Underdogs

DIY Comics: Cutting Out The Middle Man

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When I committed to creating a comic, I knew that publishing with one of the big companies anytime soon was not a reality. I was introduced to web comics as a serious avenue at Comic Con New Orleans 2010. I’ve since created two web comics. Comics have been in my life as long as I can remember. For me, comics are about story, art, and innovation. I rarely bought for the sake of collecting. Coming to terms with that, I had no problem with the web comic medium.

CuttingOutTheMiddleMan

Let’s face it, as creators, we still want to see our work in print. We want to hold it, feel it, smell it, and wave it in the air like a banner of victory. Once “Sweet Dreams are Made of Worms: Year of the Rabbit” was finished, I looked to get it printed. It’s been a journey. So far I learned two things: the quick and easy way and the Do It Yourself way. Before I continue, I want to stress these are my opinions based on my research and experience.

The quick and easy: Tap the army of middle men wanting the lion’s share of the action. They make it sound like they are doing us a favor by taking a loss to provide us with a specialized service. I’m not going to mention any names, but we know the companies I’m talking about. Their business is putting the product of our labor into their pocket. Sure, we get a market ready product. But if we’re lucky we make pennies on the dollar if it sales. Yeah, we can say “They do all the work.” We would be right in some cases. But, they didn’t spend a year or more hunched at a table in a mound of crumpled art work and writing. They didn’t spend time smashing their face into a drawing board or computer to create that comic. I know it sounds like I’ve villainized these companies, but if you are in a bind or don’t care if you make decent return, these middle men are a good option.

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The DIY way: Most of the time, especially in the beginning, we’re only looking to get 1-100 books printed. The reason we turn to print on demand is because we can’t afford using traditional printers. Let’s say you just need 25-50 books for your table at artist alley. You spend an average of two dollars a book with print on demand, a couple hundred bucks for a table, rent a room, put gas in the car, eat overpriced convention center food, and spend a little on stuff at the convention. Sometimes, you may have to pay taxes. Hopefully, you had a good time at the convention and made connections, but if you look at it from a profit standpoint, you’ll be very upset.

Traditional printers shy away from small runs because the cost in overhead and labor to run the machines for the two minutes it takes to print 25-50 books isn’t worth the trouble. Typically they don’t want to mess with anything under a thousand copies. I know, the thought of a thousand copies makes you cringe, but in the case of a standard 32 page black and white comic, you get a quality product for under a dollar a copy.

“How am I going to afford that many copies, where am I going to store them, how am I going to sell them?” Consider this, a standard comic long box holds around 350 comics. Some of us have 4-5 of these at home right now. Storage is really not that big a deal unless you are really cramped for space. How can you afford it? Save up cash, have a garage sale, sell artwork, take pre-orders, use crowd funding, If you want it… you’ll get it.

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Distribution takes some footwork. Talk to local shops, take a road trip to non-local shops, contact shop owners (especially franchise shops) out of town. I did it and not one shop turned me away. They are not going to want to pay more than half of the cover price, but remember, you paid less than a dollar a copy. The average black and white Indy comic sells for $3.99. There are other start up costs depending how you market you product. Big brick and mortar book stores will require UPC codes and ISBN numbers. There are also some nickel and dime fees, copyright cost, and such. Most of this is one time or annual fees. I think we’ll find that if we have a good product and we do the dirty work ourselves, the DIY method puts us in a better position than the quick and easy method.

“You talk a good game, Craig. Where’s the proof?” You got me! I don’t have a printed comic out yet. I got tired of spinning my wheels with print on demand and on-line merchandisers. I did the research, made the phone calls, and took the road trips. I wanted to make sure the store owners like my comic and that they would carry it first. It took time, and it paid off. I now have two franchises in Texas, several independent stores here in Louisiana, two in Mississippi, and franchises in New England and on the upper west coast willing to carry at least 5 copies of my comic. Now I just have to get them the product. Garage sale time!

Written by Jessie W Craig, founder of Charisma Kills Studios.

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5 Responses to “DIY Comics: Cutting Out The Middle Man”

    • DaemonDan

      And now my comment just looks silly. Although there is still a DYI in the body of the post (second to last paragraph).

      Craig, I appreciate this post, because it is indeed very pertinent. We’re planning on doing a print run someday as well and will have to figure it all out too. Let us know how your DIY print run turns out.

      Reply
      • Michael Yakutis

        DYI? I have no idea what you’re talking about. Clearly you’re crazy.

        Jk, I fixed the mistake. Thank you. For firing it me.

        And yes, this is a great blog. We, too, have been doing heavy research into the pros and cons of DIY publishing for an upcoming project. In a perfect world, one could just submit to a publisher, the publisher likes it enough to print it, and then you get some decent money from sales. But that is veeeery hard to accomplish when it comes to creator owned properties. Especially considering how most publishers who print creator owned comics rely heavily on the creator to promote the product themselves. Which I think is fair for the most part, but in that case you might as well just print it on your own rather than seek a publisher. Ack! Too many Catch 22s!

        Reply
  1. NeilKapit

    Thank you for writing this, Jessie! Concise information that I can easily access again for future reference.

    Reply
  2. JWCraig

    In the time after I wrote this article, I’ve done extensive research into the comic industry. I also tried very hard to follow the processes I detailed in DIY Comics. The comic industry is rapidly changing. The shady business practices of Diamond Comics Distributors, along with the rising cost in raw materials used in producing and distributing comics are causing the mainstream publishers to rethink their business models. More resources are being dedicated to digital comics, cartoons, television, and movies. Surprisingly, the sell of monthly print comics makes up a small, if not, trivial profit for the big boys. Alternative media and merchandise dwarfs the financial return on print comics. DC Comics is actually considering changing their name to DC Studios. If the economy continues on its current path, and if nothing is done to counter the harmful effects of Diamond Comics, the major publishers will start producing all of their periodical comics digitally and print only trade paperbacks, graphic novels, and special edition books. They will, of course, limit print runs purposefully to try an inflate the values. At any given time in the U.S.A., there are roughly 2000-2500 comic book stores. When Diamond reports their sales, it shows a 12-15% increase in comics sales. The problem with that is this includes their distribution to comic shops, newsstands, and book stores. That means only about half of those distribution sales go to actual comic shops. Keep in mind that that is just Diamonds sales, not profit made by retail outlets. Now, divide that up between the 2500 shops in the US. Comic shops are in trouble, and closing down everyday (Unlike bookstores and newsstands, comic shops don’t have the option to sell their unsold inventory back to the distributors.) Those that don’t are surviving off of specialty merchandise, CCG’s like Magic the Gathering, and other games. Considering big retailer book stores will only carry items proven to sale, when the comic shops are gone… Indy comic self publishers will only have the digital market. A market flooded with more competition than you would ever have at any brick and mortar shop. For the self publisher, the best thing to do is beat the big boys to the punch. release periodic digital and webcomics, and print only collected volumes, graphic novels, and special additions. Anthologies seem to also work well for self publishers; however, we still have this looming shadow of distribution over our heads. I say… let us, the rogue scholars of the comic industry, team up with the non-Diamond Comics distributors that comic retails have access to and use frequently. That is, the gaming distribution industry. I haven’t done any hard math on this yet, but I’m thinking if we can convince these distributors to start carrying Indy comics, that would be a sure way to get into the shops, bypassing Diamond Comics altogether. I know we are WEBcomic Underdogs, but maybe we could harness our collective might and slay the beast. I’m prepared to draft and open letter to game distributors suggesting this, hopefully one or two will at least entertain the idea enough to do serious research to see if it is possible. After all, who better to save the comic industry than webcomic creators? Most of us do what the big boys do without the luxury of an army of writers, artist, letterers, colorist, editors, and Secretaries.

    Reply

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