Getting Small Press (Comics) To The Masses

Comicguy456 writes "At the recent Small Press & Alternative Comics Expo, a panel was held to discuss how to get the masses to check out indy comics. In this transcript, experts including Sean McKeever (The Waiting Place) and Max Ink (Amoeba Adventures) talk extensively about creating, selling, and marketing such books, as well as the small press industry in general. Manga is covered as well. " In many ways, the same advice here applies to people trying to get word about out bands/books/games etc etc.

Comments

wasn't this the whole point of E-books?

[lingqi]

availability, portability, ease of distribution, (add a few more benefits that we'll never see because of the crippling restrictions placed on e-books by adobe and a slew of others).

Heh, considering a large percentage of newspaper people thinks that there will only be electronic news a few years down the line (see previous /. story), - well, I guess everyone can infer their own conclusions.

Indy comics/comix

[fudgefactor7]

The problem with the indy comic (or sometimes called comix) are that there is a huge amount of shit. This casts a bad light on the whole scene. Out of the gazillion indy comics that came out in the 1980's the only one still standing is TMNT, and that's because it was a cross-over to kids' fare. (The original TMNT were not like they are now.) And for a while, any moron could get published--people were buying them by the cartload just in case one gem was among them--what they ended up with was the equivelent of toilet paper. The industry now needs better, more insightful, and intelligent comics, not a new flood of crap. It damn near killed the whole indy industry last time--we don't want or need a repeat.

Re:Indy comics/comix

[mrtroy]

"The problem with the indy comic (or sometimes called comix) are that there is a huge amount of shit."

Besides being very elegantly stated, that statement is accurate, but false. There is always a huge amount of shit in indy products...and there is always just a few gems among them. I would not, however, say this is the problem with comix.

The whole idea of having an indy comics is that they are just that. They are likely going to lack, in majority, professionalism that big budgets and higher quality printing can bring across. But despite all that, if people start enjoying the comics...it could help that artist's future career. Then, he will get a big budget, better equipment, and wont be indy anymore!

I hate to say it...

[TrollBridge]

...but in today's marketing world, the only way to get something to "the masses" is advertising.

And something tells me that "Small Press Comics" don't have the kind of money to put into serious ad campaigns.

Now I suppose some of the more successful ones like UserFriendly are an exception to this, but unless these comics get a lot of free press/exposure, they will remain "Small Press".

Strangely enough...

[jeroenb]

independent comics are actually much more known to the average comics readers than independent music is to the typical music listener (everybody?) The reason I'm saying this is because nearly every comicbook store I know has quite a lot of the indy stuff, as opposed to the couple of music stores I know that carry indy music (especially since the amount of comic stores : music stores is like 10:1 at least!)

I'm not quite sure why this is, perhaps the market for comics is not as highly populated by mainstream stuff, leaving a lot of space for indy works, or perhaps the taste of comicbook fans is generally much more diverse? Who knows.

It's pretty weird though to read about independents not getting a lot of attention when you can walk into a comicbook store somewhere in Europe where they need to import everything and see independent comics lying all over the place.

Waste of time

[RightInTheNeck]

The people who read that kinda stuff probably see the material being so non-mainstream,underground, not well known,hard to find and get as part of the interest in it in the first place. This is definetly not a marketing problem. The people who want it know exactly where to get it.

why ownership matters

[fhwang]

If you're trying to break into superheroes, then, yes, this sort of contest is a pretty good break. However, you should be prepared to submit a character you have no emotional investment in. Marvel's ownership of your character isn't simply a financial matter; it has very real creative ramifications. If some high-up editor decides you need to do lots of crossover with other characters you think are stupid, or to do attention-grabbing stories (The Death of the Origin of the Marriage of Superman, etc.) just for the sake of a small spike in sales, remember that you will have little-to-no ability to say no. And if you don't like it, they can fire you at a moment's notice; after all, there are a hundred people waiting behind you. And you already signed away the only leverage you had -- ownership.

So, yeah, it's a good opportunity, but take it with a grain of salt.

The masses don't go to comic book stores

[shancock]

If you self publish and want to reach the masses, you must find a distributor or sales agent. The masses go to bookstores. Bookstores hate buying, dealing with single or few title authors directly. If your product is good and the market is there, the books will probably sell.

Find a distributor or salesagent who deals in other independent publishers. These people have relationships established with distributors and stores. They can get your books (maybe) into stores.

You will still have to market and advertise on your own but it will mean zero if you don't already have the comics/books on the shelves in the stores.