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Author Topic: Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm  (Read 14089 times)

fenmere

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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 http://www.livejournal.com/commmunity/bs_of_comics">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.
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Rone

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #1 on: 09 Oct 2005, 11:28 »

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.
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fenmere

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #2 on: 09 Oct 2005, 11:34 »

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...
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jeph

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #3 on: 09 Oct 2005, 11:52 »

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.
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Deathmole Jacques' head takes up the bottom half of the panel, with his words taking up the top half. He is not concerned about the life of his friend.

twentyfour

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #4 on: 09 Oct 2005, 13:02 »

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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fenmere

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #5 on: 09 Oct 2005, 13:34 »

Good point, Jeph!  Tantamount to anything is producing a good comic and being business-like about producing it (stuff I'm still learning, myself).  Quality and care from head to toe goes a further distance than any marketting.

However, it can be nice to jumpstart things a bit, when you're ready.

And, TwentyFour, that is some solid advice.  Thanks!
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FMRL

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #6 on: 09 Oct 2005, 18:40 »

Also, you can mention your comic in non-comic places if it relates (and you're not all spammy about it) - e.g. bringing up the pirate comic you drew at the site where you go to gab about buccaneers. This can have the positive side effect of expanding the audience for comics in general ("I didn't know they made comics like that - I thought it was all Garfield & Superman!").
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andyscout42

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #7 on: 09 Oct 2005, 20:23 »

wow, these are some good tips... thanks! i hadn't even thought of putting up some of my sketches on deviant!
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Rone

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #8 on: 09 Oct 2005, 20:52 »

Quote
If it's good, it will promote itself no matter what kind of online presence you maintain.


I'd like to say that I completely believe that.  To a degree I think it's true.  However, I think there are a lot of comics that are really well done that don't get nearly the attention they deserve.  People simply don't know about them.  They haven't been "discovered" yet.  I think half the time it's more luck than anything else.  Someone who's already reasonably large happens to look at the right place at the right time, links it, and Whammo overnight it's a Internet Name.

If it's good, people will come back, but they have to find it first.
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Mollinda

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #9 on: 10 Oct 2005, 07:27 »

The only thing that hacks me off with my site is it's all done in html a la moi because php scares me, which makes updating it TEDIOUS. I've got it down to a fine art now but it still takes a while.

I just tried a search for a php script and nothing so if anyone knows of one please tell me :)
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fenmere

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #10 on: 10 Oct 2005, 08:44 »

There are two very simple scripts that I recommend to anyone who can't make their own.  I've used both and have settled on the second for now:

http://www.solitude.dk/gallerythingie/

and webcomicConfig.zip from

http://www.snafu-comics.com/php.php

Neither have a nifty calendar for navigation, though.

GalleryThingie works better as an online gallery.  It displays your work the moment you update it, and it creates thumbnails.  I've found that thumbnail pages are a remarkably good way to navigate the archives of a comic, though.

WebComicConfig is an even simpler script that GalleryThingie.  It's sole archive navigator is "the dropdown menue of doooooom."  However, it does organize the comics by date, and so you can upload them months ahead of time if you want, and your comic will be automatically updated when the time comes.

It should actually be pretty easy to combine the two scripts with almost no extra coding, if you want.
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tasteslikeevil

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #11 on: 10 Oct 2005, 19:05 »

Thanks for the scripts, Fenmere! Those might come in handy...

Someday...
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GregC

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #12 on: 11 Oct 2005, 07:04 »

I use iStrip for all the comics at my site: iStrip= http://istrip.foxholeproductions.com/

It is so super easy. It uses a template system and comes with ready made Cast and FAQ pages ready to fill out, and self generating Archive and News pages. And you just have to copy one and add your own HTML to get whatever kind of page you want. The templating system (Smarty) handles the comics and all you have to customize is regular HTML to your own tastes. There's a web interface for uploading comics and adding news. You can upload strips in advance and have them appear starting on a certain date. I can't say enough good things about it.

iStrip rules.
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Mollinda

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #13 on: 12 Oct 2005, 08:35 »

Thanks guys!

The iscript one looks fab - I have bookmarked all three so I can have a play!
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Rone

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #14 on: 12 Oct 2005, 11:25 »

I've been trying to find a good script for a while.  Thanks so much!  This will make archiving soooo much easier.
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slxnyny

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #15 on: 12 Oct 2005, 20:56 »

hey jeph where did you get your link that doubled your readership (just curious)

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Lutharion

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #16 on: 24 Oct 2005, 18:03 »

Wow, this helps a lot on some of the stuff I was looking into.
My only problem is creating the actual website. This archive system will help though.
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jeph

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #17 on: 24 Oct 2005, 19:33 »

Quote from: slxnyny
hey jeph where did you get your link that doubled your readership (just curious)


I never got one. QC built up gradually (although frighteningly quick) thanks to a lot of people linking me over a period of about a year and a half, not one big huge Penny Arcade link or something.
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Deathmole Jacques' head takes up the bottom half of the panel, with his words taking up the top half. He is not concerned about the life of his friend.

mowi

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Comic Promotion and Guerilla Marketting Brainstorm
« Reply #18 on: 13 Nov 2005, 19:05 »

Working on some of those... i think i'll go for the DeviantArt and Online Comics. I already got a WebComicList account, but i'd like to share it even more. :)

And with this post i'm kind of promoting it, too! So nice.
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