Webcomics, Crowdfunding, Radish Farming, and the FTP Factor

[gallo-de-pelea.livejournal.com]

Hi, my name's E.K. Weaver, and I write and draw a comic called The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal. Although it's intended for print, I've been publishing it online for the past two years, and have recently been able to take TJ and Amal to press, thanks to the magic of crowdfunding.

( Q&A on webcomics, reader support, and more )

ComicFury as a webcomic host & Crowdfunding

[comicfury.livejournal.com]

Hello there, crowdfunding community. I am Kyo, and I am an Administrator as well as the owner of ComicFury.com.

So yeah, we offer free Webcomic hosting, you can click that link to get to our Site. 10 days ago a lovely lady named Elizabeth contacted me and asked me introduce ComicFury to the crowdfunding community and talk about it a bit, options for crowdfunding on it and such. To be honest I'm not really sure what's expected of me here, so bear with me;

First, let me explain a bit what ComicFury is all about. We offer free Webcomic Hosting, which means that we give you an easily managable website to put your webcomics online, and some free advertising on the ComicFury website. Should you choose to enable the features, people will also be able to rate and comment on your comic pages. The whole thing is pretty community driven, people read each others comics, you can subscribe to webcomics not unlike on youtube, there's a forum, etc. Of course a lot of people also use ComicFury as a means to an end, just as somewhere to put their webcomic without participating in the community.

Now that we got the basics down let's talk about what makes ComicFury special. First of all, ComicFury is non-profit, i.e. the goal of the site is not to earn money. This is the first thing that differentiates us from similar services. In that same spirit, ComicFury will not put up any advertisements on webcomics hosted, unless you choose to voluntarily enable them to support the site (they are disabled by default). The site strives to give you as much freedom and control over your content as possible. The sites you make with ComicFury are completely customizable, and thus, if you want to, they can be completely indistinguishable from any self-hosted webcomic.

I will admit that first I was a bit unsure what to talk about in relation to crowdfunding. ComicFury doesn't explicitly help you monetize your webcomic, since it's a very community-oriented site. It's all about sharing your art, and all that good stuff. There are ways to earn money with your ComicFury site, of course, but they are nothing special. You can put your own advertisements or a donation button on your webcomic pages, but that an article about crowdfunding does not make.

I came to a realization, however, that ComicFury, and as such all the webcomics created and hosted there, are crowdfunded. This never really occured to me until yesterday, but the fact is that the average ComicFury member does not earn the site any money. There is no ad-revenue, and thus no profit from gaining new members. However, as I've previously mentioned, people both have the ability to voluntarily enable ads on their own comics as well as donate to the site. A donation history can be found here, for those interested.

There's been lots of donations ever since the option was enabled, and a lot of people enabled the voluntary advertisements on their webcomics, with no strong encouragement from the site for either. This is something I personally think is really wonderful about the community. The amount of money gained from these two sources is almost enough to reimburse all the money ever put into ComicFury, retroactively. So as a comicfury member, you basically have the ability to crowdfund your own projects in addition to those of like-minded people by donating, choosing to display advertisements on your webcomic site, or even just by bringing in new members.

I guess the moral of the story is that though people were never forced to help the site earn a penny, they did. And thus a self-supporting non-profit yes-freedom webcomic host was born.

Hope you all enjoyed this post

-Kyo

Womanthology and Kickstarter

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

Hi all! Sam again :) I'm here to post an entry on behalf of the crowd at Womanthology. The entry is theirs -- I am just a messenger, though I have to say I'm excited about Womanthology and the information they have to share with you. Away we go!

***

This is a story of a crowd-funded project that's enjoying successes beyond its creators' dreams. It's a story about hard work, good planning, and a little bit of magic. It's a sometimes-cautionary tale, with over 1,100 protagonists (and counting), and it's one that I hope will offer both inspiration and some hard-headed tips for others starting out on crowd-funded projects. It's a story that's still in progress, so we hope too that you'll excuse a little fuzziness around the edges. This story's about Womanthology, a crowd-funded charity comic book anthology created entirely by women, which so far has raised over $62,000. And we weren't all sitting comfortably when it began.

( Read more... )

Crowdfunded gaming: Kingdom of Loathing

[my-partner-doug.livejournal.com]

ysabetwordsmith  has encouraged me to post some thoughts about an online game I patronize, and to share aspects of the crowdfunding model that's been the company's primary source of income since October, 2004.  It is a very tongue-in-cheek fantasy game, The Kingdom of Loathing, and it plays entirely in your web-browser of choice without the need to download any software.  Anyone with an e-dress can open a free account, create a character, and partake in quests geared to prepare you for the ultimate challenge: freeing the King from the clutches of The Naughty Sorceress.

Your character's stats fall into three very basic categories: muscle, mysticality, and moxie, one of which is chosen by you to be your main stat.  Each mainstat offers two distinct but related character classes: Turtle Tamers and Seal Clubbers for the muscle-bound; Pastamancers and Saucerors for the mysticality-minded; and Disco Bandits and Accordion Thieves for the moxie-driven.  Each class can learn a distinct set of skills as they progress, utilizing them to fight a wide variety of monsters.  Successful combat incurs multiple possible results, including stat gains, currency accumulation, and item acquisition, all of which improve your chances of taking on the even-stronger monsters you'll encounter at the next level. The game is almost exclusively text-based; the graphics are limited, more often than not, to simply stick-figures, although some limited animation does pop up at times. Puns abound throughout the Kingdom (for instance, the mining operation on Mt. McLargeHuge is known as the "Itznotyerzitz Mine"), as do pop culture (and other cultural) references ranging from Walt Whitman's poetry through 1960's TV cartoons on to current movie quotes and spoofs of the latest hip-hop tunes.  Once you've freed the King (after completing 13 levels of play), your character can either continue to advance in level, accruing wealth and goodies from still-more-difficult gaming zones, or choose to "ascend", re-incarnating as a different character class, but keeping many of the goods, all of the wealth, and one of the skills acquired in the just-completed life; characters will continue to accrue skills each time they ascend, becoming more powerful each subsequent lifetime.

There is a thriving in-game economy, as players can sell duplicated or otherwise unwanted items in a flea market, or purchase a store in the Mall of Loathing, where investing in advertising may attract you far more business than the catch-as-catch can flea market.  And it is in regard to this in-game economy that crowdfunding comes into play, for the designers have built a system which encourages, but does not require, the players to donate cash to acquire in-game items which are only available for a limited time, typically one month.

For a ten dollar donation, a player receives an item known as a "Mr. Accessory", which, unto itself, can be used in-game to increase all of the character's stats by 10 points while worn.  But Mr. A's (as they're short-handed in the game) can also be traded in at the "Mr. Store" for the "Item of the Month", which can be powerful equipment, unique skills, or "familiar" sidekicks to assist you throughout your game play.  Not only that, but Mr. A's have a value in in-game currency (average mall price is, as of this writing, approximately 8 million), so they can be sold to provide funds with which to purchase other equipment from either NPCs or the mall.  Given the ever-increasing number of players, most early Items of the Month are in far shorter supply than the current demand, and those players that choose to sell their earlier acquisitions can make a substantial in-game profit: many such IoM's regularly pull 7- and 8-figure prices when offered in the mall.

This 'investment' aspect seriously works in the company's favor, as many players will buy multiple Mr. A's per month, trading them in for that month's limited item, then to wait patiently for the price to (hopefully) rise to where they feel it's worthwhile to 'cash in'.  But even players who can't afford to donate regularly can still accrue enough currency in-game (eventually) to purchase the items they want from the mall, so nobody's excluded from collecting to the extent of their desire.  And the Kingdom's parent company, Asymmetric Publications, is providing full-time work for about half-a-dozen programmers and game developers, all of whom are being paid from donated funds!

The development team (AKA TPTB, "The Powers That Be") maintains much interaction with their patrons/player base, by way of a forums network and via twice-weekly podcasts, in which current developments and player questions are discussed.  There is a strong sense of community among the players, expressed both in- and out-of-game, via those same forums, formation of Clans within the game setting, multiple channels in an in-game chat room, and even a once-a-year live convention, held in the Phoenix, AZ vicinity of the company's home office.

The game's is defined by TPTB as being in a state of eternal Beta; new content is frequently added, and other aspects are tweaked as needed (or demanded by the players, to some extent).  It's been running since 2003, and exclusively crowdfunded since October of 2004.  Drop by, have a look, and if you like what you see, drop a k-mail (in-game e-mail system) to BillysBalloon to say "thanks" for having pointed you in that direction.

Disclaimer: I have no professional affiliation with KoL, TPTB, Asymmetric  Publications, or any of its members, owners, or staff, and have received no considerations (other than encouragement from my partner, ysabetwordsmith ) for plugging their materials in this forum.  I'm just a patron who's enjoyed their efforts for about the last 5 years, and continue to play the game daily.

Why Webcomics are so important, and shouldn’t be ignored.

[khaoskomix.livejournal.com]

I’m Tab Kimpton. I write a webcomic called Khaos Komix, a GLBT Queer teen comic. It’s been online 5 years now (which is a scary thought and makes me feel old), has 40,000 hits a day and has been picked up by the publisher Rosalarian.

 

But even now when I say that I’m a webcomic author, I see that little sneer in people. I’m sure comic artists get this all the time anyway, but my sneer is slightly more pronounced. I think it’s because I’m not only drawing silly comics, I’m doing them on the internet, which we all know isn’t real anyway.

 

I think it’s quite funny. All of the supposed “downsides” to webcomics are actually what make them amazing.

 

They’re free! You don’t earn any money from that!

 

Most comics make most of their money from merchandise. For example I also write a little steampunk comic book. I can sell a 28 page comic book for £3, or a poster for £5. Posters sell more, take me less time to make and take me far less work. T-shirts are even more profitable.

 

By making your comic free, you’re opening it up to far more fans. More fans means more fans with money, means more merchandise, means more money.

 

This year alone I earned enough money from my web comic for it to be a full time job. All that money was in donations, merchandise and print copies of the books that fans decided to buy anyway, even when they could still read it free online.

 

Anyone can make one! Being a webcomic artist is easy, it doesn’t mean you’re actually good!

 

Well, you do have a point there. That’s why when I talk about my comic, I mention how many hits I get a day (to give you an idea, a quick google tells me I get the same as 1000awesomethings). With anyone having the ability to make a webcomic, it can sometimes be hard to weed through the copy pasta, lazily drawn, filler filled comics packing out the internet.

 

But think about it. Anyone can write a webcomic. Webcomics get such a vast range of authors, and in consequence subjects, that I would consider them to be one of the most diverse, interesting and creative forms of media that exists today.

 

To use myself as an example, (because I am a fantastic example of this) if I hadn’t written a webcomic, I would have never been published. I write about gay things, and while the world is changing, people aren’t exactly banging at my door begging to publish my stories where the girls kiss each other. This is also because while I like drawing comics, I’m not a great artist. I wouldn’t have met the standard to be published as a comic writer, especially with my earlier work. Maybe in a few years time I could have presented work to a publisher and been picked up, but without drawing my comic I wouldn’t have gotten the drive to get better at art to get myself to a professional level. Webcomics are a transitional stage for many artists, which give them the experience in comic writing to go into other work.

 

By putting my comic online I have tested the market. I have proven that there are many lonely queer people out there, looking for comics that make them feel less like freaks. The same applies to any type of author out there who doesn’t want to write about characters who are straight, white, cis gendered males who’s just discovered they have super powers (though things are getting better). With no standards of publishing, webcomics make their own standards, and through that they bring amazing work that would have otherwise been ignored into the light.

 

But I don’t like reading things on a computer! Can’t it just be in book form?

 

I prefer to read things online. It could be that I was brought up on computers, so I am a child of technology, but I honestly prefer reading on my phone or desktop. I’ve read more on the computer than I have printed books (to give an idea, in my college days when I first discovered fan fiction I read for at least 4 hours a day, every day. In print books I read about 100 pages an hour, so that’s almost 300,000 pages, or 835 average length novels in the space of 2 years). There are many people out there also like me.

 

However not everyone is like me. Personally, I consider things and people on the internet to be as valid as things I encounter in real life. Other people are still getting used to the idea. Many people have never even used the internet, so to them my work doesn’t even exist. We’re currently moving from the physical to digital age, so it’s going to take some getting used to. Digital music is now sold online in massive quantities and the music industry is way ahead when it come to online sales, but it’s only a short amount of time until everything else catches up.

 

But just because something is online doesn’t mean it can’t be printed, and showing something online first tests the waters to see if people will buy it. Many webcomics get self published, which is actually a fantastic way to be published.

 

To put things in perspective, if you get picked up by a publisher who sells your books in stores, after the cost of printing and retail mark-up you’re only going to get around £1 per book. Normally less. Self publishing, while you’re paying the initial printing costs and have a much smaller market, you get a lot more per book.

 

So you’ve convinced me, how do I get into these webcomic things?

 

Well, as an artist your best thing is just to get working on it. The worst thing you can do in life is say you’re going to do something and never get around to it. Even if it’s rubbish, just make some work, and chuck it up onto one of the free webcomic hosts like Drunk Duck or Comic Genesis

 

If you’re a reader, then just go to a site like Top Webcomics, and work your way down the list until you find things you like. Then go to the links page of comics you like to see if there’s anything similar that tickles your fancy. Now enjoy the wonderful world of webcomicdom.