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Chocolate
Feb '22

Has anybody here worked or submit their comic to a reliable publisher before? What was your experience working with them? Would you recommend working with a publisher or just working on your comic independently? Are they strict with schedule and the quality of your comic? Please give as much insight as possible! Thank you! :3

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    Feb '22

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Caro
Feb '22

Currently working with a couple different publishers. It all varies from publisher to publisher. Some are very hands on in the editing process and some just let you go do what you’re gonna do.

For a graphic novel you’ll have a turn in date that you can negotiate. Everything is negotiable. Contracts are literally made to go back and forth until everyone is comfortable with the terms (and that goes for things like deadlines, advances, media rights, etc).

As far as “are they strict with schedule?” Well, yeah I mean you should try to meet the deadline. The stakes are high and if you’re working with a publisher they’ve probably paid you an advance and if you can’t deliver you basically owe them all that money back. And advances can go into six figures. You don’t wanna owe someone that much money. Its not uncommon for books to be a little late but you don’t wanna have a reputation for being unreliable.

As for quality, well, you’re not gonna get in the door if they don’t like your work. Most people on the publisher’s end aren’t artists so you’re likely not gonna get a ton of notes like “this perspective is off” but this also probably varies from publisher to publisher. But generally if you’re getting published you’re probably presumed to have a reasonable level of polish and professionalism in your work. A publisher isn’t there to teach you how to draw or how to write. You need to come in with those skills as a professional.

I like working with publishers because the money tends to be better, I can make my own schedule and work in bursts and take breaks when I need to, industry people pay more attention (specifically comic and animation industry people), and the reliance on social media pretty much goes away if you’ve got enough success with publishing.

I don’t think its someone people should just try to jump into. If you’ve never finished a 160 page graphic novel you’re probably not ready to start pitching. A lot of the bigger publishers don’t even take unsolicited pitches or un-agented creators.

The most important stuff I think is:
Know when you’re actually ready, submit everywhere (even if you think your work isn’t a good fit), look into getting agented, and read/understand/negotiate your contracts.

doublemelon
Feb '22

How would one go about that? The agents here, they are the publishing company's employees or...?

Caro
Feb '22

No, agents come out of literary agencies not the publisher. They have established relationships with publishers that you might not otherwise really be able to access on your own and represent your work and try to get you the best deal. The way they get paid is they get a small percentage of what you make so there’s an incentive to get the best deal possible for both of you.

There are literary agents and illustration agents but illustration agents are mainly for, like, corporate freelance gigs like doing spot illustrations for magazines. And not every literary agent covers comics. Just google literary agencies, find some that have comics in their listed works, and follow their agents on Twitter. A lot of agents are very active on Twitter will say when they’re open to queries because a lot of their talent is acquired through social media. But they also just generally give a lot of good advice on the whole process.

Mallory
Feb '22

Hi Caro, can I selfishly piggy-back on this thread and ask what the typical timeline looks like, in terms of deadlines, for a graphic novel? I'm looking to find an agent and pitch, but I'm still recovering from a neck injury and that slows me down. I can comfortably say I can finish the story in a year and a half, so I'm wondering if I can get away with a longer deadline and start pitching earlier, or if I need to get, say, 6 months of work done before even considering pitching, because no one would take me seriously on a 1.5 year timeline.

1 month later

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