Webcomic Shop Talk

[PotooGryphon]

lol A little late on posting this weeks question but:

What is your strategy for earning Ad Revenue? Is there a proper way to effectively place ads/bid on ad space to earn more revenue?

[eagle1]

hhmm... I'm hoping for more answers on this one. I am currently using Project Wonderful and Google Adsense, and between them have made less that 40 cents. This is not going to buy me anything I need except a ramen pack. Hopefully, somone has a better way.

Eagle
(Or I just need a LOT more traffic)

[PotooGryphon]

Yes, I'm really interested to hear what methods other people have found successful and what's not and should be avoided. lol

I've heard from a lot of other people about their accounts on it already, and it almost feels like trail and error, luck thing, and revenue will come as the site grows. I'm also currently using Project Wonderful and Google Adsense, and when it opens I'll also try Tapastic's ad revenue system. I've also heard a lot of good things about Comic-Rocket's ad system and Google Adword.

My friend, Dan (@dsharp524 on twitter), made an incredibly indepth blog post about analytics and ad revenue on his website, here. I still need to find the time to read it, but I know that this post is super informative and helpful on the subject.

[elixiadragmire]

I've not even touched this yet, I'm far too young and not got enough content to start (PW wants 30 pieces od content)

[PotooGryphon]

Oh odd, i never noticed that on project wonderful. I haven't put any money to the site. I've managed to earn money through ad boxes on my site to use it towards bidding on ads on other sites. However, there are free ads on PW that shouldn't cost anything. :/

[elixiadragmire]

its to setup an account to put ads on my page when i read up the rules for my app

[winglesscomic]

Rule #1: Make sure your ads are on all your archived pages.

I used to have ads only on the main page. For someone who has very few visitors this is horrible. I learned this the hard way. After I changed my layout to have ads on all archived comics, it appeared more valuable to readers by bumping up the pageview count.

[PotooGryphon]

Have you ever participated in crowdfunding?

What crowdfunding campaign platforms have you used, or would like to use?

Would you like to share your tips and resources for running a successful crowdfunding campaign.

[jessicasurline]

Currently the only crowd funding site I am using is Patreon.com. It is nice to have supporters provide assistance in small amounts over time while the end product is being made. In the future, when I'm closer to being ready to publish a physical version, I will probably use Kickstarter, Indiegogo or some other form of crowd funding for a mass lump sum. My comic is going to be 20 chapters long and since it is done traditionally, I take a good amount of time to complete each page. I don't want to make the mistake of promising something I can't deliver on time when the goal is so far away. It would be nice to have that pool of currency to pay for living expenses and bills so I don't need to have a day job but, again, I feel it's too soon for the audience. I imagine they would like to have something they paid for sooner than 10 years down the line lol!

[aspiderjonny]

I just started my Patreon page. It's fairly new so I don't have any supporters yet but gotta keep optmistic, right?. My plan was that once I've gotten past five or six books of either of my webcomics I would start a kickstarter to get a Volume 1 published. But I should probably wait 'til i have more readers though.

[jessicasurline]

Yeah gathering the audience is the hard part but since you have a stage for them to visit your work it will be easier.

[kambreapratt]

I missed the ad revenue question so I will answer that one here as well. We use Project Wonderful, Sovrn (Lijit), and Buy Sell Ads.

When we run ads we use Project Wonderful, Comic Rocket, and Google.

Crowdfunding platforms
We have used Kickstarter a few times. We had to pull one campaign early due to "kick trolling" But we did okay after. I think with Kickstarter you need to make sure you are concise and clear and you have an interesting feature image.
We also use Patreon.

[aspiderjonny]

"Kick Trolling" kind of scares me. It doesn't happen often does it? Is there any way to get around it?

[kambreapratt]

I know it happened to us where one backer pledged like several thousand and we were immediately suspicious and we questioned them. Then they backed it down more and more and then they were banned, but we were so afraid of people trolling us again we pulled down the Kickstarter. It would have sucked to get to the last 10 mins and have someone pull a ton of money. Then, with the yo yo funds it made us look suspicious as well.

I know of other people who had similar things happen or had gotten as far as sending out their rewards and then having the backer claim they never made the charge and their credit company pulled the funds. They got both the rewards and their money back. Now this was a couple of years ago, so it might be better now.

[elixiadragmire]

Kick Trolling" kind of scares me. It doesn't happen often does it? Is there any way to get around it?

WHAT is troll kicking?!

[kambreapratt]

Kick trolling via The Beat

[elixiadragmire]

I'm not really up to speed on kickstarter its policies or fees but if someone pulled out surely they get zip? and if the project didnt get it goal then no one gets anything?

[kambreapratt]

Right. On Kickstarter if you don't hit funding you get none of it. So some people are putting in money and then pulling it last minute, where there is no time to do anything else, and it causes it to be under goal and tanks the campaign. Or, they don't pull funding till they get their rewards and then dispute the charges and get their money back and the rewards.

[elixiadragmire]

O_O how can you dispute the charge?! that highly unfair. wow some people.

[jessicasurline]

Holy crap I never heard of this till now! Thank you for bringing this to light for us before we get deep into a Kickstarter campaign of our own!