|
Doctor Reynolds posted:Please do, Tom. Please make all the things you ever want. Seconded. Forget what I said about the guest comics. I wish I was at the point where I had fun doing what I do for a living.
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2011 17:10
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 16, 2024 07:03 |
|
|
Yeah me too. I can only work on the comic at the weekends though, and I don't make money from it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2011 17:43
|
|
|
Tea-san posted:Yeah me too. I can only work on the comic at the weekends though, and I don't make money from it. This comic is really of a quality where there has got to be a way to monetise this better.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2011 18:04
|
|
|
Have you looked into Kickstarter, Tea-san?
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2011 18:12
|
|
|
I love watching other people's Kickstarters get funded, but it's not something I could do. For a start, I don't think you can set one up if you don't live in the US. Also I don't have a concrete project, and they don't allow "fund my life" type things.
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2011 21:13
|
|
|
Tea-san posted:I don't think you can set one up if you don't live in the US. Yeah, this is the case. After seeing people get funding for their own tabletop games through Kickstarter, I thought it might be a good way to be able to hire an artist for my work. I considered trying to find a few work-arounds, but emigrating seems like it'd be a drastic and somewhat counter-productive solution 
|
|
#
?
Oct 27, 2011 21:45
|
|
|
Tea-san posted:I don't make money from it. This is insane. Can we find this guy a business manager or something? Like how the PA guys have Robert Khoo. Or would that take the fun out of it, Tom?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 02:13
|
|
|
Tom. I don't know how to break this to you. You should be rolling in money like Gabe Newell. Only not so fat.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 03:47
|
|
|
Tom, I have bought all the GC books, please tell me you saw some of my money.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 03:51
|
|
|
Talas posted:Tom, I have bought all the GC books, please tell me you saw some of my money. This. How much of book sales do you see?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 04:55
|
|
|
Yeah, do you mean "No money" as in nothing, or, "No money" as in only 15% per book sold?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 05:32
|
|
|
Tim Buckley has all his expense,including the mortgage on his new house, paid for by his piece of poo poo copy-paste, racist, misogynistic comic. Tom Siddell has to work a full time job because he doesn't get enough income from his his beautifully artistic, intricately plotted, touching comic. gently caress this gay earth.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 05:39
|
|
|
Tea-san posted:I love watching other people's Kickstarters get funded, but it's not something I could do. For a start, I don't think you can set one up if you don't live in the US. Also I don't have a concrete project, and they don't allow "fund my life" type things. Worked for Andrew Plotkin. And he makes Interactive Fiction. It's pretty obscure, Interactive Fiction, and he's probably the first guy to make any money from it since the eighties. And yeah, you can't use Kickstarter - but there are at least several Kickstarter clones that you could use instead. Sure, more people have heard of Kickstarter, but it's not like you'll get any money from "just browsing the Kickstarter... Oooh, some guy I've never heard of! HAVE ALL OF MY MONEY!" People will send money to whatever site you link to. http://www.wefund.com/ http://www.indiegogo.com/ http://www.unbound.co.uk/ http://www.ulule.com/ http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/ As for "fund my life", you could promise that you'll write, say, that book of short stories or whatever. You don't actually need to have it written yet! (See: Andrew Plotkin.) And also, more importantly, set the price to what you think you can live off for a year and promise that if people hit that mark, you'll go full-time for a year and do five comics a week. (If you want to, of course. I don't want to presume. But, you seem to do three a week on weekends, while having a full-time job. I'm just guessing that five a week, on a full-time basis is not within your limits and it's just what might entice people to give money.) Do the usual scale - basic gets them a .cbr, double that and they get a printed copy, blah, blah, for five thousand euros you'll personally fly out to Europe and spend an awkward day full of regret with them. And the best part of this is that you have absolutely nothing to lose. You don't need to quit your job, you don't need to start drawing the book in your lunch breaks. You just ask the readers if they'll do this for you. If they don't - oh well. At least now you know. But I am convinced this will work, man. You're loving great. Just give it a try. Megazver fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Oct 28, 2011 |
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 06:41
|
|
|
Hey speaking of giving Tom support, he sees the most money from book sales if you buy them from Topatoco. And guess what's in stock?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 07:38
|
|
|
No Parley! So mean! :C
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 08:17
|
|
|
Agreeable Employer posted:Yeah, do you mean "No money" as in nothing, or, "No money" as in only 15% per book sold? This comes up a lot. Last time it did I think he said he gets no money at all from book sales unless you buy them directly from him at a con or something.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 08:25
|
|
|
Blue Hair's perkiness is almost physically oppressive. She projects a tangible smile field.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 08:27
|
|
|
Yeah, but Tennis Jerk is still a Tennis Jerk.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 09:09
|
|
|
Whitenoise Poster posted:This comes up a lot. Last time it did I think he said he gets no money at all from book sales unless you buy them directly from him at a con or something. WHAAAAAAAAA This is ridiculous.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 09:18
|
|
|
Whitenoise Poster posted:This comes up a lot. Last time it did I think he said he gets no money at all from book sales unless you buy them directly from him at a con or something. Okay Tom can you confirm this because this can't be true. And if it is true then whaaaaaat (also I hope those two girls come back at some point, they're good fun)
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 10:21
|
|
|
Parley, I think you are being the mean friend here!
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 10:40
|
|
|
Bad girls, bad girls, whatcha gonna do when they come for you?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 10:50
|
|
|
Stop asking Tom about his income, yeesh!
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 11:48
|
|
|
Well if Tom could make a living from comics and not have to subsist entirely on instant mashed potato we wouldnt have to ask. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 12:02
|
|
|
Buying my books from Topatoco or from me directly at a UK con (sales at the US cons were kept by the publisher) are basically the only way I get money from them. I don't want to go in to specific numbers because, frankly, it's embarassing. I'll say that my last few quarterly royalty reports have been in negative figures, though. That's just how publishing works, apparently. I try to avoid talking about it because I look like a complete and utter idiot. When I was a kid I dreamed of getting something published, but now it's just something to be ashamed of.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 12:28
|
|
|
The only thing you should be ashamed at is your business acumen. Which is the thing you're avoiding talking about so I guess that's fine. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 12:35
|
|
|
Tea-san posted:Buying my books from Topatoco or from me directly at a UK con (sales at the US cons were kept by the publisher) are basically the only way I get money from them. Dude, the Penny Arcade guys gave away their publishing rights and accidentally sold their entire company when they were first starting out. Don't be ashamed of financial mistakes when the flip side is that you have an incredible product that people are baying for. Besides, unless you were a really cynical kid, I'm willing to bet that it wasn't raking in kingly royalties you were dreaming of. Don't kill that dream just because you have other worries now.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 12:45
|
|
|
It's good to know that though. Cause personally I want to pay you something when I buy a volume.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 12:47
|
|
|
Reading this comic, i just realized i was at least that condescending to my friends younger friends when i was in school. Anyways i was thinking about all this royalties stuff yesterday when i decided i was gonna buy both volumes of GC that were in stock, and i didn't know which way was the best way so i just bought the cheap ones from amazon and donated extra money on Paypal and i'm pretty sure that way he gets direct money. Tom if you tell me your royalties from the donate button don't go to you i will be very cross.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 13:25
|
|
|
Is that the reason Gunnerkrigg Court vol. 2 is so hard to get?
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 13:28
|
|
|
Just ordered Vols. 1 and 3 from Topatoco, and donated a bizarrely converted £10.33 so you can buy yourself 3.33 pints or whatever. Really enjoy the comic, keep it up man. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 13:43
|
|
|
Bluehair is my new favorite character. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 15:38
|
|
|
Kismet posted:Dude, the Penny Arcade guys gave away their publishing rights and accidentally sold their entire company when they were first starting out. Don't be ashamed of financial mistakes when the flip side is that you have an incredible product that people are baying for. Now I have to go donate since I bought all three Gunnerkrigg volumes off of Amazon and it's crazy that far less awesome comics allow their creators to live off of them, but Tom has to work a full time job. Also, I need a Coyote painting.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 15:40
|
|
|
Actually, royalties being in the red isn't something to be particularly ashamed of in a standard book deal. You probably know this stuff, Tom, but others might not, so: The way it usually works is, you start out with an advance of X dollars. You also get a certain percentage of the purchase price minus the production cost of each book as royalties. So, for instance, if the cost to consumers was $20 and it was sold to the comic shop at $10 and the production cost of the volume was $2, each book sold would have $10 - $2, $8 of profit to the publisher. If you had a 25% royalty rate, that would be $8 * 0.25, $2 allocated to you. (I pulled those numbers out of my rear end; they are not generally applicable - for one thing, a novice author is going to get a lower percentage than that, and some people might negotiate for a percentage of the cover price, etc etc.) However, you don't see any of that money right away - it goes to pay for the advance you got. Eventually, in theory, the amount you have earned is equal to the amount of the advance, and any money you get after that is (eventually) sent to you. So if you started with a $2000 advance, your publisher would have to sell 1000 volumes to get to this point. This process is called "earning out" the advance. Some authors never earn out their advances on a particular book. What that means for the publisher is that they might want to do a smaller advance next time, but it isn't necessarily something to be ashamed of; people have to make guesses about how much money they think ought to be thrown around and there isn't really any good way of telling in advance how much a given book is going to make. All that being said, I have no idea what kind of deal you have, Tom, or if it looks even a little like this, but my personal feeling is if you aren't making money on this it's because someone is doing something either stupid or dishonest somewhere along the way and no that person is not you. I bought your books at my local comic shop. My local comic shop is loving TINY and it is in a completely different country from you. I know they sold at least four copies of volume one because that happened to be the case before I bought mine. Obviously that's not statistical evidence and it's possible that your book is unusually popular around here, but the fact that random comic stores all over the place are carrying it coupled with the fact that the publisher considered it worth their while to publish volumes two and three suggest that the books are doing okay. It may be that your deal means you're in some kind of hole so deep, in terms of the advance, that your royalties will never dig you out, but that's not the same as you being stupid or having a bad product. The numbers do not necessarily line up in your favor here, and there are tons of ways they can be manipulated. For instance, what if the publisher decides that the expense per book is $9 out of that $10 sale? It's going to take you an awful long time to earn out even a tiny advance at $0.25 cents per book. It's going to take even longer if your royalty rate is 5%. Think about that; at $0.05 per book you'd have to sell 40,000 volumes to make back that hypothetical $2000 advance and $2000 isn't that much. If you wanted to make a living on it at that rate you'd have sell some kind of incomprehensible number of volumes to pull it off. What this does do for you, though, even if you don't manage to get money from it, is make you a credible published author with a product that people are willing to buy and a publisher that kept the series going for at least three volumes and probably more. If you go to another publisher someday and want to sell them a new book you're doing, all of this stuff means you can get a better deal. Especially if you have an agent, and I highly recommend that you get one. (They will take a percentage of the profits, but they will also negotiate you a much better deal than you'd get on your own.) Plus, you got to take something out of your head and put it onto paper and enrich the lives of thousands of people all around the world. I realize that may not be that much comfort in your current position, but hopefully it means something.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 16:21
|
|
|
Man, I'd totally pay for an achewood-style fanflow of short stories and behind the scenes info if you made one. I've seen all sorts of crazy schemes for monetizing webcomics. I think the guy who writes Goblins actually bought a house with the proceeds from his Tempts Fate sidestory thing, and his comic is awful!
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 17:47
|
|
|
The problem is that there seems to be a fairly consistent inverse correlation between the quality of a webcomic and how much cash it rakes in.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 18:04
|
|
|
Are the Topatacotoataco books hardcover? That wasn't clear to me.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 18:49
|
|
|
They are
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 18:54
|
|
|
Uh, perhaps you should go to a different publisher. Maybe talk to the Girl Genius people? They seem to do very well off their product.
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 19:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 16, 2024 07:03 |
|
|
idonotlikepeas posted:Plus, you got to take something out of your head and put it onto paper and enrich the lives of thousands of people all around the world. I realize that may not be that much comfort in your current position, but hopefully it means something. Yeah, seriously, this. There are so many people who want to get published, even for free, but don't manage to for whatever reason. You've not only been published, but you've been putting out some damned fine work for other people to enjoy, whether they bought the hard copy of it or just read it online. Be proud of yourself! Gunnerkrigg Court is a really cool story with excellent art and I'm always happy to see it update. If you haven't made serious money off it (so far), that's not something to be ashamed of. You're giving something back to the world, and it's appreciated. That might sound hokey or whatever, but it's true!
|
|
#
?
Oct 28, 2011 21:03
|
|
