Hey, how’s it going out there in the wide world? Things are good here in my small corner of it. I’ve been looking at options for bringing Misadventures of a Comic Fan to print and realized that it might be interesting and informative to document what’s going on behind the scenes. In looking to bring something web-based to print, one of the first decisions is whether to find a publisher or go the self-publishing route. I don’t have a ton of money, so for me self-publishing would mean most likely using a print-on-demand service. Now I haven’t looked that deeply into things on that end yet, but the thought had occurred to me and my gut reaction was that it might reduce the potential number of readers. So I decided to pursue finding a publisher first. I won’t get into specifics for a bunch of reasons, but I will give some generalities focusing on my thoughts, responses, and decisions. If you’re wondering why I’m doing this, think of it as a primer on what to do, or not to do depending on how much success I achieve, if you want to the comic industry. I’m relatively new to comic creating. Sure, I’ve been reading and enjoying for a long time, but only recently decided to dive into the creation of comics. You hear a lot from guys who’ve already made it in to some degree or another. But there isn’t as much publicized stuff from the neophyte’s perspective.
Obviously this path will be different for each person, depending on his or her goals and abilities. I have no idea what exactly I should expect, other than a lot of rejection. I’m okay with that though. I didn’t quit my day job.
So each week I’ll be discussing what I’m doing in the webcomic, what I’m doing with the publishing end of things and what is influencing me, exciting me from world of comics. To that end I will do reviews of what I’m enjoying and what I’ve found helpful or instructive. I’ll try to keep things short and sweet.
My current goal as a comic creator is to publish my own stories. I don’t really have much of a desire to work for Marvel or DC. I hope to find someone to take care of the publishing/marketing end of things so I can focus on creating. That’s the dream anyway.
Okay, that’s enough of a rambling introduction. Let’s get to the meat of things. As I’ve said, I started looking for potential publishers and getting everything ready to send in submissions to them. Some require quite a bit more than others. Each company has their own way of doing things and they each have specific requirements for how to submit that are very specific to that company. Of course you want to do some research and look for publishers you think might be interested in your work. For example, although my comic is about comics and contains elements of mainstream superheroes, it isn’t a superhero comic. It has some fantasy elements but isn’t really a fantasy story either, so in looking for a publisher one of the first things I want to do is not waste any editor’s time by sending in to a company that only produces those types of books. Not to worry there, though, very few companies only do one type of genre any more. Okay, so I did my research and selected a few publishers to begin sending stuff to and already got a response back. Actually, within 2 days I received a response that was both kind and encouraging. Although they weren’t interested in publishing my comic, I did get some feedback and some suggestions. Needless to say, I’m still looking for a publisher, but my first experience has left me hopeful and upbeat.
I think I’ve taken enough of your time for today, so I’ll end it here. Next time I’ll be talking about some possibilities I’m pursuing from the self-publishing end of things. And for fun, I’ll throw in a book review.
“See” you next time.
Dave
