How to Self-publish a Comic Book

Long have comic books been viewed as the redheaded stepchild of popular culture. In recent years, however, the graphic novel has had a renaissance, in both creative content and cultural acclaim. A colleague of mine once posed that the comic book was “the only quantum art form until you turn the page, literally anything is possible.” Limited only by the imaginations of the creators, any and every talented writer and artist can create a comic book… but how do you get it in stores? Unless you’re lucky enough to be discovered by Marvel or DC, you’re going to need to publish your own book and get it in stores if you’re going to, well, get discovered by Marvel or DC.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Comic books and graphic novels (for research)
• Art supplies
• Computer with script writing software, photo editing software and an internet connection
• A scanner

1. Whether you're a solo creator or part of a full team with a writer, artist, inker, colorist and letterist, you need to know what's popular, and that's good. Study the masters. Try any books by Frank Miller, Tim Sale & Jeph Loeb or Alan Moore. Study page and panel layouts.

2. Work and rework your book. Get characters nailed down before doing full pages. My crew and I email all sketches, scripts and pages to one another. In fact, all of our coloring is done in Adobe Photoshop.

3. Show your work to peers and colleagues. If you want to sell a comic book, you need to appeal to an audience. Don't be shy; if your readers bring up things they don't like, something's not working. You want to get the kinks out before you go to press.

4. Now that you have a property that people enjoy, make an ashcan. This is a preview comic, usually about 8 pages. Create a story that introduces the characters and the basic angle of the story. Remember to make a strong cover.

5. Take your ashcan to a local printer and have them make 50 to 100 copies of the ashcan. Make sure your contact information is on the inside cover or title page. This will serve as your business card.

6. Take your freshly printed books to a comic book convention. It doesn't have to be Comic Con International. You can meet everyone you need to at your local convention.

7. Talk to as many comic book creators as will talk to you. Shoot the breeze, buy one or two of their books and talk about what you like. This puts them in a receptive mood to look at your book. Listen to what they have to say; you're going to need to remember it.

8. If you can, talk to a publicist. They are very well connected, and can point you in the direction of everyone. They will also be useful when you need to promote your book.

9. Finally, you need to talk to a distributor. Diamond Comic Distributors is the largest distributor of comics in the country. If they like your book, they'll give you the opportunity to be advertised in the catalogue. All they need from you is the first two issues completed. That's 44 pages, plus a couple of covers.

10. There's still a lot left to do. Finish your two issues. Start interacting online with the comics community. Develop a relationship with your publicist. Post the ashcan online. Start blogging, to get your name out there. By the time your book is ready to print, you should have already built some buzz. After all, you need to sell your comic.

11. Send your comic to the distributor. Talk to printing presses that work with independent comic publishers. If they've done business with Diamond, they're likely to take the order letter as a promise to pay. You pay them after the distributor pays you for the orders it's taken on your comic.

12. Get to work on issue three and cash the check from the distributor. You're a comic book publisher!

Tips & Warnings

• You need to be fearless and talented. Only go with a comic book that you have shown to peers and colleagues. If they think it's good and marketable, you have something.
• If you can't talk to people and sell your book, find a friend to do it for you. You need a big personality to get noticed.

[Xlibris]

on 12/1/2008 Helpful. Publishers now are very much inclined to take in comic books at the same time.