Ok... This thread has been setting off my internal red flag alarm for a while now, and thank you @Sleepyowl for asking some tougher business questions here. However, the answers to your questions I found more alarming than reassuring.
Sorry, if I come across harshly, however here are my frank and honest thoughts to what's being said, as a creator that's be self publishing for 4 years myself, had experience with both large and small publishers, and don't want to see other artists make easily avoidable mistakes.
hmmm... ad page in your own printed comics and downloadable comics? ... But if no one knows who you guys are yet, who will see these ads? The social media approach is more promising [only if you have a large genuine following] however that's something us artists can and have been doing for ourselves so far... "Unique ways"? hope they're good. OuO
Oh boy... :face palm:
The same problem arises. If no one knows of you guys yet why would the general audience or even the comic reading audience get invested in these characters they don't know yet? Games featuring original characters usually comes after they're established and there's a demand for it. Currently you'd be supplying something there's no demand for which usually goes unnoticed and a waste of time, effort, and money...
Oh gosh... ouch... ok, actually buying ad space sounds like the best approach out all that I've quoted above since that's a resource not many of us artists can afford to do. That'd be a reach and an incentive that's beyond some of our grasps. Also there's really no excuse for no ad space advertising since you can at the very least do free ads on project wonderful and earn your own ad revenue to help keep it self perpetuating.
I can understand you wanting to create a quality product however it's unfair to put most of the "getting the word out" burden on your artists. They're the ones creating the comics for the publishing companies and these companies gain exclusive rights to print the books. It's part of a publishers job to advertise their comics and it's the creator's job to focus on creating the best product possible.
Hopefully that's sooner rather than later. It'd be miserably for artists to hitch their wagon to a publisher that went several years unknown.
OAO You have no idea how concerning this is to me. Conventions are a publisher's bread and butter and the best way for the company to network and get known. Especially if you keep returning to conventions year after year, that's how you build brand recognition offline. And publishing companies have to travel all over, not just stay local at smaller shows. Another thing publishers [even small ones] do for their artists is get them into shows and plan it out. Maybe Artist A lives near Heroes Con, so the publisher asks that artist to go and represent the company sending them Artist A's books and flyers to sit on the table, they pay for a badge if Artist A agrees, and then Artist A sends back any unsold materials. If Artist B is near NYCC, Artist B is offered the same opportunity and so on. It's mutually beneficial.
More info would be nice because currently this is very vague. For all I know your industrial printer could be Ka-Blam [gags] or Comic Wellspring which a lot of us self publishers are already using.
So inclusion, I don't mean to come off mean, however these are my very frank concerns since I have dealt with publishers in the past. There are pros and cons to it. @TriviumComics perhaps you guys should focus on the series you currently have on your site, build their recognition, take them to conventions, and come back to us with some amazing success stories. 1 successful Kickstarter campaign and a test print of your first book is a start however it's currently not appealing to seasoned artists.
And fellow artists, please weigh your options carefully before signing any contracts. In fact, read those over carefully and even hire a legal professional to read through it too. Most of the time, it's clear that self publishing and building yourself up before approaching bigger publishers [if publishers is really what you want] is actually the better route. You have more control over your book, the quality of the print, the ads in the book, the profits generated through sales [generally smaller publishers are terrible at sharing the numbers in this area], set your own deadlines, and learn first hand the business side of the industry. Currently everything being offered here, you can do for yourself if you try.
