Help me find a self publishing company!

[JamesClover]

Hello Peeps!

I've been googling the last few weeks searching for a good company to help publish my comic into an actual book but every company is either A) A scam B) expensive out the wazoo or C) You're left to do all the work yourself.

I don't mind spending a little money or doing the work but the scam has me afraid of all three crashing on me. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

If you'd like you can also read my comic for free on Webtoons.

Triage For Love

Thanks for any help!

[Junohugger]

That's kind of a tough one, self publishing sort of means that you DO do all the work, if you want a company to do the work for you for a fee, that's vanity publishing which is sort of a scammy industry. If you want the book to be paid for and produced... that's just traditional publishing! You get that by being the nephew of the EIC I mean, working hard and making something outstanding enough for a publisher to take a punt on.

For you I wonder if a print on demand service like lulu.com is the best option? It takes printing and distro off your hands, but you're still gonna need to sort the pdf out and design the book, not to mention market, but then, you'd have to do that even if bloody Scholastic published you. Hope you like TikTok XD

[darthmongoose]

The best means to self publish are actually either:

1. Put your comic on Webtoon and Tapas and try to build an audience.
   or
2. Get it printed from a printing firm (one in your own country is usually best) and then sell copies online in an online shop or Etsy or similar and take it to comics events to sell.

Anything where the publisher isn't paying you, but you're paying them is a scam. It's called "vanity publishing" and it's almost never worth it because you're handing your work to a publisher that has no stake in your work selling, because they've already been paid, so they will barely put work into marketing and distribution if at all.

If you're going to pitch to a publisher, get yourself an agent who represents similar sorts of creators to you and start pitching to print publishers who publish similar sorts of things to what you're making. For example, look into who published other print editions of popular webcomics. Most of the ones that aren't absolutely massive it literally was just the creator running a kickstarter, getting it printed and selling it themselves though.

[JamesClover]

Thanks for the suggestion! I 100% don't mind/i know I'll have to do almost all the work but I just don't wanna get scammed so I figured asking the community would be best since I'm sure there is someone out there that has published their own comic. I looked up lulu earlier and it had some bad reviews.

[JamesClover]

Yeah that's the vibe I get. I wanted to try and just get something simple like 10-20 copies made and go to conventions to pitch my comic. (Mostly to get out the house and enjoy interacting with the community In person.

[darthmongoose]

Worth being aware that the unit price per comic does decrease a lot as you do larger print runs, so maybe consider getting more than just 20? Like maybe a hundred or more? Given the quality of your comic and the number of subs you have, I doubt you'd struggle to sell a hundred copies in the space of a few events.

[Junohugger]

Well, I've been self publishing for years and imo the hard work is well worth it. I fund my print runs via Kickstarter which gets me a good running start and keeps me stocked for the occasional online sale or event I go to. If you're willing to put the work in, and it sounds like you are, no matter what you'll be working hard so I say you might as well keep all the profits to yourself! Also keeps all the rights etc to yourself which is very worthwhile! It's a rite of passage for all comic creators to have a space in their house dedicated to boxes of book babies imo XD

Best of luck with whatever route you choose!

[JamesClover]

Thanks for the kind words. As you can tell I have no idea what amount is good I've only seen people end up with boxes in their house but maybe now I will shoot for 100+ copies.

[JamesClover]

Thanks for the suggestions and kind words. I honestly don't care about spending money as long as it helps me make a good product. The hustle of having people purchase or even care is all on me but i have no tools to make a 100+ page book so i don't want to hand over my money and get nothing in return that's what I'm afraid of.

[RobertBMarks]

I'm going to suggest IngramSpark - they're owned by Ingram, which means that you'll get worldwide distribution, Ingram's customer service is good (in comparison to Amazon, whose customer service is a black box that will give you grey hairs), and it's a service made creators like you.

I hope this helps!

IngramSpark: Self-Publishing Book Company | Print & Distribute

[joannekwan]

I detailed my entire self-publishing journey here! And I used ingramspark as Robert above suggested. It's work, but you don't have the fear of being scammed or having a kickstarter fail. :')

Hey everyone, I self-published my first novel Secunda in December and I thought I’d share all the trials and tribulations it went through on its journey! There’s a dearth of info about what exactly to expect, particularly collected into one spot, so if I can help by sharing my own experience, I will try. This isn’t a How To. It’s a How I Did It. While this is not a comprehensive guide, I will give advice where I can. First is a brief overview of the timeline: Development: on and off between …

[system]

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