Fun Stuff > MAKE
Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
fenmere:
In another thread I suggested a brainstorming session for guerilla marketting of comics. I figured I'd start a new thread that explicitly solicited the brainstorming. If you've got a great idea, put it here!
I've had two ideas myself. One is something I need to work on some more before I share it. The other is this list right here:
Webcomic Recipe for Promotion (work in progress)
Had a bit of a brainstorm in the shower today. Let's see if I can remember it all (yes, it involves the use of third party, big name websites, but there's a reason they're successful and you might as well take advantage of them):
How to promote your webcomic with as little effort as possible (a shopping list and instruction manuel):
1. Focus first on the discipline of making your comic. Learn how to produce a good product, and learn how to produce it regularly. Even more importantly learn how to have the bloody time of your life producing it! Do not proceed beyond step three until you are having more fun than any human should be allowed to. The fun is important. It's catching. It's what your readers are looking for. Not good art. Not good writing. They are looking for the sense that you are thoroughly enjoying yourself.
2. Create a website. It needs to have a robust but simple archiving engine, such that when your comic is five years old you won't need to change it to accomodate 300+ pages of comic. And the site needs to focus on making it easy for your readers to read your comic. See other popular comic sites for examples. Search google for a good php comic engine script. I'll post one here eventually, too. Don't spend too much energy on the site. KEEP COMICKING!
3. Keep your friends and family up to date! Show off your work! Create a small email list using your email program and invite people to receive updates of your comic while you are updating irregularly. Put printed hardcopy in front of people who's oppinions you want. Let people read your sketchbooks. Go for the rush of watching someone laugh or blindly compliment you.
4. Once you've gotten used to producing the comic, settle on a schedule. If you can produce two to three pages a week, release it once a week and pick a day. If you can produce four to five pages a week, release it three days a week. If you can produce six or more pages a week, go for five days or daily!
5. Now you're ready for online promotion! Your primary goal here is to make it easy for people to find your comic and spread word about it. First thing you need is a good domain name. http://www.yourcomicsname.com is pretty good, if you can get it. Then go for the following steps, as you have time and energy.
6. Open up a http://www.deviantart.com/ account, put up a bunch of character sketches and six pages of your comic. In the journal section, post a quarterly (four times a year) update on the state of your websites and business with links. DeviantArt seems to get high google.com listings rather quickly, and having a decent gallery there linked to your comic's website will help your main site's listing as well. Also DeviantArt is an art forum, and if you participate in it a little bit, favoriting and commenting on other people's work, they'll check your's out as well. It's just what they do. But even if you don't like the community there, the extra free page of search engine attention is worth it.
7. Open up a http://www.onlinecomics.net/ account. Same theory as DeviantArt with an added bonus! You can set up your account to keep track of your comic's updates automatically! Then you can tell your fans to go to your onlinecomics.net account and subscribe to it. They have to friend it, and then click a little checkbox that says they want email notification, but hey, easy listserv!
8. Get a LiveJournal, and update it with your comics. Actually, there are a number of cartoonists that use their LiveJournal as their primary website. LJ is free, but paid accounts get gallery space for images and all sorts of formatting options, including the ability to embed the journal in another webpage (see http://www.grassdogstudio.com/ for an example). More importantly, your LiveJournal will have an RSS feed! Not only is there a huge community to tap in LiveJournal, many of whom love comics, but there are also many, many people who prefer to read their comics by subscribing to an RSS feed.
9. Become and active and valuable participant in an online forum of some sort, and put a link to your comic in your signature. This step is tricky. You're not going to the forum to pimp your comic. You're going to the forum to make new friends by helping them out somehow. Be gracious, enthusiastic, and just a little bit dedicated to a higher cause, such as spreading the joy of creating comics successfully!
10. Print. There are all sorts of different ways to print your comic, but one of the best ways when you're just starting out is to use your own printer. Print several copies of one page a week and leave it somewhere. Or print 20 copies of an eight page ashcan and leave it at a coffee shop that's OK with the idea. Be sure to put the domain name of your comic on each page! Take this printed copy to comic conventions. Once you get enough copies, take pre-orders for a book, and then go get it printed at your local copy center or print shop.
11. Start a comic group, such as the Bellingham School of Comics, so that you can share the burden and your great ideas.
12. Have fun! Rince and repeat!
13. Sell shirts! Wear your own shirts!
note: It occures to me that a little more needs to be said about forum ettiquette. I've had some really good experiences, and I've been a total ass to at least one forum. Being an ass is something to avoid like the plague. It's also a matter of respect. Unfortunately, I gotta run to Seattle now. If somebody wants to write that part, I'll include it in future prints of the list. If not, I'll write it up myself, later.
Rone:
Several of those I've got well covered, but there are some good ideas in there that are new.
Looking at the list, a lot of these relate to community participation/building. Making friends and such. I think another thing you could add to that is making fan art for others. Provided you have the time, finding comics that you like and then making gifts for them is a good way to become friendly with other artists as well as giving other people a sneak peek at your work. Got to remember the URL, tho. Sometimes the artists you're sending the gift to won't go to the trouble of linking your site if you just tag it at the end of your signature in an email.
fenmere:
Right!
I've been really lax and/or picky about my production of fanart, for some reason. That's something I should pick up again. I should also put a fanart page on my own site, as I've already got at least 12 pieces people've done for me...
jeph:
I can simplify that list:
1. Buy a domain name and hosting.
2. Start your comic.
3. Always update on time. ALWAYS.
4. If it's good, it will promote itself no matter what kind of online presence you maintain.
5. Always try to get better.
twentyfour:
Here's my great idea on how to get people to read your strip.
Don't say it sucks in your description of the comic!!!!
Here's some serious ones too
1. Fanart as a weapon - Think. What are some of your favourite comics. Do the artists ever post anything about great fanart finds? What would they respond well to? By that I mean, DON'T draw the two male core cast members stripped to the waist and about to make out if it's a Penny Arcade type comic. What fanart have they praised in the past? Is there a pattern?
2. Fanmail as a weapon - OMGZ I loevs yuor comicc!!!! ... don't do that. Praise them as an equal, don't sound cocky(it's a fine line I trod all over like a drunken man :) ). Just be cool, sure you idolize this person but don't come across as one of their BIGGEZT FANSEZ EVAR!!!! I can only assume that gets old fast. Be polite, be concise, and don't openly plug your comic. Leave a link in your sig, if you got their interest with a nice friendly email then they might click your link. That got got me a link that doubled my readership overnight, on a seperate occasion it got me a $3000 gig!
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