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self-publishing

ProFile: Ed Brisson

by Palle Schmidt 2 Comments

ProFile-Ed-Brisson

Ed Brisson is a comic book writer who’s has been published by Image, Marvel, BOOM! and IDW. Before getting being published by others, Ed spent nearly two decades creating and self-publishing his own comics.

What made you decide to work in the medium of comics?

I don’t remember a time where I didn’t want to work in comics. I’ve been reading comics since I could read and probably started drawing my own not long after. It’s just something I’ve always wanted to do.

Initially I wanted to be a comic artist and only started writing them because I didn’t know anyone else who could. This was before the internet was around, so I didn’t have access to scripts either. Slowly, and over a long period of time, I realized that I enjoyed the writing more than I did the illustrating and gave up the latter to focus in solely on writing.

What part of the process is the most challenging or frustrating to you?

I’m not sure. I tend to be pretty scatter brained and have a lot of trouble focusing in when the time comes. I takes a lot of effort and is thoroughly exhausting. I need a nap after I’ve written four or five pages.

Another thing I have trouble with, something that I rarely hear people talking about to aspiring creators, is making sure that I have downtime. I mean, you work hard for a long time to “break into” comics, to have people notice you and when they finally do, the offers will come flooding in and you have to be aware of how much you can handle and making sure that you leave some time for you. Otherwise you’re going to burn out.

I *try* to leave my weekends free for me time (which means mostly spending time with my wife and daughter), but still generally end up working through them. I’m working on it though.

If you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring comics creator, what would that be?

My advice would be to jump in, head first, and just start creating comics. Stop talking and start doing. I know too many people who have a “great” story they want to do, but never put rubber to road. Just start. Now. Start with 5-10 page stories. Build to single issues and then focus on doing longer stories once you have that down – once you’ve discovered your voice. Scrap your idea for a 200 issue epic. Start small and grow.

Follow Ed’s work at http://edbrisson.com/

Filed Under: Pro Tips, ProFile Tagged With: career, creativity, drawing, IDW Publishing, Image Comics, lettering, making comics, Marvel Comics, Murder Book, pro tips, productivity, self-publishing, storytelling, workflow, Writing, writing for comics

Self publishing – print or digital?

by Palle Schmidt 3 Comments

I’ve had several people ask me about self-publishing and the pros and cons of digital comics. I am by no means an expert here, but luckily the very talented Becky Cloonan just did a post on this very topic!

Cloonan is an Eisner-award winning artist and writer of creator-owned books such as Wolves and Demeter. In her recent post she breaks down her self-publishing experience, beginning with the toils of living with boxes of comics everywhere and constant runs to the post office:

The time it started taking out of my schedule was almost too much as well. One full day a week was spent filling orders, putting envelopes together, and mailing them out. I’d enlist my friends’ help carrying boxes to the post office. It got to be a bit much, and honestly I remember almost giving up a few times.

I did some self-publishing here in Denmark some years back and remember that state of constantly putting books in envelopes and orinting invoices. A luxury problem, for sure, but I hadn’t calculated shipping costs in my cover price, so it actually ended up costing me money every time I sent off a book! Between that and retailer discounts, I think I lost quite a bit of money on a fairly succesful book. I still have quite a few boxes in storage and no real plan to unload them. Putting money down for print and handling distribution is NOT something I feel like doing again any time soon.

Today I would definetely prefer digital over print, if I was to self-publish. The cost is lower and distribution is completely hassle free. Cloonan was lucky enough to get into the digital publishing platform Comixology, which makes it even easier and it’s still valuable to have a big player involved that can help handle logistics and marketing.

Cloonan continues to describe her experience with digital publishing:

DIGITAL COMICS! Yay, I have no idea what I’m doing! Submit was perfect for me, I got to choose the prices of my books, and they held my hand through the whole process. Now I know how to buy ISBNs like a boss, and format digital books. They did some great promotion for DEMETER too, and really pushed the book as part of the Submit launch! I have nothing but praise for ComiXology.

To read the rest of Cloonan’s run-down, go to her Tumblr. For me, the conclusion would be, if I can get digital distribution taken care of through another vendor, I wouldn’t mind digital publishing (Bonus info: You can buy my book, The Devil’s Concubine on Comixology as well. It’s not self-published, but I still get a cut, so… Appreciate it!), but I think just putting a book online as a web-comic and build the audience for a print or digital copy is really a better plan. I have way too much on my plate right now to bother with selling and shipping books.

What are your thoughts on self-publishing? Anyone have experience they want to share? Let’s hear it!

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Related post: Are printed books going away?

 

Filed Under: News Tagged With: Becky Cloonan, comics industry, comics market, Comixology, creativity, Demeter, digital, Eisner awards, print, self-publishing, The Devil's Concubine, Wolves

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