If you can find cooperative venues, and have a funny comic (or at least, an idea for funny stage show version of your comic,) you could potentially make extra cash doing puppet shows. If you are doing SFW comics, this is infinitely easier to get gigs at birthday parties, professional trade shows, conventions, schools, festivals, fairs and other family-friendly events. If your work is aimed towards a more mature audience, don’t fret. If you are willing to do some research, you might find cabarets, bars, adult-friendly conventions, comedy clubs and even art venues that might be open to more raunchier or more serious fare.  When you book a paid gig, make sure that venue you book will actually pay you (rather than charging you rent to be on stage.) At the very minimum, look for a place let you keep all your tips. If you are booking parties on your own, be sure to ask for payment upfront.

I did this for years, and found it to be the most fun way to monetize my work. Additionally, if you sell merchandise at events where you perform, you could potentially make even more money than you would on the performance itself.  Even better, you will begin to cultivate a loyal audience outside the comics niche, the more you perform.

Cheap novelties like stickers, buttons and bookmarks can sell well, and they often prove to be bread and butter items for many comic creators. However, your sales numbers can be adversely affected if, other people are giving them out for free.  To solve this conundrum add value to your items by making into premium items.  Making limited-edition print runs for items like buttons, t-shirts and signed-collectible cards with the name of the event, can raise their value very quickly. Buy one get one free sales can also add value to items competing against giveaway goodies.

How To Find Collaborators That Work

I’ve have some amazing collaborators that have worked out wonderfully for me, but it took a lot of trial and error to find a system for identifying these kinds of folks. Here’s what I’ve learned about getting quality collaborators that last.

- Unless the collaborator is a co-creator with an interest for a project’s long-term well being, don’t give up or share your copyrights with them. Ever. It might end well (as it did for The Nine Lives of Catnose,) but more often than not, it will end badly, and sometimes with lawyers, if one of you drop the ball or abandon the collaborative project.

- If you have an intimate/romantic/close-friendship relationship with a collaborator, make sure that you both are able to separate personal from professional. Otherwise, the project will die a horrible death if your relationship dissolves. My current husband and I collaborate constantly, but he makes sure to use a pen name to separate his artist-self from his marital self. When he is business, he is absolutely professional to the point that if we divorced, we could continue working as a team with absolutely no emotional issues since we both know what our professional boundaries are. In fact, our professional relationship has reached the point where my husband has said on record, “Has my check cleared? Then yes, I love it,” when asked about our longest-running collaboration. He treats this as a job and I love him for it.

- Always have a back-up for a collaborator and/or be able to mimic your collaborator’s style of writing or art, in case of an emergency. If you can’t do either, then you’re not ready to collaborate.

- Communicate often, respectfully and honestly. It makes things easier for everyone involved.

- Avoid drunkards, partiers, drug-addicts, drama queens, interns who aren’t applying themselves in their studies, people with regular financial problems/late rent payments (that they mention or ask you to help them with,) those who can’t fill out tax forms/contracts, people who do not share your communication style, people who don’t share your values and, people who aren’t as interested in your project as you are, regardless of how talented or qualified they might be. If you do have someone with a problem, make sure that they are upfront about it, and that you are kept on the loop of how they are dealing with it, should you feel that the individual is worth the risk. Otherwise, find someone else to work with.

- Document your progress and keep your collaborators on the loop on how your business is running.

- If you or someone close to you have ANY have any misgivings about a collaborator, do not work with them. If you are uncertain about someone at all, 99% of the time that person is not a good match.

- Make sure that you have similar aesthetic tastes. I had one collaboration fizzle out because I could not deal with my collaborator’s love of Portishead and she couldn’t deal with my love for cheesy pop. Seriously.

- Treat your collaborators like you’d like to be treated.

- Always keep a large buffer. It saves a lot of grief in the long-run if either of you has an issue or injury.

- If a collaborator and you must part ways, pay what you promised, be civil and professional, and don’t publish any unpublished work that make either of you uncomfortable. It will make things easier.

Are your print comic books not selling as fast as you would like them to see?  Is the price of producing the books too high to justify a reasonable markup? Why not solve both of these problems by bundling your books and some pre-made items as part of a gift set?

My biggest selling items at events and conventions have usually been gift sets that are bundled  together with my mini-comics. Making something as simple as a small gift basket full of inexpensive yet irresistible goodies, is a great way to add value to your comic’s branding. It’s also a sneaky way to reach markets that your comic books might not have been able to reach otherwise.

For example, I once packaged a small black and white photocopier mini-comic that was targeted to young men with ramen noodles, matches, a single clean spare sock, a cheap pen, a notepad, a condom and a chocolate bar. I wrapped the items in newspaper and duct tape. The cost of materials for this funny gift set came to about $3. I charged $11 for the set which I called, “The Dude Kitt”. I sold the darn things out and had orders for more. Many women bought “The Dude Kitt” to give away as gifts, or part of a gag care package for the men in their lives.  More importantly, it got the comics sold.

Is The New Google Image Search Causing Problems?

If the new Google Image Search is cutting down your webcomic traffic while simultaneously wasting more of your bandwidth, here’s a quick solution:

Edit your robots.txt file in your public_html directory, and add this little bit of code:

User-agent: Googlebot-Image
Disallow: /

That’s all there is to it!

HIATUS

Had I not put Rasputin Catamite into hiatus, an otherwise enjoyable project would have died a premature death. At the time when I faced this decision, I felt burnt-out from working simultaneously on too many webcomics while updating much more often than reasonable. As a result, inspiration to write new stories dried out, and the art stopped speaking to me. It felt sloppy and rushed. I couldn’t deal with the drop in quality, so I made a choice to find someone to help me deal with the workload while at the same time taking an extended break to build a buffer. As soon as I hired an artist that I felt understood this project, I let my readers know a specific date for the return of Rasputin Catamite. Thanks to a half year hiatus, Ram Lama had enough time able to create an absolutely extraordinary six-month buffer that made life for me as a writer a lot more enjoyable. Ultimately, with the fresh art and refreshed inspiration, RaspCat became a much better webcomic.

CANCEL OR CONCLUDE

When I shut down webcomics wholesale, it’s usually because they are ready to die and no one is reading, or because there is no funding. If the comic was decent, but I am sick of it, (like the Nine Lives of Catnose or The Upir’s Mark blog,) I will conclude it and let the website sit in stasis on the web as a happy memory, forever and ever. It’s the least I can do for the people who followed my work loyally, and will miss horribly it should it disappear.

If I hate the comic, and I never want to look at it again, that’s a less pleasant story. If I hate my own work, fans can sniff that from miles away. They will usually abandon the webcomic in droves because it was probably as awful to read, as it was for me to make. When things reach this point of no return, I will kill the website completely, sell the domains and scream good riddance at the despised comic. If you’ve never heard of Polska Sucka, there’s probably a good reason for that. It had it coming.

REASONS BEYOND ONE’S CONTROL

When I shut down a project because for reasons beyond my control, it’s nothing short of a heartbreak for me. For example, I used to have this neat college-themed comic that I created ages ago. It that had the highest visitor numbers of any of my websites, ever, and I loved it. Alas, the lead artist and copyright co-owner got a job at a Christian graphic design firm. It is my understanding that she decided that I was doing the devil’s work and completely disavowed any evidence of her working with me. Any attempt at communications so I could get those issues resolved were met with silence. The comic sat on hiatus for months, as I sat confused on whether to continue. The audience dwindled, and I had no idea if I even had the legal right to keep the webcomic online. As a result, I had to shut it down completely. This and another incident incident where the co-author of the comic and I had a rather spectacular and public falling out, is what ultimately turned me become a copyright tyrant who is unwilling to share the rights of my creations with my collaborators (though I try to be generous with licensing.) This of course makes me feel like a total greedy jerk, but I treat this as a matter of protecting my brainchildren from being murdered over a parental dispute, so to speak.

MONEY MATTERS

Finances are really the worst when it comes making rational decision about ending a webcomic. When the Dissident Priest project and the Rasputin Barxotka projects were defunded, I completely lost it in the personal realm. I went into panic attacks, crying fits and insomnia. I honestly felt like a complete failure and I felt like I was letting the readers down. Miraculously, I managed to maintain some semblance of calm in my professional life, but it was incredibly hard. I shut down my beloved Dissident Priest webcomic because of the shame I felt over the failure, in spite of having a loyal following that desperately wanted to save it, and had even asked to pre-order books. I sold the domain and decided to only re-release the series as a rebranded e-book, because it hurt too much to continue it after the holy smackdown I was given by its former patron. I often wonder whether it was a terrible mistake to cancel Dissident Priest. I am inclined to think that it was.

I nearly shut down Rasputin Barxotka too, but I could not bring myself to doing so. Killing my two most cherished projects in one fell swoop felt like it was too much. Thankfully, Mandarr offered to work for free on a volunteer basis (it didn’t come to that, and in the end she continued to get paid,) and one very generous donor in particular, gave us enough money to keep the project going without interruption until Loki was able to luck out on some extra money that he earned at the farm. It is a pleasure that Rasputin Barxotka is still alive and growing. Asking for help before shutting the project down over money, was the best thing I could have done.

TAKEAWAYS

Here’s what creators can learn from my experiences:

- If the reason you are shutting down your webcomic is because you are sick of it, no one wants to read it and you hate looking at it. Kill it, the website and its branding with quickest and most merciless death possible. There is no reason to allow something that makes you cringe to needlessly fester on the web. Besides, it’s very therapeutic to kill bad webcomics.

- If you just need help, take a hiatus, hire someone to assist you, or find a volunteer. You might be pleasantly surprised with the results of a collaborator and a nice vacation.

- If you are sick of your webcomic, feel it has reached the end of its life cycle, don’t find it to be entirely awful, and people still appreciate it, then leave it on the web as a happy souvenir, either on hiatus or as a concluded project. That way, your fans won’t be devastated by the loss, and if you ever feel like restarting it or doing a one-off update, you will still have that option.

- If you have to kill your webcomic for any other reason, it will make you feel like crap. So, don’t jump the gun on cancelling it unless you feel that you absolutely have no other choice.

- Unless you have lots of bucks for lawyers, there’s little you can do if a comic has to finish because of copyright disputes. It sucks, but that’s how it goes.

- If your webcomic has a loyal audience and crew, and you still have the motivation, but you are out of funds and discouraged, don’t throw in the towel yet. Swallow your pride and ask for help. It’s absolutely amazing what people will do to save their favorite projects when push comes to shove.

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

Listen to Webcomic Beacon #202: The Hiatus and The Return.

I’ve been having a blast an a half making guest comics in the last few months, and I’d like to share some of my latest endeavors.

• Magenta the Witchgirl is a cute webcomic, and I could not resist doing this vignette of the title character’s daily chores.
• On The Prophet’s Garden, I submitted a heartbreaker.
• Killjoy features a pinup of Maire.
• You can catch one of my most treasured what-if fan art scenarios of Deacon and Jeff at Yaoi 911.
• Another fun pinup can be seen at Jaime Jupiter.
• I sent in a rather insane entry for the Hate Farm Fan Art Contest.
• What was originally meant as a donor thank you card for Charlie at Groovy Kinda, ended up being an actual guest comic.
• I made a piece of fan art for Casual Notice that also happens to be the first guest art for Nebraska City, a new comic by B. Hainley. I feel very honored for this opportunity.
• On M9 Girls, I had the honor of being the first person to submit International fan art.  See the entries in my native Spanish tongue, and in English as well.
• With my guest artist appearance on Argument Comic, I make my favorite kind of fart joke; one involving a sexy lady.  In a refreshing change of pace, the author actually refers to me as something other than female, which makes me deliriously happy.  (Although I have been legally female from birth, biologically, I am neither male nor female. I’m just pretty and more feminine thanks to the wonders of science.)

What The Characters Have Been Doing

• Vanesa Catnose has also been keeping busy herself since retiring from doing her own webcomic. When taking time off from being a spokestoon at Catnose Comics, my girl has been moonlighting as a commando and enjoying the swank life in Barcelona with the girls at Steampunk Gorgon.
• Catnose has also a cameo on And to Be Loved.  She’s the one with the hula hoop next to the Rasputin Barxotka booth.
• Camello, and Tsar have been spotted on Groovy Kinda, along with a sardine chomping Dima.

Hope you had fun looking!

Plugins or WordPress-Based Sites

• Comic Easel http://comiceasel.com/ (What I use and love.  Frumph’s support board is very helpful, but this is not a plugin for the technologically inept or the code-fearing.)
• Comic Press http://comicpress.org/ (Easiest to use, but it’s no longer being updated, as far as I can tell.)
• Webcomic http://webcomicms.net/ (As an alpha/beta tester, I can attest to Michael’s commitment to this plugin. Pretty impressive stuff.  Good customer service)

Mobile Site

• Dudamobile http://www.dudamobile.com/ (If you have a WordPress blog site, this is quite possibly the easiest way to make a mobile comics site for free.  There is a paid service, but I don’t use or really need it.)

Free Webcomic Hosts

• Comic Fury http://comicfury.com/ (Beyond awesome, best features for a free host, and great community.  I can’t say enough good things. Great for anyone, really, though there is some sort of drama between Chatzy and the boards that makes little sense to me.)
• Comic Genesis http://www.comicgenesis.com/ (It’s decent from what I understand, but I haven’t tried it.)
• Smack Jeeves http://www.smackjeeves.com/ (Not a fan, because of intellectual property issues with them in the past and issues other creators have had with their board admins. However, they seem to be changing that, so I am very optimistic about what the future holds.  Regardless of sentiment, If you are doing yaoi or manga and you need a free host, you’d be ill-advised not to have a presence here.  They have very busy forums!)
• Tumblr http://www.tumblr.com/ (The dashboard hurts my head and makes me want to cry, but this is a great community for those who do the alternative thing, gag-a-day comics or have sexy pin-up heavy work.)
• Webcomic Nation http://www.webcomicsnation.com/ (It’s adequate.)
• WordPress.com http://wordpress.com/ (It’s adequate, but you will outgrow it quickly if you want to have a professional quality site that doesn’t nickle and dime you with annoying add-on fees.  Nonetheless, you still want to have an account here to take full-advantage of  the features available if you have a WordPress-based webcomic site.)
• ComicHub.net http://comichub.net/ (Good for complete beginners who are technologically hopeless and need insane amounts of space, but I’d try elsewhere first.)
• Interrupted Reality http://interruptedreality.com/ (It seems adequate. I haven’t tried it.)
• The Duck http://www.drunkduck.com/ (It looks good and professional, but I am totally not a fan for a myriad of reasons.  Try at your own risk.)

If you liked these resource lists, be sure to visit Catnose.com on the first Thursday of every month for an useful indie comic creator tip that you can use for a more enjoyable experience in the world if sequential art.