Mark Waid Publishing Interview So you're actually finished, or at least getting to the part where you're finished creating your comic. Welcome back, Mark. Thank you. It's really great to have you. I really wanted to have you on today, because you not only work with various publishers and know how to get work seen, but you also have a comic book store. So you're kind of double dipping in that regard. So what does it take to get a comic book into a comic book store? And for our learners' sake, a follow up question would be what's the going rate for a 16 panel- For a comic at a comic store. [LAUGH] You're not going to get rich. No one's going to get rich. It's for your own self-published starting stuff, it is hard. There's basically there's two ways of going about it. There's one major distributor that handles most comics in America, that's Diamond Distributors. But they are more selective. That's like the first gatekeeper. You have to convince them first that your comic is worth carrying. And then they solicit it to other stores. And that's for starters, for startup guys that's a much harder bar to leap. What the most important thing to do is to get your work out there through social media. Through your Facebook page, through Tumblr, through Twitter. Through whatever means you have. That is that, I can't stress how important that is to use social media to get attention on your work. The beauty of comics is that there's WordPress plug-ins, there's anything you want. You can put your own comics up on your own webpage with no trouble whatsoever. And so, getting them up there is not a hard part. The hard part is in getting the word out. That you exist. That you should go check this out. You go Jay, come look at my comic. That's where something serious, if you can get your four page comic, your 16 panel comic into a comic store by checking comicshoplocator.com, which is where you can find the names and addresses of a lot of comics stores. Send them an email, send them pdfs. Don't send them a blind email, send them a pdf of your work, download it, and they can take a look and see if that would be something they'd be interested in carrying in their store. If it is, you're not really going to be making any money off that, because it's such a small product, but what it is, is a marketing tool for you. Make sure that your webpage is in there, make sure that your contact information, make sure that If anybody, if customers pick it up, even if they just pay like a quarter, 50 cents for it, it's a flyer for you. It's something that they can look and go okay, I'm going to go check out this guy's Facebook page now. Yeah, that's really cool to hear, that a learner could come out of this course being able to sell something. Yeah. I mean I think that's such a great validation for their work. Yeah. I think sometimes I interact with learners and I'm wondering what do you think about giving your work away for free? I'm all for it, I really am all for it. And this coming from a guy who worked in, spent the first 25 years of his career in a world in which you would never think about giving your work away for free because people are paying for it. Here's the thing, digital changed everything. And torrent sites and internet piracy changed everything to the point that there is no work out there that you cannot access if you know where to look for it. Rather than rail against it and be all upset and assume that torrenting and pirating takes money out of my pocket. First off, I can't prove that's the case because it also creates an audience for you and there's balances. Yes you should be paid for what you do. But at the same time, you can't stop the internet from disseminating your content. Once it's out there, it's out there. So you can either be angry about it and batten down the hatches and say I'm not going to give, I'm not going to put my work out there for free. Or you can just find a way to make that work for you. We started Thrillnet four years ago, my digital publishing group, we deliberately, not only did we give everything away that we did for free, but we made sure that, that way there were hyperlinks back to the site, there were cross-references back to other things in the site. If you like this, you should try this. And we just turned it into a marketing tool. We weren't making any money off of that, but we were building our audience because that is the economy of the 21st century is build your audience. Worry about building your audience first then find the, whether it's 500 people or 5000 people or whatever it is, who are willing to pay you a buck or two a, a shot to do what you're doing so you can keep doing it, you'll find, if you're good, you'll find enough people out there, you won't get rich, but, you'll be able to keep doing what you love. Yeah as a web comic creator he's been trying this out throughout the last five years. I'd be happy with 20. [LAUGH] Yeah. Yeah. But you still got to find that solid group. And once you do then you just build from there. If you're getting into comics to make money and you think this is going to be your path to riches and stardom. I would encourage you to open a snow tire store instead. This is hard work. And especially in this day and age where the secret to success seems to be a lot more self publishing than it is trying to get yourself a publisher to link up with. You can do a lot more of the legwork yourself in terms of promotion and publicity, but then it's all yours. It's kind of amazing to think that this is their first project. It's probably the first time that they've completed a comic book. Yeah. What are your thoughts on like what they should be thinking about doing next? Do they give some time, a break between this and their next project? Do they focus on marketing this before they start a new project? Or what are your thoughts on that? I don't know. I mean it's going to be different for everybody but I would think spending some time trying to figure out how to market it. Would not be a bad use of time. But at the same time, if you're in the zone, if you love what you've done as a comic and you have that fever going, never ignore that. Any time you feel like making a comic, do it then. I swear to you, as someone who's been doing it for 30 years, there will be plenty of days where you don't feel like making a comic. So take advantage of the muse when it's jumping up and down on your shoulder and hitting you on the head. Mm-hm. I'm thinking about Comic Book Conventions, because I know you can kind of show any kind of work. I've done it with students myself. How do you think about doing that? And should they try and do that? Absolutely should because if you can find, an artist alley table at a small convention, and set up your wares there it's weird because when artists and creators do that, it's not the creature in its native habitat. Like most of the time we are in our little, behind the drawing board or the keyboards and stuff and we're not dealing with the rest of the world. And suddenly, you're having to hand sell your work. You're having to promote yourself. But that's a good lesson to learn, is going out there and meeting your customers and meeting the audience and getting a sense of what they're attracted to in your work and starting that communication. Even if you don't make any real money selling your actual work at that convention with an artist table. They're also interacting with other artists. That community is broadening for you. You're making other contacts and you're seeing how other people reach their audience. You're going to take cues from that. I just think it's an incredibly invaluable experience. So, the last question I have for you is really, how much time should our readers, or how does it come into play that you're creating a comic. But you're also kind of studying where the industry is at you're studying the history of comics. How much time you spend learning versus doing? That's a good question. I mean, again, it's going to be different for everybody. But I would encourage everyone, whether they're an artist or a writer, letter colorist, whatever, to pick up a couple of volumes, Scott McLeod's body of work, understanding comics, making comics, I would encourage them to pick up Will Eisner's body of work and not just the published work, his stories, which are always a master force in showing you how stories are put together, but also his sequential art books that actually show how he does what he does. That's important because those are fundamental tools. Again, you get out on the football field and not have some idea of what, of how the Giants played, the greats of football history played and how they did stuff. You're going to want to know, you can go down the rabbit hole too deep if you spend all your time studying technique. That's awesome, and unless you're applying it, you're not going to bring anything new to the table. Great, thanks Mark. Sure, my pleasure.