But getting back to business, and in the same vein as my past webcomic networking articles, let’s talk about Twitter. First, if you don’t use it,  I want you to forget everything you’ve heard about it, or have read about it in the newspaper (or worse, in newspaper COMICS.) What is Twitter? Twitter is like a giant IM message board without the pressure of carrying on an extended conversation. It’s a forum where there is no such thing as tl;dr (too long; didn’t read, for the uninitiated) because each message must be 140 characters long or less. As you have most likely heard, Twitter is ALSO an instant newsfeed. From the latest messages from the revolution in Iran, to spacewalk updates from NASA, to status updates from your favorite comic creators, you can follow people, ask questions, or simply keep up with what the hell is going on in the world.

There are a bunch of affiliated sites and applications you use to expand the Twitter experience as well. Twitpic and Yfrog use your Twitter login to give you an instant photogallery (with comments) attached to your account. Apps like Tweetdeck and Twhirl let you “Tweet” from your desktop instead of the online interface. There are of course, many more applications, but I’m not going to list any more. It’s not too important.

Twitter also lets you send private messages (direct messages) as well as public directed messages to a specific person in the form of @username.  Profiles can be private or public. Topics can be marked with a hashtag in the form of #topic for easy searching. For example, a tweet may read, “my #webcomic just updated! http://warofwinds.com.”  A friend might then “retweet” my message, “RT @kezhound my #webcomic just updated! http://warofwinds.com.” (kezhound is my username there.) Other friends may also retweet. When a message is retweeted, not only does everyone who follows you see YOUR message, but everyone who follows the person who retweets you ALSO sees the message. Get it?

That, in a nutshell, is Twitter. Forget the fancy-schmancy “microblogging” bullshit. It can be as boring or as funny or as interesting as you want it.

Anyways, for the past couple months, ever since I caved to my buddy Canterrain’s repeated attempts to get me ON there (I was a doubter for damn sure), I’ve been on Twitter, using Twitter, and networking on Twitter to help get word about my webcomic out there. Here are my referring stats since I’ve started (click to enlarge):

Yes, there is an obvious trend. A very good trend. Twitter has surpassed DeviantART in my top 10 referrer list.

How to Network with Twitter:

I’m going to use the “d” word: diversify. Webcomic readers are still such a small audience compared to every other blasted thing on the internet that you CAN’T just cater to them and expect any kind of real result or new readers. I encourage people to use Twitter to introduce an entirely new audience to your work. You can do this by finding and “following” people with similar interests to you, and making friends. For example, I’m heavy into the martial arts, and there are tons of martial artists on Twitter. I follow a bunch of them. I don’t wave my comic in their face and ask them to retweet that. That’s small, petty, and will be ignored. Rather, I try to create a raport, and move on from there.

How do you find people with common interests? You can try a trending topic. In the search bar after you make an account, plug in a search term. For example, I might try “martial arts” or “#martialarts.” Another place to look is TwitR, a Twitter directory. You list yourself using the hastag method described above with 3 different descriptors. For example, #webcomics #martialarts #kayaker. This way, people can find you, and using their directory, you can also find others.

Since you are a comic creator though (at least, most likely you are, since you are reading this), you SHOULD definitely be posting about your work. For example, “Working on Monday’s comic. It’s a doozy! Here’s a preview!” Every time you update, post a link to your site. Every time a friend on Twitter updates, try to RT (retweet) them, because they will most likely RT you back.

Since Twitter allows only short messages, if you need to post a URL, use a URL shortening service like TinyURL. You plug in something long, and they give you something short that redirects to the original URL.

Twitter has a lot of spam/bot accounts, and they WILL follow you. This is nothing to be afraid of. For example, if I post something about…Ford Trucks…I WILL get Ford truck bots following me. If I don’t follow them back, I don’t see any messages they send. Twitter is working very hard to lessen the number of bots, and recently last week purged thousands.  Just try not to be annoyed or frighted of “all these strangers” following you. Sometimes people you DON’T know will follow you. You DO have the option to block them. Bottom line, like any social networking site, don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your boss or mother to see.

Don’t tweet stupid, inane stuff. “Putting in a load of laundry. Almost out of detergent. There are 3 pairs of socks in my hamper. Life is boring.” Accounts full of this stuff give Twitter the horrible reputation it has.  Status updates are one thing, “Going to the beach with the dog and fam! Back in a few hours!”, but lists or trivial/boring-ass statements do not help you, especially if you are trying to introduce your comic to a new audience. The goal is to find people to follow you, who thereby see your messages when you post your links. No one follows boring people. They “unfollow” them. Be interesting. Be funny. Be snarky. Be friendly.  Be a character.

It’s not a contest. Put the rulers away, we’re not measuring here. Yes, people who have more followers have more people who follow their links back to their sites. Yes, people with tons of followers aren’t likely to follow some smallfry back. But remember, you’re there to spread the word about YOUR work.  Don’t comare yourself to other people, just keep pushing to get your work out there.It’s not about numbers.  It’s a free way to introduce more people to your comic.

Involve yourself. #Followfriday happens on Fridays. You’re supposed to post the profiles of people you think other people should follow. For example, I could tweet, “#followfriday @xyliatales @canterrain @Senshuu @godspack #webcomics.” #Webcomicwednesday is something I THINK I started a couple months back. I’m not too sure. Someone may have thought of it before me and it just didn’t catch on. Anyways, on Wednesdays, you could post, “#webcomicwednesday follow @xyliatales for latest updates from http://xyliatales.com.” See how I did that? An @ and a URL.  If you passively sit by on Twitter, tweeting just about yourself and never TRYING to ACTIVELY network, you won’t network. Networking is active. It requires legwork. It requires you making friends FIRST and taking the first step to help advertise someone else. They in turn may advertise you back. This goes for people outside of the webcomic community on Twitter as well. Remember that whole “diversify” thing?

Personalize your profile page. For the love of cacti, INCLUDE YOUR URL IN YOUR PROFILE AND MAKE A SHORT BIO.  This not only lets people click your name to find your site, but ALSO proves you are not just another spam account. You can even create a personal background image on the profile. Here’s mine (best viewed in 1280px-wide resolution, or wider).

———–

That’s about it from me! Please feel free to post your Twitter profile in the comments here. Use it to network. There are also threads in various forums specifically for passing around Twitter accounts.

First, the Corn Hill Arts Festival is an annual art event in Rochester, New York, USA. It’s outdoors, 2 days, from 10am to 5-6pm.  I applied for an Emerging Artists booth after stumbling upon a listing for that at Craigslist (completely by accident! I NEVER go on Craigslist!). Well, it was a complete SHOCKER that I got a booth, because let’s face it: comics are considered the black sheep of the art family. Even lawn ornament makers get higher esteem, not to knock them, because I like ornaments, but we are all aware that comics are looked down on by the majority of people on the planet…especially those who don’t even READ comics….but okay, I digress. Anyways, the booth was $15 compared to the normal $300. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity for a poor graduate like myself, so I went for it and actually GOT it.

THEN, okay, get this, from a previous article I wrote about the festival here at WWS, the Corn Hill organizers noticed me (go you, WWS readers!). THEY contacted the Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester’s newspaper, who wanted to interview some of the emerging artists. And then, this happened:

You can read the full article here. This was Saturday morning’s paper, the first day of the festival. Okay, um, I had no flippin’ idea this was going to happen. I was expecting some sort of small itty blurb on the back page of something hidden between car dealership ads and dating service ads. Yes. Um. I fluctuated between D: and XD for the next 4 hours. But hot damn! Check out Ravar, front and center! How many comic characters can boast that?!

ANYWAYS…! My booth set ups, day 1 and day 2, respectively:

My sister Dien manning my booth <3

That's a genuine Indiana Jones replica fedora.

Notice the huge-ass 6×2 full-color vinyl banner. This was my frickin’ debut folks, and I didn’t hold back. If I recommend anything for anyone doing a convention or festival, a banner is my number 1 recommendation! It attracts eyes! It’s a purchase that pays for itself! For this banner, I paid $85.  Banners with 1-3 colors are FAR less expensive, if you care to design that way (cost is by the square foot, and by the number of color). Many businesses gave me quotes of $100-150, and that was quite a rip-off. Alex Heberling of Garanos says she got one for $50. If you are preparing for a convention, open those yellow pages, call everywhere, and get quotes. Make sure you have your specifics on hand so you don’t sound a moron either.

WHAT I WAS SELLING:

I’ll start with the shirts, since they were most popular items.  My T-shirts had absolutely NOTHING to do with my comic. I’m sorry folks, but anyone who thinks that slapping their logo or characters on a T-shirt works is in for case of broken piggy-bank and depression. Why would anyone buy merchandise with characters they didn’t recognize? If you are going to convention or festival to SELL things, it’s not about YOU. It’s about the people TO WHOM you are selling. This is not to say your characters CAN’T sell, just they need to be part of a design more easily accepted by people who don’t know your work.  I had 4 shirt designs, all with a different demographic in mind:

Zombie T-shirt (top left, first image): SOLD OUT, 10/10. Extremely popular. Targeted to males 16-30.  I bought each for $16 at a local printer (small run, more expensive, plus 2 colors and a set-up fee. Would be less the next run I do, since no set up fee, and a larger batch since I know it’s popular. The more you buy, the less expensive each is. Most stores have minimums orders of 12.) Sold each for $18, should have gone $20 probably. Made $180. I had people ask to reserve one the next time I printed it. That’s a good sign! I will be making more designs on this theme. I encourage you to capitalize on themes NOT ASSOCIATED with your comic. If you are attending a gaming/anime convention, come up with a gaming shirt that makes people laugh.  If you can make people laugh, they stop and talk with you, and you can convince them to buy the merchandise.  DO NOT INFRINGE ON COPYRIGHT. This means, to legally make money, don’t put a character you don’t own, or mention a trademarked name (Nintendo, etc) on the shirt. Guys, that’s illegal. More and more conventions are enforcing this rule.  Be aware of this.

Polymath T-shirt (last one folded on the table, large size here to read): sold 3/10. Targeted to 25-45 year-old men and women. I decided to print this shirt because it was the one with the most views in my online store.  I bought each shirt for $12.20 and sold them for $15. Made $45. This shirt had a lot of [meaningful] text on it. I hung it prominently so that people wanted to stop to read it when they saw it. This gave me time to engage them in conversation.  It was a strategy that I discovered accidently. Present some curiosity that makes people pause. If they pause, you can talk to them. If you can talk to them, they are much more likely to buy something.

Fighting is my Preferred Method of Meditation T-shirt (the only T-shirt I’ve ever sold multiple times through my cafepress store) Targeted to men 18-30 who watch or engage in fighting/MMA/UFC/martial arts.  At the same cost as the polymath T’s,  I sold 2 for $27 total (one of them had brushed up against some rust, so I took of $3 bucks). This is my oldest design, I hadn’t really expected it to sell all too great, but since it’s the only one that’s actually sold multiple times before, I decided to print it.

Ban Aerial Hunting T-shirt. This was one I did as a gamble. It was targeted to liberal women, 25-40. Okay, that’s about half the population of Rochester, but this design sold ZERO. Zilch. Nada. None. I don’t think I’ll attempt any politically-themed shirt again. I will however be sellings these on my site…in case anyone is interested…ahem.

While I’m still on the subject of shirts, SIZES are very important. I recommend this ratio (out of 10): 1 small, 2 medium, 4 large, 2 XL, 1XXL.  XXLs cost more than the rest, so if you can’t go for that, probably 3 mediums. Also, the more colors on the T-shirts, the more expensive they are. I changed a lot of my designs to single colors, except for the zombie shirt.

Not Alone Comic Books, printed by Ka-Blam: A LOT of people stopped by to pick these up and browse them. They by far were the most impressive part of my booth. Anybody can make a T-shirt, but few people have a book with their name on it.  I sold 18 books at $10 each for $180 total, and each book cost me $7.

Prints: prints and posters are what most people usually sell at conventions in my experience. At the festival, prints were NOT popular. The only prints I saw people buy were photography prints, or pop-culture (MJ tribute) posters. I’m unsure if the CONTENT of my posters is simply poor, if it’s just the wrong audience. Until I attempt to sell them to a comic-oriented audience, I won’t know. I sold only 2 11×17 prints for $10 each, for a total of $20. Each 11×17 cost me $2.50, so that was still a lot of profit on each.  I had 20 11×17 made, and 8 22×34 posters. The 22×34 posters were top qulaity AWESOME prints, and cost me $31 each. I had them marked at $35 to sell. I also made the posters a 4-image series in the attempt to sell multiple prints to one individual (with the mind-set that since it’s a series, you have to collect them all, a la pokemon!), but that did not work. I would encourage others to try something similar and let me know how it works though!

WHAT ELSE I HAD:

BUSINESS CARDS! I think the only thing I would recommend before a large banner for a convention is business cards. I handed out over 100. My business cards were so incredibly eye-catching, people wanted to take more than one. If nothing else, it was a totally memorable card, unlike something cheap on card stock, printed at home. That works, I guess, but I wanted to look professional. A good business card REALLY can give you an edge. I recommend print100.com, which was where I got mine done. You can add me as a referrer (warofwinds@gmail.com) and they give me credit there. Be awesome, go! Get cards!  Taka gave me one of his when he showed up. They have rounded corners and are awesome, by print100 also. I keep cards on me always! If someone mentions websites or characters in a conversation, I can pull one out and hand it to them.

Commission examples: these were popular, and I had tell people multiple times I could not sell them since they were other people’s original characters I had been commissioned to draw. The second day, I displayed these much more prominently than the first. Many more people took my card and said they would be in touch.  It was definitely a goal of mine to drum up some commission business. A couple people have already emailed me about jobs.

Aritsts Statement/biography/ “Who is KEZ”: I had a short biography of me, how I started comics, how I make comics, that kind of thing. It was a perfect conversation starter, especially when I was busy talking with one person and other people were at the booth. On the second day, I had this statement right above the newspaper article.  When people found out that I have a degree in Biology, not arts, well, that was a whole conversation right there!

EXTRA STUFF I BROUGHT THAT I’M REALLY GLAD I DID:

I am the kind of person who likes to be prepared. Prepared people don’t look like morons when they realize they have forgotten really important things more experienced people would have brought. I had what I call my “miscellaneous items box.” This box contained: clothesline, scissors, clothespins, paperclips, duct tape, masking tape, sharpie markers, pens, pencils, extra sheets of paper, T-shirt hangers and shopping bags. Having shopping bags was a great touch. A lot of booths didn’t have any, so people were just  tucking it uncomfortably under an arm. Saving a couple bags from your next grocery store run could really help you out. Also, a trash bag is nice to have for yourself.

The clothesline was perfect for hanging posters. I padded the clothespins with soft cloth to keep them from making indents in my posters as well. I used the clothesline to hang T-shirts too (Yay knot-tying skills! I swear, the most useful class I took in college was “Adventure Challenge.” David Berkey, you rock man). Hanging the T-shirts made people stop to look, and then they looked in the booth as well. We used TONS of tape. Bring that, definitely. I used paperclips on the second day to pin prices to the T-shirts as well. I hate bringing real pins with me. I drop them, lose them, prick myself…yeah. I stay away from pins.

I also brought boxes with me. The free kinds that you can pick up at BJ’s, Sams Club, Cost Co, etc. I used these as display boxes for items that I did not want to get ruffled. Look for the ones that can be folded inside out. It saves you the time of covering up annoying “Old Spice” logos.

I had packaging containers for the poster prints: cheap little tubes you can pick up at the post office for a buck or 2. This was my sister’s idea. Brilliant. I wish we could have gotten more use out of them though. If nothing else, I can sell the psots online and ship them now, no problem.

I brought chairs. THREE chairs. One each for me and my sister, and one extra, INVITING, empty, chair for other people to use. It got a lot of use.

Tables. At a convention, they usually provide these, but at festivals, they don’t. Luckily, we have a family friend that let me borrow his.  Speaking of tables, I brought a sheet to cover them. A sheet is less classy than snazzy black fabric, but far more classy than an uncovered table. Plus, you can put your packaging underneath the tables and it’s hidden.

Towels and plastic covering: important for any outdoor event, not so much for an indoor event unless you’ll need to transport items through the rain to your car or something.

A cooler full of snacks and bottled water. This saved our lives, because the food there sucked and made me want to hurl. Eww. My stomach just cringed thinking about it.

WHAT ELSE I WOULD DO DIFFERENTLY:

I wanted merchandise I could sell for under $5:  stickers and bookmarks mainly, but I didn’t have the TIME. As a digital artist, I had to CRAM out everything in time for this festival.  IAt the next thing I do, I want to have shot-glasses for sale. Yeah, my awesome printer guys can print ANYTHING for me. Maybe fleece blankets and beer cozies. Maybe stationary. If you’re serious about getting stuff printed, real high-quality stuff, email me at warofwinds@gmail.com and I’ll tell you who does my stuff. They have my highest recommendation, and VERY fair prices.

More themed stuff. Guys, I really love discussing zombie scenarios, weapons, martial arts, etc. Next time, I’ll have more of that. Geeks like me love that kind of stuff, and geeks are all over comic conventions. There are also tons of geeks walking around art festivals, usually dragged there by their totally un-geeky counterpart who disapproves, but humors, that side of their significant other.

More examples of The War of Winds. Other than the banner and one comic page I had printed out, I did not have many examples of the style, which is MUCH different than the Not Alone style.  It’s hard to print that comic out, y’know? Infinite canvas is EXTREMELY annoying in print.

Cardboard cut-outs. Someone wanted to buy Ravar. Sorry guys, but my GREEN WARRIOR (those of you who follow me on Twitter will get that reference) is all mine. I think I might get my printer guys to do some cardboard cut outs though.

IN CONCLUSION:

I did not break even. Not even half even. About 1/4 even after taxes ($432 total, out of about $1200 spent). The crowds were far less than expected, mainly due to a big ‘ol storm that ruined the prime hours of the festival on Saturday. I couldn’t display anything for about 2.5 hours. And then it took people another hour to come back. 250k were expected. I would estimate that in those 2 days, in total, I saw about 4-5k in my area of the festival. Now, keep in mind, Corn Hill is a HUGE festival. The booths go on for miles. There were probably many people who simply never found the Emerging Artist area. Regardless, the experience was extremely positive. Because of that newspaper article, I had innumerable people stop by, some JUST to see me. I had a young girl up to me and show me her portfolio. I think she was ten or eleven. That was probably the highlight of the whole weekend right there. I had a man pitch a book adaptation/movie deal to me. A lot of friends stopped by and told me how proud they were of what I was doing, or how happy they were I had the opportunity, or just to show some support with their presence. My dad bought 10 copies of the paper to send to relatives. Everyone was extremely positive, and totally supportive—when I had expected the complete opposite!. At times, I had crowds of people, and I talked to them about comics–the ART of it, how I make it, what of skills it requires…it was wonderful. Remember, I did my college thesis on comics, so that kind of thing is important to me!

Now I know exactly what I’m going to do differently, what sells, what doesn’t, and frankly, just how to HAWK merchandise. If you are going to a convention, be out-going, dammit, not that introvert in the corner drawing in the sketchbook. When you are drawing, no one wants to interrupt you to talk with you!  Drawing on-the-spot commissions is different than drawing in the hopes that no one talks to you but buys your merchandise anyways. Smile, say hello to everyone. Be a CHARACTER.  I, for example, wear a fedora. I can pull that off. People remember the crazy comic-making girl in the fedora.  So many people at this festival looked depressed in the backs of their booths, avoided eye contact, and talked to only a handful of people when rivers of people passed by.  Each person is a prospective buyer. If you see them stopping to look across the way, invite them over. Make them feel comfortable. Show them the merchandise they are looking at. Tell them about your passions, it will make them connect to you and your work, and may help them make the decision to buy it.  When someone asks you that question they are GOING to ask you (“hey, what’s your comic about?”), BE ABLE TO CONDENSE IT INTO TEN SECONDS. When people ask you what your inspiration is, same thing! Ten seconds! If they have more questions, they will ask. A conversation is TWO sided, guys. You yack someone’s ear off describing the backstory of your world, and that person will nod and walk away REAL fast.

Don’t be shy or ashamed of anything. Be DAMN proud of your work, even if it’s nothing like the person’s next to you.  I had a problem with this. Not Alone, the comic I had for sale, is to me a pretty horribly-written story. I describe it as cotton-candy, while my other work, The War of Winds, is beef stew. But you know what? I was the only person in the history of the entire festival (that I’m aware of) that wrote, drew, designed and self-published a frickin’ BOOK.  I was the first comic creator PERIOD. And I was proud of that.

Phew, DA’END.  Oh wait. Yeah, I hope to attend a bunch of other festivals in the area. A couple people asked me if I’d be at the East End Fesitval, but it looks to be mainly about music, so I dunno. I’d really like to go a couple comic convetions in the area. I’d LOVE to go to Anime Weekend Atlanta with some comic buds. I have to see if I can make back the cost of a plane ticket, a room, and a weekend pass first.  I need a few days off to think about this stuff though. Anywho, those of you more experienced at cons and selling stuff, I don’t know how my strategy jives with yours. I admit to a shotgun approach in my merchandise. But I needed experience on what sells, and now I know.  Some of you will probably say my stuff was underpriced or over-priced. My goal was to keep everything under $20, since it’s mainly a cash-only festival. Oi. Ok, NOW the end.

]]> http://warofwinds.com/winged-wolf-studio/corn-hill-festival-debriefing/feed/ 7 http://warofwinds.com/winged-wolf-studio/my-experience-with-ka-blam/ http://warofwinds.com/winged-wolf-studio/my-experience-with-ka-blam/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 05:10:58 +0000 KEZ http://warofwinds.com/winged-wolf-studio/?p=358 In the tradition of Kez, who is often more honest than she should be, here is my review of Ka-blam…in partial story format.

So, firstly, there’s this long-time digital artist named Kez. Now, this Kez person, she has never really made anything for print. Her main comic cannot even BE printed, because she designed it that way, because it’s meant to be a webcomic only (infinite canvas and all that jazz!).  But, Kez wanted something to sell. How could she go to a comic convention, or in her case an arts festival, AS a comic artist, if she did not have comics to sell or show? (She couldn’t, because then she’d be a poser, and no one buys anything from posers, unless she had a mad-cool digital set up with a projector, which she can’t afford, so that doesn’t matter anyways.)

Well, Kez had this convenient little short-story with which to experiment in print called Not Alone. Not Alone capped out at 49 pages, with a 3 page epilogue. It was grayscale. It was a stand-alone comic that also was related to her other, longer, work, The War of Winds.

So, Kez headed over to Ka-Blam because she wanted an on-demand printing, no minimum. She wanted people who handled COMICS. On a regular basis. Kez got what she asked for!

Enough of the third person.  Overall, I had a very positive experience with Ka-Blam. There were a couple problems starting off though. First, there was some really ODD quirk on the order page. No matter what I ordered, it said I ordered something ELSE. After a day of biting my nails, “Holy heck, do they know what I want? Was I sent the wrong invoice, but they got the right one?” I grabbed hold of myself. Rule one of spending money: you have a right to have your fears allayed.

So I sent in an email asking what was up using their message center. I guess I was the first one to mention this problem, because they had me order everything AGAIN, asked again if I followed their instructions, and then finally they just let me SEND them a message for what I wanted. That whole process took about a week. Since I was on a tight schedule, I began to freak out a bit.  They want 4-5 weeks for normal printing costs, and all the sudden, I was down to THREE. And Kez realized this, and Kez spazzed.  So, if you’re considering your own print run, give yourself a good 6 weeks of room.  Good news, they get back to emails within a day, sometimes multiple times a day. That’s good service at a small company!

But the Ka-Blam folks realized this was their goof, and offered a rushed printing job at no cost to me. Which I appreciated, because I would have asked them if they had not offered. It wasn’t my fault, even if I should have given myself more time in case something went wrong. I assume they have since corrected this ordering goof.

Kez will now admit to some REALLY STUPID GOOFS she made in ordering. First, the order sheet at Ka-Blam. I went for the Trade Paperback, Standard Sized, Perfect Binding. Now, I’ve always had issues filling out paperwork. Ka-Blam was no different.

Okay, I swear I stared at that field for 10 full minutes. By 2-page increments, I took this to mean “sheets.” Okay, number of pages divided by 2= how many sheets of paper you are going to need. Keep in mind that the more paper you need, the more expensive the final order, obviously. But nooooooo. This means actual PAGES.  Numbered pages. Uh duh. The 2-page increment thing REALLY tripped me up (I don’t even want to think about how many emails were sent with me sounding like a dumbass about that!). I would suggest that be changed to an extremely simple “If each page, not counting the covers, were numbered, how many pages would you have?” Obviously if it’s an odd number, the back of that page will still be there, it’ll just be blank. Feel free to ignore me if I’m just being totally dense. Yes, I was one of those kids who always over-thought questions. It’s a habit I’m trying to break. The Ka-blam staff dealt with my idiocy however and refrained from yelling at me. I know they wanted to. I could feel it. I don’t feel too bad though, since I dropped a bucket-load of money off at their place. Dealing with customers, regardless of their intelligence, paranoia or neurotic tendencies, is part of the business. I deal with it myself on a daily basis. If one more person asks me how to insert a link into a post, I swear I will scream.

ANYWAYS.  So, I received my books today! I ordered them June 14, they arrived July 8th. I received a digital proof of the page order and set up on June 24. For 50 paperback books, 56 pages long, color cover with lamination, blank inside covers, Ka-Blam full page ad, and 70# glossy paper inside with grayscale comic pages, the price was $349.43 ($324.25 Printing Cost + $25.18 S&H -$20.00 in credits, I think for the ordering goof, but I’m not going to count that here since I don’t think anyone else would get the credits when they ordered), meaning each book cost me ~$7.00.  I actually had my math wrong before when I was calculating price per book (to sell) on my end. I was going to sell it for $10 even. I may go for $9 now, maybe even $8.50. Not sure!  I still don’t know myself how much people will spend on this little book of mine. I will have to sleep on it.

So how about the quality? It’s….good. Not top quality, but rather good. I’ve heard complaints that pages fall out on perfect bound books. I personally have not had that experience. I own another book from Ka-Blam, Kate Sweet’s Juathuur Vol 1 actually. It is 100+ pages, and all of the pages are in there quite solidly.  I even pulled on a couple to be sure. I could easily see volumes a couple of hundred pages long have that issue, however. I have paperback novels that do that, but only the big ones. Barb Jacobs mentioned that people are much more satisfied with their saddle-stitch comics (staples).

My biggest issue with Ka-Blam is their lamination on the covers. It comes off, starts to peel after a bit. I personally like to play with covers, fiddle with them as I read, so that does not help matters. On Kate  Sweet’s book that I own, the lamination also started to come up a bit around the spine.  This does not affect readability, but it greatly irks me as an artist. I think next time, I will go with hardcover. It is also important to note that upon closer inspection, not all books are the same size, and the trim area can differ between books by a margin of 1/8 inch. So, some books are taller than others, and some are wider. Make sure your bleed area is uniform, or at the very least, that you have no unfinished art IN the bleed area. Sometimes it can show up.

The box I received was also battered to hell. It was basically ROUND when it arrived. No more corners. The top 5 books in the pile all had their spines squished. I guess I’ll keep those as give-aways? However, the books were nicely packed in bubble wrap inside, with some extra shredded paper padding.  Care was obviously taken, though I would have greatly appreciated a sturdier box, or a “do not drop-kick me into an airplane” tag.

In conclusion, for the customer service and quality, Ka-Blam gets an 8/10. They held up their end of the deal, corrected and took responsibility for their goof, dealt with ME, and earned my respect as a great place for the beginner/self-publishing comic creator. I think they still have some real issues to work out with quality, but for their prices and exemplary service, I would highly recommend them.

Here’s a few more important things I learned doing this:

1) Design for print from the beginning if that is your goal. Frankly, I’m one of them “weirdos” who thinks the web has far more to offer a comic creator than print. I had never tailored my pages to print dimensions before.  I didn’t even decide to print Not Alone until I was more than half-way through. This meant I had to REFORMAT all the pages, which took 16 hours a day for 8 days straight. Now, imagine doing that with a longer work. It was quite horrible, and I don’t recommend that.

2) If printing in color, keep in mind the colors will be DARKER in print. Lighten them up a bit from what you see on your screen to get them the right lightness in print.

3) Work between 300-600 dpi. 150 dpi is the so-called minimum, but it will probably look horrible, especially if you’ve got color or gradients of any sort. Gradients look best at 600dpi or above in print or else you’ll get “stepping (visible bands).”

4) Get friends to proof read for you. Sarah Sawyer of The Gods’ Pack was the only one of three to catch a typo I missed myself–after reading the whole thing through about 50 times.

5) Give yourself PLENTY of time in case something goes wrong. If Ka-Blam wants 4-5 weeks, next time I want to be done with 6-8 weeks to spare. Keep in mind the second printing job goes faster if they already have your files though.

6) Read the technical specs VERY carefully to make sure you are doing everything right. Ka-Blam provides templates. Download them. They are invaluable. Pay special attention to the file format they want. Ka-Blam wants LZW-compressed TIFF files in RGB mode. Most places want PDFs in CMYK. Keep this mind!

I’ll be posting a video on youtube tonight that has a bit more about the books, as well as other stuff I’m doing to prepare for the festival. My youtube account is here. If you have any questions, let me know!

————-

Okay, a short follow-up here. I started sending out my books about a week ago, and have noticed a few issues/received a few complaints. First, I’ve found 2 misprints in my order of 50 books. If each book cost me $7, that $14 down the tube (and I WILL be asking for credits, as these misprints were not my fault).  This misprint was, for example, page 12, blank page, half of page 32 upside-down, blank page, blank page, page 13.  Second, it seems there is an issue with the perfect binding and pages falling out. One reader let me know that because of how he holds the books (thumb in the inside binding) it has caused some splitting. Because of these issues, I’m revising my score of Ka-Blam from 8/10 to 7/10, and highly recommending them for saddle-stitch binding, but only moderately recommending them for perfect binding.

Second, a VERY IMPORTANT TIP FOR PEOPLE AUTOGRAPHING THEIR BOOKS: Do NOT use gel pens. They smear and can ruin a copy. Use sharpies.

—————

A second follow-up (Dec 2009): I ordered a second batch of books from Ka-Blam, again with short notice, since I seem incapable of planning things out. I used the “reorder” option, and was flabbergasted to find the books were all on the wrong paper! I had to email to find out they could NO LONGER PRINT on the thicker paper stock that I loved in my original order. Not only did they not notify me of their inability to print on the paper that I wanted, but I had to notice this myself and ask for a refund on the price difference–which was sizable. I worry that I might never have received the refund if I had not asked. The Ka-Blam folks are VERY nice and helpful, but seemingly very disorganized. I do not think I will be ordering from them again. I do want to order more books if they can’t print on the right paper for my book.

Anyways, in preparing for this festival, I have garnered a lot of experience doing things that previously I never had the guts to attempt. I’m getting posters made, had books printed, had T-shirts printed. I went all-out. It’s a very prestigious festival, with an expected attendance of 250,000 over an entire weekend. Yes, that’s right, a quarter of a million. What do comic conventions normally get? A couple thousand? Once-in-a-lifetime.

So, as soon as my merchandise arrives, and I try my hand at selling it, you guys are all going to get the retrospective write-ups of the experience: what I did, how I did it, what I should have done differently, and what more (or less) I’ll want to do next time, like I did with selling the Not Alone epilogue. I will be including pricing (for both buying and reselling), so you know when you’re getting ripped off or not. A lot of people have asked about an article on conventions, and this will be what I’ve got. Not quite a COMIC convention, but a selling experience nonetheless.

That’s right. I’m your guinea pig, and I hope we can ALL learn from this.

Wish me luck guys! The festival is July 11-12, in Rochester, New York. Specifically, it’s the Corn Hill Arts Festival, though there is neither corn nor a hill. Stop on by, I’ll be on the corner of Clarissa St and Corn Hill Place, in the Emerging Artist’s section. Here’s a link with more info. Free somethings if you’re in town and find my booth!