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3.10.2006

The Hive #5: Fundraising Ideas

Well, folks, there's a new The Hive up over on Pop Culture Shock - the last in a series of discussions on funding your comic. Next week we get down to distribution and will likely kick it off with a bit of announcement that'll up the stakes a bit for The Hive.

So those are my quick hits, all of them available for discussion; and now I'd like to move on to the main idea for today. The stuff above, that holds for almost any industry you get in to. But when it comes to comics, we have an advantage that other industries don't have - we have a product that's so hip and stylish that we can get people to pay us to market it.

When I first saw images from Josh and Kody's PUNKS, the first thing I said is, “I'd buy that shirt.” I didn't even know what PUNKS was, Josh sent me the teaser image and I wanted that shirt. Because, as we create, we make these iconic, stylish images that can be stuck on a variety of products and sold. The profit from these mini-ventures can be used to fund your comic book.

Click here to read the rest!

Jason at 8:38 AM  |  link to this   

3 Comments

Jason, I'm on the fence about this. IMO, merchandising up front usually isn't the best way to go, especially for a start up. I'd recommend first focusing on your one main product--your comic. Anything else at that point is a distraction, both creatively and financially. Once you start making ways and get your sea legs, then branch out--Ts, mugs, whatever. Doing it conversely is a tough sell.

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Blogger Dembicki at 3/10/2006 10:49 AM   

I agree with Matt. Oversaturate your audience and you risk them avoiding the main thing, the comic. As with anything, building up too fast is the surest method of killing something.

Blogger Chris at 3/10/2006 11:15 AM   

Well, the thought is that it's kind of easy to get the t-shirt thing going once you have the designs. I've done it, my friends have done it, and Josh is doing it right now with PUNKS (and it's working out well for them). The design work is the hard part and we're doing that anyway - it'll get some extra money to cover printing and the like. They sold their PUNKS shirts by posting on a couple of message boards, set it up through Paypal, it was just a quick turn around.

As far as oversaturating - you're not selling the shirt as a comic shirt, at least not at first - you're just selling a cool shirt. Granted, PUNKS says "Punks the Comic" on it but it didn't have to and I'd imagine the shirt would still be an easy sale.

Building up hype never hurts your product provided your product is good. We're not talking sumemr blockbuster hype - we're talking 200 shirts that can raise you a grand or so - that's a fair amount of books.

Hell, my family alone will buy 40 of them if I asked them to, but that's the benefit of having a big-ass Puerto Rican family.

Blogger Jason at 3/10/2006 11:37 AM   

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