I've been pondering and pondering, till my ponderer is sore, and I think I've decided to make an Allan book… eventually.
I kinda need to know who'd be up for buying one (it'd contain like 100 Days and some extra sketches in the back), what you'd be willing to pay (or what I should charge), and that's about it, actually. I think I can decorate the pages well enough, maybe put my own little comments at the bottom of each day to tell you what was happening in more detail during the day… yeah.
So anyway, if you guys really want this thing done, I'll be happy to try and deliver! Just post and tell me what you think.
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Stuff About Allan
An Allan Book?
I agree with wilson. A great site to get a book done for cheap is www.lulu.com. I have checked over and over it a million times and it's surprisingly a very legitamit site linked with amazon and borders. Please make an Allan book. It would be great. I'd buy loads and dish them out to my friends and family. Plus if you needed help distributing over here, i'd help. I've been wanting to publish something through Lulu for ages but haven't got anything to publish (as of yet). I'll probably put Shark Brain through it as Story Arc's, plus i started work on my novel yesterday, so maybe that too.
Anyway, do it or else……………………… you'll have several unhappy people on your hands.
Dan
To be perfectly honest, no.
Let me explain.
As I have said previously, I think buying books from webcomic authors is a great way to help out with the expenses that come with running a website. Since these expenses don't really exist for you as of yet (though I'm sure you'll wind up running allancomic.com or something someday) I really don't see a need to buy a book. If you were in some sort of dire financial situation, I probably would, but really…
Some day, sooner or later, I'm sure it would be awesome to have a book with your strips in it though. :)
Actually fern pretty much nailed it.
The best way to do it is print it and staple it yourself.
This way you can test the market and print what you need.
Kinkos too could print it cheap and you staple and cut it.
Check out lulu, sign up and talk to people who promote and
sell their books. It's a tough game and promotion is an all
new side of it.
The books now published by comic artists in Small Press are
not so much to make money but to find another avenue to promote
their work. Like taking your books to comic cons and shows and
passing them out and trading them with other comic artists.
From the people I've talked to at the shows the sales usually
just cover the travelling and show costs, which allows them
to vacation around the country for free and at the same time
promote their work.
yeah, but check out lulu and get on the forums. The people there
are more than willing to help and give great advice.
Also google some small press sites and get in with people who
do shows in your area. It's work! But anything worth while usually is.
Personally, I would buy an Allan book if you put it out, and $10 sounds like a reasonably price (the Zits anthologies go for, what, $13?). But then again, I have a reasonable amount of disposable income every month that I can put towards stuff like that. And I'm one of those people that just prefers to have things in print. Call me a throw-back, neanderthal, whatever … I much prefer "real" books to pdfs. I'd buy a print version of just about any of the series I read here every day: Allan, ApL, Broken Things, World of Witt, etc. And if you threw in extras, that'd be an added bonus.
But I completely understand those who would not buy a print version unless you were in dire financial need, as well. And I suspect that those folks outnumber folks like me. So I'd say follow the advice of those that say "check out the prices, and talk to the people who have done it before you."
I'm trying to market my Christmas book, "The Firflake," to publishers right now, and I agree with everyone who says that the marketing aspect (pre and post publication) is a completely different world from the artistic process.
Wow, was that long-winded or what???
Another idea you could try out is to sell a few original
strips to test the market. ComicSpace has a gallery section
where people can post & sell their work.
You could just mention below that these strips are up for sale
to help pay for materials.
I ran a contest on DD a few years back and asked a trivia
question. Winner gets the signed original. Someone guessed
the answer and they were happy to have it. What could be better
than a signed original Allan strip they read online.
What I did was xerox the original so I would at least have a
copy for my files. No loss really to part with a strip and
the income could go for art supplies or printing costs. Plus it
would give you a little insight on the business aspects of it.
If no one is interested in buying the originals then chances
are the book might not be such a good idea.
When I first started out here gobbler and a few others
suggested I put together a book. So I looked into like
you're doing now.
I eventually ended up at lulu and the info I got, well…
contains forums & forums full of information.
From what kind of book, paper, printing costs, marketing,
selling, packaging, customer relations… and on and on.
It's good stuff to know even if you don't end up making
a book.
I put the idea on hold. I don't believe I've got the fan
base to invest the money and time into it to make it worth
my while.
If I got 10,000 hits a day I'd go for it. You seem to be growing
at a steady rate so who knows. Keep plugging away and get on
some other forums and keep promoting yourself.
Myspace, utube, where ever you can link yourself.
Just don't buy ad space at the moment.
I remember on keenspot where they tried to sell me banner
space at, I think it was, $100 a month. Don't get sucked into
someone telling you that you need to spend all this money
for promotion. Just read up on as much as you can and hopefully
get some pro on a forum who can really help you with it.
I'm ranting on today! The boss left early- and left the
computer on, so I'm making a break of it!
I noticed you mentioned 5,000 hits because of KC. That's
pretty much what I'm talking about. Those are good friends
to have! I noticed some of those hits spilled over to my
site about the same time as my rage erupted.
(Didn't mean to get that hostile with ya but I had a shit
day, was in the bag & you just shucked my last nerve!)
But yeah, it fascinates me what generates traffic.
One day I was watching stats and noticed an increase of
about 300 hits in less than an hour. I didn't even update
in two days. Someone for some reason somewhere must've linked
me and boom! I still don't who did it. It happens that fast.
Some of these comics get 6,000 to 8,000 hits a day, and as
you've seen, a mere link and your flooded. Ha! Freaked you out
didn't it?
I wouldn't buy it.
Simply because I don't buy anything over the net :)
Nor have I bought a comic book!
I went into a comic book store once but there were so many…
If you were to make the book, I would put up the quality of the pages a notch.
I've seen some of your other sketches so I know you can do it easy.
If you want people to buy it, you're going to have to put in some incentive (apart from some goodies)!
Or else, like fern said, it'll be like buying a $10 photocopy.
YOU'D have to pay ME to buy it.
I really don't want to see an Allan book. Sure, people like your art
but do they really honestly want something they'll pay something like 30 bucks for, when you could read them online for nothing?
And, though your art is decent, it really isn't
THAT good. Not really. No offense, dude, but I don't even know why you were on the nominee list for "Best lineart".
[color=crimson
]
OR IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE TRUTH.
I think it'd be cool to have your Skateboarding Allan logo, or maybe your current background for the comic on the cover of a book. That'd be cool, yeah, many pages and pages of Allan.
Yay! One page for every night until I get a life. :D
And, though your art is decent, it really isn't
I thank you for your honesty, Zheror, but I draw "Allan" the way I do to set a feel. I have more available visual works on Mediocre Militia, a collaborative sketchblog. Some of the works can be seen here, here, and here.
I don't mind people being indifferent or against my art, but when they question my artistic ability as a whole, I just want them to see I can do more than just basic ink sketches in a book.
But nonetheless, no offense taken. Serious.
Also: Thank all you guys for telling me what you'd like/wouldn't like. I'm still deciding on a book in the future or not. If I was sure I could sell all I'd print, I'd do it. I dunno, maybe I need to work up a larger fan base first. In time, I guess.
But I might make a shirt or two on cafepress! That could be sweet.
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