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Posted: Sun Oct 24, 2004 5:52 pm Post subject: Re: Online Comic Venue
Ratteler wrote:
Hmmmm.... that is a problem.
So a $2 comic would leave $1.15. And both the site and the artist would get $0.57,
Uh, you mean the site would get .57 and the artist and writer would each get .285?
Why is the site getting half the profits again? They're certainly not putting in as much effort as the creators are. Shouldn't it be more like site gets 20% and the creators split the other 80%? Or better yet, the site charges a one-time fee to stock the book which they take from the first however many sales, and after that is paid the creators split all the profits?
Posted: Sun Oct 24, 2004 6:12 pm Post subject: Re: Online Comic Venue
Quote:
sunandshadow wrote:
"Why is the site getting half the profits again? They're certainly not putting in as much effort as the creators are."
Because the costs of operating a site like this are far more than you'd expect. The bandwidth (traffic and download usage) alone can run into the hundreds or thousands of dollars. Then add the merchant bank account fees, the $750 start-up fee that VISA requires before you can process VISA cards, the $750 start-up fee for MasterCard....
You probably get the picture, now. While not affiliated with Animotions / Renderotica admin, I've had my own ventures and discovered how expensive these things are to operate. It's not an unreasonable deal.
Posted: Sun Oct 24, 2004 7:54 pm Post subject: Re: Online Comic Venue
sunandshadow wrote:
Uh, you mean the site would get .57 and the artist and writer would each get .285?
Why is the site getting half the profits again?
Have you ever tried to self publish?
$8000 out of your pocket up front to print 10,000 books.. You'll sell MAYBE 2500 books at $3 each. You'll only get about $1 each book out of those 2500. If your lucky. Doimond ussually make you pay $8000, and then get 60-70% of the books cover price.
You end up with 7500 books no one wants, and you spent $8000 to make $2500 at best. So you now $5500 in the hole.
Thats assuming you didn't waist a lot of money on advertising and marketing your book. You pay for your own advertising and promotion out of pocket too.
Or you can skip all that, and make $.57 cents a book. IF that works out. We still have to see if Diane thinks that's even remotely possible.
Joined: Jan 10, 2004 Posts: 107 Location: Atlanta, GA
Posted: Mon Oct 25, 2004 6:19 pm Post subject:
I'm currently really swamped with work as well, but being it we're talking about comics here, i wanted to add my one cent (I don't even have time for the other cent).
I don't even remember when we talked about this at another thread here at animotions, but back then the ideas were
1) to create a system where people could see a (for example) the first 4 pages of a 22-page comic for free, then if they wanna keep reading the story, they'd have to pay like 15 cents per page... the way to do this was you had to create an account with at least 5 dollars... that way, each time you viewed a page, 15 cents would discounted from those 5 dollars. When the 5 dollars were through, you'd have to pay another 5 dollars and so on.
2) to create a sort of "animotions premier comics", similar to the Premier Area of renderotica, where people would have to pay a subscription in order to read all the comics in the system.
3) to make an individual artist's paid area, where you would pay a subscription just to read that specific artist's comics.
All in all, I still think that packing your stories on a zip. or .exe files (or whatever the format to be used) and selling them at the animotions store (or renderotica store) is kind of the best solution. People will see your sample, and if they like your work, they'll buy the comic.
If the latter is finally implemented, I';d definately be interested. I have both NC-13 and XXX comics, so I have the whole target covered _________________ **************
sandmarine.com
**************
Not to throw a spanner in the works.
This is something that was attempted many moons ago at the old 3DCC site. I'm sure many of you will remember that it received pretty much the same reaction that I'm seeing here, but quicky faded away due to lack of action.
Money was never mentioned at any time, it was supposed to be a labour of love and maybe a showcase forum for aspiring professionals. Maybe it'll be different this time, since the possibility of cash has actually been mentioned.
If we're being serious, then I'm in.
I can write in any genre and can juggle multiple scripts simultaneously. I think that means I can multitask.
I co-self published my own comic in the early 90's but that died when I sold 150 comics less than I needed to break even, so I have sympathy for anyone who has ever tried following that route. _________________ If a thing is worth doing, it's worth overdoing.
Joined: Jan 10, 2004 Posts: 107 Location: Atlanta, GA
Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 2:12 am Post subject:
hmm, we slowed down to one post every other day (not a single post in this thread on october 26)... are we starting to see the fade away smudger is talking about? _________________ **************
sandmarine.com
**************
First... if we ALL started working on abook today, and worked on it nonstop to the exculsion of any real jobs or lives. It would take at LEAST 3 MONTHS to generate the first issue.
Unless some one is ready to go with a book, we won't see anything until January. The END of January.
That is A VERY optimisitic prediction.
Another problem is... we need a secure writers/artist area to discuss this stuff if we are going to work in groups. Because our art is our product here, we can't just post images and freely share story ideas. We need to hid that stuff from the general public that may eventually buy our book.
Also, if we can't sort out the CC/price problems, this might be a dead issue.
Another place we need to brainstorm is... after all the work is done, the vunue set up and the books in the store... How do we get readers here?
A full page ad in Wizard magazine costs about $8000 itself. I have no clue what a table at a Comic Con would cost, but I figure it's a simular amount. AND if we do some how collectivly invest in that kind of promotion, WHAT DO WE HAND OUT? Do we set up PC's with Internet access at the Con? That's definatly going to cost extra.
We could print out posters and other less expensive Promo material, but unless we're giving it away to generate interest we're not going to get much attention.
This is the real chink in our Armor. While Animotions has 39,773 registered members, our ACTIVE base is what... 20?
We really need sales in the thousands to make this even competitive with a Real Comic. That means reaching a new audience for this site, and pushing even beyond that to an audience that DOESN'T buy comic on a regular basis.
New readers? Ok, how about that for a start: I have an account at Drunk Duck and quite a few people visit the comic there and leave comment. If I had a commercial comic, I'd simply put an ad at my page - give some teaser and such. Those who actually enjoyed the free story could get interested.
Another idea - pop in the Renderosity Forum for Product Showcase and in the Gallery - let's face it, much more people watch their gallery, OK? Put a poster in the Gallery, a teaser poster. Put a link underneath, to a store. In the Showcase Forum discuss the project.
No money spent. _________________ ----
battle not with monsters
lest ye become a monster
and if you gaze into the abyss
the abyss gazes into you
Joined: May 30, 2002 Posts: 495 Location: Ohio - USA
Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 9:46 am Post subject: Re: Online Comic Venue
not to be the usual downer but Smudger has a point, back in the 3Dcc days we had over 20K members and this subject started like a rocket and fizzled out after a few weeks, am I excited or intrigued with the idea..yeah, I think it would be good, but with seeing items like this come and go for the last 8 or so years I know not to get too excited.
Unfortunately the history for this site has always been the same since it started, yes we have 37K members, but only a handfull participate, the other 36,990 only join to get the free stuff, once they get it their gone, they may stop back a month or two later to see if there's anything new but that's it. That's one reason why the freebies have dwindled..no real feed back...hell I know I do and I'm pretty sure Sturk does that in our read-me files the only thing we request is if you take our file send us an image that you did with it, now other than the dozen or so people here that are "active" I think I've received 2 and Sturk is about the same.
This is just my opinion but if this does take off and I hope it does, it still won't be as competitive as a real printed comic no matter how well it does...very few "online" comics are, you just can't "take them with you"....you can't roll them up and put them in your back pocket (not that I would do this...but youth these days) you can't read them in the car, or under the covers with a flashlight over at your friends house...or in the crapper (unless you're wireless...and that's still not a picture I want to paint).
I guess my point is don't be disappointed if enthusiasm starts to slack off...it's going to, as long as we keep some enthusiasm then we may have a chance at this, but like Ratteler said it's still going to be early next year before anything is even close to being ready.
Y'all are right that we need new audiences. I have been making motions toward getting in contact with high school art classes and the Art Institute in San Francisco. What I want to demonstrate to them is a pathway to employment: high school art -> Art Institute -> working graphic artist. Alternatively, a person could make a side income through sales of comix.
After doing a pilot, maybe I can find a way to get this on the agenda for the upcoming school year. I don't know squat about how schools work, but I'm not a shy person. I'll hit up the Governator in a heartbeat.
There is something important going on here. I can't quite put my finger on it yet, but I don't think there is a better group of folks on the Net than AniMotions to bring 3D to the youth and young-at-heart.
I think we have a chance to dominate online comix. I think we should take the chance and go for it. OK, so we have some security and format issues to work through, but I say let's take the plunge.
And maybe someone can help me navigate the waters of the educational community?
Joined: May 30, 2002 Posts: 495 Location: Ohio - USA
Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 10:49 am Post subject: Re: Online Comic Venue
education...no no not education....
(let's see...mom's in education, dad's in education, grandmother in education, uncle in education, aunt in education, wife in education....seems like I have to educate all our customers...wonder why I'm sliding toward it??)
I don't have many contacts with the univ's but the highschools and assoc. colleges I have a few mediochre foot in the doors....
Actually, we don't. We just need the 39K+ members we already have to be more interested than they are. I'm sure we all know at least one person, maybe even two, who would be prepared to support this venture and that would take us into respectable numbers.
A strictly online comic, as has been mentioned already, can't hope to compete with a printed one, but you know, if there was a way to get it onto PDAs or cell phones maybe there's a chance of making a dent. _________________ If a thing is worth doing, it's worth overdoing.
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