Audience Myth Busting
Do you believe the conventional wisdom about webcomics being a small industry, where upsetting the wrong apple in one cart will result in, “you’ll never work in this town again”? Believe it or not, it is pure fiction. The online-delivery comics industry actually represents a surprisingly large niche market. As of this reading and according to their own statistical information, there are over 79,304 archived and active comic titles on Tapastic, Comic Fury and Smack Jeeves alone. Based on current Alexa data, these sites have an average of 84,553 daily visitors and 502,705 daily views on these website. These totals do not count self-hosted comics, smaller webcomic portals, international webtoon megasites, print media comics with an online presence and, webcomics hosted by blogging sites such as Blogger, Tumblr or WordPress.com. When all of these sites are factored, the potential eyeballs for webcomics soar into the millions. Knowing this information will be your most powerful weapon against becoming a cog in the entertainment media consolidation machine, and the depressing isolation of being a webcomic maker who doesn’t fit into some nebulous entity known as the “webcomic community” — whatever that means. As evidenced by the success of comic-based merchandising by Penny Arcade, The Oatmeal, Order of the Stick, Marvel Comics and DC Comics, the potential jackpot for a successful comic property, regardless of its delivery method, is huge. Understandably, people want a substantial piece of this economic pie, and these folks aren’t always creators. Because most webcomic communities tend to represent sub-niches of a niche, and a lot of creators don’t venture outside of them, this isn’t immediately obvious.
Media Consolidation Vs. Creators
Comics delivered by websites are now a part of the entertainment industry. Let that sink in. Our industry is fairly mature, if not somewhat bordering on obsolescence due to advances in mobile content delivery. Even so, from a business perspective webcomics and comics in general are amazing idea generation tools for the business savvy looking for new merchandise franchising opportunities. Video content, consulting, toys, performances, music, art exhibit, licensed merchandise; the possibilities for profit diversification that may be derived from webcomics are practically endless. The unfortunate flip-side to this opportunity, independent webcomics these days are now seen as competition, product opportunities or fair game by huge media conglomerates. Webcomics that once resided in autonomous websites are now being absorbed by mega-portals that look almost identical. Although there are generous folks who provide free comic portal hosting as a labor of love with donor support, too many of these portals are often owned by people whose main interest is to grow start-ups by obtaining huge quantities of low-cost content (read: your webcomics). In some cases, there are webcomic portal owners were not even interested in comics before seeing the potential dollars signs.
Mephistopheles Has A Deal For You!
Unfortunately, most webcomic creators have never been involved in the entertainment industry and don’t understand this mentality, or why former friends start to adopt it. They typically start out because they are regular people who love comics and find the lack of barriers to starting a webcomic to be an appealing motivator. But as they get involved in the industry, and hear their peers spouting the utter nonsense about audience scarcity, they accept this as gospel. Unfortunately, most of these creators have absolutely NO idea of what they are up against in terms of these astute entrepreneurs. So when some of these portals offer big upfront cash incentives to eager early-adopter creators and promises of a large consolidated audience, this is often mistaken as the industry’s salvation. More often than not, these ground floor incentives rarely last forever.
A venture capitalist will not throw money at people just to be nice. They spend money to make money, with the least amount of effort and cost. Creators lured by promises of “your copyright belongs to you,” often have their rights undermined by restrictive licensing and merchandising contracts that are laden with often hidden legalese print. These cash incentives are usually cost-effective carrots that are dangled in front of creators as a method of getting them to attract fan bases, often at the creator’s expense. These creator-procured webcomic audiences provide the owners of these sites an easy way obtain eyeballs without having to invest capital on public relations firms, paid advertising, professional marketing, or too much work on their end. This is the same money-making techniques that worked for record companies for decades but, consumers and creators ultimately rejected in the digital era. This business model is now in our turf.
If case you think that this kind of leveraging is not actual thing, I’d like to introduce you to Tim Fenriss and The 4 Hour Work Week. You may curl into a fetal position with shrieks of, “WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY,” when you read this book. Any beliefs that hard work, human decency, fair play and the highest quality product are the secrets to success in business, will be promptly squashed. But if you can power through the pages, it does provide great insights into how those who are good at acquiring wealth outsource their lives. It also decreases the chances that you’ll be taken advantage of by someone more clever than you.
Don’t get me wrong, I think these sites are wonderful for beginning creators who don’t want to deal with the hardships of entrepreneurship and don’t care about dealing with their intellectual property. It’s free hosting, and it might yield some income for the creator if luck strikes. Plus, there’s the bonus of being part of a community. However, if as a creator, a person is going to work that hard to get noticed in an attempt to win the jackpot, it’s usually better in the long-run to find patrons from crowdsourcing efforts, keep the advertising profits and maintain control of licensing. This is especially true in circumstances where owners of such sites aren’t completely upfront about their business models, or contract details.
We Are All Screwed, Maybe.
Once upon a time, you could make okay money from advertising alone with webcomics. It typically wasn’t enough to replace a full-time job, but for many people it sufficed to buy art supplies or lunch at the very least. The lucky ones made a living. People were happy to spend and support each other mutually, and even when one did not belong to an organized webcomic community. Although I generally stayed out of the loop, because I was too busy making money on a niche were webcomics had practically no penetration, I saw enough of it to be in awe by this sense of peer support. Some of you pre-2005 creators will know what I am talking about.
The potential profit of webcomics became huge as the medium came into its own. Bigger comic companies with massive marketing budgets jumped into the game, and independent creators with business savvy who produced audience-friendly fare found their success and attractive massive audiences, that latecomers would find difficult to replicate. Suddenly, the illusion of a “small” industry became the norm, because the center of power appeared to become more concentrated. The market landscape became saturated with copycat content trying to replicate the success of highly-visible properties, and littered with the corpses of webcomics whose creators could not deal with the pressure. Not surprisingly, audiences outside of the webcomic community generally did not respond well, and typically stuck to familiar fare that had proved its reliability. The global economy didn’t help matters either. Advertising profits plummeted, and people became terrified by the fear of failure and thus turned more competitive. Adding to this mess is the fact that webcomics are semi-obsolete technology, as I mentioned earlier. Few people in this industry want to admit it, but it’s the truth.
As with many facets of the entertainment industry, webcomics are becoming more specialized and with the “community” becoming increasingly fragmented, cutthroat and, factional. Many of us we compete for the more profitable or popular sub-niches of our niche. The bigger the industry grows, the more likely people will lose more friends over jealousy, betrayal for the purpose of advancement, and general panic over one’s livelihood. People will become more paranoid about the competition. Ankle grabbing will develop a competitive sport. Divas will rise and fall. And it’s probably not going to get better as mass media searches for the next best thing. This is the nature of the beast in the entertainment world. Yet, as we fight over an audience that we perceive as limited, does our reality as creators really have to be this way? Not necessarily.
How Do I Get An Audience If I Stay Indie?
Anyone can build an ephemeral audience with enough cash and staff. A good business person builds long-term relationships. If you decide that you want to go through the difficult path of staying independent as a comics producer, you may be extremely concerned about gaining an audience. Before you worry about doing that, ask yourself, “Am I producing a comic that I feel absolutely proud of and would gladly share with everyone I meet, even if lots of people hate it? If the answer is no, worry about refining your work to the point where the answer is yes. The importance of this lies in what it takes to remain independent as a potentially profitable creator.
Put your work online. It’s not a webcomic if your work is not on a website.
Share your work offline with everyone you can. You can do this by creating print versions of your comics, postcards featuring your work, or even by making t-shirts featuring your character. Anything that makes your work more real to people and helps spread about your website is valuable.
Talk about your work and be an expert on it. If you are confident enough about introducing your comics universe to people, a lot of them will ask questions. For this reason, it’s important for your work to be focused and for you to be able to articulate its uniqueness. Having an elevator pitch prepared can help with this process. The current one for Rasputin Catamite is: “I write a dark comedy about horrible people who lived in Siberia during the 80’s, starring a hockey playing vampire.”
Talk to everyone you can about your comic. If you don’t, how would these folks know about your comic or any products that you sell based upon them.
Ask people for feedback. Even stupid feedback, is useful. It helps you filter out people who you do not want as part of your audience.
Approach more people, particularly those outside of your normal cliques, and tell them about your comics. Cubicle work may remind you of high school cliques, but entrepreneurship is more like college. Act accordingly and expand your interpersonal horizons. Venture outside of the webcomic communities and show your comics to those not initiated in that that art form.
Make comics and share the process. Kind of like what I do on Twitter, my webcomic blog sections or this blog. People are curious and are often interested in the process of creating something artistic.
Be passionate about your comics even around people who swear up and down that they will never read your work. Sometimes,people who don’t consume your work can be your most loyal supporters, simply because enjoy seeing you happy and creative.
But don’t be pushy. Nobody likes an ass who monopolizes conversation. I know this because I am autistic, and I make that mistake every once in a while.
Promote works of people who support you and, build goodwill. One good turn deserves another. Hell, promote the people who may not dig you, but produce work that inspires you. Sharing is a beautiful thing.
Be a willing to self-promote consistently and passionately. If you are in love with your comics, you will be proud to show them off and extol their virtues.
Accept that your audience is a moving target that has a cyclical trajectory. It may love you one moment. It will shun you the next and, then come back when you are not expecting it. Comics, like all other forms of art, is subject to the whims of fashion. Don’t take it personally if you are not the cool kid all the time. Not everyone has that knack.
Educate people on what makes your work special, if they’re willing to listen. And, invite those people to participate. This is why I am constantly asking people questions on Twitter and sharing educational stuff about comics, history, art movements and other creative things. People value your work more, if you are coming from a place of learning. Be confident enough to teach, but also be humble enough to learn. Even arrogant divas like me, are capable of enjoying the pleasures of mental enrichment. You don’t have to be an expert. You just need to care enough about your craft to engage in the intellectual exchange.
Don’t give up, and accept that this fight doesn’t end. Not even when you think you are at the peak of your career. As I mentioned before, the audience is a moving target. Just keep sharing your work and keep talking about it and keep going.
Share your work with folks who share common interests, values and even those who don’t, while being civil about it. Sometimes this isn’t possible because we are human, but strive to be genteel whenever you have it in you. Even foul-mouthed things with crazy hyena temper like me, can accomplish this state of pleasant discourse.
Unless you are a gifted trend-spotter, are able to make a lucky connection with the right situation, or can afford a great publicist there are no shortcuts. The best ways to build an audience that will stay with you for the long-term are fostering rich and fulfilling relationships, and sharing what you do. People who like your work will come and go. People who care about the passion behind your work, and you, will stay much longer. So unless you have the money, staff and resources to systematically discover untapped audience groups for your work where the market isn’t saturated, stop worrying about the audience. It’s a more effective use of your time to create work that makes you proud and feel passionate about than to find an audience. It’s much easier to share your work with people who care about you and the work you do, than it is to chase an anonymous audience of elusive eyeballs.
But, Will I Make Money?
Will you make money? It depends on a great deal of factors, such as your record-keeping abilities, your budgeting skills, your capacity to network with people, your willingness to do the footwork necessary to run a successful business, your talent, how much of your soul you are willing to auction off, et cetera. The painful reality is that there are absolutely no guarantees in life, and that world owes you nothing. There will always be someone who will be more talented, better funded or business savvy than you. Life is inherently unfair. But, by building relationships, you are more likely to make a modest living, than by simply hoping to be discovered by some big time industry player.
At this point in my life, I have an amazing second job that directly relates to my Spanish bachelors degree. The investments Loki and I made on our home and his family’s farm, from both my art career and his farming are keeping us comfortable. I can pay the Velvet Rasputin staff. I am not really touring, nor do I have the energy to do what it takes to keep my business profitable. That’s okay, because even workaholics need their mini-retirements. But, when I am ready, or if circumstances force me to focus on running VAS Littlecrow the way I should, I will let you know. For now, I will do my best to help my readers succeed on their own ventures. It’s all I can do.
Do you agree, or disagree with this article? Let me know in the comments section and we’ll converse in depth.