phrases. - The Official GlobalComix Blog

The deep abyss that is Reddit, have you ever thought about promoting your comics or manga there? Do you know where to start? Beginning to post is a little overwhelming, but we've got you covered!

Welcome everyone to another Creator Tips and Tricks! Today, @mousylou and I (@ArtCrumbs) will attempt to break down the mystery of Reddit. We hope to educate you on the value of this platform and why it’s so useful as a promotion, networking, and community building tool for anyone who makes a comic.

With that, let's dig into it!

How does Reddit work / how is it structured?

In our Self-Promotion and Marketing series, we looked at Reddit as one of our options for...

Welcome back to Creator Tips and Tricks! In our last article for the Self-Promotion and Marketing series, we learned about UTMs, custom links to give us more data about the users who read and visit our comic pages. These links are custom-made and give us data about where readers come from, how many used the link, and how many pages they’ve read.

Combined with GlobalComix Analytics:

• We can look at the performance of our marketing campaigns to bring in readers.
• We can look at Page Reads over time, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, etc to look for trends.
• We can look at each pages’ performance to check for the series’ quality and how readers actually engage with your...

Hello and welcome to the latest installment of Creator Tips and Tricks! Today we'll be following up on our last article all about identifying your audience, with a way to track the traffic with the links you send out to your prospective audience via UTM links. But what is a UTM?

UTMs are a small section of code that you can add onto the ends of your links and track the performance. Specifically, UTM stands for Urchin Traffic Monitor, which comes from the software Urchin Tracker. This particular software was designed to work as the base for Google Analytics. It’s the perfect tool for tracking how many people click on the links to your comics and finding out how they...

Welcome back to another Creator Tips and Tricks! We are continuing with our Marketing for Creators series with a dive into ways to start identifying your audience, and then figuring out how to find them on various social media platforms that we covered in Part 1.

Keep in mind that the audience that you have planned for, and the audience that actually ends up reading your content might not be the same group! Audiences can also change over time. The process of identifying those people who read and possibly financially support your work, is liable to change. You’ll want to keep an eye on this this as your comic grows over time.
 

Who is your audience?

It&rsq...

Welcome Creators to our next series of Creator Tips and Tricks, all about Self-Promotion and Marketing your work. In the past, we've covered some tips on marketing, and even made some YouTube Videos to offer suggestions, but we've never gotten down into the nitty-gritty.

In this series, we'll start with tips for managing your social media to look its best. Once we have our accounts looking good and an idea of who/where we can reach an audience, we'll dive into marketing techniques and strategies and how to combine those with your GlobalComix Analytics. Our goal by the end of this series is to give you the tools to start your own marketing campaigns and know how to...

Today's Tips and Tricks is for anyone looking to become a podcaster, or expanding your knowledge on podcasting! Shaun Sunday of Brain Beast Studios and the No Capes! Show has graciously created an article going over everything you need to know about creating and hosting a podcast centered around comics.

From apps to software to equipment and general advice, everything you'll need is here! With that, I'll let Shaun have the floor! Thank you so much Shaun for your time.

So you want to start a Podcast?

Podcasts are fun, entertaining, educational and also a big labor of love.

Comic podcasts especially are great, but can come with their own sets of challenges!...

Welcome to the next installment of the Creators at Convention series. In the last two entries, we gave ideas on how to make the most of attending conventions, whether you have a table/booth or you are roaming and focusing on networking.

In this particular entry, we'll be covering what to do after the convention is over to make the most of your new connections and keep your business rolling efficiently. Be sure to get some rest too, but the wheel never stops turning in comics, the next convention is right around the corner!

Even as a publisher, it's important to network and follow-up as much as possible! Here are some of the awesome folks we met up with at last...

Our last article of the Tips and Tricks series covered advice for creators while at a convention behind the booth or artist alley table. While tabling takes a lot of organization, and sometimes finances, there are lots of options for creators who still want to attend a convention as a creator. There's always more than one way to be productive, and sometimes, using your time for meetings, lunches, visiting tables, panels, and reviews can produce a lot of results.

Networking, networking! I can only imagine we all know that networking is important, but how can we network if we aren’t at a booth? In my personal experience, I find networking far easier when I’m not...

The 2020 and 2021 convention seasons were rough, cons everywhere canceled, and digital attendance just wasn't the same. Now with conventions opening up again, more and more creators are looking at buying a table or booth and trying their luck. But is it luck? Not really. It's good preparation.

There are three reasons one could attend a convention:

• Just for the actual enjoyment of it all, they are fun!
• Tabling to sell products and goods
• Networking, portfolio reviews, and other business work

Each of these is a good reason to attend a convention. In this first entry in a two-part series, we are going to look at the Tabling/Artist Alley...

It's been a while since we last published education content on the business side of comics, so we wanted to get back to releasing blog posts about business-related topics on a regular cadence, to complement the Creator Tips & Tricks series that is more focused on the process of creating comics.

Today we're going to touch on one of the foundations of success as a comics creator: deciding on the kind of market that's the best fit for you and your books.

Who's going to buy my book?

While you might be an artist, writer, inker - or any of the other critical contributors to a story - you’re likely reading this because you have interest in making money...

Cover art from Year Zero, AWA Studios

Over the past 18 months or so, we’ve interfaced with many of the industry’s best and up-and-coming creators and publishers. In doing so, we have learned the most common reservations and misconceptions about digital publishing in general, as well as specific to GlobalComix. And we know more broadly that the digital world can feel like a puzzle within western comics.

With all of that in mind, we’ve compiled an informal FAQ-style breakdown here for anyone thinking about publishing with GlobalComix, but who still need a more information.

1. What if I don't have the time?

Cover art from Aeonian,...

Marketing a comic is not just spamming your audience with constant variations of “BUY MY COMIC!” It’s about connecting with the right people and communicating with them in a way that makes them receptive to your message. It is not a demand for compliance. It is a display of value.

But comic book marketing in the United States is also unique because there are additional hurdles that prevent a publisher from attracting prospective readers and transforming them into long-term fans. This post will use the GlobalComix exclusive comic Welcome to Mina’s from Cloudscape Comics to explore both the challenges facing modern comics and offer some suggestions for how to...

Last week, we analyzed the Cloudscape anthology Welcome to Mina’s to build a story synopsis, define an ideal reader and identify the competition for the comic. 

This week, I’ll suggest some tactics for how a book like Mina’s can find the right audience and build a strong following without spending a lot of marketing dollars. 

Keywords: Any words used to classify or organize digital content or to facilitate an online search for information are referred to as keywords. Because people gravitate towards groups and communities online that reflect their interests, you can use keywords to find the specific group you are trying to reach. And because every comic...

Marketing comics is not a one size fits all process. Because each comic tells a unique story, and that story has a unique audience, then the relationship between the publisher and the reader needs to be tailored to give the book the best chance of success in the marketplace. Unique stories require unique marketing.

This case study is designed to walk you through the marketing analysis and execution for a single comic. Hopefully, you can take some of the insights and ideas presented here and apply them to your own comic. As always, if you have questions, please leave a comment and let us know.

Welcome to Mina’s Marketing Analysis

Story Abstract
Because the story is the...

One of the things that sets GlobalComix apart from the competition is our commitment to creator development. We strive to educate, inform and support comic book creators at every level through our educational blogs, webinars, and consultation sessions. We plan to continue this service to our community this spring with a special in-depth marketing analysis.

Last fall, we introduced the general concepts of digital comic book marketing theory with two comprehensive webinars (Click here to see the video). Now, we plan to apply those ideas to a specific comic and walk you through each step of the process.

This will help you apply sound marketing principles to your own comics and...

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.

Are you a comic enthusiast and reader? Create your free account on www.globalcomix.com to start reading instantly!

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.

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...

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...

Earlier this week, I started listing concepts that can help you market your comics using social media. (See How Should You Market Your Comics on Social Media?) This post continues that discussion, with more advanced techniques.

9. Consider the potential backlash your book/team/ marketing could create. In the current social environment, any story can be seen as offensive to one group or another. Because your story will inevitably stand for something, it is likely to stand against something else, and the people who support that “something else” can quickly undermine or overwhelm your marketing efforts. While you can't predict every possible attack on your book, think...

Last week I introduced some ideas for engaging with your target market for your comic (See What Is an Example of Social Media Engagement?). This post (and the next one) will go into more detail in terms of tips you can use to improve your engagement and connection with your potential readers.

1. Consider keeping your personal social media separate from your comic book social media: Because your friends and family might not be a part of your target market, they might not be interested in your antagonist character design survey. At the same time, your target market might not want to see your foodie posts or your vacation photos. Social media profiles are free, so it only costs you a...

It is not enough to have a comic that you want people to read. It takes more than understanding your ideal reader and your competition. The process doesn’t end when you find out where your target market gathers together. You have to interact with readers in the right way, or all your marketing efforts could be wasted. We’ve been using my Blood Bond comic example for a few weeks now. Let’s look at the broad concepts of social media engagement and then walk through the steps with our imaginary comic.

The first and most important thing to understand is that social media marketing is not an exercise in aggressive selling. Think about your own time on social media and...

We’re working on the digital marketing plan for the fictional comic Blood Bond.

We know what our story is about (See What is an Example of a Story Synopsis?).

We have a theoretical model of our ideal reader (See What is an Example of an Ideal Reader?).

We’ve even figured out how to find our competition for this comic (See What is an Example of Competition Analysis?).

Now we’ve reached the point where we can start to find and connect with ideal readers to create a market for our comic. This post will focus on finding your people using social media. The next one will discuss what you want to say and how you might think about saying it.

What Social Media...

Last week, we began an exercise designed to explain the four parts of developing a digital marketing plan. I offered a fictional vampire crime graphic novel called Blood Bond to use as an example. (See What is an example of a digital marketing story synopsis and What is an example of an ideal reader profile?) Today, I’m going to walk through how you can analyze a competing comic that appeals to your ideal reader.

If competition is the effort of two or more parties acting independently to secure the business of a third party (See What is the Competition for Your Comic?) then the competition for Blood Bond is any comic that appeals to the reader who likes supernatural...