Self-Publishing
A Primer into the World of Self Publishing Your Comic
The following is a brief guide to self-publishing put
together by Gary Reed Publisher of Caliber Press.
Feel free to copy, modify, pass out, distribute, etc to
anyone that might be interested. This primer is meant
to be an introduction to self-publishing and is not
intended to be a complete concise guide. Author
assumes no obligations, liabilities, etc. and any
inquiries sent should be mailed and a self addressed
stamped envelope enclosed
In talking with creators about self-publishing, the
primary element that seems to present itself on why
they haven't done it or don't want to do it is that they
are intimidated by the entire process. What this form
will show you is that the aspects to know are not
really that difficult. The only secret involved is
knowing what is required and I hope that this form
will answer most of the basic questions. While I have
tried to cover everything, I'm sure there are some
areas that I have probably missed, possibly even some
of the basic, obvious ones. All areas covered will be in
generalities and exceptions in those areas will occur all
the time. Remember to keep that in mind.
First off, before getting into specifics about the
different areas, I'd like to explain the general
overview, the big picture. When you decide to publish
a comic, you must remember you have to plan ahead,
usually at least four months prior to when the actual
book comes out. The process of offering your comic to
the comic book marketplace is generally called the
solicitation process . . . you are soliciting orders on
your product. Basically you will inform the distributors
of your title, they in turn will put it in their ordering
catalog and distribute those catalogs to tbe comic store
retailers around the country. The retailers will place
their orders and return the catalog to the distributor
who will then add up all of the orders. Once a total is
arrived at, the distributor will send you a purchase
order which tells exactly how many copies they want
of your comic, where to ship them, and confirmation
of the price they will pay. This will tell you how many
copies you have pre-sold and you can use this
information to set your print run. On the surface, it
seems like a highly efficient system. You know how
many you have sold before printing. The distributors
order exactly how many the retailers have ordered
therefore they have sold all of their copies. The only
one apparently taking a risk is the retailer who is
essentially guessing four months ahead on how well
the comic will sell. Remember in the direct market,
the retailer is bound to accept all the copies he
ordered and can not return them. If he doesn't sell
them, he is stuck with them. This may give you some
ideas of why many retailers don't bother with smaller
press titles. The potential sales are minimal in most
cases but the risks are always there. Of course, it may
benefit him in the long run to offer a wide diversity of
titles to his customers but most retailers have to worry
about the "here and now' and they'll worry about the
future when they get there.
This should give you a general idea of the process
itself and now we'll deal in specifics. Some of this may
appear blatantly obvious to you but it is being
approached that you have very little knowledge of the
entire process and all of its steps.
THE BASICS
First off, your comic should be the traditional size of
most of the other comics. That size is roughly 6-3/4 X
10. Up to 1/2 inch either way doesn't matter too much
but deviations from the comic size will hurt your
potential sales quite a bit. Most stores have display
space to fit a comic size and anything that is odd sized
will often not fit into their displays. Many stores will
not even carry digest or magazine size, especially small
press titles. There is no rule here but it is a strike
against you if you don't do it comic size.
The average black and white comic runs 32 pages and
has a cover price of $2.50(Note from archiver:this was in 1993). Some publishers feel that a
reduced cover price will encourage sales but in small
press comics, this is typically not the case. Retailers
are either interested or they're not. Over-pricing
however, will turn off many interested retailers. If your
comic has more pages, then you can up the cover
price. Most publishers also include the Canadian price
on their titles and this runs anywhere from 10-20%
more. Check some other titles on the stand or find out
what the current exchange rate is prior to establishing
a Canadian price.
On all your correspondence and advertising, make
sure you get everything typeset. Hand written ads
flash a warning sign to all retailers that the comic
itself is likely to be of low quality. On your comic
itself, make sure you have someone proof read it. All
comic companies have some mistakes that go through
even when they think most are caught. Try to make
your comic book look as professional as possible. In
some cases however, the handwritten aspect is part of
the appeal.
PRODUCTION
Original art can be any size but it should be
proportional to 6-3/4 X 10. Most artists use a size of
10 X 15 or 11 X 17. There are some suppliers who
solicit their art paper with the catalogs or advertise in
the Comic Buyer's Guide. The type of paper is mostly
a matter of personal choice by the artist but quality
will tell in how well the work reproduces or holds ink.
Having a printer cut in half tones (b&w shots of color
work) or screens into your line work can be time
consuming and may drive the printing cost up. It is
best to do it yourself. If you have a lot of half tones to
be cut into your art, get them all shot separately and
then cut them into your line work. If using zip-a-tone,
be sure you watch how you lay it over other zip.
Because of the light refraction, you may get some
bizarre and unexpected patterns.
Comic flats that printers use are in paginations of 8 or
16 so your comic should always be in increments of 8
(16, 24, 32, 40, 48, etc.). Some printers who use 16
page plates will charge you for the 16 plate even if you
only use 8 of the pages so sometimes it will cost
almost the same to print a 40 or 48 page book. The
covers (inside and outside) are printed separately and
are not part of your page count Sometimes to save
money, a publisher will print no additional cover and
use the first page as the cover piece (called a self
cover) but reproduction and quality are usually
horrendous when doing this. It is best to run a
separate cover.
A full color cover will have to be separated.
Separation is the process where the colored art is put
into negatives of the four colors - black, red, yellow,
and blue. Some printers will cut in flat colors onto
black and white art but if your art requires a lot of cut
in colors, it may cost you the same as a separation.
Separations run from $100-$200 depending on where
you get them done. Most printers can handle the
separation for you and then they will also cut in the
logo, prices, and any additional type on the cover for a
flat fee of around $125-$200. If you go with a full
color cover that needs separations (which is probably
99% of the covers being done), the printers can use
almost any type of art you give them. If it is a collage
work or 3-D (sometimes called relief) or on a very
stiff board, the printer may have to shoot a
transparency first. This is an additional charge that can
run up to $100.00. If on a stiff board, the printer can
sometimes "peel" off the top layer which holds the art
so it can be wrapped around a drum for separation.
Don't forget that while you may want to do another
color piece for the back to make the comic look even
better, you're going to have to pop for another
separation charge.
Logos and other cover type are usually sent along
separate from the cover and just have to be in black
and white. Most people typeset it but your printer can
also do it for a small charge. You indicate to the
printer what color you want them to be. Most printers
have no trouble following the general guidelines of
giving colors in percentage. For instance, the deep red
color that is so popular is 100% red with 100% yellow.
Note that 100% red is actually magenta which is vastly
different from your typical red. Pick up a color guide
book or see if your printer has a chart or other color
processes that they use.
The most important things in dealing with printers is
to remember that they can not read your mind. Also,
although a comic may be a great labor of love to you,
to printers it is simply a production job that they want
to fit into their schedule and get out whenever they
can. It may consume your passion and time but to the
printer, it is one job out of 100. Most printers who
print small print runs have a great deal of other work
and comics to them are low priority. If you expend too
much of their energies, they may decide it isn't worth
it. Always give them a full mock up copy, not only of
the book but the cover as well. Remember that to the
printer there is no "typical" comic book and
sometimes your logic is not their logic. Spell
everything out!
The following is a list of printers. You can call or write
them to get prices but generally for comics that print
around 3,000, the price will be 30 cents each. 2,000 -
40-45 cents, and 1,000 copies will run 50-65 cents
each. You will also have to pay for the separations,
any additional camera work, and if you use the printer
to ship your books, figure on another couple hundred
dollars for that. So if you have orders for 1,6W copies
and you print 2,000, here's a rough idea of what your
cost would be at 40 cents each. Adding shipping
($150.00) and separations ($150.00) to the actual
printing cost of $800.00 will give you a grand total of
$1,100.00. If you sold 1,600 copies (cost to distributors
at .875) then you have $1,400.00 in sales less the cost
of printing for a profit of $300.00.
Note from archiver:Rember again that all thses figures are from 1993)
When you get your orders from the distributors, they
will tell you exactly where to send tbe comics. If the
orders are too low to specific warehouses (under 25
copies or so), it would be cheaper probably for you to
ship them yourself to those warehouses. Check with
your printer as they may have specific shipping
arrangements with certain distributors.
SOLICITATIONS
When you have your material for your comic basically
done, then you are ready to solicit the title to the
distributors. A list of distributors is included on this
form and you send all of them the same information.(note:these distributors are now out of date, look in the yellow pages or something)
The basic information should consist of cover price,
number of pages, whether it is for mature audiences or
not, how many issues are planned, black and white or
color, creators involved, the exact title of the comic
and issue number, and of course a general description
of the title which should be able to fit in one
paragraph. You should also have your company name
if different, an address where they can contact you as
well as a phone number. If you have access to a fax,
include that as well.
You must also let the distributors know what you are
selling the book to them at. The general rule is that a
publisher will give the distributor a 60-65% discount
off cover price. Therefore if you have a 65% discount.
the distributor will pay .875 for each copy they order.
They in turn will offer it to their retailers at a discount
of 30-55% depending on how much the retailer orders
overall, So the retailer makes a profit of 30.55%, the
distributor makes a profit of 10-35% and you as
publisher make a profit of 35% which has to go to the
talent, the production, advertising, and of course, the
printing of the comic. Remember though, that as the
"front man", the retailer is taking the largest chance
because he is the only one that has no idea of how
many copies he should sell. The distributor will, usually
make the lower end as most of the accounts that carry
smaller press are larger stores who will get the top
discount of 50-55%. A store has to sell at least half of
their order just to break even on the title and if they
discount the number can jump up to selling 75% of
their order to break even.
It is not only suggested but also required by some
distributors to send a full mock up of the entire comic.
This should be either comic sized or letter size but
don't send original art size if bigger than that. At the
very least you should include some art examples
especially the cover. Do not send originals or color. A
black and white stat or half-tone in a size 2 X 3 or
proportional to that size is recommended.
STARTING THE PROCESS
Okay, you have the printer lined up, the comic is
finished, you have all your information for the
distributors ready to go. What now?
It is important to note that you have to work far in
advance. It takes time for the distributors to get all the
information together into their catalogs, send them out
to retailers, receive them back from the retailers, and
then compile all of the numbers, and then issue a
purchase order to you. Here is a rough schedule for a
comic that you want released in August. Add
accordingly for any other month you want to figure
out but most of the larger distributors will send you an
itemized list. Again, this is for a comic you want to
release in August.
April 25 - Send all the information; mock up,
discount structure, etc. to distributors.
May 10 - Solicitation flyers due to distributors (see
under advertising for more information).
June 1 - Retailers receive catalogs from distributors.
June 20 - Retailers return their catalogs and orders
to distributors.
July 15 - Distributors send out purchase orders to
publishers.
As you can see, orders don't come in for a comic until
about two weeks before the comic is due to ship...
and those are the early ones. Some distributors don't
get their orders in until the same month that the book
is shipping. Since most smaller press printers take 4-8
weeks to print, it is very hard for small publishers to
get their books out in the exact month. Distributors do
realize that there are bound to be problems and they
will reluctantly allow books to ship later. Usually if it
is the following month, it isn't that big of a deaL
However, if it gets too late, they will only take the
comic on a returnable basis or not at all.
ADVERTISING
Everyone wants to advertise and it's hard to argue
that it will not help your comic. But conversely, it may
not help as much as you might think. If you have a
comic that is sure to appeal to a lot of people,
advertising will let them be aware of it. If you have a
comic that only has limited appeal, no amount spent
on advertising will help. I know of titles that have
dropped thousands of advertising dollars and only
pull in orders of 2,000 copies. Other titles get no
advertising and still pull in orders of 10,000 or more.
Advertising is a helping aid not a guarantee. At the
bare minimum, you should send out solicitation flyers
to the distributors. Each distributor will then send one
to each retailer who receives a catalog from them.
Right now, publishers have to provide about 10,000
flyers to the distributors. See the list of distributors for
how many each one gets.(Note:I have no idea whether this practise is still in effect) Flyers should be roughly
letter size. With the exception of Diamond Comic
Distributors, the distributors will pass out your flyers
for free as part of the solicitation process. Diamond
currently charges $150.00 for each flyer they pss out.
So if you have two flyers for two different titles, you'll
be charged $300.00.
One avenue that is available to all publishers is to
advertise in the catalogs of the distributors. This can
be very effective as retailers will be looking at your ad
as they are getting ready to order your title. Diamond
Comics Distributor is the largest so I'll use them as an
example. A full page ad (I believe they only take full
page ads) costs about $800.00 and has to be camera
ready. Now if you have a comic that you're selling
wholesale for 87 cents and you deduct a print/shipping
cost of 45 cents, the cleared profit on your comic is 42
cents. To cover the cost of that Diamond ad alone is
1905 copies. If you think that by advertising that comic
will generate extra sales of 1905 copies, then go for it.
Other distributors do charge less but your return is
less as they are not as large as Diamond. Your
solicitations flyers will run about 4 cents each if you
run only one side, so at 10,000 copies, that's $400.00.
Add on the $150.00 for Diamond plus about $20.00 for
shipping the flyers and your total cost for the flyers
will be about $570.00. That means after deducting the
cost of printing/shipping/separations and such, you
have to sell 1357 copies just to cover the bare
minimum.
Other sources for advertising are available as well.
Many magazines take advertising and their rates range
from $180.00 (Comics Journal, Arena) to over
$1000.00 for a full page ad. But gear your advertising
for the audience who follows the different periodicals.
You probably shouldn't send a superhero title ad to
the Comics Journal. Make sure you have an idea of
when those issues will ship. Some people follow the
philosophy that you should advertise right before the
title comes out as it will generate interest. This may be
true but if it does work, it may mean a good sell
through for retailers but they had ordered your comic
a couple of months ago. Now they will have to re-
order the title to get additional copies and in the
distribution system as it is currently set up, this seems
to he one of the weakest service areas. Also, did you
print enough to cover re-orders? If not, you may have
to go hack to print. But if you go back to print, you
can not send out second printings in lieu of first
printings, you must solicit the title all over again as a
new title (second printing).
Most feel the best time to advertise is when the
retailers are ordering the comic You must sell to the
retatlers first'
SOME HARSH REALITIES
There are a reportedly 5-7,000 comic stores in the
country (including Canada). Of those, only 800-1,500
will probably even consider carrying a small press
independent. Of those, 300-400 will probably account
for 80-90% of your orders. If you know who those
stores are, target them specifically!
Each month there are 500-600 titles offered to
retailers. Marvel, DC, Valiant, Image, and Dark
Horse account for about 200 titles. That means you
are competing with another 300-400 comics every
month but retailers only spend 15-20% of their
money on the smaller publishers which include
Disney. Topps. non-Image Malibu, Innovation,
Caliber. Fantagraphics, Kitchen Sink, Millenium,
Archie. Harvey, Tundra, Eclipse! Comico, Viz,
Revolutionary. Personality, and over 100 other
pvblishers. That's a lot of scrambling for that
15-20%!
Distributors and the fan press will not give you a lot
of attention until you prove that you will come out
on a consistent basis with a good comic. You may
say that how can you do that if they don't support
you in the first place? I suggest you take a look at
Joseph Hellers "Catch-22". Remember that of those
small comics offered eath month, sometimes up to
100 of them never, ever come out. No one is going
to spend any energy on "maybe's."
It may seem worthwhile to offer your comics directly
to stores. However, many of the distributors will not
carry your title if you do that. They usually have no
problem with re-orders but on the initial solicitations,
they frown on it greatly.
Remember that in addition to soliciting your title
you have other office time involved in invoicing your
comic, arranging for re-orders, dealing with shortages
and damaged shipments, fulfilling mail orders (if you
take them), filing the copyright papers, shipping, etc.
Re-orders for most of the larger publishers in the
small press range have very little re-orders so don't
count on getting a great deal. Not to say it doesn't
happen but it's rare. Watch your over-printing.
That's how most independent publishers go out of
business is by over-estimating the demand for
their comic.
The above information is not intended to scare you or
intimidate you, but if you know the situation you
could possibly get into, it is to your advantage. It's a
very tough business and you have to go in with your
eyes open and aware of the pitfalls. I hope that this
form gives you valuable information so you know how
to approach the business without wasting your
energies. Your primary purposes in publishing should
be to get out your comic; not generating a large
amount of money. It may happen but if you go in not
expecting it, you won't be disappointed. Many people
have launched successful books and are doing well
with their books so it is not impossible...difficult
maybe, but not unheard of.
Most publishers get hundreds of submissions a month
from new people trying to break in and new
companies are trying to form almost daily. Self
publishing will guarantee you total control in
presentation, printing, and promotion. But it has to be
satisfying in its own end to you if you want to do it. I
truly wish you the very best of luck.
Gary Reed
Caliber Press
621—B South Main St.
Plymouth, Michigan
48170.