JLL 004 : The Business of Digital Comics with Mark Thompson

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A podcast on the business side of WebComics

In this session of The Jason Loves Life Podcast, I’m excited to have a chat with the co-founder of Checker Book Publishing Group and owner of Devil’s Due Digital,

Mark Thompson

Devil Due Digital focuses on the digital end of comic book publishing and has such famous titles as X-Files, Star Trek, Hell Raiser, Dr. Seuss, and more.

 In this episode we cover:

-What is the best digital platform/store to sell digital comics.

-Should you print your comic or just sell digitally.

-Does a college degree help in the Comic Industry.

-Why Mark has his Kickstarter campaign set for 60 days instead of the 30 days Kickstarter recommends.

MONSTRA: ZOMBIE DESTROYER Comic Book

Tomorrow we will be posting a podcast interview with Mark Thompson (owner of www.devilsduedigital.com) and wanted to take the opportunity to share his current project with all of my friends (that’s you).

With a group of hand selected artists, Mark has launched the first in a number of creator owned titles through Kickstarter. The first title; MONSTRA: ZOMBIE DESTROYER! is up and running right now.

MONSTRA: ZOMBIE DESTROYER will be published as a full color graphic novel containing 125 pages of Flesh Eating, Zombie Killing, ax wielding, awesomeness!

The Press Release for the Comic gives the following Synopsis to the story:

The story involves a sentient zombie and her slacker boyfriend at the outset of the end of days. The government has contained an initial outbreak of infected undead . A widespread zombie outbreak has been averted through military involvement and the

The 6 elements of a successful WebComic part 2

This post is part 2, you can read part 1 here.

So, far we covered the first half of the 6 elements of a successful WebComic. The first three are: You, the Story & Art, and the Stage. For this article we will talk about Propaganda, the Audience, and Revenue.

Before we jump into these elements I wanted to take this opportunity to mention you can check out my webcomic at www.madmanofmagic.com. If you enjoy it, please share it with your friends and those who might also enjoy reading it.

Thanks!

Now back to the last 3 elements of a successful WebComic.

4: Propaganda

This is what brings an audience to your site. It is technically marketing, but I like the idea of not promoting your webcomic, but instead spreading propaganda. In my mind propaganda has more of a viral feel to it (technically it’s supposed to be on more of a political a political nature, but lets ignore that for this article).

Packing Time: A Kickstarter Update

We are finally on the last leg of the Kickstarter Campaign.  We received the Comic Books from the publisher and they look great.

Leah and I will be packaging the Rewards this weekend.  Your package will be shipped out by Monday.  If you did not get a survey from Kickstarter asking for your address (for those that need to receive rewards via mail) please contact me through Kickstarter.  I still need several backers’ addresses to ship their rewards.

We want to thank everyone for the wonderful support and your patience in getting the Rewards out.  It has been a wonderful experience and an eye opener to the possibility of making this a full time career for my wife and me.

To support this we have:

• 2,800 Twitter followers
• 500 Facebook Fans
• 430 YouTube Subscriber (with 27,000 views!!!)
• And the best friends ever (we consider all of you our friends)

Madman of Magic Kickstarter Update 10

For those backers that are suppose to get a .pdf copy of the comic, they were sent out last week. If you are suppose to get one and you didn’t please email me. No new news on the printer and the timeline on distribution, but I will have all that figured out by Monday.

“Thank you” section

For those backers of $5, $10, and $25 or above please check the last update to make sure your name is on the list, is spelled correctly, and is how you want it to appear in the comic book.

I will need any changes and/or corrections by January 1st.

Reviewers are in on the digital comic book (.pdf version) and people are digging the comic.
Here are the reaction I have received from backers so far.

Update # seven: Full Production Mode

Last week we received the Kickstarter funding in our amazon account; which means we can start ordering prints for all of the cool rewards purchased by our backers. T-shirt, posters, and stickers have been put into their appropriate file format and sent off to the various printers. Once the proofs are finalized we just wait to get the final products in the mail. Their has been some revisions on the script for the comic.  We are in the process of creating new images and reorganizing the panels for each page.

The Plan

Kickstarter experience as a backer

Before you launch your Kickstarter campaign, it is important to have an idea of the experience from the side of a backer.

Why you should back a Kickstarter project before you launch your own:

1. You can get a sense of what draws you to a specific project and use what you learned in your campaign to draw in others.
2. You can help trouble shoot problems or explain the process to your friends/family/fans that have questions for you.
3.  Ensure your backers have the best experience possible.

How backing a Kickstarter project helped me

After failing my first Kickstarter campaign I waited 3.5 months before launching my next campaign.  The best thing I did during that time was back 3 other projects.  This was to learn the process of what others were doing and they were projects that I wanted to see created.

The biggest thing I learned was that the funding could be done through existing Amazon accounts and was really easy.  Before backing I did know Amazon did all the financial part of Kickstarter, but I thought Kickstarter had their own credit card payment page.  I found out people can pay using their existing account and this makes backing a project an easier sell to those who worry about sharing their credit card information online.

Emails backers get

Another thing I got to experience was the emails backers get from the process.

The emails backers receive are:

1) THANK YOU for the pledge (received when they initially back project)