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Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Apologies

Been terribly busy, so I apologize for not posting over the past days. I don't think I can post anything new until the end of February (yes, it's that hectic and extended).

But I'd like to thank the few of you who visit this blog, just take a peek at some of my thoughts about marketing comics and graphic novels. If you've been able to pick up just one or two tips from here, it was all worth it.

If you have an experience to share, or a light bulb epiphany, do post through the comments link. I'm the kind of person who likes to listen. :-)

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Saturday, January 5, 2008

Making Your Story Stick

Every year, thousands of stories flood the marketplace, but only a few will stand out, only a few will be talked about, and only a few will be remembered down the line. Creating a story that's "made to stick" can help generate powerful word-of-mouth and leave a lasting impression, as well as translate to long-term sales.

But what is a story that's "made to stick?"

Chip and Dan Heath's amazing book, Made To Stick, defines six key qualities for an idea to successfully linger in the minds of people. Though the hardcover volume is a business book, the six key qualities can serve as a criteria set for comics creators in developing their stories.

Let's go through them one by one:

1) Simplicity. While circuitous plot lines, complex concepts, and in-depth research can add a lot of flavor, stripping your story to its core not only helps you keep your narrative in focus, it helps your readers focus as well, ensnaring their senses from the first page to the last. I remember that Sandra Bullock "psycho-thriller" flick Premonition, one that was highly engaging for the most part until the "duh" moment at the end. Not that I dislike religious-themed movies, but where's the consistency? I also heard that the ending of Steven Spielberg's A.I. was a let-down as well. The point is, if you promise your audience a roller coaster ride, give it to them lock, stock and barrel. Never let the roller coaster suddenly morph into a ferris wheel.

Applying simplicity: Describe your whole story in one to two sentences, the way screenwriters do their loglines. Then do a one-page plot summary, defining the main character, the overall conflict, and the denouement. This results of the exercise will help you define exactly what your story is about, as well as be your beacon when you are tempted midway to make a detour.

2) Unexpectedness. Everyone likes a story surprise. One that stops the heart for a few seconds, leaving you breathless for what's going to happen next. One moment that stuck to my mind was an X-Men issue, where Hank McCoy discovers the shattered body of Emma Frost. Another moment happened in a Civil War issue, where during the climactic battle Captain America suddenly realizes "We're no longer fighting for what we believe in. We're just fighting." Or something to that effect. In film, M. Night Shyamalan wielded that magic, though it didn't last very long. And how about that moment in Independence Day when aliens blew up the White House?

The key to capturing and holding an audience's attention is to subject them to ever increasing complexity. When you move from one scene to the next, one encounter to the next, you need to sprinkle in some intensity, a twist, a discovery, a revelation...anything that will prompt the audience to ask, "How is the lead character going to solve all this?" And the complications can run the gamut from physical to emotional to spiritual extremes, depending on the nature of your story. The great thing about being unexpected is that you're forced to flex more creative muscles, especially when you have to tie them all up neatly in the end.

Applying Unexpectedness: The surprises in a story usually happen at the end of the first act (when the main conflict is introduced), at key points of the second act (to escalate the intensity of the story), and the climax. They sometimes happen in the denouement as well. There are small surprises and big surprises, each to be revealed at major points in your story. The objective, again, is for your story to gain momentum until the climax. You would want to avoid clumping a lot of small surprises together--this can build impatience. Ditto for clumping big surprises together--you don't want to exhaust your audience.

3) Concreteness. This is similar to "simplicity," but focuses more on solidifying concepts and abstractions to aid audience comprehension. Chris Claremont did this in almost every issue of his X-Men run--defining what mutants are, who the X-Men are, what they're fighting for--wherever he got the chance. In superhero comics, heroes would more often explain what their powers can and can't do. This practice has been done excessively, but it helps people know and remember why certain things happen in a story.

Applying concreteness: While it's always good to "show, not tell" in comics, you may have to do some telling when the showing isn't enough, especially if you're introducing a high concept. When your story is set in an alien world with an alien culture, it's best to tell your audience what's going on instead of trying to coax them into figuring things out for themselves. Likewise for a new technology or philosophy. Because many people don't want to get too bogged down mentally when all they're looking for is entertainment. You'd want your reader to stick with your story, not your concept.

In my next post, I'll go through the last three qualities: credibility, emotional, and stories.

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Friday, January 4, 2008

To All Fledgling Comics Creators: How Strong is the Passion?

Many, if not most, comics professionals will tell you that making comics is a fool's pursuit. They don't make a lot of money, but they still churn out story after story, page after page, book after book. And they do so while they spend most of their waking hours in their day jobs. I've been employed full time for over 12 years, and have written or drawn comics on and off for the past 15.

But I still have my day job, and I'm still making comics.

Jennifer de Guzman paints a bleak picture for aspiring comics creators in her column over at the Slave Labor Graphics website. And I quote:

"The First Reality: You are not likely to get rich, or even make a decent living, by creating comics. Yes, there are exceptions to this, but you cannot start out thinking of yourself as an exception because, odds are, you are not."

And this is true. Given the current state of the industry where there are a few major players and truckloads of minor players, as well as the commercial limitations and cultural biases against the medium, only a select few will get that big break. And among the select few, even fewer will be able to make a decent living out of making comics.

In many a forum, newbies have posted the question, "How do I make comics?" And they usually air this question because they've got a cool story swimming in their heads and want the world to know about it. The usual reply would be, "Why do you want to make comics?" If it's about the money, as the replies would go, it's very a steep climb and money shouldn't be a prime motivator.

But then, in my opinion, money is the prime motivation and a valid one at that.

We all know that making comics is a challenging endeavor, and those who make them know that it will be an indelible part of their lives. Their passion for making comics sustains them, hell or high water, and the financial rewards are the bonus.

But this is different from the desire to devote a career to making comics. To be able to succeed at making comics as a career, the passion should be a given. No one can imaginably sustain a career in making comics if there was no passion behind it. That's why newbie job interviews for most fields involve the question, "Why are you interested in this job?" Employers want to know and test an applicant's passion for what the job entails before considering the applicant for the post. Passion is a key criteria for employers because they know it would be inconvenient for them in the long run if they realize that the applicant was there for the money alone.

If a person were in a stressful job (like making comics) purely for the money, he'd reach a point where he'd reevaluate his priorities. Passion would otherwise make him endure.

So I think it's a given that all aspiring comics creators and graphic novelists have passion for the craft. They seriously want to make comics no matter what. The real question, however, is how strong the passion is. How long it can last.

Passion can make a person do crazy, unconventional things, particularly when it involves a powerful interest from extreme sports to wild animal handling. But passion can also be a powerful drive to pursuing excellence. For one, passionate people don't find shortcuts; they want to know as much as they can every step of the way. They take the long route of discovery and application.

Passionate people also know that their greatest enemies are pride and self-preservation. Pride stunts their growth, gives them that "know it all, I'm better than him" attitude, and thus prevents them from opening up to learning opportunities. Self-preservation, on the other hand, inhibits them from taking risks. This is practiced by pro creators who sacrifice sleep and socializing in favor of the comics that craves to be made. How many times have we slept at near sunrise knowing that we have an important appointment at 9:00 in the morning?

Passionate people can't help themselves. They would ask, "Why the hell am I doing this?" but continue anyway. Reality is a deterrent they're able to cheat or circumvent, even deny, by hook or by crook.

So for the aspiring comics creator, I won't put you down when you say you're in it for the money, because I know that you won't last very long. Down the line, something's going to divert your interest or promise you a higher paycheck. If outside the comics field is where you're really meant to go, then best of luck to you.

But when you have enough passion, you'll pull out all the stops in finding out all you need to know:

1) You'll want to find out how to write a great story. Not a story that'll just satisfy your childhood dream, but a story that's logical and properly structured, laden with an interesting protagonist, colorful characters, and an overwhelming threat. You'll want to learn the nuances of dialog and enjoy real research. In your story, you'll want to explore the possibilities of your storyline and not limit yourself to conventions. You'll go to the library or the bookstore for writing books. You'll write and revise over and over.

2) You'll want to find out how to effectively visualize your story in comics form, and fine tune your illustration skills. You'll waste paper, spend hours in front of the computer, and invest in more drawing materials than the average Joe. You'll take the pros as inspiration, but take time to develop your own style. You'll learn perspective and anatomy from art books, not comic books.

3) You'll want to learn how to attract the interest of an audience. You'll read about the comics industry. You'll read about the book industry, and publishing in general. You'll try alternative means of producing, distributing and promoting your work. You won't limit yourself to an overcrowded specialized market, and determine what other people are looking for beyond spandex, in the genre of your choice. You'll research on how to write professional query letters and press releases. You'll want to learn how to directly contact people who can help you. You'll want to learn how to make more sales at the shortest time possible...without sounding desperate.

And finally...

4) You'll want to learn how you can effectively share what you've learned as an inspiration (or a kind warning) to others.

That's passion. It's a crazy little thing, but it can take you places. Crazy places and insightful situations. With the graphic novel still in its relative infancy, there's no way but up. Maybe not in cash, but definitely in tons of experience.

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Thursday, January 3, 2008

How To Get Shelf Space For Your Book

When I was a kid, I didn't really dream of becoming a graphic novelist. When I was in middle school, I sent fan art to Marvel, then strangely received a rejection letter in response. I was baffled--did they send rejection letters even to fans? Anyway, that was a long, long time ago during the era of rotary dial phones.

But now that my fate has taken an unexpected turn, I've devoted a good portion of my time to actually studying further how to create a story that's worth shelf space. In the past, I was working on simple instinct and logic, but the game has changed. I've invested in creative writing books from the bookstores and Amazon, and doing Web research just to crack the mystery open.

Why? Because for the medium to gain more ground, creators ought to do work a little harder to ensure that their works deserve the ground gained.

An interesting entry on Comics Worth Reading paints a picture that should serve as a wake-up call to a lot of independent creators. In the entry, Brian Hibbs of San Francisco shop Comix Experience defines one of two "dead weight" books, or those that waste precious shelf space.

"The first is independent books with no public awareness, no audience, no standout concept, no well-known creator. In short, books with no marketing and thus no sales, thrown out there on the “build it and they will come” theory."

There are comics shop owners who will, out of the goodness of their hearts, allow lesser known books on their shelves. But creators should realize that these owners are sacrificing a lot when they bring in an indie book. Shelf space is a retail establishment's source of income, and shops only have a limited amount of space. The prerogative of any shop owner is to move stock out of their shelves to earn money. The faster stocks move from the shelves to the hands of a customer, the more they earn.

So a creator should do their darndest to make sure their books fly. It's the most they can do to repay the graciousness of shop owners. (Come to think of it, comic shop owners should be more vigilant in screening indie books.)

What's the lesson here? When you have that big idea for your graphic novel, you should--MUST--think ahead about marketing. Writers send proposals to agents and publishing houses. Screenwriters send loglines and sequence treatments to producers. In these cases, writers and screenwriters would already know who the specific audience for their material would be, and how their stories would catch the audience's interest. They do this because they know there is only a limited number of books and films that can be produced within a calendar year, and competition is fierce.

As for comics and graphic novels, companies and creators are fighting over shelf space, and there's not a lot of that. Think about it, if you put together a solid program for marketing and present it to a comic shop owner, you'll have greater chances of earning the owner's favor. You may not sell a lot on the onset, but you're impressing upon a shop owner that you're looking after his welfare, too.

For more information about packaging your graphic novel for a specific market, you can look through my previous posts under product development.

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Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Ka-Blam: Print On Demand

Do you have a completed graphic novel and want to see one printed copy, with covers and all?

Was just surfing and found Ka-Blam, a print-on-demand service specific to comics creators. Their size options cover standard and digest sized formats, AND they print in color. Their standard sized comics have a limit of 52 pages tops, but their digest size requires at least 64 interior pages.

What I like about the site is that you can ask for a quick price estimate by clicking on the Pricing/Ordering link on the top of the page. You can order as low as one copy, and you can lower your per unit cost if you permit them to include their ad. You get the biggest discount if you choose to have their ad on the back cover. (You'll have to pay an initial fee, however, apart from the shipping and handling charges, so the more copies you order, the better for you.)

I've tried to search for reviews about the Ka-Blam service but haven't found any, but the service is being run by digital comic book publisher 01comics, so it should be promising. They launched the service early last year.

Go check out Ka-Blam and see if they can be part of your arsenal.

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