How to Self-Publish

[Modesty]

How to Self-Publish

I've been asked this a few times by random artists and was suppose to give a lecture on it last month, but we had sheduling conflicts.

Anyway, so you have this idea for a comic and you want to share it with friends. So how do you go about doing this? There are 5 major ways.
1) Internet
2) Copy-Shop
3)POD (Print-On-Demand)
4) Indy Publisher
5) Contests

Here are the benefits of each.
1) Internet:

• Cheap. It's the cheapest method because you can get your comic hosted for free on a majority of sites.
  
• No limit on content, page count/size, color or B&W
  
• An excellent way to get your feet wet, practice your artwork, and learn how to make a proper layout and writing.
  
• Quick feedback. You learn a lot about what sort of people are interested in your story and ways to improve.
  
• Networking. You meet lots of people from fans to fellow artists which can form small communities. (Like this one!) There also more ways to communicate with fans. It also makes for easier advertising.
  

The only downside to internet publishing is that 1) you don't get a profit at all for your hard work. No one really reads Penny per page comics. 2) You need a scanner, computer and interenet connection or access to such things often.
3) If you don't update on a weekly basis AT least then your comic will die. Unless you've been around for years and years.
Sample of a successful online comics: Penny Arcade, VG cats, Megatokyo, MacHall, Inverloch, and Earth Song.

2) Copy-Shop

• You have a physical piece of work to give to people and possible get money.
  
• Relatively inexpensive. It's only a couple of cents to make a copy.
  
• Quick and relatively easy. No computer necessary.
  

Downsides: Limited binding options means a small page count. Limited to a specific paper size. No real easy way to get feedback from customers. Limited fan base, unless you have an online shop or you make a deal with the copy store owner to print hundreds of copies to sell

3)P-O-D

• Growing in popularity and ease thanks to online PODs.
  
• Many options for print quality and binding
  
• Looks professional
  
• Easy to sell at Conventions
  

Downsides: It costs a pretty penny. There's a chance you could flop if you don't know your audience. You have to print under the printer's specifications so you need a certain page size. Did I mention it is expensive?

4) Independent Publishers.

• Get your book in some comic book stores
  
• Someone else is advertising for you
  
• It will be printed professionally.
  
• Still might cost a bit.
  

Downsides: There an editor process where you have to pitch your idea, it has to be approved or improved and in the end you could be turned down. Limited on content. You will probably only receive royalties for your work. There are specific page specs for every publisher.

5) Contests
I only list this because sometimes big name publishers like TokyoPop hold a contest every year to publish rising artists. Some of them get publishing deals. OR the other option is to pitch your idea to a big name, but it's best to have experience first.

[Modesty]

POD: How Sass Did It

Before really starting the project, I did a lot of homework. Some of the big name comic artists were trying to make an anthology at the same time so I felt inspired. I asked how they were doing it, checked out their site and felt they had a pretty good system going. Except the comic never got printed and the project fell apart. ;_; Very sad.

I knew I had some level of income, but I didn't want to do it myself. bluebug had been part of an anthology attempt that never really got off the ground. I picked up that project and ran with it. XD We had to discuss things such as page limits and price which was very important because lets face it...we're poor.

We automatically knew we would be doing a fantasy comic featuring elves so that was our theme. We made a master plan of how to handle this project without losing money in the process.
1) First, we limited our page count to about 16 pages for each story plus a cover for each. This limited our artist count to about 3 artists. bb and I recruited artists we knew had experience with making comics. We also did fun things like decide a name for our group and the project name. ;D

2) Managing the funds. I estimated how much each book would cost and how much it cost to produce a book. We also knew we needed a website so we would need web-space. Each artist chipped in their own money to fund the site and we all had a hand in its design. My master plan was this. NAcomics had created a Pre-Order list so they could tell their printer how many books to print. (They did not use a POD option). Unlike their pre-order list, ours was free. It was used to gage how many people would possibly buy the book and would we come out even. At the same time we had a donation drive and a patronage option with the benefit of free advertising in the book. That way if the project flopped, it was donated money anyway.

3) At the same time we were working on story ideas, making character art and making pages according to specs all the while trying to keep in touch with future customers and with the printers.

4) We advertised our weasily guts out. Or tried to anyway. We told friends, I made cards and sent them out to people at a convention, and posted web-banners where we could.

5) Finally we had all our pages made, edited and sent them to the printers for a Proof copy. This is an important step. I'm glad I did this because we had some pages print twice by mistake. Make sure your comic isn't missing pages. The proof was free pretty much.

6) I made the order and sold physical books at a local convention and sold the rest online.

[Modesty]

Some Tips:

Be careful of who you choose as your POD printer. Research their site and company and definitely check their customer service. If people complain it might be best to steer clear and find someone else.
Some well known and reliable printers are Lulu.com and Cafepress. The downside is that they're expensive and somewhat difficult to navigate.

It's also good to go to a printer that prints comics specifically.
Comixpress and Ka-Blam! offer this service which also allows you to upload your comic directly to their online store without ordering physical copies.

If you live in Canada or elsewhere, take into account where the physical location of the online POD is. It will affect your shipping costs and time.

We have found that perhaps Comixpress was a no so wise choice because their customer service is terrible. They are incredibly slow and disregard your deadlines. (They also have yet to pay us for our online sales but lets not open up that wound right now.) At the time though, Comixpress was our best choice. To be fair.

If your only looking to pass out a few comics to friends, it's not worth using POD. Use a cheaper option.

Start out online and get some exposure before you set out to do this. Even pitching story ideas and not pictures before you start is a great idea.
A good forum board that helps out with this is Online Manga University

[James StarRunner]

Thanks for putting this up Mod! ^_^