Agreed. There's about 4-5 people quitting their day job due to the monetary success of their webcomic. Less than 1% of all webcomic creators add some supplementary income to their coffers but still work in their callcenter cubicles. But the same goes for the old print comics. Back in the day, I'd say 20-30 newspaper comics carried the income for the creator and his family while the rest only had 100-200 newspapers carrying their toon.
One advantage an up and coming webcomic dude (or dudette) has in 2008 is the unlimited use of cheap and free technology not readily available to the profitable webcomic creators ten, five or two years ago. There is a successful and cheap formula to be used for your webcomic involving a healthy mix of services like PW, Lulu, Paypal, Wowio, Cafepress, MySpace, YouTube and Digg. Now if I only knew where I wrote down that formula...
Its a lot more than 4 or 5, hell of a lot more. I can think of maybe 10 or so off the back of my head and theres plenty of comics that add a good whack of income to the artist.
Some of the ones that make money never seem to come up here, (Achewood is fantastic and pretty huge and god damn if ive ever seen it mentioned here) and then there are some (Ctrl Alt Del) that are fucking travesties and anyone who reads or enjoys his copy pasted shit, or worse watches the "animated" series needs their balls and eyes swapped.
This might be helpful for those thinking about making money this year.
In the words of the Almighty Strongbad:
"404'd!"
Fuckin' A... go to http://www.fleen.com and scroll down and I think you have to go back to a "previous page" and you'll see an article titled "I want my Ten Dollars" I don't know why that link doesn't work... FWP.
"I find the first strip on this site incredibly offensive and awful" - Scott Kurtz SuperFightFight More Filling than Douche Juice!
Dr Neo Lao wrote:When I said "income that actually means anything" I was talking about being able to quit your job and support your family from the comic alone.
All I want is my comic to pay for my inking pens, and maybe an ink cartridge every once in a while.
wow all of this is so interesting. theres alot of stuff here i didnt know about. im willing to give it my best tho. believe it! ( sorry couldnt help it)
but whats this with ctrl alt delete ive been hering about. i dont understand whats going on with this copy and paste talk.
how long should one wait before he puts up a tip jar. i was thinking bout a year right? or how many hits u get.
and one last question. what is a high amount of hits? and an average
Some people think tip jars are tacky. You probably aren't care about that though. I've never heard any rule about how long to wait until you put up a tip jar.
The general rule about advertising is don't advertise until you have 20ish* (more or less) strips. This allows people visiting your site to see your style and get the basic gist of your comic.
I'd guess I'd make a tip jar rule of 40ish comics then. This means people will not only get the gist of your comic, they'll be able to appreciate what you've given them. People won't give to you unless they feel they've gotten something first. So it also depends on the nature and quality of your comic.
That said, there's no reason you can't have a tip jar day one. After all, it's not like someone can un-donate money.
*I've seen the advertising rule go from 10 - 50 comics.
ShineDog wrote:Its a lot more than 4 or 5, hell of a lot more. I can think of maybe 10 or so off the back of my head and theres plenty of comics that add a good whack of income to the artist.
Yeah, first thing we think of when someone mentiones the subject is big shots who can make a living from their basic site, like PA and Pvp, but then there's those who sell a lot of merchandising and stroll around conventions and then there's even more of those who sell merchandising and art that isn't neccesarily related to their comics, ie use their webcomic as a springboard for general designer/commision artist career.
i put up a "tip" button when my kitty got sick and i needed to raise 1000+
i got some money for it that made a substantia, dent in the price of his medical treatment -but that all went to the Vet - but thats cool,
but yeah im not quitting my day job .. l
Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.
-- R. Heinlein
Tac00 wrote:
and one last question. what is a high amount of hits? and an average
That's a harder to answer question than you know What you need to look at most of all is unique views, which gives you a vague idea of how many readers you have. When you have 2000 or 3000+ you're near the top of CGen, in the top ten or so. Comics on Keenspot tend to have 6,000-20,000 or so. That's the level you're looking at to honesly make some money going independant.
l
