Lessons Learned in Self-Publishing 2: Details, Details!

If you're not living outside North America, you may not have noticed that the print versions of "The Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit" have not been available on the Amazon EU sites. Heck, I didn't notice until today, when my Createspace dashboard kindly pointed it out to me and walked me through the process of activating the books in that market. So the good news is that if you now search "Bruno the Bandit" in any of the Amazon EU sites, you will find our print editions as well as our Kindle editions. This is not the first time I've overlooked, or failed to think about, something like this, and it probably won't be the last. Frankly, sales through the Wowio page are so few that I hardly ever check in there, and I'm always forgetting to push our banners on DriveThru Comics.com, even though it doesn't cost me anything. I'm sure there's marketing possibilities over at Graphicly that I'm overlooking right this minute. So today's lesson, boys and girls, is pay attention to detail. It's worth your time to investigate all the details of any service you partner up with in the production of your work. There may be markets you are overlooking, like my recent experiences with Amazon, or you may be leaving money on the table, like the time I gave up all revenue on one of our books for a month because I had the price set incorrectly. Oops. I recommend taking each of your partner services one at a time and falling down the rabbit hole with them for a while to see what you may be missing. Investigate all the links on their websites. Check out their FAQ's and Howtos and even their user forums if they have them. Discover everything they have to offer and find out whether it's relevant to you, or whether you can put it to good use. Little by little, as you tweak out the services, you will open up new possibilties for making money and getting your work seen. While you're at it, don't forget to check out their competitors, and see what they're offering and whether you can turn them to your advantage as well. Maybe there's a whole other service you've overlooked, but you'll never know until you do your legwork, and dig into the details. Now it's time to go use up some Publisher Promotion Points over at Drive Thru and see if I can get those banners running again....

A Great One Passes - RIP Ernie Chan

This morning, I was saddened to find in my news feed that comics legend Ernie Chan has passed on. 

Ernie was perhaps best known for his work on Marvel's "Conan the Barbarian".  His work was a strong early influence on my own art and my sense of comics in general.  For a time, I practically lived within the pages of "Savage Sword of Conan", marveling over his signature battle scenes that seemed to almost leap off the page with the vitality he infused with brush and pen.  Paired with John Buscema, they produced some of the best work, in my opinion, to ever come out of the house of Marvel, and some of the most classic comic art in the medium's history.

As a commercial property, I think the value of Ernie's art has long been overlooked, and his contribution to the medium under appreciated by fandom at large.   However, among comic creators and those who appreciate the medium in artistic terms, I think he is more often given his due.  To me, this has always marked him more as a craftsman than a "hot" artist, which is an indication of greater artistic longevity and a higher commitment to quality.  Frankly, it is the sort of status to which I aspire.

I was proud to be able to commission a piece of original art from Ernie for the cover of the first volume of "The Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit".  Both Ian McDonald and myself being longtime fans of his work, I could think of no one better suited to help us launch this project.  I was honestly thrilled when he agreed to do the piece for us, and to the same degree amazed when he turned the project around in less than 48 hours with a drawing so well executed, perfectly capturing the spirit of the character and the energy I wanted to bring to the book. 

While I am sorry to hear of his passing, I am honored to have had the opportunity to work with Ernie Chan, an extraordinary artist and personal inspiration.  These opportunities are rare, and I'm happy to have caught this one before it passed me by. 
Under the circumstances, I think it is fitting to let Robert E. Howard himself have the last word, from his poem "Autumn", published in Weird Tales magazine, April, 1933.

Now is the lyre of Homer flecked with rust,
And yellow leaves are blown across the world,
And naked trees that shake at every gust
Stand gaunt against the clouds autumnal-curled.

Now from the hollow moaning of the sea,
The dreary birds against the sunset fly,
And drifting down the sad wind's ghostly dree
A breath of music echoes with a sigh.

The barren branch shakes down the withered fruit,
The seas faint footprints on the strand erase;
The sere leaves fall on a forgotten lute,
And autumn's arms enfold a dying race.

Brunatics: Make Yourself Heard!

I was reviewing our sales numbers yesterday, and while we're a long way from doing Scrooge McDuck-style swan dives into our money bins, it's nice to see that copies of our books are ending up in new readers' hands every month.  I'd like to think that those readers will come back for second (and third, and fourth) helpings of our books; only time will tell.
More interesting to me today is the disturbing fact that not one of our books, across the various sites at which they're available, has received reviews.  With all the people I know have tried out a copy of "The Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit", or even our free offering "Why Comics?", not one has had comments to make, be they good, bad or indifferent. 
So I'd like to ask you...yes, YOU....if you've picked up any of our books, if you've liked them, loved them, hated them or used them to make paper hats....go back to wherever you bought them and please, let us know what you think.  In this game, feedback is almost as valuable as a new sale.  It's only through reviews that we can learn what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong, and what we should probably just stop doing altogether. 
Even if you don't want to publish your comments in public for all to see, feel free to send them to me personally via email.  I'd prefer to see an online review, but either way, I'll learn from it.  With your input, books from AIM Comics will, hopefully, improve and grow.  Thanks, and keep reading!

AIM Comics is Now Live on Graphicly!

As of right about...now!...AIM Comics is live on Graphicly. 
Graphicly, a true innovator in digital comics, has recently opened up their digital publishing platform to give access to a wider group of content creators, and I'm stoked to say that AIM Comics is now one of those creators.
Starting with "The Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit" Volume 1, and with volume 2 to follow shortly, and with volume 3 forthcoming in the next few weeks, all of AIM Comics books will be available to read through the Graphicly service.  It's "web only" for now, until we make enough money to pay for their conversion process to other platforms, but ideally, you'll eventually be able to read these books on your i-Things and Android-whatsits as well.
I've been trying to hook into the Graphicly service almost from the very start, so I'm happy to finally see it happen.  These guys seem to have a good grasp of the digital comics market and will certainly help bring AIM Comics to a much wider audience.  With this addition to our list of distributors, I think we're finally hitting on all the major streams, and I can now concentrate on pushing the readers to give our books a try. 
"Brutal Blade" Vol. 1 is kicking things off with a low price of just 99 cents for 72 pages of material, so if you haven't already done so...or heck, even if you have....why not head over to Graphicly, grab a copy, and see what it's all about?
Oh...and if you do, I'd love to hear what you think of this new platform, and the book itself.  Drop me a line or leave a comment and make your opinion known!

Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit Vol. 3 - Cover Preview

As volume 3 of Brutal Blade nears completion, I figure it's time to give you a preview of the great cover that artist Sandy Carruthers has created for this book.  Sandy, a knowledgeable art teacher as well as an inspiring artist, makes no bones about referencing a classic piece of art for this illustrations.  If you think you can identify the source material, shout back at us in the comments.  In the meantime, enjoy this preview of good things to come in "Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit, Vol. 3"...

Cover Artist for Brutal Blade Vol. 3: Sandy Carruthers

I'm one proud publisher to be able to say that for the cover of Volume 3 of "The Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit" we've managed to score an original piece from artist extraordinaire Sandy Carruthers.  He's recently delivered the finished art to me, and it's nothing short of fantastic!

Sandy has had, so far, a prestigious career in comics, including being the illustrator for the original Men in Black comic book for Malibu (yes, the very same book on which the films were loosely based), handling the art chores for a while on Captain Canuck (Canada's own premiere superhero, no matter what Marvel might say), and the webcomic "Canadiana" (now sadly offline). 
At present, Sandy is an instructor at Prince Edward Island's Holland College and is working on the Twisted Journey's series of books from Graphic Universe (a graphic novel version of the classic Choose Your Own Adventure books).

Ian and I had the good fortune to share an Artist's Alley with Sandy at the 2011 Hal-Con.  He produces some incredible convention sketches and is knowledgeable about not just comics, but the history of art in general.  It made for some great conversation that weekend, and I'm definitely looking forward to this year's event.

Please take a minute to check out Sandy's site and see some of the beautiful work he's posting these days.  Then check back here later, when I'll be posting a preview of his...did I mention it's fantastic?...cover for Brutal Blade, shortly before the next book is released.

Now I've got to go...see, I've got this fantastic! piece of art that I have to color....

Lessons Learned in Self-Publishing 1: Showing Up is Not Enough

February 1 marked the one year anniversary of the official release of the first volume of "The Brutal Blade of Bruno the Bandit" and, aside from the limited edition of that book, the end of AIM Comics's first year of self-publishing. 
If nothing else, it's been an education.  I've learned a lot about the mechanics of publishing, from formatting the books to meeting the technical requirements of the different stores, distributing, advertising and all the other aspects of trying to run this like a business. 
When I first had the idea to repackage the Bruno the Bandit comic strips and sell them in this fashion, I definitely thought it would be simpler and quicker to get the books out there.  I enjoy doing the work, mind you, but finding the time to get it done is sometimes more of a chore than it should be.  But that's life, isn't it?

I also thought, quite frankly, that it would be more profitable.  If I've learned nothing else in this first year, it's that the profitability I saw in the venture was based on a false assumption. 
At the time, I looked at my own browsing and reading habits on sites like Wowio and Drivethru Comics, and saw that I enjoyed checking out quirky self-published books, one shots, anthologies and collections of material.  My library, both real and digital, is like a cabinet of curiosities, with samplings from authors and artists famous and unheard of, all acquired because I saw something in them that amused or interested me. 
I assumed that many of the other readers frequenting these services were open to the same thing.  Digital comic stores seem to be built on the diversity of material they have on offer, and I thought that their customers would be looking for that diversity and that, due to the low cost of the products, they would be more open to trying something new than traditional comic book distribution channels.

In short, I assumed that all I had to do was show up to the marketplace with what I think is a decent product and I would attract enough readers, if only through their random sampling habits, to make this thing make money. 

Not that I didn't put any sales effort in.  I advertised through Project Wonderful, hitting some of the finer webcomic and gaming based websites.  I promoted the books in forums, blogs and generally anywhere on the web I could get away with, short of being labelled a spammer.  AIM Comics has a Facebook page (updated less frequently than this site, believe it or not) and a Twitter feed (followed mostly by bots), and a Scribd account.  I've done news releases, held contests and done cross-promotion with other sites.  Not to mention having a physical presence at Hal-Con 2011 with banners literally a-flying.  So, I've certainly done the legwork, but it really hasn't paid off like I've expected. 

Not that I'm giving up.  As I said in a previous post, I'm in this for the long haul, mainly because I've got nothing but time to lose, and I still see the potential for a lot of gain.  However, as the title of this post says, showing up is not enough.  It's clear to me that I've got to do more to promote the imprint and the books if I expect to ever see any kind of real returns from this. 
As I write this, Volume 3 of "Brutal Blade" is still coming together (remember that time issue I mentioned earlier?)  I've got a really good cover artist lined up, and some of Ian's best work to include in the collection.  My own book "The Journals of Simon Pariah" is creeping towards completion, and I've got other projects waiting in the wings to make it to my drawing table.  So I think it's going to be a good year, creatively.

Problem is, I'm kind of stumped promotionally.  All the sources I've read on marketing this kind of product tell me the same thing, and very little of it is new.  What I need is ideas on where and how to best promote our work to make the readers sit up and notice.  I know nothing's ever guaranteed when it comes to marketing, but there's got to be something that will work better than what I've done so far.

If you, dear reader, have any suggestions, any ideas at all on how to help promote AIM Comics, I'd love to hear them.  Comment here or email me and share your wisdom.  I may or may not take your idea and run with it, but either way, I'd love to hear from you.