The bible is flawed.
"How to Make Webcomics," which presents a serious working business model for making a living from webcomics:
- cannot be verified by the majority of case studies; and,
- appears to offer incorrect guidance about what sort of webcomics are most likely to succeed.*
The issue of the business model is of immediate importance to anyone entertaining a living wage, or even a part-time income, from webcomics. A review of my findings must:
- find my data is seriously in error; and/or,
- confirm the magnitude of the error, and its implications; and/or,
- identify missing data that would correct the outcomes from negative to positive and generally support a new analysis.
If the interpretation I offer is reasonably accurate, serious webcomics creators must:
- find a business model with a higher rate of success; or,
- lower their expectations.
I hope someone will find fault with my analysis, because if it is sound, it is a setback for webcomics. Sometimes, however, from a setback comes inspiration.
The Problem
"How to Make Webcomics" is not titled "How to Make a Living in Webcomics." Nonetheless, it contains a chapter on earning revenue that is probably among the most heavily read portions of the book. Most of the ideas seem sound, and the only serious error is presenting data with insufficient explanation. The consequences of this error, however, are serious.
The error is a sidebar by Dave Kellett:
"The 10% Rule"
"How many of your readers will actually buy a book, a t-shirt or a bumper sticker? Conventional wisdom among Webcartoonists is that 10% of your readership (5-10% playing it safe) will actually crack their wallets. It's a useful metric to keep in mind when you start pursuing different kinds of merch."
Doing some fact-checking (for I am using the HalfPixel plan for my own comics), I discovered that the 5-10% figure, called the sell-through rate, seems unique to the book. Every sell-through rate I found on the internet pertaining to t-shirts and similar merchandise was 1%, and in one case, half of 1%. The last is from one of the most successful names in webcomics, Chris Crosby.
The obvious situation is either HalfPixel has over-optimistic forecasts, or something special is happening in webcomics. Perhaps a special sort of fan loyalty has emerged to drive higher sell-through rates. (To check that, I developed a statistic for fan loyalty that as statistical instruments go isn't fantastic but isn't bad. It tells me that comics with unusually high fan loyalty scores might turn moderately insufficient traffic into sufficient traffic, but it wouldn't perform miracles. We'll visit that another day.)
I contacted Dave Kellett and asked where he got his data. He kindly spent a lot of time emailing me, and I think I can sum up his position as being:
- The data comes from "years" of conversations with people who are "making a living" [his emphasis] from their webcomic;
- I read the book recklessly, failing to perceive the "central tenet" that the figures are for 5-10 years after a comic is launched (lowered to three years in a later email).*
I think it would be fair to speculate that other distractions may have prevented Dave from reading all my emails carefully, making it difficult to stay focused. I came away with these conclusions:
- Dave stands by his numbers, and offered me four specific examples of people whose experience supports them. Besides Dave himself, there was one I have already verified, one who appears in another book using the 1% figure and a somewhat unique, "niche" comic. These may simply be who came to mind first;
- Dave doesn't place much faith in anything I say (I'm sure he's not alone);
- Dave seems to overestimate the amount of warnings in the book regarding precisely when and if you should have a go at the webcomic profession, and seems to underestimate the amount of cheerleading;
- I continue to respect Dave, but I don't think he and I are personally on the same wavelength, which happens in life.
- I didn't mention this quote from the book, which seems to plan more ambitiously: "You're nearing the start of your third year in webcomics. You've done a book through print-on-demand, you've exhibited at two or three conventions, and you're going to order your first run of t-shirts with a clever design..." This suggests the book's plan sees some trial and error POD and Cafe Press experiments to be followed by an actual, fledgling merchandise operation circa month 22. Presented with the 5-10% sell-through rate, the reader is left to assume the high sell-through from the beginning. Also, without discussion of circulation, it seems that arbitrary chronological benchmarks are risky.
I decided the next step was to look at some case studies.
I've decided not to identify the comics I am using for my case study, because if I make an error and someone becomes upset, it will distract from the goal of checking and refining the HalfPixel business plan. I've chosen comics in a range of sizes from a list in Wikipedia which reports comics that support their creator(s). If you are fairly informed about webcomics and you visit the list, you will see that there are comics which should not be on it. An example of this is "Hero by Night" by DJ Coffman, since he no longer controls the comic, and I'm sure it's an oversight. But there are also more than a few dreamers... I set aside a screen shot, as a study in human nature, and a hedge against sudden rewrites. We might also want to look at how the "Fake it till you make it" ruse distorts the truth, one day.
I removed the ones that don't belong and analyzed the rest. The sample of case studies below, with numbers slightly fudged for anonymity but not enough to affect outcome, all present claims to self-sufficiency that can be used to test the HalfPixel model. This is because with most comics we lack income data, but any comic claiming self-sufficiency has to be making a minimal amount of profit -- at least $15 - 20,000/year, after taxes, by my reckoning, and even that is pretty low.
The formula for estimating each comic's profit is:
We use a sell-through rate of 5%, at the conservative end of the Halfpixel model.
We assume the average profit per sale is $5 -- typical for a t-shirt, thus:
Traffic x .05 x 5 = Profits before taxes (This variation can be simplified to Traffic x .25 if you want to run some on your own.)
#1
Monthly traffic: 8,050
Profits before taxes: $2,012
#2
Monthly traffic: 69,080
Profits before taxes: $17,270
#3
Monthly traffic: 32,000
Profits before taxes: $8,000
#4
Monthly traffic: 3,900
Profits before taxes: $975
#5
Monthly traffic: 96,000
Profits before taxes: $24,000
Note that I was careful to avoid people who may have had big years, such as Chris Onsted, who produced the No. 1 graphic novel of the year, according to Time Magazine.
It's a safe bet that anyone substantially over 100,000 traffic is doing well or very well, though I don't know if that can be said for a title like "Cyanide and Happiness," with its numerous creators.
Obviously, there are plenty of people on the list who either aren't earning a living from their strip, are on it accidentally, don't know they are on it or who have income from their comic that does not appear as a result of this analysis. Let's examine that next.
Possible Errors in the Analyses
- Faulty data. Possible in some cases, but so many were checked from multiple sources or checked for believability by statistical instruments, I think not.
- Wrong variables used. You can double the profit or the sell-through, and the profit will double. If you think those higher numbers are more realistic, use them, but please explain why. I would like to know.
- A glitch involving what's a monthly number and what's a yearly number. Dave's sell-through has to involve readers of the course of the year, or we'd be minting webcomic millionaires. Monthly traffic can be adjusted to determine unique visitors, readers, loyal fans, and so on. My method pulls slightly low (due to reader attrition and replacement over a year), but I can't find an alternative that is both valid and produces a happier result. In fact, if the 5-10% rate is firmly based on annual sales, my downward pull is already built into Dave's model -- as an over-estimation of the sell-through, because the actual number of people in the audience over one year is higher than 12 x (one month's readership).
- Hidden income. This is my personal favorite "nice" answer: cash transactions at conventions sound particularly appealing as a hidden income source, not often spoken about in public. Some of the case studies I did are of convention warhorses who reputedly achieve stunning sales levels at conventions. The problems with this is we have to remember the significant overhead involved in conventions, from booth rental to food and lodging; and we must note that "stunning sales" at a convention would mostly be to non-readers. Such cold sales might be a valuable income source for some comics, but they are no different than if I made a bunch of pottery, sold it at a pottery fair, and counted it as webcomic reader income. For this model, there is a dividing line between merchandise sales directly linked to your comic and those which are not. The point of concern comes when the appeal of the merchandise is unrelated or substantially disconnected from your comic, such that the buyer is unlikely to become a reader. I personally don't mind selling merchandise related to my comic but if I have to sell miscellaneous novelties and tomorrow's trash today items, I would prefer to know up front, as I would not find that appealing.
- Both the 1% and the 5-10% models are wrong. This is possible, and I bet the model has been beaten on occasion, but the reason this probably isn't true is that it would mean webcomics are really, wonderfully profitable, and it's been kept a secret.
- Exaggeration. If the human tendency to exaggerate is accurately reflected by the Wikipedia self-supporting webcomic list, then we can assume that there has been serious inflation in webcomic financial reporting. Of all the possible explanations, I think this will take the lion's share, but I retain an open mind, hoping for more data.
- Above 100,000 readers, the model does begin to work, for the six or so comics at that level.
- Some observers were tempted to cite various other sorts of income, both closely and distantly related to webcomics, as explanations for the earnings gap. The fact is, we are testing a specific model, and we can't modify it to make it fit a desired outcome. It's possible we can write a new model, but until others have critiqued this analysis, it seems premature.
Remarkably, on the day I wrote this, Kris Straub, one of the HalfPixel guys and co-author of "How to Make Webcomics," announced that he has taken a full time job.
_________
*This second point will be addressed in the future.
Special thanks to the twelve webcomickers who volunteered to assist with data gathering and fact checking. An impressive group, to be sure.
27 comments:
I thought the 0.5% - 1% was a given, so 10% to me just sounds like crazy talk!
People may say "what does he know?"
I say "I know it ain't 10% dummy!"
Anyway the whole point of How To books is to make money for the authors, money you might or might not want to factor into your stats!?!!?, not to educate the gormless.
I have a new book out shortly entitled "How To **** my ****" I expect to sell 100% of copies at 100% profit. Welcome to La-La Land!
It depends a lot on how you define readership.
I personally don't think monthly stats are a very useful indication of readership levels. My own comic gets 8000-9000 UIPs (unique ip's) per month but on updates we get about 850-950 in a day (for the record, we don't get, nor could we possibly get, anywhere near $2000 in profits).
The monthly uip count is especially flawed if you consider update schedule. A strip updating daily would gets its monthly uip numbers inflated by sheer virtue of dynamic ips.
Looking at hits instead of uips would be even worse because then you get "archive size" as an additional but important variable.
From my own statistics I'd say we have about 900 actual regular readers and from instinct as well as polling I've done amongst my readers (a small sample to be sure) I'm pretty sure that it's this number and not the monthly or yearly that needs to be taken as a base. Even then 10% seems unlikely high and I'd go with 1-2% myself (so 1-2% of 900, not of 8000 and certainly not of 8000*12).
A third factor - one that cannot easily by quantified - is the subject matter and format of the comic. A gag-a-day strip is going to be able to sell tshirts much more easily due to the fact that the gag would work without knowing the strip. Some strips lean themselves very well to be put on walls, shirts, mugs etc. xkcd is a prime example here.
I don't quite understand how your numbers are any less imaginary than dave's. The only figure you don't seem to have made up out of whole cloth is the traffic numbers on these websites?
And conventions sales don't count for anything? I hope I am reading that part wrong.
Problogger who is somewhat obnoxious sometimes says 1000 hits a day with affiliate programs nets about $400+ a month. That is 30,000 hits a month.
To earn a living with affiliate junk-- 10,000 hits a day is enough for a solid $40,000 plus income (a living wage). Another problogger idea.
You are not doing affiliate programs so there is probably a little more money. Imagine 1% of 1000 people buy an item when you visit a site that is 10 sales. With T-shirts that is $5.00 per shirt or $50. Not much money.
Lucky for you not being an affiliate site that would have been 50 cents per shirt or $5.00 per day. The owner of the products would get $45.00. This is why affiliate sites are so popular for companies.
10,000 hits $500 a day.
Now lets say following the logic of you having a physical place to sell merchandise in addition to a store. A lot of people have seen your website.
When you go to a convention because of your website a % of users have seen your site and want to buy your merchandise because you are there. Your web presence increased your sales at the convention by x% (advertising).
I am going to give the example of a small boutique who has an online store. They sell 30% more online, and get an additional 30% increase in walk in traffic from the site. Many people don't want to buy online but will buy in person.
A lot of people think Problogger is full of hot air, but it took him three years before he became popular enough to earn a decent income online. I actually liked reading his book. It made me realize I wouldn't earn money online.
ProBlogger: Secrets Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett
book calendar: Your argument breaks down very easily. You are presuming that if you have 10000 hits every day that these are somehow different people every day and that 1% of them will buy something every day. The reality is of course that if you have 10000 hits in a day there's really only about 2000-5000 people (the rest being double pageviews) and that the next day (if you update daily) over half of those will be the same as the day before.
I'm also hoping you'll elaborate on your point about conventions sales, because you lost me there. How do convention sales not count towards webcomic income?
Yep, add me to the convention sales question. How does it not compute? (Less expenses, obviously).
I seriously appreciate you looking into this, it's a good idea. Having said that, I have the same reservations after reading this I made over at TWCL. You aren't taking the "whole pie" into consideration.
It seems that all you are considering is 5% of a fixed number of purchases of visitors to a comic site. Problems:
1) As a comic guy yourself, you should know how extremely difficult it is to get a real handle on what that number is. I content there is no way to know what anyone's real readership is until you speak to them directly.
2) That number changes constantly - it ebbs and flows and you get new people in who *might* be more likely - or less - to buy.
3) Different people purchase different things. This may be where the whole 5-10% thing comes in. I agree in general 1% makes MUCH more sense. However, Dave Kellet has people buying his artwork at 75-100 dollars or more a pop. That's going to skew his numbers up.
4) Merchandising affects those numbers - especially stuff sold at a convention! This is not stuff that you can necessarily tie to online numbers. Books done right can be very profitable (Not cafe press/Lulu books which will net you nothing at all - see Tony Piro's info on his book) allowing you to profit.
5) "Superfans" - they buy a lot of stuff and raise the curve. This is somewhat unique to comics in general. Think about collecting back issues or strip reprint books. An online blog has no equivalent item to something like that. Comics do.
6) I still content you *must* take into account ALL income sources that point back to the comic. If I sell one strip to a magazine and they pay me $500 - it counts. If I get hired to do a series of 10 comics for a trade magazine for $2000 because of my strip, it counts. NONE of this can be tied back to my online numbers.
7) Advertising - you don't mention it at all, although I'm sure it's included in your base number in your mind. But this is something that varies WIDELY based on the comic and the niche they are in. What about crossovers and such? For some of these guys, advertising dollars generate a lot of income - and again this is not based on any percentage of readers buying anything. It's about site traffic and clicks. Those are different sets of data.
I will say that 3-5 years is probably right - good luck making much at all before then. You really need to build a readership and that is hard to do over the long haul.
I can tell you that in my first 6 months I think I have actually done well - and I have taken in a total sum of $50 from one source for promoting something for them (again, not something tied to my numbers) and maybe $25 in ad revenue. I've spent WAAAY more than that! :)
Yeah, this is gonna take awhile.
But there's a bigger picture here I just think you are not considering when trying to boil it down to a simple number based on a percentage of fans buying merch. You simply can't bake it down to that.
To be fair - maybe the HTMW guys have not clearly stated that enough, but I do not think the book was supposed to be primarily about making money, as I have stated before.
Anyway, good work on this and I'm glad it's providing some stimulating conversation!
@Tom Let's review.
1. The only sites where it is difficult to estimate maximum readership are very small ones. I suspect those who think otherwise just don't know how to obtain the data -- and check it.
2. The number does ebb and flow, which is why I often used a 12 month average.
3. I couldn't find enough sites with substantial art sales to suggest that the missing revenue is from art. It might explain a few cases.
4. Books are included as merchandise. Convention sales are considered, but mega-convention sales fall out of the model we are testing and must be evaluated separately.
5. "Superfans" raise the curve, and people who buy nothing lower it. That's why we use an average.
6. Read carefully. We are testing a specific model. It's not a fair test if we modify the model.
7. Advertising is mentioned in the HalfPixel model, so is included as a revenue source. I know of one strip that can almost -- but not quite -- make a living off advertising, but for most it is a distant second at best after merchandise.
I am not "boiling it down to a percentage of fans buying merch." I am indicating the primary income source for most comics, and asking if other income sources in the HalfPixel model are sufficient to explain the gap. If the answer is no, as it appears to be in the majority of cases, then we can ask your question about other income sources. A comic where those might count heavily is PvP, but though many income sources have been proposed, the majority seem minor and few seem widely pursued among comics. There is a "reality check" factor: while it seems possible to imagine a scenario where they might explain the problem, a sober review seems unlikely to conclude that they will, based on what I have been able to learn so far. Anyone holding data is invited to step forward.
@mithandir I developed a loyalty score check to give a second reading on this. Indeed, a conservative interpretation of "reader" hurts the HalfPixel model. The loyalty score helps flag comics that appear to under or over-perform, offering an explanation. It's another way of accounting for the "superfan" phenomenon, for those who want to up the profit variable to account for it.
@ andrew Have confidence. You are reading that part wrong.
As for "making up numbers out of whole cloth," why don't you select a few examples and I'll explain from where they were derived.
@ttallan Sure, no problem. Convention sales absolutely do count as income in the HalfPixel model. But two things must be considered:
1. If Kellett's sell-through rate includes convention sales, it is including a lot of non-readers in the total, and fails to say so after having implied that readership is the foundation of a sales projection. I haven't been to a convention in a long time, but I would imagine that unless a convention was promoting someone heavily as a featured guest, the percentage of readers in the convention population would be proportional to the total in the same way as internet readers would be proportionate to internet users. The HalfPixel book describes selling to people who do not know your work in some detail, including how to hustle them to "buy up," so these non-reader sales are not really addressed in the model or in the sell-through rate. That leaves us to guess. We can do this by looking at the case studies and asking ourselves if the convention sales might propel them into an income level that would be appealing. As I said, this is a possible explanation and I hope somewhere this data will emerge. I also found some problems with the idea that it is the likely explanation, though that just means it has extra hurdles to jump, not that it's wrong. Plenty of people out there have this data, but will they present it so we can learn? I personally don't want to be a professional webcomicker if it means I have to attend conventions, because noise and crowds are not my thing. I have a lot riding on the answer to this question. Even if some people want to offer data anonymously (identifying themselves to me, but not being named), especially if they are validly on the Wiki list, that would be excellent. My email address is in the side column.
Everybody raised important points, and while some don't seem to hold up, I'm sure it helps clarify what I am trying to say for other readers, and I thank you all. You are helping to review and analyze this model, which is the first step toward re-evaluating it, and revising if necessary.
My goal is a strong business model that is transparent and supported by reliable numbers. I think that is the goal of the HalfPixel guys as well, and Dave, Brad, Scott and Kris should be commended for taking it as far as they have. Though my tone or reporting style may grate (I hope not) and it may be disappointing to be found wanting, I think I and everyone reading this recognize the enormity of their contribution.
Whew, this is deep. We'll just have to differ on readership. I think there's more to getting that number than just looking at numbers (ha, that sounds dumb). We're really talking FANS not readership. We're kind of talking about the long tail too. It seems to me only the creator who has been around for awhile, knows his numbers AND has a feel for how many people talk to him at conventions, email him directly and so forth has a real clear picture of the type of fan base he has. I just don't agree that you can pull that data on your own.
In addition only he knows how many of those fans are "buyers" and what they like to spend. I'm sure it varies widely based on the comic.
So I guess I would say that I don't have any real confidence in your numbers that this is based on. So the stuff about averages to me is a moot point.
I'm not sure how you could know about people who have substantial art sales. Who is providing that data publicly? AFAIK, Kellet is the only person that I have read that revealed anything at all about his sales in that regard. I see this as another unknown until artists come forward with more info - pro or con. It's not something that can be estimated based on what you see on their site. (Hello conventions again).
Why are convention sales allowed but "mega" ones NOT allowed? That doesn't make any sense. A convention is a convention. The big ones are where a big chunk of earnings can come from. It's like saying to a retailer, give me your sales for this year, but - exclude Christmas. If your model doesn't allow for this, I contend its flawed.
On superfans - if you have a property that generates a lot of these, then your curve might get raised a lot. I understand your point though.
Regarding the model - I get the point. But you are wondering where this extra money may be coming from, and I'm telling you.
Also regarding advertising, some guys really cash in on certain types of ads. I wish I could remember specifics, I think the WCW guys have talked about this on one of the podcasts (Kurtz for sure). For example, Penny Arcade has been able to draw very specific and lucrative ads that tie into gaming. Not everyone can do this, but some titles can. I think this makes even more sense for niche comics. Now granted - I don't know how many titles actually take advantage of this.
If the base formula is merchandise sales derived from the webcomic plus advertising then there is no reason to disallow large mega con sales.
Just a note - I think that you are most likely on to something for the most part. It will take a lot of skill to create a title that generates the right kind of buzz and fandom to drive the right kind of sales and ads to succeed. Part of that is probably choosing your subject wisely and being innovative - and of course, being GOOD at what you do.
It also very much depends on what you call a "living" and I know that has been tossed around.
I do find it very interesting that Straub took a job. I really hope he speaks about that in an upcoming podcast.
@scartoonist: yeah, it still sounds like you're saying the people you sell to at cons don't count as readers. Huh? Conventions are one of the best ways to attract new readers-- it's that face-to-face connection that you just can't get online, and even for an introvert like myself, I consider it important and vital. I've heard from so many people, how do you reach out to new people who aren't already part of the insular webcomic community? Well, this is one of the ways. By meeting con attendees and selling stuff to them, you are gaining new readers. If they like what they bought, they will look online for more. Maybe they'll only ever buy from you at cons, but to my mind that doesn't make them any less of a reader.
OK, good stuff. First ttallan, then let's take some of Tom's thoughts and see how they might alter webcomic economics. I don't want to be accused of having a closed mind, as ideas and suggestions are what I want.
TTallan: Without a convention expert to assist, I can't speak to expertly. It seems, based on what I have been able to learn, that if you took everyone from the Wiki List who fails to make a good income, and assumed they did three successful cons a year selling $4K of goods for a profit after overhead of $1K (assuming a convention mark-up), then only several comics would move into the zone. If I take reports of convention skill and consistent remarkable achievement, (and it would have to be REALLY remarkable) then only one additional comic moves up.
I need someone who does a lot of cons to tell me what their average profit per cons is. In fact, I need a good sized sample, so I need more than one. They can even tell some neutral party and have that person vouch and deliver the numbers anonymously. Anonymous data is less desirable, but it's better than sparse data.
@Tom One thing I should do is review how readership is determined. Remember that erring on the high side helps the HalfPixel model, so that is what I have pretty consistently done. You can pay to subscribe to various well-known traffic reporting services, then compare their results and their sources, There are also some free sources, which need to be checked more carefully. In general, the sites that cross-checked well were the ones I used, setting aside any that had quirks. Usually, the only ones that had quirks were very small, and were not monitored by as many sources.
To double check data, I used separate data about site visit length and frequency to identify what we might call "steady" and "loyal" visitors. This allowed me to develop a way to measure the dedication of a readership of the comic by comparing loyal to non-loyal fans. One of the highest scoring comics for loyalty is 8-Bit Theater. This makes perfect sense: it's a sprite comic, and reputedly a good one as they go. Most people either loath or love sprites, so the fan base would be expected to be very steady -- and that's what the numbers show.
You can see that a comic with a sell-through score falling 20% below your idea of a good income but which has a fan loyalty rate like 8-Bit Theater could be given the benefit of the doubt if they were to claim they make a living wage.
However, you must beware of mitigating factors in the other direction. Suppose that even much-beloved sprite comics have a hard time coming up with merchandise that sells, for the theoretical reason that buyers get sick of explaining what's on their shirts. I've made this up as an example, but compare the merchandise prospects of 8-Bit or Toothpaste for Breakfast with Kawaii Cute, nemu nemu, Chloroville, or even my comics, with their large cast of cute and clever characters with high plush toy potential. Merchandise potential varies tremendously based on comic design, and presents mitigating factors, good and bad, that affect any single case study. That last sentence really ought to be in CAPS. Some comics, by bad luck of design choices, seem doomed to fail even if they become popular, because of limitations on merchandise tie-ins.
Your point about art sale data is dead on. I have a lot of anecdotal data and almost no firm data. It's meant watching people publicly try to sell art, and seeing if they are successful, and how often they do it, and what they make. I've mostly seen poor to so-so performances, but those are most likely to come to my attention. It would really help, again, if people would volunteer some data, even anonymously. There's a big problem for may of us, though: we draw on tablets, so any art to sell comes out of a printer. I would love to hear about success with this method. Recently, I've seen some struggling comics return to non-tablet production, and I wonder whether the resulting salable art was part of the calculation.
The HalfPixel model can be improved, there's no doubt, but we're going to need data, and that's going to require pros to lend a hand with some numbers. We're going to need ideas, and they've been coming in steadily, so I have no fears there. We're going to have to revise our models that predict what kind of comic is best to make, because the answer isn't as we all thought, even though the first answer was logical. We're going to have to protect privacy, but make most data public so more people can examine it. We're going to have to help all our colleagues understand that success under the current model is a long shot. We're going to have to put a value on part-time income, so people can calculate the average hourly wage of a webcomicker with a 4- or 5-figure annual income. We going to have to list and define the mitigating factors I spoke of earlier that affect a webcomic's chances of success. We have to examine what makes a webcomic likely to succeed -- a topic I have enough for a blog post on already.
Most important, we have to respect the work that we are building on, for if the Halfpixel guys and some of their colleagues didn't do it, we'd be in the dark the way they were once. Most models have flaws. Most ideas can be improved. A lot of great work contains errors. That doesn't speak less of the people who did it.
Last, even if the Halfpixel model was 100% right at its most optimistic, who is to say we shouldn't try to improve it anyway?
Here is my thought about websites and making money.
You are assuming the only way to make money from a website is to sell on the web.
Not everyone wants to buy things on the web. They would like to be able to purchase in a physical space. They don't want to take a risk of purchasing online.
Listing where you will be at a convention may attract some customers. Also listing where you may be selling some of your merchandise in a store can also get you sales.
My understanding is that if you have a boutique store, you get as much increase in sales having a websites as you do selling online.
It is not huge money.
"Superfans" raise the curve, and people who buy nothing lower it. That's why we use an average.
People who buy nothing don't count to the average sale statistic. They are the other 95% and have no bearing on the average profit per sale.
-Mr. Two Shirt who apparently hasn't passed 6th grade math.
Right! Previous iterations of the statement used buying a cheap button as lowering it.
What's more important here, besides getting the facts right of course, is that readers can put any number they want in the profit per sale slot. This way they can see how profitable the average sale has to be before the model lines up, and then can assess whether they think the number they are using is realistic. Few skeptics are taking advantage of this opportunity publicly -- perhaps because they see that they have to enter the questionable zone. I ran plenty of case studies with double the profit and double (10%) sell-through, and I thought the implications were dubious in most cases.
Anecdotes must be checked, of course, but even people bearing specific HalfPixel claims regarding arts sales and income seemed not to hold up under scrutiny. If you add another variable, the "Image Polishing Factor," and set it to inflate sales claims by 35% or more, then things start to line up in the limited number of detailed HalfPixel models I ran. This might be considered normal behavior in some quarters; in fact it may be the dominant behavior for all I know. I'm from the sticks, where you know everyone your whole life, and most would rather fall in a hole and die than be dishonest. My quaint affection for truth might be the factor that explains why I see recklessness with the facts where others see routine commerce. Of course, if the commerce model is wrong, it's still not going to work.
I forgot to add, that you for catching my error on the size of small sales being higher than zero. I think I only made it in that one location, but I'll check around.
One of the points that seem to keep coming up here is the value of profits of artwork or merchandise sold during a convention on the actual success of the webcomic. It's a very difficult thing to assess without directly talking about what the merchandise or artwork is and whether it relates to the webcomic directly.
If you're funding your table at the convention by selling any merchandise that does not directly carry the image or some element of the comic's content then profits from that sale cannot and should not be seen as having any effect on the comic's success. It's personal income from an unrelated property.
This is harder for people to realize in terms of artwork. There's a feeling that making fan sketches helps boost interest in the artists and, therefore, his comic by extension. I feel there's very little truth to that notion, but certainly the interest is not measured as income from the sales. If i draw pictures of CAPTAIN AMERICA for some fan of CAPTAIN AMERICA who happens to like my drawing style I can't count that as a return on the success of my own webcomic that doesn't feature CAPTAIN AMERICA. Successful artists at conventions, both pro and semi-pro, do tremendous amounts fan art. These drawings are commissioned sales of other peoples intellectual property and provide a good and measurable income, but to consider them as profits from the hard work spent on making your own intellectual property is completely wrong.
Steve Rude is and has been for years one of the most sought-after convention artists, but he doesn't factor sales of SUPERMAN drawings into the profits of NEXUS. It would be ridiculous to measure the success of one's own property through the time spent developing the overwhelming large fan-base of another.
-Rob
I'm not sure what the point is here, other than to illustrate that we can never know the full story of anything, especially not in a fledgling industry like webcomics.
I think you've made a reasonable point in that the percentage of readers willing to put up cash can vary widely. If you count on a hard 10% you will be disappointed, and it certainly isn't a given that every single month will be over a certain hard bound. It's very dependent on turnover and merchandise offered. For my stuff, I find the number to be closer to 4% -- but I'm open about saying I've been bad at cultivating it. (Dave lectures me at length on this.)
I'm likely too close to the source, but the model that's laid out in HTMW is the only one I've seen consistently come close to earning people a living (or at least a healthy supplemental income). The base cases are too few for it to have a proven track record, but the logic is sound, and functions much the same as it does in an indie-sized commercial venture -- get the word out, convert readers into fans, convert fans into devotees, and figure out how much money you need to make off that 5%-10% to make a living. I can't think of another even relatively-reproduceable approach -- I guess you could make some strips and hope to skyrocket to success via social networks, but that really hasn't happened but once or twice.
By the way, I took a full-time job because I encountered some family hardships, but thanks for using my personal problems to shore up your point.
I am sorry to hear mention of personal problems in your life. I got whacked with a few last year, and you have my support if there is a way to employ it.
I don't intend to make many points in this piece. I offer a dynamic model that allows people to insert their own variables and see what happens. Most of the points I make are to explain why I chose the variables I did, and can be dismissed if you change variables for different reasons.
The two main points I would like people to take away are:
- the model in the book as by far the best we have, but needs work;
- the model strongly indicates that the head count of self-supporting artists has been exaggerated;
I think the case for both is pretty strong. I can debate them further if needed, but I think the best use of energy is to acknowledge weak spots in the model and work to fix them. I have done preliminary work to contribute toward this effort but I view it as an undertaking that will require the involvement of dozens or people at minimum.
I was surprised that my initial conversations with your colleagues investigating the weaknesses met with defensiveness and hostility, but as a student of human nature, I have been willing to attribute it to a bad mood, or something irritating in my personality, or a misunderstanding. There is no doubt this would have been easier for everyone if I received a more open-minded reception, which could have allowed me to follow my original plan and submit the tentative results to your team for analysis.
I have not enjoyed being painted as the enemy when I personally am following your model, reporting on it, explaining it to newcomers, and am not highly naive and unrealistic in my expectations as repeatedly and emphatically accused by Dave. In fact, despite all my canvassing, I can only think of a few people who are following it as closely and publicly as me, and of course I compare notes with them.
Often, people read my work, come away with faulty conclusions or misunderstandings, and proceed to attack the work or me. This has strained my patience this week by the sheer volume of repetitious explaining required. A percentage of these reactions have been willful miss-readings and ideological attacks, and I have allowed myself to be provoked into making grouchy and ill-mannered comments, which I hope all the authors of your book will overlook going forward. I'd like to apologize for those, and for making a journalism 101 error in not asking why you took a job at this time before mentioning it.
That said, and meant sincerely, I prefer to return to the serious business of maximizing the number of cartoonists with full or part-time incomes. I got hit by a car last year, limiting my employment options, so I would very much like to be one of them. If I am going to give my comics my all, it seems to me I should give my comics business plan my all as well, so I want to help make the plan you've offered as complete and dynamic as possible. I've written a lot of business plans in my life, but it would have taken me years to develop what you offer in your book. I think it's time to make some adjustments -- dynamically, to account for the variability of the subject -- and to help it evolve. I hope I can contribute, and I hope others will too.
I came into the thread after reading the post, linked from Halfpixel. The first line I read was "The bible is flawed," which sounds more like an article wanting to tear down the perceived established and just make pronouncements. Sometimes it's hard to tell the honest dialogue from the critics who just want to puff themselves up and whip up the drama.
By all means the model needs to be explored and dissected, and more viewpoints need to be represented. A common complaint was how we didn't cover what a longform or drama comic should do. I think those have a tougher road ahead by sheer genre choice (smaller and punchier is more digestible and easier to make an impact than the epic), but that's really beyond our sphere of experience. Someone else can write the How To Make Longform Comics book if it discusses a sufficiently different framework.
Anyway. I didn't want to walk out of here and have you think I was trying to squelch discourse. These are important questions to ask.
Hope things start looking up for you too.
I know your site has a lot of fans, and isn't really a "policy" site, so I had no intention of creating a disturbance. The young man who dragged me over probably had good intentions, but he screwed up my plan not to stir up a commotion. Some things are better discussed by the people working in the arena, not the general public, as the general public always seems to include one member who can make me lose my temper.
When people mention the long form issue, you could point out that self-identified successful comics, culled of obvious frauds, include a fairly even split of B&W short, B&W long, color short, panel and color long, plus some oddities. It may simply be a time and frequency decision -- more strips faster or less strips but bigger and possibly colored. In other words, similar amounts of comic entertainment, allocated differently.
This was one of the biggest surprises of my research, and while it needs to be expanded to a larger sample, it provided a lot of reassurances to me (my wife and I do a color short form 5x/week and a color long form once a week).
What matters more, and I think I've found just the right word, is that the comic be distinctive. That can be in design (Ryan North), humor (many would cite xkcd among others) and as many other key attributes as possible, or fewer but with more distinctiveness in one or two categories.
Second to being distinctive is to be one of the top two titles in your genre, if you want big success.
These findings are still a bit preliminary but if you look at comics with big circulations, I think you will notice that distinctiveness or genre domination applies to a majority.
I can't justify all my statements, moods and assertions. I'm just a cartoonist who wants to write and draw and talk about comics. But like many, I'd like to earn a living, and my business experience nags me that the business plan must be done and re-done and re-done again, honed just as much as the comics.
It's going to be challenging going forward, but already I have gotten some excellent suggestions and had a couple notions of my own. I see no reason why we can't have continually improving plan for the business of webcomics.
I was gonna respond in the thread on Fleen, but I think it might be more valuable here. I may be mistaken, but I think you've said a few times that you encounter defensiveness with regards to your analysis. It seems, though, any time someone tries to debunk your findings, which you've invited them to, you adopt a similar tone. Just an observation.
Moving on. Wouldn't a more useful number be profit per sell-through-reader? I know you're going to reassert that I can stick any number I want in place of $5, but it seems like without examining that number you're only looking at part of the whole. How can you say that above that is unjustly high without actual analysis? On Fleen, Howard Taylor gives some numbers that indicate he's getting $30/sell-through-reader/year, with a 5% sell through rate, which he mentions is his rate on Daily Cartoonist. Maybe he's the exception. I couldn't say.
The halfpixel analysis seems ridiculous to me. My comic gets ~20k to ~30k uniques per month, and I sell maybe 1 or 2 items per month. That's a profit of like $10. The half pixel model says I should be making $1000? Either I'm doing something terribly wrong, or this model is wildly optimistic by several orders of magnitude.
Here's a screengrab of my stats if you don't believe me: http://www.tinyghosts.com/monthlystats.jpg
I've been looking for a comic that is in good shape but simply needs a variety of specific adjustments to improve performance. The idea is to present it as a case study on my blog, so others could learn, and you'd get publicity.
I think you would find it straightforward, very low on critical comments and high on specific ways you can consider improving the site, the comic and your sales. The tone would be friendly and helpful.
I would need to know what source your analytics are from. Google Analytics, or who.
I can guarantee you at least 20 solid suggestions, including some that might surprise you.
If you prefer not to, I will still give you a sizable batch of suggestions but I won't take it to the same depth and detail. Overall you're doing great, so a comprehensive tune-up could really accelerate your progress.
Let me know your decision. Time frame would be completion within a few days.
Ben
I think there is a flaw in your math. If you get 100,000 monthly page views on a 5 day a week comic, (to keep the math simple) that means you may be read by 5000 individual people (assuming a 20 weekday month 5000x20=100,000). If you take 5% of those you get 250. If you multiply that by your $5, then you receive $1250 in annual revenue from sales. That sounds reasonable and realistic. From my point of view, daily unique visitor average is a more realistic number to take your sell-through percentages from. I always understood Dave's 5-10% was an annual sales figure, not monthly.
Are we doing it differently? It's been applied to uniques and as an annual figure, so there's no difference there.
I just did my first t-shirt pre-order and based my projections off the HalfPixel model... I actually dropped it down to 2.5% thinking I would be safe. Average Daily Unique Visitors 5000. Pre-Order results: .6% (.006) of unique visitors bought a shirt.
I then checked my order numbers against the number of people who had contacted me about the comic. I would consider these people fans as they have all expressed their support and admiration of the work. Out of my fans, I had around 10% buy a shirt.
Some of us are using .5% for forecasts. By comparison, .6% for a first outing is respectable, if that's any comfort. I suggested to HalfPixel that they include an addendum correcting some things and scaling back unrealistic, anecdotal forecasts but the result was a stream of angry swear words and tantrum.
Take comfort also in designing a shirt that sold at all. You already know making comics is hard. So is making good t-shirts that people want, and we all produce some duds.
So it sounds like you have a lot of extras, and you're left to hope they trickle out over time. Perhaps you can make a deal with a friend attending a con to lug some along on commission, but be wary of con overhead if you contemplate that as a way to move shirts.
One thing about HalfPixel sell-through is that unlike most comics people they are convention regulars, and it isn't stated clearly how mail order and convention sales break down when estimating sell-through rate. Scott Kurtz and Tom Kellett both like to call my wife and I "bitter failures." It's easy to defend inflated claims when you're doing the inflating: "Why, I sold 5% sell-through. If you didn't, and you blame my book, you must be a bitter failure."
There is a fair amount of good material in "How to Make Webcomics," but the errors are so damaging to the reader that it ought to be pulped. Even the publisher is too embarrassed to talk about it with me.
Thanks for sharing your experience, which adds to the knowledge base for everyone, and is sure to help people.
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