What has been the most cost-effective way you have marketed your books, whether it’s a graphic novel, web comic, mini-comic, traditional comic, etc?
How do we build awareness, maintain interest, and increase dealer sales?
I KNOW there are some very creative minds in this community, those with experience in selling one's creative wares, and there must be some great advice that can be shared for all to peruse.
I'm starting a "list" here based on research of my own. Please add to it if you have anything else to contribute.
From what I can ascertain, the overall marketing strategies can be easily summarized as a three-pronged approach: Customers, dealers and publications. Everything falls under these categories in some form or another.
If there are any pros and cons to any of this list's suggestions, please feel free to include your thoughts about that (or those) aspect(s). This list is compiled in random order. Also, please provide serious suggestions only with a degree of cost-effective measures in mind as not every creator has tons of coin to toss out there for this type of exercise.
If you have any links to websites also promoting good and useful self-marketing techniques then certainly post those links here as well.
Some of these are less effective than others, I know, but they are listed here nonetheless. Leave no stone unturned.
SELF-MARKETING IDEAS LIST:
1. Website: A site dedicated to the property in question, in part or in whole. Obviously the ability for online ordering here would be a must. 2. Press release: (Known as either News or Press releases)- In newspapers, magazines, newsletters, in other comic books in the form of an advertisement or within the comics' 'preview' section, if available, etc... (To expand with examples of this, fellow SPA member SWAT contributed the following, with thanks)-- "...one of the things I did when I was in the 2007 SPI was I talked with various local and regional media outlets, ie: newspapers and television. I wrote up a small blurb about my project and sent it via email to the arts and entertainment reporters and then followed it up with a phone call. From there I was given interviews that ran in the newspapers and was seen on the evening news and heard over radio. I not only did the usual of contacting outlets that specialize in the comic field but broke outside that to include the media." 3. Online groups and forums:Sites pertaining to comics where you can 'pimp' your property. 4. Comic book conventions: Setting up a table to showcase/sell a creator's property. 5. Film festivals: Some film festivals do allow for some comic vendors to set up at their event. 6. Quotes: Some comic professionals may provide some favorable quotes on your property to further add to your marketing campaign. 7. Word of mouth: Self-explanatory. 8. Solicit reviews: Sending copies to some popular publications (and/or industry-related websites) for their reviews. 9. Flea markets: Some cities have huge community flea markets where EVERYTHING is sold. 10. Run serials: Run the entire book as a serial on a comics website for so many weeks. The serial can be in the PDF format containing chapters which visitors of the site could download and read for free. 11. Pre-sales: Clients pre-order your book in advance. 12. Hit your target market: "Targeted" means the advertising is geared specifically toward your customers. 13. Dealers: Stores who have the power to sell multiple copies of your books. 14. Mailing list: To help facilitate or expand upon the delivery of your press release information. Fellow SPA member and Admin of this forum, Wade Busby (ArchetypeOne), states: "I'm on a few self-publishing email lists." 15. Postcard Mailer: Increase your name recognition with important dealers with a postcard mailer to an exclusive dealer mailing list. 16. Previews Poster: This is a more "shotgun" approach and less targeted than the postcard mailer, but is a good value for the coverage, and will give dealers something to hang in their store. 17. Art festivals: Some communities have designated areas delegated to artists of all types in order to show their creative offerings. Arrange to have a table or booth set up to showcase/sell your books at one of these. 18. Give-aways:(This suggestion contributed by SPA member 'Noppie', with thanks)-- "Giveaways can be anything to your actual comic. I give away OLD issues and catalogs."(And also, fellow member Spyros (aka SEA) has this idea to expand to this, with thanks!): "A more expensive, but secure promotional idea is a free preview book. 16 pages b&w, 2-3000 copies for conventions." 19. Merchandising:(This suggestion contributed by SPA member 'Noppie', with thanks)-- "T-shirts: I wait for sales and order shirts for my contributors on Potlatch"....Some people also make and sell clay sculptures/figurines of their comic book characters, posters, souvenir cards, etc...just think about the popular 'CafePress' website where people sell multiple items on an array of items which showcase their chosen graphics. 20. Ads: (This suggestion contributed by SPA member Cary, with thanks)-- "...as in ads through Project Wonderful or just ads on your own. you can generate banners of various sizes and content and have them placed in targeted areas to better reach your audience." 21. Interviews:(This suggestion contributed by SPA member Cary, with thanks)-- ",,,i know i've conducted a TON of the things helping out various creators here and there, so i'm seeing a demand for them out there. plus, these days you can do podcast interviews which adds a whole new dimension to that aspect". 22. Mainstream distribution:(This suggestion contributed by SPA member Cary, with thanks)-- "...there are stores out there that will take the books, in fact, order them in quantity if you take the time to establish personal contact with them and can hit deadlines when you say you will."
[ Edited Sun Aug 24 2008, 01:15PM ] Roger Foucault My website: {{Click URL Link}} Co-Admin of "Self Publisher Association" Facebook group (aka 'SPAF') located here: {{Click URL Link}}
Join our SPAF CHAT nights every Monday night, 8 p.m. Eastern Standard time!!
14a: email, AKA SPAM. I'm on a few self-publishing email lists.
Good post, thank you, Roger, sir. Wade Busby I review for this site and for Self Publisher! Magazine. Reviews ARE happening now! Feel free to email me for contact info.
myspace, and or comicspace bulletins, as well as posting in every comic related board i could find SELF PUBLISHER ASSOCIATION ON FACEBOOK {{Click URL Link}}
18. Conventions: Conventions ales are direct to your readers. It also allow 500 to several thousands of warm bodies to walk by your book. 19 Giveaways: Giveaways can be anything to your actual comic. I give away OLD issues and catalogs
Post cards: I lie ordering mine from Vista print and wait for sales.
20. T-shirts: I wait for sales and order shirts for my contributors on Potlatch
18. Conventions: Conventions ales are direct to your readers. It also allow 500 to several thousands of warm bodies to walk by your book. 19 Giveaways: Giveaways can be anything to your actual comic. I give away OLD issues and catalogs
Post cards: I lie ordering mine from Vista print and wait for sales.
20. T-shirts: I wait for sales and order shirts for my contributors on Potlatch
Actually, your #18 (conventions) is already covered in #4 on my initial list, Noppie.
Give-aways is good, and I think the t-shirts can be generally classified unbder 'Merchandising'. I'll add these in the initial list so people reading this can see the new additions in one location as opposed to being scattered in multiple posts.
Thank you, Noppie. Any other ideas are welcome!! Roger Foucault My website: {{Click URL Link}} Co-Admin of "Self Publisher Association" Facebook group (aka 'SPAF') located here: {{Click URL Link}}
Join our SPAF CHAT nights every Monday night, 8 p.m. Eastern Standard time!!
for the list, i'd say you could add mainstream distribution. there are stores out there that will take the books, in fact, order them in quantity if you take the time to establish personal contact with them and can hit deadlines when you say you will.
also, i didn't see ads on your list. as in ads through Project Wonderful or just ads on your own. you can generate banners of various sizes and content and have them placed in targeted areas to better reach your audience.
and what about interviews? i know i've conducted a TON of the things helping out various creators here and there, so i'm seeing a demand for them out there. plus, these days you can do podcast interviews which adds a whole new dimension to that aspect.
now then, in general, i'd say one of the most important things you need to do marketing wise is determine who your audience really is. you really don't want to waste your time attending an Anime convention if you don't have something about your property that appeals to the Manga and Anime crowd. same thing with the festivals and such. you can always attend the Ren Fair, but if you don't have a swords and sorcery type book, chances are you need to rethink your strategy. and that works across all the topics above. as with any battle, targeting a shot always ends up being more deadly than one you just toss out there.
for the list, i'd say you could add mainstream distribution. there are stores out there that will take the books, in fact, order them in quantity if you take the time to establish personal contact with them and can hit deadlines when you say you will.
also, i didn't see ads on your list. as in ads through Project Wonderful or just ads on your own. you can generate banners of various sizes and content and have them placed in targeted areas to better reach your audience.
and what about interviews? i know i've conducted a TON of the things helping out various creators here and there, so i'm seeing a demand for them out there. plus, these days you can do podcast interviews which adds a whole new dimension to that aspect.
now then, in general, i'd say one of the most important things you need to do marketing wise is determine who your audience really is. you really don't want to waste your time attending an Anime convention if you don't have something about your property that appeals to the Manga and Anime crowd. same thing with the festivals and such. you can always attend the Ren Fair, but if you don't have a swords and sorcery type book, chances are you need to rethink your strategy. and that works across all the topics above. as with any battle, targeting a shot always ends up being more deadly than one you just toss out there.
Your suggestions have been duly added to the list. Thank you, sir.
As for the "...one of the most important things you need to do marketing wise is determine who your audience really is..." statement, that was sort've inferred in #12 of the list but your breakdown qualifies this point nicely. Again, thank you. Well done! Roger Foucault My website: {{Click URL Link}} Co-Admin of "Self Publisher Association" Facebook group (aka 'SPAF') located here: {{Click URL Link}}
Join our SPAF CHAT nights every Monday night, 8 p.m. Eastern Standard time!!
one other thing i was thinking about yesterday, on the subject of giveaways. most of the bigger companies have buttons of some type which people seem to really like. you can get those printed for really cheap if you look around a bit. also consider stickers. there are lots of places that will print up excellent stickers in bulk that you can pass out. i've still got stickers from five years ago on my computer case for books that don't even exist anymore. but the stickers seem to live on forever you know?
and nothing says merchandising like wearing your gear to shows. you are after all your best billboard. Blog l Myspace l Comicspace l CAG
one other thing i was thinking about yesterday, on the subject of giveaways. most of the bigger companies have buttons of some type which people seem to really like. you can get those printed for really cheap if you look around a bit. also consider stickers. there are lots of places that will print up excellent stickers in bulk that you can pass out. i've still got stickers from five years ago on my computer case for books that don't even exist anymore. but the stickers seem to live on forever you know?
and nothing says merchandising like wearing your gear to shows. you are after all your best billboard.
Merchandising OR as give-aways. These can easily break down into their own sub-lists.
This would beg the question, what type of merchandising have you, or would you, create for your property (i.e. T-shirts, mouse pads, coffee cups, etc...all which would have your comic book characters and/or insignias emblazoned upon them).
As for give-aways, what have creators given away as marketing ploys? Buttons? Stickers? Free comics? Posters? Pens/pencils? The list can be limitless, bound only by one's imagination.
Roger Foucault My website: {{Click URL Link}} Co-Admin of "Self Publisher Association" Facebook group (aka 'SPAF') located here: {{Click URL Link}}
Join our SPAF CHAT nights every Monday night, 8 p.m. Eastern Standard time!!
This thread will make a great FAQ page in the how to section soon!!!!
That would be great! I think this compilation quickly gets to the meat n' potatoes of marketing strategies people can use as a checklist of sorts.
I hope others can chime in with other unique or unmentioned traditional methods/ideas to add to this list, something we haven't thought of or included already.
Roger Foucault My website: {{Click URL Link}} Co-Admin of "Self Publisher Association" Facebook group (aka 'SPAF') located here: {{Click URL Link}}
Join our SPAF CHAT nights every Monday night, 8 p.m. Eastern Standard time!!
Lol...how many hours are in your day? Roger Foucault My website: {{Click URL Link}} Co-Admin of "Self Publisher Association" Facebook group (aka 'SPAF') located here: {{Click URL Link}}
Join our SPAF CHAT nights every Monday night, 8 p.m. Eastern Standard time!!
This would beg the question, what type of merchandising have you, or would you, create for your property (i.e. T-shirts, mouse pads, coffee cups, etc...all which would have your comic book characters and/or insignias emblazoned upon them).
well speaking for us, we've got pretty much the whole gambit on merchandise. mousepads, coffee cups, coasters, a multitude of shirts, posters, prints...so yeah the list goes on and on. i've seen high quality prints sell like hot cakes at conventions, especially when signed by a creator, and i've had a number of people ask me if i had t-shirts for sale. sky's the limit when you start thinking about it.
Roger Foucault wrote ...
As for give-aways, what have creators given away as marketing ploys? Buttons? Stickers? Free comics? Posters? Pens/pencils? The list can be limitless, bound only by one's imagination.
i've done stickers, prints, postcards and pens. next up is buttons, some mini posters, and we're thinking of running an original art raffle or some such. we'll see how it all works out. i've seen a company sell tickets to win a free trip to the SDCC but i don't think we're going quite that crazy.
Hmmmmmmmmmm...sponso
rs. I wonder.... Roger Foucault My website: {{Click URL Link}} Co-Admin of "Self Publisher Association" Facebook group (aka 'SPAF') located here: {{Click URL Link}}
Join our SPAF CHAT nights every Monday night, 8 p.m. Eastern Standard time!!
Then there's always guerrilla marketing tactics such as pointing the browsers on every machine in your local computer store to your website, etc.
A new one I came across this weekend: At lunch out we were at a restaurant with white paper over the table clothes and supplied crayons. Waiting for our food I doodled my main character (fairly quickly, which bodes well for future book signings, etc.) and added my url underneath. Now, you can't be sure the person who changes the paper before the next cover will even notice, but if they do, there ya go. (Just make sure you tip the minimum or you might get the wrong kind of publicity!)
Heck, you can even get some sidewalk chalk and scribble your character(s) and website for pedestrians to see. But be careful, one mustn't go to the extent of being charged with vandalism or perhaps contravene some obscure, or even known, vandalism-type bylaw. But attending a city/town-sponsored arts festival in your community where you have an allotted space for a booth can bypass those infractions, sidewalk scribble in the area around or near your booth/table, something that won't get you in trouble.
I like the table cloth or disposable place-mat scribble idea but unfortunately that targets only the waitress/waiter, or the young lad who clears the tables off before the next customer gets to that seat, unless the table cloth remains there for others to peruse but realistically, these things get mucked in food drippings and stains, how long before they are discarded?
Next:
wrote ... Then there's always guerrilla marketing tactics such as pointing the browsers on every machine in your local computer store to your website, etc.
Again, be careful not to have anyone potentially charge you with tampering or some other ridiculous infraction that you don't need legal troubles with, or be banned from said stores outright for such tampering if you're caught.
As an example, when I had my DRAWING INSTRUCTION company going, I distributed brochures by attaching them to the windshield wipers of shopping mall patrons' parked vehicles. I was issued a legal warning by the shopping mall administration that I can be charged with a littering bylaw that prohibits this action, like the littering that occurs when people discard my pamphlets onto their parking lot pavement instead of discarding them in garbage receptacles, a common problem every mall experiences when solicitors distribute their information in this manner. An apology to the mall management later and I was off the hook as I was ignorant of that rule and really should have sought mall authorization first but didn't. I had also paid for newspaper ads, radio ads, etc...all within the mainstream marketing techniques, but thought I'd also take a gamble by going car-to-car with my brochures but ultimately this created a backlash. The word-of-mouth, arts festivals, and print ads worked best for me for my specific service that I was offering.
[ Edited Mon Aug 11 2008, 11:40AM ] Roger Foucault My website: {{Click URL Link}} Co-Admin of "Self Publisher Association" Facebook group (aka 'SPAF') located here: {{Click URL Link}}
Join our SPAF CHAT nights every Monday night, 8 p.m. Eastern Standard time!!
i dunno, look at the guys who got busted up for painting the streets in advance of the big product rollout a couple of years ago. can't remember what company it was, but they had water soluble paint and tagged thousands of intersections and such with the logo. of course the city got all pissed off and filed something on them, basically forcing them to clean it up, but it hit CNN for like two days and had 18 hours in prime rotation. you can't buy this kind of press. was it negative? certainly. annoying? not really, unless you worked for the city. costly? nope. the paint washed off with the first rain, leaving the evil doers off the hook for the clean up, and rolling in the website hits and new customers.
point of fact, there's no such thing as bad press. there's either press, or you're being ignored.
didn't it raise suspicions of terrorist activity? They got homeland security up their butts, I'm pretty sure...that's definitely not worth it! Ian Shires, CEO P.O. Box 214 Madison, OH 44057
It was something to do with Aqua Teen Hunger Force, wasn't it? Or was that the lighted boxes (and was it a separate incident?
I'm actually one of the most rules-conscious people out there, so even my guerrilla tactics are mild and benign, hardly the stuff of homeland security notice. But yes, all things should be done with taste and tact and to give your project the _best_ possible spin.
As to the only-one-person seeing it. Well, think about it: how better to connect with one person and have it stick (for little to no effort) than spend serious money on a PW ad that gets 80K impressions but only 80 click-throughs and no-one sticks? I'm good with "only one" because if that one likes it, he or she is more likely to share it with friends. I'll take slow and steady, as long as it's forward. --Scraps
randomscraps wrote ... As to the only-one-person seeing it. Well, think about it: how better to connect with one person and have it stick (for little to no effort) than spend serious money on a PW ad that gets 80K impressions but only 80 click-throughs and no-one sticks? I'm good with "only one" because if that one likes it, he or she is more likely to share it with friends. I'll take slow and steady, as long as it's forward.
I did read somewhere that each person knows, on average, about 200 people, so that might still be a good idea regardless. But I'd prefer concentrating all of my own marketing efforts in impacting the most audience per effort.
Roger Foucault My website: {{Click URL Link}} Co-Admin of "Self Publisher Association" Facebook group (aka 'SPAF') located here: {{Click URL Link}}
Join our SPAF CHAT nights every Monday night, 8 p.m. Eastern Standard time!!
Every couple year my local chamber of commerce invites me to attend one of thier meeting. My whistle Blower comic and most potlatch is too liberal to these individuals. BUT I get tease each time witn doing some type limited comic for restaurants.
Target carried my Whistle Blower comic for a few years.
SPA-Bits
Wishing Well
2,442,615
