Digital Comics and why you should add Multimedia with your Stories

I’ve been reflecting on the Madman of Magic comic book Kickstarter Campaign we ran in 2012. Specifically on what worked with promoting the campaign.

What I have found is that utilizing multimedia/multi-franchising to connect with an audience can make the difference between making a living and just making art.

The focus of this post is for people who have digital comics online, but this can be adapted to artist/creator who wants to increase their fan base and find alternative income streams in any media.

Ghost of Comic Book Past (recent past)

Comic books have been a means of entertainment and fascination for me ever since I was a child. Growing up, the heroes depicted in The Punisher, X-men and Batman were the people I pretended to be on the playground (I was always Beast or Wolverine).

7 Ways to Make Money with Your Comic

Today’s video lists seven ways to make money with your comic book or comic beyond the traditional comic book store route. As independent artists it is almost impossible to make the traditional system work for us unless a “decent size” publisher is involved.

Instead consider using alternative revenue streams and more importantly several revenue streams to fund your comic books.

The ways mentioned in the video include:

Credit Card Companies Kill Creatives

Creditors are not men. Or they forgot how to be. Come to just nothin’. They got out to the edge of the galaxy, to that place of nothin’, and that’s what they became.

Wait, that’s Reavers, but the more I think about it the more I realize

Credit card companies are like Reavers!

5 Ways to Help Fund your Artist Lifestyle

I am writing this while I am in the middle of placing my book collection (which is several hundred books) for sale on Amazon. I am not doing this to have a Zen lifestyle (“less material goods means happier life”). I am not doing this to make it easier to clean my house, but that is a perk. I am doing it to fund my art.

At the same time, I’m dropping down to part time at my day job. Which means a lot more time to work on all the projects I have lined up, but it also means a lot less money coming in.

I realize I need to buckle down and come up with ways to fund my artistic lifestyle both for myself and to continue to keep my family happy and healthy.

Here are 5 Ways to Help Fund your Artist Lifestyle.

1. Sell your Belongings

Feeling a little down – Kickstarter Day 9

I think the video says it all.

I hope you find this video helpful in some way as this is the point in a projects life where it is determined if the project will really be finished or left locked in the artist’s brain.

Indiegogo vs Kickstarter

Click this image to ask your twitter follower what they prefer.

Indiegogo vs Kickstarter

Who can join, and why?

While Kickstarter’s participants can only come from the U.S. or the U.K. Indiegogo has no such restrictions and accepts participants from all nations.  Indiegogo is the place to go if your family has lost everything in a flood or if you want to contribute to a cause like MS or AIDS research.  You can do things like that with Indiegogo, but not with Kickstarter.

Kickstarter is a strictly non-humanitarian format; mostly catering to small entrepreneurs, graphic artists or the budding technological innovators.

Costs

The average funded Kickstarter campaign takes in about $5,500.  If you make your goal Kickstarter then takes 5% processing fee and Amazon takes an extra 3%.  If you don’t make your goal you get nothing and pay nothing.

Indiegogo doesn’t require you to use the all or nothing model that Kickstarter does; although if you choose all or nothing funding and reach your goal Indiegogo takes only 4% +3% credit card fee = 7% of the project funding.  1% less than the fixed funding payment of Kickstarter.

If an Indiegogo project needs $5,500 but has only raised $500, that $500 does not automatically get sent back to the backers as it would with Kickstarter.  The Indiegogo project can choose to keep what they raise. However, if you choose to take an underfunded goal, Indiegogo will take a 12% cut of the project funds (9% fee + 3% for credit card payments).

Pricing Suggestions

The 6 elements of a successful WebComic part 1

Last week I asked my twitter followers to share with me the webComics they were reading and/or creating. The response was amazing and I still haven’t had a chance to visit them all, but the experience got me thinking about what makes a great webcomic.

A lot of new WebComic Creator thinks that if they make a comic and share it with a couple friends that it’ll get passed around & “TA-DA..!”, everyone will know about it and stardom ensues. Those of you that have been creating art online for a while are thinking, “I wish that’s how it went”, but we all know that there is a lot more involved.

In this article I will share with you the elements needed for you to not only create a successful WebComic, but to make an income from it as well.

Let’s get started….

There are 6 elements that make up a successful, engaging, webComic. They are (from most to least important): You (the creator/s), the story & art, the stage, propaganda, audience, & revenue.