Comments on: Marcus Hart explains how to self-publish and promote a book

By: Marcus Alexander Hart

Marcus Alexander Hart — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:24:53 +0000

I’m way late to this party, and everyone has already worked it out, but for the record, yes, it was meant as a joke when I said that “POD People” probably sucked.

Also, for the record, I do own a copy of “POD People” that I have yet to read, which suggests that *I* suck.

Carry on.

By: ikarus619x

ikarus619x — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 04:49:31 +0000

Wow, thanks! I don’t need a forum just yet. $50 a page is insane. My artist friend and I are co-creating this, so that’s not an issue. We plan on it being a free webcomic, but charging for PDFs and merchandise.

By: B. Mac

B. Mac — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:20:31 +0000

That was fast. I asked Harry for a price quote on a two-minute cartoon. He says:

A two-minute cartoon would be a lot of work, considering the Watchmen has about 70 seconds of work. Watchmen took me two months or so labour, pulling 18 hour days by the end of it. I would charge quite a lot, about £5,000. [B. MAC adds: that's $7500 at current conversion rates]

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:33:18 +0000

Ha, that Saturday Morning Watchmen never fails to crack me up!

By: B. Mac

B. Mac — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:15:37 +0000

I've heard of them. However, it's really a niche market. People don't know what they are and there aren't many people clamoring for them. I don't know how expensive the voice actors and music would be, but I suspect you could get them done respectably for $500-1000. Still, it's not nearly as expensive as actual animation.
I'll ask Harry Partridge how much it would cost me to do something like Saturday Morning Watchmen, but my guess is that a solid 90-second cartoon clip costs somewhere between $4000 and $6000. There's so much art involved.

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 14:07:45 +0000

Semi-off-topic, but have any of you heard of this ‘motion comics’ thing? I can’t really explain it well, but this link can:

http://newteevee.com/2008/07/30/the-rise-of-motion-comics-online/

By: B. Mac

B. Mac — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 12:57:40 +0000

Yeah, you can self-publish comic books digitally. There are a few sites that can help you sell digital comics online. In addition, you'll probably want to set up a website for yourself. If you have technical expertise, hopefully you can handle the sales of your comic through your website. (I can offer more advice on that if you'd be interested).
However, putting the art together might be a problem for someone with a limited budget. I don't know what your artistic plans look like, but unless you're a professional-grade artist or know one that's willing to work for free, you will probably need to hire a freelancer. That costs at least $50 per page, and probably significantly more. For the first issue, the freelancer would probably cost more than a thousand dollars.
It would actually be cheaper to prepare a submission for a professional publisher. Along with the script, most publishers would like to see 5 pages of quality art and preferably a cover. You could do that for somewhere between $300-500.
If you don't have access to a quality artist, I'd recommend sending a script without art to one of the professional publishers that will accept naked scripts. Dark Horse is the only one that comes to mind, but there are probably others.
Would you like a review forum? We've worked with a few prospective comic book writers.

By: ikarus619x

ikarus619x — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:46:52 +0000

What about digital publishing? I heard Amazon lets people sell e-books for their Kindle doo-dad. Is there a comic equivalent? I’m a high schooler trying to be a comic writer, so I’m on a budget.

By: B. Mac

B. Mac — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 03:09:04 +0000

I could be mistaken, but I think the price for a paperback is often noticeably lower than $15. For example, on Amazon, a new copy of Twilight debuted at $11 and has since dropped to $6. Victory of Eagles debuted at $8. Captain Freedom debuted at $12 last month. SIWBI debuted at $15 and is now at $10. Also, all of these books are eligible for free shipping if you buy $25 worth of goods. By my rough count, $15 + shipping is about 20-40% more expensive than your competition.

By: Jeremy Robinson

Jeremy Robinson — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 02:28:33 +0000

Yes, $14.99 is the standard price for a trade paper here in the US. They can go as high as $18.99, though that is rare.

FYI, Lightning Source pricing is a little more pricey in the UK, but still pretty good.

If you ever need help with a cover, I can help: http://jeremyrobinsononline.com/creative/covers-designed-by-jeremy-robinson.html

– Jeremy

By: scribblar

scribblar — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:42:32 +0000

Sorry, I’m British – I don’t deal in dollars.

Is $14.99 what you would expect to pay for a book from a big publishers in a brick and mortar book store?

I know what you mean about looking professional. I refuse to buy books that have obviously CGI cover pictures as they look cheap and tacky (in my opinion) and it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the book.

Sadly, most PODs tend to have CGI covers.

And yet, a book doesn’t need a complicated cover to be succesful. The British versions of the Dresden Files have really simple but attractive covers.

Sorry, that was a tangent there.

By: Jeremy Robinson

Jeremy Robinson — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 00:06:24 +0000

Scribblar,

You don’t necessarily make less money. It depends on which service you use. If you set up your own small press (like I did) using Lightning Source or self-pub through Amazon’s CreateSpace (I’ve been told) you can sell a $14.99 trade paper, give a 40% discount (that’s about as low as you can go and get away with it) and make a nice $4 – $5 per book sold, depending on how many pages the book is. And you don’t have to worry about shipping, warehousing or distribution. You also save tons of time not having to physically do those chores…and that’s time better spent on marketing. What you do need to do is publish a professional book. If your book doesn’t look and read like one from big publisher, then it won’t sell, no matter what you do.

– Jeremy

By: scribblar

scribblar — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:38:42 +0000

Yeah, and then there was that whole thing about the book trailer….

That was just weird.

So, is POD better than doing a print-run and having, say, 5000 copies in your garage?

POD is less expensive up-front but more expensive per title, meaning you will earn less. But it takes up less space. Vice versa for a print-run.

By: B. Mac

B. Mac — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 20:23:04 +0000

It happens. Last year, I spent a week bitching back and forth with a few other comic book nerds. Looking back, I wish I had used that time to do something useful instead.

By: Jeremy Robinson

Jeremy Robinson — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:34:20 +0000

Thanks, B. Mac. I’m tool enough to apologize for taking it out of context. Sorry, Marcus! My bad.

– Jeremy