[USA]
@Sleepyowl For most social media sites, they should be viewed as completely different audience with different trends and preference on what posts work the best.
I have many many many gripes when it comes to Facebook due to it's algorithm. It's designed in a way where your posts won't reach your audience unless you pay to boost your post or advertise your page, and then you risk bloating your page with like farm likes which hurt your reach in the end.
However, that aside, posts with videos or images tend to do best on Facebook. And Michael Son gives more fantastic advice for facebook here:
For Twitter, it differs from Facebook because you have a character limit on your posts, forcing you to get to your point quickly, and it really becomes a great social media tool the more followers you gain and when you start following people you find interesting.
There's also no restricting your post's reach like on facebook. Everyone that follows your twitter will get your tweets in their feed, however it can get lost in a sea of tweets depending on how many people they follow. So for that, bumping your more important tweets is a good idea.
There's also a fantastic webcomic/comic community on twitter. A lot of us get together for #webcomicchat every Saturday 8:30 pm est & Sunday 2:30 pm est, and #comicbookhour on Sundays at 12pm est. It's a good place to introduce yourself, share your comic links, and answer questions/learn about comics and making comics.
Most artists, publishers, agents and beyond have a twitter account, so it's a great place to network.
@niinasalmelin
[USA] I'm not sure if or how much it's different in Finland, however, the most professional way in the USA is to look into hiring an agent that already has connections with publishing companies that can get your foot in the door. For example, big publishers like Scholastic and the big 2 don't accept unsolicited inquiries and an agent is the only method to break in. Or if you're lucky, you might be able to create contacts at comic conventions/book conventions and try your hand at getting in through following up with people.
It's a lot less formal with US smaller publishing companies. For them you really don't need an agent and can basically inquire yourself. However, do consider everything a publisher promises to bring to the table and weigh your options before signing on. In most cases, it's best to self-publish until you feel ready to hire an agent and approach bigger publishers.
Do your research, and find a publisher that's a good match to your style and story. For example, if you're creating a kid's series with sorcery involved it'll show you did no research and come off unprofessional to approach an adult religious publishing company.
Once you find your match, look on their website, follow them on social media to get updates from the company, keep an eye out for when they're looking for submissions and how they accept submissions.
Well it depends really what you're wanting from them, but as a bare minimum they should print your books, advertise it, get it into stores and conventions, and should be open honest and upfront when it comes to sharing numbers and stats of how many of your books they've sold, how much overhead costs have they spent on your book, and most importantly what's your cut/royalties from all this hard work. And a lot of this will need to be ironed out in a contract [see the sample contract above]
Basically find a publishing company that seems like a good fit for your series; ie they publish comics in a similar genre to yours, they target the same age range and audience to your comic, they activity promote in channels that reach your target audience.
Smaller ones are a risk, especially in the USA. I'd actually recommend that most artists are better off self-publishing to smaller publish houses since a lot of what they offer is what artists can already do for themselves.
However, for those that don't have the time, money, or energy to self publish yourself even small publishers might be worth. I'd recommend asking them lots of questions. Generally, smaller publishers are more open and non-formal to people writing in asking them questions. See how much they promote their books, how they promote them, how effective it is, how big their following is on social media, the quality of their printed books [if they have books at a local store scoop it out and check the quality], and how friendly and informative they answer your questions. If they pass that wave of questions with you, perhaps dive deeper with how they divide book sales with their artists, how they pay (royalties or a flat rate), do they claim exclusive rights, if an artist wants out of a contract how do they handle that. If they pass that wave, then make a pitch and see what they say. If they send you a contract READ it CAREFULLY before signing it. Ask family members and trusted friends to read it too to get their opinions and decide from there. And for smaller companies, keep ontop of them about sales. Most will never share this info and never pay the artist despite obvious sales.
@somvi
[USA] I actually, look at the publishers that had books for Free Comic Book Day. The publishers that participated this year was a good range from big to mid tier publishers to smaller but not new publishers. Action Lab, BOOM!, Space Goat Production, Graphix, Oni, :01 Second, Image, Th3rd World Studio, so on.
