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Post by eheitner on May 9, 2023 14:32:41 GMT
Maybe we just each need to find a good neighborhood tree on which to staple new pages regularly. Great. You've given me an excuse to bring up Ben Katchor for the fourth or fifth time in this thread. Didn't he, when he lost an outlet or something, start posting his weekly strip in a little frame in a coffee shop? I really like that.
Papaya King and B&H Dairy! I had remembered it as Grey's Papaya, but this is even better.
Cartoonists! Find your local deli / hot dog vendor! If they turn you down, find their business rivals!
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Post by Scott Gerard Ruhl on May 9, 2023 18:05:32 GMT
The hardest thing I've encountered with self publishing is the selling and marketing. I've never had any interest in business and I'm a terrible salesman. When I read about the success various self publishers have had in the past it's because they took an active control in promoting their work and they never gave up. They call every comic shop in the country and ask if they'd like to carry their book. They send it out for review and basically insert themselves into the machine whichever way they can. I may have mentioned elsewhere but lets say I send 5 copies to Quimby's for consignment. If they sell I break even. If they don't I lose money. But other than tabling at conventions this is the best way for me to get the book out there and on shelves where people can see it and flip through it. And even if they don't buy it I still see tons of value in that. I can promote a physical store that has it and often that store will promote it on their social media. Quimby's has a weekly video that promotes all the new books and Partners & Son regularly posts whatever new offerings they receive. I've already realized that tabling at SPX this fall will probably cost me money. Plane fare, hotel room, table cost, etc. There is just no way I will move enough comics/prints/stickers to cover all that. I see it as an investment in my self and my work, with the hopes that I will slowly gain some sort of steam along the way. It's tough. In many ways I think it's why I put it off for so long. Yeah, I mean it's a bit of a cliché, but artists aren't usually the most business orientated people, right? All I can do is wish you the best of luck. Also, the guy's controversial (often for good reason) but have you ever checked out Dave Sim's writings on self publishing? You might get something out of them. Though they're probably a little dated. Have a look at the 'Notes on how to become a cartooning self-publisher' section nearer the bottom of the page here: cerebusfangirl.com/sitemap.phpOr a transcription of a talk he gave in the early nineties here: cerebusfangirl.com/artists/nftp/procon.phpThanks for the thoughts and the links, much appreciated!
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GHO
Full Member
(✿ò ⍙ ́O)
Posts: 196
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Post by GHO on May 10, 2023 15:12:45 GMT
Something i've heard floyd tangeman talk about a lot, is the need for an infrastructure of some sort. a distribution model that gets comics if front of consumers where they are. since the 80s im assuming (for comics) this hasn't been a reality with the exception of newsstands and their decline in the late 90s.
comics shops are great but the amount of people that are A) still too scared/intimidated to go in them and B) the amount of people that just don't care at all, is well above 60% of americans. if there was, first, a "spit and a half" type website that catered to small press people and could distribute books in a way that wasn't direct to consumer online shipping. and second an avenue of normal consumer locations that wanted to sell any sort of printed material. that would be the most ideal. waiting for the re-institution of magazine culture seems like the real pipe dream.
also the amount of my friends and co workers that read fiction like it's they're fucking job but won't even pick up any sort of comic still baffles me. I think the real challenge for comics is not reaching the literacy of mainstream fiction (which I think they already have) but instead reassuring the book buying public, that stories are stories and comics don't hurt your eyes when u read them (which is something I hear often)
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Post by cartoonysam on May 10, 2023 15:46:45 GMT
Given the success of webtoons and manga, both of which have reached a point where you can easily find print releases of them in retail shops like Walmart and Target, I think it's pretty clear there is a large market for comics, particularly among younger consumers. The issue is getting small-press comics out there to that untapped demographic and convincing them to check those titles out.
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Post by eheitner on May 10, 2023 19:04:04 GMT
Is Tony Shenton still around and doing his thing?
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Post by cartoonysam on May 10, 2023 19:13:01 GMT
Is Tony Shenton still around and doing his thing? When I emailed him last year about distributing my comic book, he had to reject it because his distro service is almost dead unfortunately.
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Post by jporcellino on May 10, 2023 19:24:43 GMT
comics shops are great but the amount of people that are A) still too scared/intimidated to go in them and B) the amount of people that just don't care at all, is well above 60% of americans. if there was, first, a "spit and a half" type website that catered to small press people and could distribute books in a way that wasn't direct to consumer online shipping. and second an avenue of normal consumer locations that wanted to sell any sort of printed material. that would be the most ideal. waiting for the re-institution of magazine culture seems like the real pipe dream. One thing to bear in mind in regard to getting art comics out there, is the comic shop infrastructure is terribly damaged. Frankly, the vast majority of the shops left are indifferent at best and hostile at worst to alt-comics. Places like Desert Island, Copacetic, or Quimby's are very very few and far between. Even if a shop is open to stocking this work, realistically it needs a champion for them on staff. When Austin was working at Forbidden Planet they were one of my biggest accounts, he singlehandedly sold a lot of King-Cat. The second he left the job, sales plummeted to zero. One thing I think about a lot still, is Steven Svymbersky telling me, when he first moved Quimby's from Boston to Chicago in '91 or '92, that Boston was not a big enough city to support a shop like Quimby's. A big, intellectual, literate, college-stacked city like Boston could not support a shop like Quimby's. That told me a lot about the reality we're up against. With the cost of real estate/rent getting more and more insane in cities, I worry it's only going to get worse. In NYC, the only place selling KC now is Desert Island, and even though Gabe's shop is tiny, I can only imagine what his rent is like. So I sell a (relative) handful of copies through him until he has to turn over space to the next new thing, which is understandable. On the other hand, I sell hundreds of copies direct to NYC residents, either through my website, subscriptions, or Patreon. I'm afraid it's just going to be very hard (read: impossible) to revitalize any kind of brick-and-mortar alt/art-comics infrastructure. Edited to add: I do sell distro stuff to shops at discount, but the number of shops ordering from me evaporated when COVID hit. You can see a list here: www.king-cat.net/links/ Bear in mind that most of the shops on this list are up there for posterity. Only a handful order from me on a regular basis.
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Post by bakertoons on May 10, 2023 20:22:10 GMT
Is Tony Shenton still around and doing his thing? I wrote to him, and he said he's dissolving his business entirely (the COVID made the business worse). He said he's trying to set up a list of resources for his remaining clients who wish to continue distributing, but I haven't gotten it yet.
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Post by whitecomics on May 10, 2023 20:23:23 GMT
In the context of conversations like this I sometimes think about peaceful transitions of power. That is to say, how often if ever does some publisher or publication or institution outlive its founder(s)? Rarely, of course.
D&Q is one example, maybe Fanta will be another at some point, but I struggle to think of examples among publishers even slightly smaller than those. I'm sure it's rare among stores too.
I understand why it's rare--I'm sure there are cases where such a successor has been looked for, and not found!--but it's one way of measuring and understanding the deep fragility of our entire comics infrastructure...
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Post by bakertoons on May 10, 2023 20:41:48 GMT
comics shops are great but the amount of people that are A) still too scared/intimidated to go in them and B) the amount of people that just don't care at all, is well above 60% of americans. if there was, first, a "spit and a half" type website that catered to small press people and could distribute books in a way that wasn't direct to consumer online shipping. and second an avenue of normal consumer locations that wanted to sell any sort of printed material. that would be the most ideal. waiting for the re-institution of magazine culture seems like the real pipe dream. One thing to bear in mind in regard to getting art comics out there, is the comic shop infrastructure is terribly damaged. Frankly, the vast majority of the shops left are indifferent at best and hostile at worst to alt-comics. Places like Desert Island, Copacetic, or Quimby's are very very few and far between. Even if a shop is open to stocking this work, realistically it needs a champion for them on staff. When Austin was working at Forbidden Planet they were one of my biggest accounts, he singlehandedly sold a lot of King-Cat. The second he left the job, sales plummeted to zero. One thing I think about a lot still, is Steven Svymbersky telling me, when he first moved Quimby's from Boston to Chicago in '91 or '92, that Boston was not a big enough city to support a shop like Quimby's. A big, intellectual, literate, college-stacked city like Boston could not support a shop like Quimby's. That told me a lot about the reality we're up against. With the cost of real estate/rent getting more and more insane in cities, I worry it's only going to get worse. In NYC, the only place selling KC now is Desert Island, and even though Gabe's shop is tiny, I can only imagine what his rent is like. So I sell a (relative) handful of copies through him until he has to turn over space to the next new thing, which is understandable. On the other hand, I sell hundreds of copies direct to NYC residents, either through my website, subscriptions, or Patreon. I'm afraid it's just going to be very hard (read: impossible) to revitalize any kind of brick-and-mortar alt/art-comics infrastructure. Edited to add: I do sell distro stuff to shops at discount, but the number of shops ordering from me evaporated when COVID hit. You can see a list here: www.king-cat.net/links/ Bear in mind that most of the shops on this list are up there for posterity. Only a handful order from me on a regular basis. I always thought of you as a indie success story (whenever I talk to somebody about mini-comics and zines, your "King Cat" is often brought up, so this is a good perspective.
While a handful of stores do sell my books via consignment, most of my sales has been through online and in-person conventions. My stuff has a niche that gave me bit more distribution opportunities (mainly anthro), but that's still, y'know, a niche
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Post by cameronarthur on May 11, 2023 0:46:40 GMT
Not sure if this has been mentioned yet but I feel like format is also an issue when it comes to alt-comics marketability. Especially when it comes to saddle-stitched books. I’ve been to shops that sell zines and just seems like a mess with all the different sizes of comics. Sort of hard to navigate. And when it comes to hardcover and softcover books I think format benefits it too. Think of how big of a success the Scott Pilgrim series became. It’s all that tankobon size. I know that’s not the perfect example but I think there is something to be said about that.
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Post by bakertoons on May 11, 2023 2:33:57 GMT
Not sure if this has been mentioned yet but I feel like format is also an issue when it comes to alt-comics marketability. Especially when it comes to saddle-stitched books. I’ve been to shops that sell zines and just seems like a mess with all the different sizes of comics. Sort of hard to navigate. And when it comes to hardcover and softcover books I think format benefits it too. Think of how big of a success the Scott Pilgrim series became. It’s all that tankobon size. I know that’s not the perfect example but I think there is something to be said about that. That's a good point. I notice that many of the popular graphic novels have a sort of "standard" size (usually 6x9", especially if aimed at kids), which makes it easy to fit in bookshelves.
When I printed "Ask a Cat" and "The Fuzzy Princess" into books I specifically chose 6x9 because of that.
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Post by mikesheawright on May 12, 2023 19:38:12 GMT
been thinking about this a lot, really into the spinner rack and/or vending machine idea? i am seriously considering trying to make this happen this summer in manhattan/brooklyn, approaching some independent coffee shops, vintage stores, record shops, etc. about putting a little display in their store for consignment or something. places where non comics heads might come across things accidentally.
QUESTION FOR YOU: if i did something like this would you want to be a part of it? i would love for this to be some kind of collective that had an umbrella name, although i realize that this instantly makes it vulnerable to becoming some sort of publisher or similar gatekeeping scenario since there will clearly be limited shelf space. but i think it makes more sense to have a variety of work to display than just my own stuff.
but i really like the idea of it having some sort of overall name and then like a link to a webstore or something where people could order more of it. like a sampler of some kind of group of artists. rotating stock. i anticipate this becoming an instant logistical headache of stock/money/etc. but i am down to try! maybe i'll create a separate thread if people seem interested.
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Post by bakertoons on May 12, 2023 20:02:14 GMT
been thinking about this a lot, really into the spinner rack and/or vending machine idea? i am seriously considering trying to make this happen this summer in manhattan/brooklyn, approaching some independent coffee shops, vintage stores, record shops, etc. about putting a little display in their store for consignment or something. places where non comics heads might come across things accidentally. QUESTION FOR YOU: if i did something like this would you want to be a part of it? i would love for this to be some kind of collective that had an umbrella name, although i realize that this instantly makes it vulnerable to becoming some sort of publisher or similar gatekeeping scenario since there will clearly be limited shelf space. but i think it makes more sense to have a variety of work to display than just my own stuff. but i really like the idea of it having some sort of overall name and then like a link to a webstore or something where people could order more of it. like a sampler of some kind of group of artists. rotating stock. i anticipate this becoming an instant logistical headache of stock/money/etc. but i am down to try! maybe i'll create a separate thread if people seem interested. If you can get this set up, yeh I can send some of my comics for it! Curious
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Post by cartoonysam on May 13, 2023 1:00:51 GMT
been thinking about this a lot, really into the spinner rack and/or vending machine idea? i am seriously considering trying to make this happen this summer in manhattan/brooklyn, approaching some independent coffee shops, vintage stores, record shops, etc. about putting a little display in their store for consignment or something. places where non comics heads might come across things accidentally. QUESTION FOR YOU: if i did something like this would you want to be a part of it? i would love for this to be some kind of collective that had an umbrella name, although i realize that this instantly makes it vulnerable to becoming some sort of publisher or similar gatekeeping scenario since there will clearly be limited shelf space. but i think it makes more sense to have a variety of work to display than just my own stuff. but i really like the idea of it having some sort of overall name and then like a link to a webstore or something where people could order more of it. like a sampler of some kind of group of artists. rotating stock. i anticipate this becoming an instant logistical headache of stock/money/etc. but i am down to try! maybe i'll create a separate thread if people seem interested. So you're trying to create a distro? I'd be down with that.
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