No. It does mean, however, that if you take the complaining as a reason to be irritated at people, you're going to spend a lot of your time being needlessly irritated.

LOL well yeah you're quite right there Nat. I'm not irritated at the complaining tho, I'm irritated at people complaining about getting screwed when they KNEW they were going to, that's all. It's like "you asked for it, whatcha bitchin' bout now??" Please understand it in that light. Justified whining I have no problem with.

And Savage, you're quite right. While a handshake deal can work for some -- I've done a few meself with folks I trust -- it's just lousy business sense. Even if you have a handshake deal with someone or some company, what happens if Media Conglomerate Inc. comes along and buys that company or offers that someone big money to buy out their stuff? Hell, Moore had a PAPER contract with Wildstorm for ABC, and DC basically bought Wildstorm shortly thereafter, which transferred WS properties to DC. Moore had no control over this, and it profoundly affected the project. Imagine if it had been a handshake deal in the first place.

Okay... I think we've yammered enough about this contract issue. The current situation remains. I would like to get back to the meat of the digital-copying-and-distribution thing and its effects on existing copyright law, business methods, and the positions of creators with respect to ownership of their work. Again, I think that it's inevitable that what's happening will fundamentally change what we do and how we publish. I think it has the potential to destroy copyright law as regards digital publications of all kinds. It also has the potential to redefine "ownership" of such publications as well as to completely change the relationships between us creators and the people who heretofore have been our publishers.

What I might see happening is that WE will become the actual publishers, and that the folks who are the publishers now will become more like marketing companies.

The tremendous overhead involved in duplicating physical media of all types, as well as packaging, warehousing, shipping, and shelving them, is almost totally eliminated when digital duplication and distribution is used. If you add up the cost of a big fat byte-pipe, along with a terabyte server and programmers and webgeeks and all the other hardware, software, and wetware you need to distribute stuff on the web, it's a TINY fraction of what it costs to print books or reproduce CDs or whatever physical media you might have. Even better, that web-storage and e-commerce infrastructure is available for rent from hundreds of companies, eliminating the need to actually own said infrastructure, and these costs are actually within reach of "small business" types. In effect, all the biggest expenses of a media distributor other than marketing and advertising disappear when you deal in virtual merchandise. There are small examples of this cost saving out there already, such as how you can buy & download Flash from Macromedia, and it costs $30 less than the boxed version -- because there's no box and no books and no shipping.

So instead, what virtual-media publishers need more than anything is MARKETING & PROMOTIONS. The distribution infrastructure is no longer the main concern, since the expense involved in that is nearly eliminated. So, the effort needs to be put into getting the word out that you've got something to sell.

Now, there's already a huge marketing, promotions and advertising business segment out there. They work either for a flat fee or for fee and percentage or under any of many other business terms. Of course, they can be expensive... but then, they're NOT taking 90% of the gross and total, perpetual ownership of your stuff while they're at it.

The difference between such a company and a big media distributor is that they are SERVING YOU. You are hiring them to promote your work, just like any other company with a product to sell -- even just like the media publishers, who hire such companies to promote their products.

Of course, a self-publisher, while probably able to afford some web space and an e-commerce solution, is not going to be able to afford to hire a marketing company with cash out of pocket. So, then the main problem is raising money for promotion.

It's certainly possible that, like an agent or a manager, some already-profitable or well-funded marketing companies might provide their services on spec for some percentage of the gross income. Agents and managers usually take between 10 and 20 percent; I see no reason why a marketing firm would ask for more than that. If they do their job well they will get rewarded accordingly, right?

Alternatively, there's the method used by companies since time immemorial: attracting investors and venture capital. Find some people with money who believe in what you do or whom you can convince that your project is worthwhile, and get them to invest with the hopes of a return.

And of course there's the slow-growth method where you give away a bunch of your work to create demand, while reserving something else or some different version, like a print-on-demand graphic novel, to sell after generating the interest.

Of course these are just examples, and there will be other methods of doing this that I can't conceive of. Certainly any effort like this will use combinations of all available methods at different times and depending on available budget.

Note, however, that NONE of these methods involve transfer of copyright to anyone. YOU the creator get to hang onto your stuff, and HIRE people to effectively market it for YOU. If your stuff is really good, you even get to have people COMPETE to market your stuff, thus hopefully driving down the cost and making them more effective. Also, the money goes through YOU (your accountant anyway), not through someone else's accounting department, so therefore YOU control the cash.

This is how other businesses with valuable products to sell do their business. Hell even Ron Popeil (founder of Ronco, makers of the Clapper, etc.) does this type of thing. Anybody with a widget to sell or software or a service does this. Why should people with valuable intellectual property to sell not do the same thing? It's not a new business model by any means, it's a tried-and-true process.

The change in distribution methods may (I think should) afford us the opportunity to try out new ways of reaching our audiences that do not depend on the traditional distributors -- since monolithic warehousing will no longer be necessary for efficient worldwide distribution.

Of course it doesn't change the fact that once one copy gets out there, anyone will be able to reproduce it and send it out everywhere, so this is by no means all rosy and happy.

Constructive thoughts? Reasoned critcism?

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Jeff Zugale
Pagan City Comics
www.pagancity.com

Uh, you guys understand I wasn't serious about the handshake thing, right?

Anyway:
How are you going to get people to give you capital when comics don't make money? Not unless you can snow the bank into thinking you've got the next Spawn, I think.

The print-on-demand idea is most interesting to me right now.

'Giving it away' is also an old model, still used by many, even in this business. I don't see why it can't continue.

People are going to steal your work if they want it-- from the store, or from the net. Or, in rare cases, they'll scan the whole damn thing and give it away. The most I think you can do is try to sell the hell out of it, to make it as desireable and easy to access as possible, so that the thieves are outnumbered by the paying customers.

Now, if you took MFH to Putnam (and they wanted it), wouldn't that be a viable option? And all the other crap, the marketing and the distribution, is handled by the publisher.

I think, ultimately, that the regular business model you site wouldn't quite work, because comics are not a product people seem to want-- like the Clapper. I don't know, maybe they need a good jingle. But, how many struggling creators do you know of who can afford a tv or subway ad? And where are your audience supposed to pick up your book and check it out? The comic shop? Now you get into the whole problem with the shops, which isn't part of this thread.

I think you're right. Screw the comic industry, it apparently doesn't know how to sell its own product anyway. I say, go towards standard publishing, get your books on the bookshelves and/or newsstands. Everybody says writers get shafted (maybe they do), but I can't believe their treatment is worse than the comic industry standard.

In a handshake deal, Moore would have been in a better position to stop DC from acquiring the property. Without paperwork, ownership goes to the creator. DC knows this (and tends to be very careful about paperwork because of it.)

They can't afford that kind of advertising. That's why they need to take advantage of the publicity and advertising opportinities that are freely availiable. It's also why they need to do some things collectively. My idea for panelpusher.com, whether people want to get involved or not, is so that there is a collective place for comics previews from small publishers. One studios audience might not be big but if alot of studios with small audiences use it, the audience becomes a shared one that will spread out among the group. Some people will obviously only like some of the titles but every little bit of exposure helps.

It's things like that that help grow readership. And there are alot of comics readers on the web. Alot of whom don't frequent comics stores.

I'm giving panelpusher a year. If you guys want to try it out you are welcome to e-mail me. I've set up a venue to experiment with this idea. If it doesn't fly I'm going to try something else. All it costs to be involved is a desire to use this internet to get your work out to a larger audience.

End of sermon.

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Justin Savage
President/Editor/Web-bozo
www.sabresedge.com

Hey, did I say it would be EASY??? LOL! [img]http://209.198.111.165/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img]

You don't have to go for the big big $$ right away. There are all levels of marketing and promotion in between "barely noticeable web site" and "60-second ad during the Super Bowl." You may not be able to get $5 million up front from the Sand Hill Road VCs, but you might be able to scrape up $5,000 for a local campaign with some promotional items and some well-targeted web and print ads. To get money from a bank or other traditional lender, you need to create a well-researched business plan/strategy with realistic goals and expectations. I don't want to get into the nuts and bolts of how people do business like this here in the forums however, I want to stick to concepts for the moment.

So, the concept I've talked about all along is starting slow, remaining independent, and building up an audience over time, rather than trying to hit the big time right away. Of course, IF you can convince the banks you've got the next Spawn, well... GO FOR IT!!! (as long as YOU'RE convinced... because they'll take your house if you screw it up, LOL.)

And you don't need to hit up banks at first. Try your family and friends. I know, I know, you want to keep them... but if you have realistic goals and timeframes and expectations -- you've done your homework and are ready to crank it out -- you might get them a nice return on their money. You just have to be careful and prepared and reasonable about it.

If you can do that with a first wave of promotion and sales, and make a profit for yourselves and your investors, then you'll have that much more ammo to show a bank that you are a good risk. "Look, we made a profit, our sales projections were on. We can do this again and do well." Proven success makes banks and VCs happy!

Some success at do-it-yourself stuff like a website with free comics and print-on-demand books and other merchandise will show that there's an audience out there. And also make you feel good about what you do. Then, you go to the next step, wider advertising to bring more people to the site.



If the deal is a square one, of course it would be viable! I just looked through a random sampling of regular (non-comic) books in my bookcase, and the copyright notices are ALL "copyright by the author," NOT the publishing company. If we got to keep our copyright and the deal was a good one, I'd have no problem publishing thru Putnam or anyone else -- because our creatorship would be protected and respected. In contrast, I looked in Usagi Yojimbo Book Two (published by Fantagraphics), and find that the copyright owner is Stan Sakai -- which is GREAT! But then I looked in Watchmen, and guess who owns the copyright... DC, of course. And in all my old Snoopy compilation books, the copyright owner is United Features Syndicate. Ugh. You see my point I'm sure.

Since "making it big" (especially in a hurry) pretty much means "giving up ownership," I'll pass. But under a fair contract, of course I'd go for it.



You have to know your market, James. SOME people obviously bought the Clapper, and also bought some of the other crap that Ronco has to sell! Ron Popeil KNOWS his market, has proven he can sell stuff. We may think his merchandise is junk, but his business has been SUCCESSFUL for at least 25 YEARS, so he must be doing SOMETHING right!

Comics are a fan-based thing, and generate groups of "followers" of various levels of devotion (eww, like a cult!). So our marketing strategies need to reflect that. It's not going to fall in our laps, either, it takes a lot of legwork.

Look, the easy way out is to get your stuff published by one of the majors. But, in my totally overstated opinion, the cost is too high. If you want to hang on to your work, then you need to become an entrepreneur, which is a hell of a lot of work. And not many creators are set up to do that... but it's not impossible, it can be done. Sim did it, Warp did it, Ani DiFranco does it, YOU can do it. Yes, you can.



None. And those advertisements are probably not appropriate for our product anyway. Again, KNOW YOUR MARKET. Do some research. Try things out, see if they work. If not, try something else. If so, keep doing them. The Panelpusher idea is a great one and is practically free (I hope Sav, if not let us know), and if it works, GREAT!! If not, as Justin says, something else will be tried. Comicon.com itself is another good idea in this direction -- put up a booth here and you're ALWAYS in your booth! It's a 24/7/365 con. None of us would be talking about this stuff without it I suspect...



Yeah we're talking about non-physical distribution here, backed with on-demand sales of SOME physical items, which can be done direct. No shops!!!! And the audience is NOT SUPPOSED TO PICK UP THE (print) BOOK!!! Unless they buy it from YOU DIRECTLY. [img]http://209.198.111.165/ubb/smile.gif[/img] I'm trying to describe a whole new way here, and I must urge you to try and set aside any predispositions as to the world of "comic BOOKS."



Amen, Brother Savage! See, we're in a very interesting industry in one vital respect. We are not in competition with each other. We have a product in which people's interest is generated by their own personal tastes. Also, people are not restricted to liking a particular comic and therefore excluding others, they are perfectly free to like a wide range of comics, and to buy every comic of a given genre if they want to.

The things that the big major comic companies are truly in competion for are things like shelf space in stores, warehouse space, distribution priority, and the limited advertising space available in comic-audience-targeted magazines, as well as market share of an audience within the content-limited, saturated, and redundant superhero genre.

WE DON'T NEED SHELVES, WAREHOUSING OR DISTRIBUTION. We have a non-physical product and no inventory to warehouse. With print-on-demand and services like CafePress, we make it when the customer orders and ship it out. Like Dell Computer.

WE DON'T USE TRADITIONAL ADVERTISING. At least not until it can be of use to us. Viral marketing is free, and getting the word out more widely on the web isn't very expensive.

OUR CONTENT IS UNLIMITED. And our audience is, potentially, the world, given translation of our stuff.

We are playing by different rules now, and we have some advantages over old ways. Also some disadvantages. We have an opportunity now to become good old-fashioned self-made successes. And if we cooperate with each other to try to build bigger audience for ALL of our work, it should benefit ALL of us. I should think even cranky, cantankerous, disagreeable creators would think this all was a good idea, since the collaborations would be VIRTUAL in nature (you'd never have to meet anyone physically if you didn't want to -- you viewing Spacers, you), and especially since THEY would be in control of their work and STILL able to get it out there.

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Jeff Zugale
Pagan City Comics
www.pagancity.com

Well, that's a bad example to make your point with. It certainly wasn't a case where the project was successful and Schulz lost control of it. Schulz (and his staff of good folks) kept and even grew the amount of control they got. Schulz almost positively could have renegotiated to regain technical ownership of the strip; certainly cartoonists who were far less successful did. Yet, he didn't. He got control and he got a lot of money; it didn't seem to matter whose names were on the copyright documents.

--Nat (hey, you got me onto my topic!)

It cost us about $135 for the domain setup fees and hosting for a year for panelpusher. We have unlimited downloads and a lot of serverspace. We aren't charging anybody to be on the page. I'd like to see the people who are doing it add a link on thier homepage, otherwise the whole audience sharing thing isn't going to fly.

Aside from that I've been making the pdfs for people who don't have the tech. At no charge. It's not hard. But I'm not going to do a full issue for anybody else. Previews of 5 or so pages don't take long to format.



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Justin Savage
President/Editor/Web-bozo
www.sabresedge.com

Oh sure, Nat, I know that Schulz was able to regain control of his work over time... I would assume that Peanuts became enough of a cash cow for UFS that they had to be really really nice to him! [img]http://209.198.111.165/ubb/smile.gif[/img] Don't think that I think that's bad, since it sort of speaks to what I'm talking about -- he created a mutually beneficial relationship with his publisher that made them both a lot of money, and he was able to get control. What I'd like to see is that same relationship being generated and maintained WITHOUT the creator having to give up the copyright to the publisher, which I think IS possible. So although having his earlier work under control of UFS is an example of what I don't like, his eventual retaking of control (at least in part by making himself indispensable to them) is a wonderful example of what I like.

Panelpusher -- and websites and all in general -- demonstrate how inexpensive it is to have a "storefront" and distribute your work freely over the web. In general, you'll pay about $135 to get the domain name and the DNS entry, then about $25/month for the site space at any reputable web host. That's $435 per year to publish your work. Compare that to the cost of printing ONE issue of a 24-page book -- in B&W! -- and it's clear where the value really is.

And you don't have to beg some conglomerate to deign to publish it for you. Once you have enough material, you can do print-on-demand graphic novels at a cost to you of about $7 per copy -- and you sell them for $12 or $14. Since you can print extremely short runs -- if not just one at a time -- you don't have to lay out $6000 for 2500 books that you might not sell.

If you are successful at this, you will actually make money. If you were to sell 100 of your graphic novels (that's a normal run for POD), your costs would be:

$ -435.00 Web site
$ -700.00 GN printing
---------
$-1135.00 Total expenditure
$ 1400.00 Gross revenue on GN sales
---------
$ 265.00 Net profit

Okay, this is super-simplistic. And it's not much of a profit at this level. However, if you sold FIVE HUNDRED GNs you'd net $5,865. And that is NOT chump change. Sure there's a lot more that goes into this, but I'm trying to illustrate that you CAN make pretty good money that can bootstrap you to the next level with relatively little cash outlay. The biggest investment on your part is the actual production work -- which you're supposed to LOVE because it's YOUR COMIC. See what I'm getting at?

Let's say you do what I just laid out, and you make $6000 selling 500 graphic novels. You can spend that $6K on some sort of marketing campaign, with some carefully targeted web ads, some merchandise, hell even a booth in San Diego (they go for around $1200 or so) plus airfare and accomodations. And by doing these things, hopefully you'll sell even MORE graphic novels, which makes more money, and so on and so on.

And all without giving up ownership of your material. You may be pleasantly surprised to find that you've sold several thousand GNs, gained a lot of fans, and made a name for yourself -- and that publishers will approach you! In which case you will be in position to negotiate a good contract for yourself -- since even if you don't sign with them, you'll still be able to create your books and sell them without their help. You'll have nothing to lose by not signing.

I'm convinced this is a better way, especially for comic creators who are understandably apprehensive about selling out. It's not the fast way up the ladder, and you'll have to keep your day job, but giving it away now for long-term return is just smarter in the long run I think.

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Jeff Zugale
Pagan City Comics
www.pagancity.com

And after that post, I need to put this one up. Ay yi yi. Talk about chagrin.

I posted this over in the Comic Books: ABC thread, and I need to post it here, because the last thing I want to be is a hypocritical a-hole. So, read, and chortle at my extreme uncomfortability:

-------------------

I don't want to derail this discussion in any way, but I must in my conscience come in here and publicly own something to everyone -- since I've been the firebrand about hanging onto your rights.

Well, I did this comic book, illustrating from their script, for a non-comic company. The comic book is a supplement to a video release. I didn't think it was going to be a big deal, and the contract we negotiated assigned all rights to the art to that company (mind you this was a year ago before my views on this were cemented by recent events). I got paid a reasonable fee for the rights (on top of the actual work), and I felt that since this comic was not really this big thing, and in fact was secondary to the product it's associated with, that it was a fair deal. And given those preconditions I think it was.

However, things have changed. They are now in fact turning this comic book into the very first comic book on DVD -- a milestone event in their estimation -- which makes this thing kind of a BIG DEAL, which will sell WAY better than I thought! And dammit, I SIGNED AWAY THE RIGHTS!!!! ARRAARRRRRGHHH!!!! I'm a friggin MORON!!! ARRARRGH!!!!

So, I'm guilty of the same thing that I've been yelling at everyone about. And I'm kicking myself for it, oh yes I am. I'm going to try to find SOME way of capitalizing on this, but I'm really pissed at myself for not hanging on to some or the rights. There was negotiation about it, but they were very reluctant to give royalties etc. and in this particular case I thought a negotiated fee for the rights would be appropriate. Dumb dumb dumb!!! (tho the fee was nothing to sneeze at.)

Embarrassed and shamefaced, I abase myself before all.

I made this deal, I will live with it. I'm not going to bitch that the client is treating me unfairly, because they're not -- they're following our negotiated contract. And, though the return won't be immediate, there will be opportunity for me to take advantage, because they're giving me full credit (pseudonymously, by my request) for the artwork. Also, I now have a business relationship with them which I can continue to cultivate (next time with better terms), so all is not lost. At least the characters and story weren't mine!

In light of my vocal blathering earlier in this post, I had to come forward and share this in here. (still kicking self) I'll take that egg-on-my-face scrambled, okay?? And while you're at it, some A-1 for this shoe leather might be nice.

--------------------------------

Yum, TASTY CROW!!!! Pass the salt. Argh. Well I'm grinning about it anyway... shan't be doing that again! But I had to own up.

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Jeff Zugale
Pagan City Comics
www.pagancity.com