you can do yourself.
And there is a metric ton of information on this site to help you do that.
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Also… big disagree with the schedule thing. Here’s why.
Here’s what I’d like you to consider:
(1) Build your own website, if you haven’t already.
(2) Use social media as a publishing tool first, a promotional tool second.
(3) Mirror your comic on Webtoons, but don’t use it for your main site.
(4) When you’re ready for a book, launch that Kickstarter and access all of the readers you’ve earned through the different platforms you’ve built — your website, social media, Webtoons, etc.
(5) A Kickstarter is free market research. It tell you if (a) you’re not ready for the market or (b) the market’s not ready for you. If the Kickstarter doesn’t fund, that’s no big deal. Learn what you can from the experience and use it to retool and come back stronger.
I’ve long been *against* using Charge Upfront — for the following reasons.
You may also be interested in the ComicLab episode in which I went into the topic in detail.
The td:dr version is simple: Anyone who joins your Patreon campaign near the end of the month will get billed on that day — and then again on the first day of the following month. That’s going to set up two scenarios:
• The user isn’t aware of the billing pattern, and they feel cheated — having been billed twice in a matter of days
• The user is aware of the billing pattern and decides to wait until the following mont to pledge — and then forgetsNeither scenario is a very good one.
If you’re struggling with ComicEasel, you could try Toocheke. I switched to it because its responsiveness (presenting a optimized version of your site to mobile users) was far superior.
I hear stories all the time of people who post to social media constantly and get unfollowed as a result.
I wouldn’t lose sleep over this — it’s definitely not the norm.
It’s much more probable that anyone who unfollows you simply doesn’t like the content you’re posting.
I’m not aware of either Sandlot or Kiki’s Delivery service, so it would be unwise of me to comment.
But — just glancing at Kiki’s — I’d argue that the narrative has nothing to do with “slice of life” writing. (At least no life I’m familiar with!) There’s a narrative there. A story.
However, I’ve long held the belief that storyline-driven comic strips — like For Better or For Worse — could only survive in a newspaper-driven publishing landscape. That’s because, under that system, if your newspaper ran FWOFW, then you were exposed to it every day — whether you wanted it or not. And, eventually, if you jumped into the story, you were able to follow every update because — as long as you were subscribing to the paper, you never missed an update. (And if you did, it was very easy to jump back in.)
Today’s comics are driven by social media. That’s where your readers are consuming nearly 100% of their content. The rules are much different, and they definitely don’t favor a story that’s told only four panels at a time — and in which individual updates are easily missed.
