Webcomics Part 3: So you want to start a webcomic...part duex_ftp setup for godaddy through dreamweaver 4

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Webcomics Part 3: So you want to start a webcomic...part duex

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cescasanta 2009-05-19 02:33:10 Publish:

Let's pick up where we left off last night, shall we?

The Nerd Girl's Guide to
Webcomics!
Part 2

6. Your website layout: Probably one of the first things your readers are going to notice is how navigable your site is. You want it to be clear where everything is and what can be found there. You'll want a few basic pages:

Comic/News page - a good suggestion would be to have your news updates under your current strip. A lot of people use Wordpress to keep a running "news blog" on their page, but it doesnt necessarily mean that you need to.

Archive - keeping a running archive of all of your past strips is always a good idea. It allows your readers to re-read strips and lets new readers catch up on the current story.

Character Biographies - who are these characters? This is a great place to give them a little back story. Remember to only post those characters that have already appeared, though, as to not give anything away. Update when necessary.

Links - list any link exchange banners, webcomic listings, rating sites, and your own banners for others to link you with here. Be sure to update this often, as to not have any broken links.

Contact/"About Me" - pretty straight forward. Give a little background about yourself, list your email or any other place people can contact or follow you (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, deviantArt). Only list the places you WANT people to find you.

All of these are pretty much self explanatory. You can still add a "fanart" page if/when you start receiving fanart for your comic. It's always nice to show off what your fans have made and they love to see it, too!

Remember to keep things organized! I cannot stress that enough...

7. Web hosting and FTP Servers: There are plenty of options for you when it comes to web hosting. The question is if you want to pay or if you want free hosting. Do you want to deal with ads? Here are some places to look:

Comicgenisis

DrunkDuck

Keenspot

1&1 Hosting

Go Daddy

As for uploading your files to the web and maintaining your site, you're going to need an FTP client. I've had great success with CoreFTP Lite (which is free) along with the Firefox tool, FireFTP, which is also free and allows you to work directly from your browser. As for the actual building of your site, use whatever is comfortable - Dreamweaver, FrontPage, Nvu; just make sure it can be uploaded to your server through your FTP client.

For your layouts though, I've had success creating my layouts in Adobe Photoshop and then doing all of the slices in Adobe ImageReady. I know the programs are wicked expensive, but if you know a friend who has it, definitely see if they'll let you install it.

8. Directing Traffic: Alright, so you've got everything set up! Now all thats left is to get some readers to come to your page. How exactly do you do this? There are a number of great ways to get your name out there that are INCREDIBLY easy.

One of the easiest ways, once you have a good amount of pages up, is to sign up on a number of webcomic listings. These listings will help other members of the community to find comics that appeal to their interests. Some good places to list yourself would be:

The Webcomic List

Online Comics

By Night

Choice Comics

These are some great places to start listing your comic and the best thing is that they're all free. I would also recommend joining up on some webcomic forums to meet others like yourself. It's always good to meet people who've started out like yourself; they can offer you great advice and helpful hints and tips on improving if you have any questions.

Another good idea would be to contact other webcomics (preferably of people you've made friends with through the community or who run comics similar in genre to yours) to exchange links. By posting each others banners in your link section, you both get something out of the deal. Never post someone else's link without asking permission first. Authors generally like to know who's linking them and where they can be found. Make sure to make different sized banners to accommodate to others (not everyone likes HUGE banners or extremely small tile banners).

Which brings me to Project Wonderful. Project Wonderful is an ad site that a lot of webcomic artists go through, but it isnt free. You basically bid for ad space on other peoples pages. You can also host ads from Project Wonderful on your own page and earn some money for yourself. Depending on how popular or trafficked a site is can depend on how expensive the ad will be. Just keep in mind that you can be outbid for the ad that you've procured. I would go through them once youre more established.

9. Conventions: I'm sure a lot of you have been waiting for this part of the conversation. Lemme tell ya, this was probably the first AND last thing I've thought about when I was working on Spring Hill Court. I both really loved and hated doing conventions.

Conventions give you the chance to get your name out there, intice new readers, and mingle with exisiting readers along with making new friends (your table neighbors) and even potential networking through other people. Once you've gotten a good number of pages up (I recommend at least 30) you may want to start attending conventions as a guest rather than a patron. Tables can cost anywhere between $20 - $200 dollars depending on what convention you go to. Here's my convention packing list that I normally abide by:

vinyl banner with your comics name and a nice graphic, preferably drawn by you

business cards

prints of all your recent pages neatly bound or put into a portfolio

any merchandise that you have or made

I'll talk about merch later, dont fret. I told you that this hobby would cost you a lot more money than you'd make! Dont forget, this is your table - if you want to take commissions for the weekend while you're just sitting around, go right ahead! Thats a great way to make some pocket or gas money and it also gets your name going around the convention. Make sure that your prices are reasonable to the quality of work you can produce. I would say that if you plan on doing this, you definitely need to bring a portfolio of some of your more recent work with you for people to flip through to see if they even want to commission you. Dont clutter your space; give yourself room to showcase whatever you brought with you along with giving yourself room to breathe behind the table to work and relax. An open table is more inviting than a cluttered one.

10. Merch: Last, but not least, would be merchandise for your comic. Again, this is something that I would hold off on until you've established yourself. I find that the best sellers for webcomics are:

buttons (preferably 1" or 2" buttons)

stickers

relevant tee shirts

A lot of people are willing to spend a few bucks on buttons and stickers. Dedicated readers are more willing to part with $15 dollars on a tee shirt. You can make a lot of these right from home, though the machines are a tad on the expensive side. A professional button machine can set you back at least a good $200 before supplies. My boyfriend recently picked up a screen printing machine to make tee shirts and what not from an art supply store, but since its a good quality machine, it cost him at least $300 dollars. As long as you're establish and can AFFORD these things, by all means, invest. Good machines like these will last a good long time. The only thing you'd need to do is replace the supplies.

I would hold off on things like plushies, books, and maquettes...you're going to have to go through a third party for these and they tend to cost a lot more. Make sure you also read up before committing to a company!!

A bit of advice - I would hold of on any merch that has reference to anything that is not yours. It isnt cool to profit off of other people's ideas (see also: Tim Buckley & Scott Ramsoomair)

- - - - -

I really hope this helped all you aspiring webcomickers out. If you have any other questions, PLEASE dont hesitate to ask!

Your friendly neighborhood nerd girl,
Cesca
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