phrases. - The Official GlobalComix Blog

Money. In one way or another, you need it to make your comic. And we're here to open up that discussion in more detail with you.

We'll go over the economic realities facing comic makers right now, how to understand the tools and options at your disposal, how you can get others to invest money into your comic, and what the tradeoffs are.

Learn to use the GlobalComix Analytics Tool so you can get the most out of promoting your comic to grow your audience.

GlobalComix presents a Digital Marketing Webinar Part 2, comprehensively covering the basics of what it takes to bring your work to market, specifically geared towards comic and graphic novel creators.

Are you a creator or a publisher? Create your free account on www.globalcomix.com in seconds, and have your uploads ready for your fans in minutes.

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GlobalComix presents a Digital Marketing Webinar, comprehensively covering the basics of what it takes to bring your work to market, specifically geared towards comic and graphic novel creators.

Our recent comic book crowdfunding webinar offered a lot of information, insight, and inspiration. The only downside to the evening was the little time we had to cover all of the insightful questions you asked. I’ve collected ten of the most relevant questions here and answered them as a resource for you. We had 99% of attendees request a follow-up, so we will be announcing one shortly so be on the lookout. In the meantime, happy crowdfunding, and wishing you success. Thanks to all the participants who asked questions.

Before we get into it, next Tuesday, March 23rd @ 8pm, panelist Rylend Grant will be taking you behind the curtain of his newest campaign for THE JUMP 1-2. And...

Last week, we talked about the elements of a campaign and how you can put your book in a position for a successful Kickstarter in preparation for our upcoming crowdfunding webinar. This week, we’re going to wrap up our discussion of comics crowdfunding by walking through the management of the campaign.

Your ultimate goal is to combine your talent and your story with your marketing and advertising to inspire your target market to support your campaign before the end date.
 

How Do You Create Engagement During the Campaign?

Just before the campaign begins and on the launch date, try to draw as much attention to the campaign as possible. Treat this like an event,...

Last week, we talked about the reasons you should consider a crowdfunding campaign for your comic. This week, I’d like to explore the elements of a campaign and how you can put your book in a position for a successful Kickstarter.

There are resources you’ll need to manage and decisions you’ll have to make before you start your crowdfunding campaign. This checklist will walk you through some of the major things to consider.

Talent Management: Determine who from your comic book team will be able to assist in the campaign. Figure out what their schedule is going to be during the time you plan to crowdfund, and how you are going to compensate them for their...

Last week, we talked about the reasons you should consider a crowdfunding campaign for your comic. This week, I’d like to explore the elements of a campaign and how you can put your book in a position for a successful Kickstarter.

What Can You Use to Reach Your Crowdfunding Goal?

There are five common components you’ll need to create a compelling campaign.

1. The story in your book: You need to be able to explain how your comic will benefit your readers. Take a good long look at your characters and your genre so you can give details on why this story is unique enough for them to support.
2. The story of your team: The narrative of how your book came to be is an...

While an enterprising comic book creator can use monetization or direct sales to make money from their comic, crowdfunding has gained popularity at all levels of the industry. Kickstarter alone has generated over $127,000,000 for over 10,000 comics. This post is an introduction to our month-long exploration of crowdfunding and how it can help your comic be successful as a lead up to our crowdfunding webinar on March 4th, 2021.

What is the Secret to Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is the process of raising money from a large group of people online in what is often referred to as a campaign. As an independent comic book publisher, the secret to a successful crowdfunding campaign is hidden...

When a potential reader is interested in your comic, one of their first logical questions will be “how much does this cost?” Your answer to that question involves a delicate balance of conditions that is more art than science. While you could sell your comic for any price you want, some prices may prove more beneficial than others depending on your situation.
 

How Are Prices Determined?

Price theory is an economic concept that states the optimal market price, or equilibrium, is the point at which the total number of products available for sale can be reasonably consumed by potential customers. As an independent comic book publisher, your equilibrium price is...

There are several ways to turn your comic into revenue. As we saw last week, you can use indirect monetization in the form of advertising or affiliate marketing. Next month, we’ll start to look at the crowdfunding phenomenon in comics. Today, we’ll look at the basic concept of trading your comic for cash. Specifically, I want to discuss how sales funnels allow you to take advantage of your marketing and maximize the financial potential of your book.
 

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a theoretical, multi-step process that transforms prospective browsers into long-term buyers. As a comic publisher, your sales funnel can transform ideal readers into true...

It might seem counterintuitive to try making money from your comic by giving it away. If you spent a lot of time and investment dollars to bring your book to market, why would you offer it for free? The answer is monetization, or turning a non-revenue generating asset into cash.

Traditional broadcast television in America makes money from selling the eyeballs of their viewers to advertisers. People don’t have to pay money to watch networks like NBC, but they do have to deal with commercials, one way or another. One of YouTube’s business models is similar, where short ads are placed in front of or inside videos to generate revenue. Many mobile apps use the same...

Most comic creators want to sell as many copies as possible of their work, but they might not know when or if their book is profitable or not. To answer this important business question, it helps to understand the financial condition of your book before and after it goes on sale.

The three basic economic questions you need to answer for each of your comics are:

1. How many copies do you need to sell to make back the money you put into it?
2. How do you know if your comic is profitable?
3. How can you keep track of your comic’s financial performance?

Answering each of these questions involves understanding a few basic definitions and formulas that I’ll try to walk...

Update July 2021: Here's a video how to set up Crowdfinder for your comic. 

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Looking back on 2020, there’s one thing that is inarguably clear - the comics community is immensely resilient. We have not spoken to one creator, publisher, or contributor of any kind that hasn’t upped their game against immeasurable challenges, both personal and worldwide. The stories of these folks shine as brightly as the stories they tell through art, and that shows particularly clear in the evolving relationship between them and their fans:

Crowdfunding has bridged the gap for so many up and coming storytellers and the fans who want to take an active role in supporting the...

This season has been full of announcements for GlobalComix, and all of them have had one central theme - supporting the creators and publishers of comics, graphic novels, and manga with as much digital firepower as we can. Diversity not only shines through in the stories and personalities of our creators, but also in the way that they run their business. We proudly announce a new combination to complete the suite of monetization models for every type of creator and publisher: Gold and The SuperFan Program.
 

GlobalComix Gold

GlobalComix Gold is our answer to the demand for subscriptions, marrying together full access for readers and the empowerment of creators by...

We’ve spoken with many creators and publishers in the past year. Despite each of their unique styles, most of them share a lot of the same needs. This is particularly true when it comes to letting more than one person or account manage published content, marketing, or finances.

Here’s some stories we’ve heard:

• We are a team of people with different responsibilities for publishing, marketing, and business administration.
• We are a partnership of 2 (or more) individuals who are creating and publishing together as a collaboration.
• I am a creator who sometimes has people help me with <x> role of publishing.
• I am a solo operator who manages everything...



Last month, we started talking about creating a budget for your comic book publishing (See How to Create a Budget for Your Comics). Now that we’ve taken a few weeks to look at the different financing options, I’d like to expand on that discussion a little bit here by highlighting the different types of things an aspiring comic book publisher needs to consider when allocating limited resources.

Publishing comics requires more than just paying for page rates and printing. There are at least seven different categories of expenses, each with smaller subcategories.

Initial Costs:  Getting your business off the ground

• Company registration
• Intellectual...

As part of the lead up to our free financing webinar on October 29th, I’d like to explore the fundamentals of creating business management as it pertains to your aspiring comic book company.
 

What is Business Management?

Management is the organization and coordination of business activities to achieve defined objectives. As an independent publisher, this means finding the best ways to use your time, energy, and resources to achieve the milestones and goals for your comic.

Now, as a creative individual, you might consider business management a subject to avoid. If your goal is to make comics, then dealing with budgets, contracts, and schedules might be the...



Last week, we started talking about finding outside investment for your comic (See How Can You Get Others to Invest in Your Comic?) I’m going to finish off the list of different types of outside investment this week, but keep in mind we’ll go more in-depth in on this list during our free comic book financing webinar on October 29th.

1. HELOC

• a. Description: A Home Equity Line of Credit Loans (HELOC) is a loan that provides a line of credit using your home as collateral . The amount of money available to you depends on the amount of equity you have in your home and your credit rating.
• b. Advantages:
  • i. HELOCs are similar to credit cards in that you only...

After you figure out how much you can invest in your comic (See my earlier posts on self-financing), you may find that you don’t have enough to fully fund your publishing based on your initial budget. That’s when it’s time to go out into the world and find more money.

Before we go into details about getting investors and the different types of investment, we should understand that in many cases, it is very difficult to convince anyone to invest money in an untested comic book idea. The three economic realities of comic publishing we discussed earlier reduce the risk tolerance of most potential investors to the point where your offer isn’t attractive to them....

Tony Stark money isn’t the same as Peter Parker money. Different people have access to different levels and sources of personal finances. Each circumstance has unique advantages, disadvantages, and factors to think about in relation to your comic. As you review these self-financing options, keeping mind that these are broad overviews of complex financial instruments and they shouldn’t be used without understanding the risks and rewards. (See What are the Risks and Rewards of Financing Your Own Comic?)

1. Savings

• a. Description: This is the money you already have in the bank. It could come from money you save over time, tax refunds, or selling Vibranium on the black...

So far this month, we’ve taken a look at the three economic realities of comic book publishing and the basics for creating a comic book budget. Now that you have an idea of how much money your comic needs before the idea can become a reality, the next logical question is “where will the money come from?”

In general, there are two sources of money: your money and someone else’s money. Let’s look at your potential as an investment source first, before we go reaching into someone else’s pocket.

What Are the Advantages of Investing Your Money to Make a Comic?

It is not unusual for an independent publisher to dip into their own pockets to publish...

Before you sell your house, beg your grandmother for money, or rob a bank to publish your comic, it helps to know how much money you need in the first place. It doesn’t make any sense to spend a lot of time stressing about cash when you don’t have a clear idea of the costs you’re trying to cover. Of course, prices change and unexpected expenses are more common than you think, but if you have a basic idea of your costs, it will help you focus your revenue collection efforts.

In general, there are seven types of costs you need to consider when you decide to publish your first comic:

1. Initial Costs: This is the money to get off the ground. It includes the costs...

Now that the summer is over, we’re going to shift gears away from marketing and discuss another facet of comic book publishing that doesn’t get much attention. We’re going to spend the next few weeks discussing how you can pay to get your comic out into the world. But any discussion about financing comic book publishing has to begin with a disclaimer:

What you are going to read in the next few weeks isn’t financial advice and or legal advice. These are concepts you can consider when deciding if and how to fund your project, but before you do anything concerning money, consult your financial advisor. You should also speak to anyone in your life who might be...

There are a lot of things you can do on social media to market your comic (See How Should You Market Your Book on Social Media?). There are also a few things you should not do if you want to give your book the best chance to succeed. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. Every year, dozens of companies and brands stumble on social media in ways that damage their image. While no one is perfect, these six concepts can add to the previous list of tips to help keep you out of trouble.

1. Avoid Targeting the Non-Market: You have a specific story to tell to a specific group. Everyone outside that group isn’t ready for, or interested in, that message. While you need to reach out to...