How do you price your comics?

[cptbee]

So I recently published my own comic book called Balance and I plan on selling it at conventions, but the thing is this is my first time doing so and I have absolutely no idea how much I should sell it for!

You can actually read it here on the site to give you an idea of it's interior (you can also check my tapastic page for annoying updates on it's printing adventures).

A little info to give you guys a better clue:
- It's 24 pages
- perfect bound
- Matte cover
- full color cover and interior

I'm really stumped, any ideas?
Have you guys ever published your own comics? How much did you sell them for?

[heartshapedlips]

well you don't want to overprice it because nobody would buy it buy it. so just take the money it costs to produce and add whatever you think you should earn for one comic. maybe selling it for a lower price is better for your first publication because that way more people are gonna buy it and widening your audience is probably more important than making a lot of money at this point.

[Spitfire]

The traditional way has apparently been printing expenses x2 if I recal correct.

Don't sell yourself too cheap, it's harder to ask more money later than try to get people buy for the reasonable price now.

These are advises I've gotten from people who actually do sell their comics.

And if the person likes what you do, sincerely, the price can be fair to you as well, there's no point trying to sell cheaper to sell more.

[apurviance]

I sell my 100 page comic for $12. It's print-on-demand, so I charge a bit more.
I've heard others who frequent comic conventions suggest buyers seem to like spending about 10 cents per page.

[cptbee]

All very good comments. I appreciate it a lot!

apurviance, I'd love to be able to use that method (it's a nice way to attract new customers!), however if I did I wouldn't be close in the slightest to making a profit. The cheapest self-publishing company I could find was createspace, which amounted to around 4$ a copy, plus shipping and currency conversion and all that jazz. To even begin making a profit I'd need to sell all my copies at a price exceeding 7,22$.

If you don't mind me asking, where did you publish your comic to be able to sell it for such a low price and to still make a profit?

[lanceredding]

Have you looked into [Lulu][1]? I've not published comics with them, but I have a lot of experience publishing books with them. they seem to be cheaper than createspace (at least slightly), and I find it easier to print/publish with them than with other companies I have worked with. Now, I will warn you that if you are printing colored comics, it's gonna cost an arm and a leg to get them printed...but as long as you don't mind black and white interiors, then you can print very inexpensively with them.

So I recently published my own comic book called Balance and I plan on selling it at conventions, but the thing is this is my first time doing so and I have absolutely no idea how much I should sell it for!

By the way, congrats on the publishing! As a self-published author, I know how much work than can be. Best of luck at the cons!

[joannekwan]

I've heard good things about Greko Publishing. It's pretty cheap and I hear their quality is pretty good. And here is a quick link to a price calculator for what you're looking for.
I'm going to try them out in the near future.

As for pricing, you want to at least recoup your printing cost, and round it to a reasonable number like $5 or $10, so on, since people seem to go for that.

[lanceredding]

Does Greko Publishing do any print-on-demand? I looked at their price calculator, but it looks like to publish books more than 52 pages you have to bulk order them..

[joannekwan]

I think for any order, no matter the format, the minimum quantity is 25 books.

[cptbee]

Lulu was one of my initial choices (along with Blurb), but wanting to print in color jacked the price up a bit too much for my liking in both cases. But thanks anyway! And yeah, self-publishing can be quite the pain, but it really is worth it even if I don't sell well. I'm just glad I was able to publish anything at all at this point.

[cptbee]

I looked over the site rather quickly a day or two ago, but having looked more in depth into it now I can definitely see it as something to consider for future publishings! The only downside I can see here is if ever I would want to publish something with a little more volume to it, seeing as the limit is 64 pages. But it's primarily a comic book publishing site I suppose, so I can't really fault it for that.

[joannekwan]

The square-bound (their term for perfect bound I guess, lol) paperbacks can go up to 260 pages! And technically more but you'd have to contact them for that. And they're the same dimensions as their comic books.

[cptbee]

Oooh, I see! But having checked it out, the price seems to amount to the same as CreateSpace. Do you know how much the shipping would cost? I know it can get quite pricey very easily.

[joannekwan]

Hm, unfortunately they don't have a price chart, so you will only see how much shipping will cost once you fill out an order and add it to your cart.

[apurviance]

I went with Ka-Blam for print-on-demand. Once you have that set up you can sell copies through their sister-site http://indyplanet.com/ or buy a bunch of copies to sell yourself. Expect it all to take at least a month or more before you get a book in your hands.

For large print runs http://www.printninja.com/ is what may people have used for kickstarter deliverables. They're in China and will probably take even longer.

[GlanceReviver]

You should base it on what it costs to make x2, just to make sure you cover all your expenses. Remember that base cost isn't the only expense in selling something, you'll also need money for going to conventions, putting ads in places if you're going to sell it online, or even just to help cover the cost of your time and all your materials going into the comic, it's a lot more than just adding a dollar or whatever.

$10 might be a good place to start, although it is a short story so it may be easy or difficult depending on your competition at the convention. You can offer some free extras that don't cost much for you to print, like make sure they know it'll be signed by the creator and maybe give out a special bookmark or postcard with it.

[AnnaLandin]

Set yourself a reasonable margin to make a profit. Take your printing cost per book, and add enough on top of that that you won't have to sell every copy to make back the printing costs.

I've been using local Swedish printers for printing my comics - and for some reason, they've never charged me shipping costs, and I'm not about to complain about that! - so my costs have been kept down, as using an American printer would have landed me with printing costs, shipping costs and toll to pay. I've printed both colour and black and white interiors (always colour covers, though), so the price as varied, but I'll use my completed graphic novel Fathoms of the Sky as an example.

It's 200 pages long, black and white interior on paper that wasn't the cheapest option, but also not the most expensive; full colour cover, perfect bound, with the title printed on the spine. It cost me roughly 5.40$ per copy to print. I sold them for 11$ each, to cover my printing costs, as WELL as the cost of booking a table at the con, transporting myself to the con, and keeping myself fed while I was there. This means I only had to sell half of my print-run to make back the printing costs, and less than two thirds to cover all of my expenses. After that, everything else was pure profit.

Things to keep in mind:
- if you're selling at a small-press con, people will be slightly more willing to cough up the money for your self-published stuff; if you're at a big-name con, they'll be comparing your prices to those of professional publishers.
- People are willing to pay more for colour than for the equivalent length in black and white, in my experience.
- No matter what sort of thing you're selling, you're going to have to talk a good game at the con to get people to buy it. Say good things about your comic and do NOT, under any circumstances, say "I know it's not very good, but...". If they see you aren't confident in the quality of your book, why should they want to buy it?
- Package-deals are attractive! Throw in a bookmark or something in the bundle, and people will feel like they're getting more for their money.

[starlightcityentert]

I use Createspace, and for my first volume It cost me about 6+ bucks per copy so I listed the cover price as $12.99. BUT I am always flexible and willing to do deals, include extras, and sell for a bit less(like say $8.50) if it means getting more readership. At the end of the day I think building a fanbase is just as important as turning a profit, and if you are doing this because you love it and want to expand out reach, profit is important but visibility and accessibility is just as important as well, so there a balance to all of this.

Lots of great advice in this thread from everyone really, I had to learn everything about self publishing on my own but it was worth the long nights figuring out how to format and everything, so I appreciate anyone who has done it or is willing to do it XD