Starting A Webcomic

1. Starting A Webcomic A guide to getting published online and where to go from there

2. Who Am I? • I write Khaos Komix and the Khaotic Emporium. • Khaos gets about 10,000 hits a day and is published. I’m able to make about £200 a month from it. • My forum has over 2000 members. • All this and my art isn’t actually that great.

3. Khaos Komix The Khaotic Emporium

4. What this guide will cover • Writing • Making the Comic • Websites • Getting readers • How to make money • Publishing

5. The Plot You may already have this, but here are some things to take into account: • Make it something that other people would want to read. Appeal to a niche market if you can • Don’t copy other work you like. It’s boring • Read other webcomics to see what gets used a lot. If you’re going to do a gamer comic it better be special or no one will read it. • Action and super hero comics are covered in the mass printing market extensively and are less likely to be read.

6. Khaos is about queer people. It is VERY easy to market.

7. The Comic Itself- Format • If you plan on getting put into print find the dimensions of a normal comic size and use those if you can. It will save you hours of editing later. • Decide what kind of layout you’ll go for. Strips, pages, 4 panels- you decide! The key is to find a size you can stick to so it’s consistent. • Always use 300dpi or higher.

8. Khaos is STUPID format. It was the size Of my sketch book at the time. Khaotic Emporium is in a GOOD format It is regular comic book size

9. The Comic Itself- Fonts • NOT comic sans or Arial. • Only use your own lettering if you’re very good. People won’t read it if they CAN’T • There are lots of free comic fonts available on the web • You can even use your own hand writing to make a standard font.

10. The Khaos font is a free online font I picked up and liked. It pretty much became the comic’s logo. Khaotic’s font was generated using an online font generator and my own handwriting

11. The Comic Itself- Inking • Pencil comics are very hard to get right • Inking makes comic’s look clearer and easier to read • You can ink by hand and scan the picture in • You can ink on the computer if you have a tablet

12. The Comic Itself- Colour? • You don’t have to colour your comics to go online, but I recommend shading at least. Computers mean black and white hurts people’s eyes. • Colour looks nicer but if it takes too long it’s not worth doing • Black and white comics are also cheaper to print

13. Grey Scale • Quick to do • Easy to read • People don’t know character colours • Half coloured • Characters are more defined • Can look sloppy if done wrong • Needs to be stylised to work normally • Full Colour • Looks nice! • Takes a long time • Background colours are hard to guess

14. The Comic Itself- Things to avoid! • Sprite comics. These can be good, but only if you put the effort in. • Stick figures. You need some pretty AMAZING writing for people to read these. They also get boring to draw. • Something you know nothing about. DO RESEARCH.

15. The Website- Free hosting You can host free on these sites: • DrunkDuck • SmackJeeves • ComicGenesis These are simple to set up and are good to get you going.

16. The Website- Bought hosting • You need to register your domain. Pick one that’s easy to spell and as short as possible. I made this mistake. • Pick a host that guarantees 100% up time. The host I’m with is an assh*le and my forum crashes a lot.

17. The Website- Building a site • Use nice colours. High contrast makes people’s eyes bleed • Make it easy to navigate around the comics • Make the comic the focus of the page • Make it easy to update if needed • Learn some HTML and CSS if you can. It makes changing basic templates much easier • Use a platform like WordPress or Comixpress • Cheat and get a fan to do it like I did

18. The Website- Necessary pages • Warning page if you have adult content • Main comic pages • Archive that’s easy to navigate and is updated • Contact/about the author page so people can find other work and send fan mail

19. The Website- Nice Extras • Links section to other sites you like and with banners to link to you • Store to sell your stuff • Character/story information • Fan art section • Extra art section for sketches/fillers • Forum

20. Getting readers The most important thing which will get you more readers is this: MAKE AN UPDATE SCHEDULE AND KEEP TO IT. If people know when you’ll update they’ll regularly check back. Dead comics don’t get linked to other people. They also get forgotten.

21. Getting readers- Advertising • Don’t bother advertising until you have a fair amount of comics in your archive. When you reach a chapter or about 30 strips then it’s worth doing. • Get a stat counter on your site so you can monitor which techniques work best. • Focus mainly on the comic not the advertising. A good story will get readers regardless of how you advertise it.

22. Getting readers- Free Advertising • Get yourself on Top Webcomics and use incentives to get to the top • Sign yourself up to sites like Online Comics • Put a link in your forum signature for when you post around the internet. Don’t be a spammer though • Email similar comic artists with a link to your comic. If they read it and like it they may link to you. • Start a forum to keep the fans involved in your site

23. Getting readers- Paid Advertising • Find a site similar to the one you run and advertise on it. • Project wonderful is what many webcomic artists use. • Don’t spend too much money, it’s not worth it.

24. Making Money! • This doesn’t really happen in the webcomic world. You should write one because you want to, not to make money. • Despite how much I make from Khaos it will never cover the amount of time I’ve spent on it • To make money you need fans willing to give you that money

25. Making Money! - Beginnings • Put a paypal donation button on your site. Offer an incentive for people who vote. • Put advertising on your site. Don’t over crowd things though as it will put readers off. • Offer commissions of your characters for fans

26. Some of the tasteful incentives I offer for donations…

27. Making Money! –Merchandise • Merchandise can be expensive as you are making specialised products for your comic. • Check with your fans first to see what they want. Polls are very good to see what the demand would be. • You can put designs up on places like Café press which will print on demand whenever a fan orders a product • You can also put things up for preorder which will cover some printing costs.

28. Merchanside Ideas

29. Publishing • Look around for publishing places before you start editing anything into book form • You can find print on demand sites like Lulu which will get you published but not give you much profit • You can self publish through a printer. You’ll need a lot of capital to invest to do this though. • You can look around for publishers who take comics similar to yours.

30. Any Questions? • If you want a copy of this slide I’ll post it up on the Auchi Forums • If you email me at Tab@khaoskomix.com I can also send it to you • And if you’re interested my sites are here: Www.KhaosKomix.com Www.TheKhaoticEmporium.com