Last week I finished a comic short story titled Not Alone. It was an origin story for characters yet to appear in my main comic, The War of Winds. About half-way through making it, I realized I probably ought to have a bridge between the end of Not Alone and the beginning of The War of Winds, or in other words, an epilogue.  Since the epilogue as I wrote it is merely a bridge between the two stories, it is not essential to end the story or to providing closure. It is, quite definitely, an extra.  A perk. Something nice to have, but not something a reader couldn’t live without.  And then a little idea blossomed in my head: “Kez, what do you think of  SELLING that epilogue?”

“I don’t know, inner voice. People get ANGRY online when you try to make them buy comics!”

“Then we’re going to have to do this right, Kez. Let’s think about this some more.”

“Agreed, self.”

I mentioned all that stuff previously about the epilogue being a “mere” extra because it was important to my business model. I was afraid of perhaps alienating my audience by asking that the epilogue be bought (with real money), so I made sure it really WAS an extra. The last thing I wanted to do was be accused of “holding readers hostage,” as the saying goes: “Pay me or I won’t end it and you’ll never know what happens, neener neener neener.” That was something I wanted to steer WAY WIDE clear of. That is a quick way to lose your readers.

After one week, I’ve sold one dozen copies. That’s about a person or 2 per day, and I expect to sell probably about another dozen this week before it becomes a very sporadic trickle of purchases.  It’s pocket change definitely, but you know what? It’s money I didn’t have before. So here’s my thoughts on what I did, why, and what I would do differently.

1) What I was selling was at a higher quality than the free version. My normal Not Alone pages were done in grayscale. My epilogue pages were in color. This was an extra incentive to buy on TOP of it being a bridge.

2) What I was selling was for the fans, not for me. I big mistake I see when people sell stuff is that they sell what THEY like more than what the audience likes.  I found that I had the most comments and highest time spent per page on pages that were funny and touching (and also, colored), not ones that advanced only the plot, or revealed information about the fantasy world (the latter being my personal favorite. I hate the “gushy” ones and feel like puking when I draw them). The epilogue was written with that in mind, while still getting across what was important. Was this a sell-out to the audience? Ehhhhh….It really depends how you look at it. Not Alone was not canon. I made it up on the fly, and like a little road winding to the highway, I gave it a direction only and let it take the scenic route, because at the end, it would still get to where it had to be. Something to keep in mind is that if you making a comic to sell, as a PRODUCT, you are supposed to tailor to your consumer base. If you don’t, then your results trying to sell it won’t be as good compared to if you HAD considered your audience before yourself.  So, my rule: don’t try to sell a comic you are unwilling to change or tweak to please the reader. For me, that’s The War of Winds. It’s my baby, meant to please me first.  Not Alone was the opposite. I’m already planning my next work, with the goal of taking a Not Alone-like story to the next level, as a product. This is not to say that your own great passion for your work won’t attract the same kind of audience or numbers, if not more! Sometimes, I see the stupidest, cheaply-drawn comic on the face of the earth with tens of thousands of readers. That’s a comic that works, and probably makes money, even if makes the comicker inside me cringe and seethe and hiss. I also see wonderful works of passion and talent that don’t have nearly as many readers as they should. And sometimes, very rarely, I see a wonderful work of passion and talent that has tens of thousands of readers. But you know what? That last one is VERY rare online. Consider this when planning a comic to sell. Know your audience, and if you want to make money, create the comic suit the audience. Don’t try to create the audience to suit the work. If you don’t care about making money, then ignore this entire paragraph.

3) I sold it cheap. Too cheap. If I could go back, I would DEFINITELY up the price. I low-balled it out of fear, really. I had many excuses: “Oh man, I’ll look like a total HACK if no one buys this!”; “The economy sucks and half my readers are probably unemployed college students/grads like me!”; “Better to sell more at a lower price than less at a higher!”. Ok, the last one, for those of you who have taken economics, really depends on the revenue generated more than the prices or numbers. You need to find your sweet spot, where you can sell the MOST for the HIGHEST price to make the MOST money. I sold my epilogue for one dollar per page, + a miscalculated paypal fee charge, for a total of $3.12 (the paypal fee was 39 cents for USD, 49 cents for any non USD, and I think that is for any transaction under 5 dollars. Tried to look it up there, couldn’t find it).  For my readership, I would double that, and sell at $6.50. I will never sell anything on my site for less than 5 dollars, that is for freakin’ sure. I think 2.50 per page would be fair in this case. Some would say MORE than that is fair, but when you can go buy an entire comic floppy for 2.50, a lot of people will pass. It really depends on the audience, the quality of the comic, and the volume of materials.  For example, if I were going to sell an entire comic issue (22+ pages), it would be under $10. Probably more like 8 dollars. That means <$0.50  per page. I could never charge $55 (2.50×22) for that! That would be insane! So remember, it’s about how MANY you sell, and finding that sweet price.

4) I made something that has the potential to continue to sell for as long as The War of Winds (my main comic) continues. Not Alone is complete, but my main comic will still shunt readers over there since the stories are interconnected. When the Not Alone characters appear in the War of Winds, I expect readership to kick up a bit, and that means more sales of the epilogue, because the “bridge” will be in demand. I personally don’t have the audience to support a “teefury” or “rave popularity” model.  I wanted something that I could keep up for a long time, that could still sell next year, not something that would be very popular this day or week or month (ex, Obama inauguration shirts) but not next day/week/month.

5) Already mentioned, the epilogue was an extra. I did not hold readers hostage. I gave them a story, and then I made more. I did not keep the final 5 pages of the last chapter to myself and try to sell that. That would definitely alienate readers. Remember when Digger was a subscription comic? The archives, they were so great, and you read through them all…and then they wanted you to PAY to read the rest? Did you fork over that cash? Maybe 1/100 of you did. The other 99/100 left, griping about the whole ordeal and the waste of time.

6) I nipped any complaints in the bud. Straight out on the site I said I wasn’t going to take any flak for asking people to buy the epilogue. I explained myself and my reasoning.  I’ve seen readers start screaming on other sites about “buying worthless digital comics you can’t really ever own,” and I did not feel like putting up with it. So I didn’t.

7) For my next origin story, I’m considering selling cameo spots for 5 dollars each. Each cameo is guaranteed 2 or 3 recognizeable features in the story.  I’m going to poll my audience to see who might be interested, especially since I will be making this one for print from the very beginning (I didn’t decide to print Not Alone until nearly the end, and it was a TOTAL headache to reformat. Not making that mistake again!) Perhaps for 10 dollars, the cameo could become a one or 2-line role. I have tons of faceless characters in the script.  I will also be selling an epilogue to this next story, as I did for Not Alone. And I will be charging MORE.  Not much more. If someone has $3.12 lying about in their bank accounts, odds are they another $1.88 to go with it, if not more. Again, never charging less than  $5 for anything again. The chunk paypal takes just doesn’t make it worth it.

8) What about a donator-only comic? I’ve had requests for a spin-off to Not Alone, involving the Keyen (animal) characters. The Keyen were decidedly more popular than the human characters in the story. That’s the internet audience for you, and there’s nothing bad about that. But how can I USE that to my advantage? Should there be a system where every time there’s enough donations, say, $20, I put up a public page? Or maybe a 1-time fee to view a portion of the site inaccessible to non-donators? Should I charge for each page to be downloaded, as I did for the epilogue (um, no, but I wanted to say that and negate myself, because that model has “FAIL” written all over it)? These are questions I really haven’t answered myself yet.

So, to wrap this up, I had a positive experience in selling my first comic-related product. I’ve had no complaints, and if anything, requests to charge more (yes, I was told I was selling myself for cheap) and to do more things like this. Webcomics are internet entertainment, but that doesn’t mean they have to be free all the time. For anyone starting out selling something comic-related, as in a side-story or epilogue, I would greatly encourage them use their free webcomic as an audience-generator for whatever comic they are selling. I encourage that comic product to be interrelated to that free comic, but still stand-alone. I don’t see a comic completely unrelated to what originally brought a reader to the site in the first place selling well, especially when there are so many completely free comics out there.  For example, if I had tried to sell a comic that had totally NOTHING to do with either The War of Winds or Not Alone, even if I provided a 10-page preview, I could not see it selling well.  TWoW and NA brought the reader to my site, so the reader likes those kinds of comics specifically, and wants more of the same, not more of something not related.  I also want the reader to become emotionally invested in the free comic (That’s why I saw X-men 3, even though it sucked, the first 2 movies had me invested) so that buying the sequel/extra/epilogue is not a hard choice. That’s my logic, at least. I don’t want to create a subscription site, I want to sell stuff alongside what I offer for free.

That’s it from me! I hope my experience here helps anyone trying this for their first time.