Hello, dear reader, I hope you’re doing well. I thought the day might be a good day to talk about something else near and dear to my heart: webcomics. Golden pigeon has been updating for more than a year. It’s given me a little bit of perspective on just breaking into the industry. I paused to think a bit more about it when I talked with another hopeful comic artist online. It really pulled me back into an analysis of what helps a comic become successful. Then you can think about making money. You certainly won’t be making money in the beginning.
My own opinion on what helps a webcomic become successful includes consistent updating, a unique style or quality to the comic, good writing, a community presence, and a decent amount of content. So how does Golden Pigeon measure up to these criteria? Golden Pigeon has had consistent updates, a unique art and coloring style, and decent writing for a first web comic geared towards kids. I believe I can do a better job advertising it by contributing more to comic forums online, and, if our schedules allowed it, we could update more often and give readers more content to look forward to. It’s hard to keep readers interested in something that only updates once a month. At the moment it would be hard to address the problems of greater community presence and updating more. RSS feeds help our fans keep track of us and so do subscriptions on comic databases we are featured in (Comic Fury and Tapastic). This helps address the update issue by making it easy for fans to follow us. I’m hoping to increase Lunar Nebula’s community presence once I have a few more projects up and running. Stay tuned! Now you’ve heard my two cents, and I know there are other qualified individuals who’ve written about this very subject. They also have evidence for their opinions on how to make money.
Mike Russell did a workshop in 2008 titled, “Workshop Notes & Links: 'The Seven (or So) Habits of Highly Profitable Webcomics'”. He added more information to it and that article can be found at http://culturepulp.typepad.com/culturepulp/webcomicslecture.html. Most of the links are now defunct, yet his 13 points make sense to this very day. He also references the book, How to Make Webcomics. To summarize the main points: the webcomic should be free, monetize things that support the webcomic and provide multiple sources of income, keep expenses low, be talented, and focus on building up a community. I highly suggest you read the entire article if you are interested in making webcomics. Reiterating the point to live cheaply is another article at http://www.duelinganalogs.com/article/the-key-to-living-off-of-your-webcomic/ which contains a tiny bit of adult language. I could not figure out the author’s full name. Please let me know if you find it so I can give him his proper credit. Jason Brubaker, one of my favorite graphic novelists, also gives starting artists a helping hand with his blog, YouTube videos, and his book. I haven’t finished reading Unnatural Talent so I don’t have advice from it to give you. An older blog post of Jason’s from 2010 provides some details. He suggests using online advertising, affiliate links, direct sales, and donations. The article can be found at http://www.remindblog.com/2010/10/07/how-to-make-money-webcomic/. Jason Brubaker is an all-around cool guy and I think you would enjoy going through his archives if you like this article. To reinforce Jason’s suggestions there’s an article at http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-do-webcomics-make-money/ written by Joel Lee which hits on the same sources of revenue.
I didn’t talk about conventions, but some artists do make money making appearances, doing sketches, and signing books. This article covers the broad topics of making revenue and I may do right in the future about specifics. Please let me know if you have any comments or questions. I’m going to keep doing research, writing, and starting more projects. I hope this blog helps someone's journey to success. Have a good day, dear reader!
My own opinion on what helps a webcomic become successful includes consistent updating, a unique style or quality to the comic, good writing, a community presence, and a decent amount of content. So how does Golden Pigeon measure up to these criteria? Golden Pigeon has had consistent updates, a unique art and coloring style, and decent writing for a first web comic geared towards kids. I believe I can do a better job advertising it by contributing more to comic forums online, and, if our schedules allowed it, we could update more often and give readers more content to look forward to. It’s hard to keep readers interested in something that only updates once a month. At the moment it would be hard to address the problems of greater community presence and updating more. RSS feeds help our fans keep track of us and so do subscriptions on comic databases we are featured in (Comic Fury and Tapastic). This helps address the update issue by making it easy for fans to follow us. I’m hoping to increase Lunar Nebula’s community presence once I have a few more projects up and running. Stay tuned! Now you’ve heard my two cents, and I know there are other qualified individuals who’ve written about this very subject. They also have evidence for their opinions on how to make money.
Mike Russell did a workshop in 2008 titled, “Workshop Notes & Links: 'The Seven (or So) Habits of Highly Profitable Webcomics'”. He added more information to it and that article can be found at http://culturepulp.typepad.com/culturepulp/webcomicslecture.html. Most of the links are now defunct, yet his 13 points make sense to this very day. He also references the book, How to Make Webcomics. To summarize the main points: the webcomic should be free, monetize things that support the webcomic and provide multiple sources of income, keep expenses low, be talented, and focus on building up a community. I highly suggest you read the entire article if you are interested in making webcomics. Reiterating the point to live cheaply is another article at http://www.duelinganalogs.com/article/the-key-to-living-off-of-your-webcomic/ which contains a tiny bit of adult language. I could not figure out the author’s full name. Please let me know if you find it so I can give him his proper credit. Jason Brubaker, one of my favorite graphic novelists, also gives starting artists a helping hand with his blog, YouTube videos, and his book. I haven’t finished reading Unnatural Talent so I don’t have advice from it to give you. An older blog post of Jason’s from 2010 provides some details. He suggests using online advertising, affiliate links, direct sales, and donations. The article can be found at http://www.remindblog.com/2010/10/07/how-to-make-money-webcomic/. Jason Brubaker is an all-around cool guy and I think you would enjoy going through his archives if you like this article. To reinforce Jason’s suggestions there’s an article at http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-do-webcomics-make-money/ written by Joel Lee which hits on the same sources of revenue.
I didn’t talk about conventions, but some artists do make money making appearances, doing sketches, and signing books. This article covers the broad topics of making revenue and I may do right in the future about specifics. Please let me know if you have any comments or questions. I’m going to keep doing research, writing, and starting more projects. I hope this blog helps someone's journey to success. Have a good day, dear reader!