7 / 13
Apr 2021

I'm in this (rather unique?) position where basically I have already posted the 1st and 2nd arcs of my comic online. The third arc (which I'm working on) is a tournament arc and I already have some of it done.

I had this idea that I'd make a massive backlog then focus on social media but it just feels weird to post concept art and sketches of stuff I've already done.

I don't know if any of you have been in a situation like this before, I'd just like to know how you guys would go about advertising it.

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    Apr '21
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    Apr '21
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Posting sketches is always fun for everyone. Even, for older projects that's been out for a while. It's like a window into the creative process. It's never too late to share those types of sketches.

Personally, I'm not known online, so I heavily rely on the face to face networking. I'm not unknown in the comic/pop culture convention circuit around these parts. I print my comic books independently and I push it during those events. I also sell it in select stores, one is an art gallery and they've taken works from their artist on expos they do. For me, that was free publicity.

Other than that, I post here on the forum, I promote it on my facebook art page as well as my personal page, but only on occasions for that one. I don't to be annoying and shove it in their faces, when they have no interest in it.

I post concept art on Artstation, some panels on Deviantart and Instagram. I've even donated my 1st comic to a library and done the Sketchbook Project, by filling it mostly with comic sketches. I'm also part of a few art groups locally, where we support each other's work.

Social media is always a great way to network and gain more readers. But, like I said, I'm pretty invisible online. So, I'm going old school and it works for me. It might only reach more of a localized area, but where better to start than home?

Ah that's nice! I sounds much more fun to interact face to face than only having an online presence. I want to try to promote my stuff whenever conventions come back

I find people really like seeing sketches and other 'behind the scenes' process stuff. So I'd totally do that, along with sharing upcoming panel art.

I've also found that sharing little 10-panel snippets of comic, which give people a small taste of a moment in the plot, works pretty well on Instagram.

TikTok loves speedpaints, and also loves that thing where you layer the sketch over a piece and 'erase it' to reveal the finished piece below.

Conventions are really fun to do, but they're still a ton of work and costly. I have one that was re-scheduled to August, it was supposed to be last month. So, I'm working hard to get myself ready. But, the extra work for them are worth it in the end. Most of my readers who have the hard copy, don't read it online and they'll wait until the book is out, so they can hold it in their hands and get it signed. For me, I love to see how excited they get about the series. It pushes me to continue with it and it gives me a sense that I must be doing something right.

Keep in mind that if you plan on printing your comic, make sure you have you're two arcs available. Sales tend to be quite low when you only have one book out, unless you're super popular. People are iffy to buy a series with one one book. Unfortunately, it's too common that creators quit after one chapter. I noticed that my sales sky rocketed after the 2nd one came out. I had almost no comic sales the year before, but the year after, they ended up buying both at the same time. The more books you have, the bigger the crowd. This year, I'm coming out with my 5th one, so I'm really looking forward to convention season. :grin:

Also, presentation is key as well. My series is my hot item on my table, so I try to make it look as professional as possible. The rest of the stuff I sell is fluff and bring in people who might be further away.

But, face to face is the best form of promotion I have. Online is such a massive community, that you easily get lost in the sea of people. But, if a person goes to an event, they'll at least see you. There's still tons of people to compete with, but the pool is smaller than online.

If it's a story in the works, I tend to like posting the characters one by one, with a little bit about them. Then the world of the story, and all the interesting things around that.

Wile it's running, I always like to put my best foot forward, so a catchy blurb, some interesting selling points of the story and art, cover art, and/or the best bage I've done at the time

One question: how many copies of a single volume do you usually bring to a convention? Even though I'm nowhere near to the point where I can print my episodes, that's something I always wondered about.

As for my promotion strategy: I already mentioned it somewhere else, buuuut... recently I kinda ditched social media for low cost paid advertisement :sweat_smile: I still post random panels to Instagram whenever I can (usually ones that include a cliffhanger or a funny joke of sorts) and share speedpaints on TikTok, but tbh I haven't seen much of a growth doing so, except maybe for some views on Tapas from time to time. Unfortunately my main social media platform (Pillowfort) is currently dead and all the remaining platforms (Instagram, Twitter, TikTok) require me to spend far more time on them than I'm willing to. So low cost advertisement it is :'D

So far I've tried TopWebcomics ($1 square-ish ad, showed up on the site for three days in a row in two different weekends), thanks to which I got 3 new readers on Tapas, and ComicAd, thanks to which my views on ComicFury really blew up (went from around 6k to more than 12k in just a couple of weeks). Got only a couple of new "official" subscribers, but judging from the stats, I'm pretty sure a few more people must be reading the comic even though they're not registered members of the site :slight_smile: the good thing about ComicAd is that you don't even have to pay for advertisement if you don't want to! As long as you have a bunch of banners uploaded, they will be automatically circulate on webcomic sites that offer free ad space. My 120x60 pixel button has 1.1k impressions just of free auto-ads! ^_^

The truth is, I don't LIKE promoting my comic at all. Compared to actually making the comic, promotion feels like a chore. My skillset does not lend itself well to marketing, given my general ineptitude with networking.

In any case, your idea of posting concept art and such for previously released content sounds like a good idea to me. Your fans will probably appreciate it. And I understand that it is important to provide a steady stream of content, so you are constantly reminding people that your work exists. If you aren't showing up in people's feeds regularly, they'll start to forget about it.

I always make sure that I have 50 copies available of the newest book with me, when it's first released. The other volumes, can have less. But, 10 is too low of a number and I need to print a new batch of 50.

I don't print every volume every year. If I'm hitting the same conventions, I have to make sure I have at least 15 copies of the older books. The majority will be buying the more recent volumes, not the oldest. But, if I'm hitting a new event or one I haven't done in a long time, I'll make sure to have at least 25 copies of each. It also depends on the size of the convention.

With that said, it also depends on the mode of transportation. If I have to fly, I'd go with my max of 50, but I'd cut down on everything else that I usually have on my table. If I'm flying to go somewhere, it means I'm hitting a very large convention, 3 days and more people. But, I don't want to get stuck paying high fees because my excess heavy baggage.

Train: You'll be dragging your stuff around. Lots of comics, means lots of weight.

Bus: If you're going by a travel bus, you'll be dragging your stuff around, but you're allowed more luggage and I have a foldable trolley that helps me roll my crap around. Public bus, is very awkward and I suggest a cab at that point.

Car:: As long as you don't mind doing tons of trips back to the car. You can bring as much as you want. I fill my car.

I've now done every single one of those modes of transportation. I'm just missing boat at this point. Maybe, when I hit Newfoundland.

That's some great info over there, thank you so much for replying! :smiley: Yeah, I figured that 10 copies would be too few, but I was also in doubt whether 50 copies would be too much for someone who's just starting out... sounds like it's pretty doable, though! ^_^ There aren't a whole lot of comic conventions in my country, but I'm lucky enough to live in one of the few cities to host a "big name" con, so bringing stuff there wouldn't be too hard, I could easily put comics in my car and be there in 20 minutes, haha! :smiley: I'd love to be able to travel around and take part to more cons, but alas, I'm afraid with my day job I can't really do that D:

If you're starting out. For my first convention with my comic, when I only had the 1st book out, I brought 30 copies with me. Because I was unsure how well it would do.

I started doing conventions almost 16 years ago, when they didn't exist in my part of the country and didn't own a car at the time. So, I flew to our largest city to do them. Slowly, they started to appear around my area and now there's quite a few of them. So, I do my rounds and usually try to be at 3 of them. Last year, I was lined up for 4 conventions. One within the city and the rest I had to travel. But, with the pandemic arriving, I was only able to do one and the rest got cancelled. However, two of them i got to keep my table for next year. So, I'm currently lined up for 2 this year.
If you have Arts & Crafts festivals, you can sell comics there too. I do those as well sometimes. I also have a line of greeting cards, that I can sell with it.

I'll have to look into Arts & Crafts festivals, sounds like a great idea! We used to have one in town (no comics that I could see, though ;_;), buuut... yep, the pandemic definitely made things a lot more difficult. All 2020 events in my country ended up being canceled... and seeing how things are going this year, I'm afraid things aren't going to be any better -___- so yup, definitely going to wait until this whole pandemic nightmare ends D:

Well, even though an Arts & Crafts festival has no comics, doesn't mean it's something that doesn't belong there. It's handmade. Photographers sell printed photography. It falls in the same boat, because it's printed artwork with words that tell a story.:slight_smile: