DOING THE WORK // 5.02.02

LET THERE BE HYPE
by Harris O'Malley

Entry #4

Let There Be Hype. And There Was Hype. And it was Good.

First, some corrections: Dan Carroll works for thesmallpress.com, NOT net. And in addition, I apparently decided to do things the hard way when I sent my art to the printer. I could have, evidently, saved everything as a PDF file and saved myself a lot of headaches.

In the interest of covering my ass, this applies only to the printer I went to; I would rather strongly recommend talking to, say, Brenner or Quebecor before just dropping everything into Adobe Acrobat and winging it off to the shop.

ALSO: Larry Young's TRUE FACTS came out last week, and it's been my salvation. If you're planning on self-publishing, you need this book. Buy the Book. Read the Book. Live the Book. Failing that, eat the Book.

And, I just found out that my covers will not, in fact, be in color. Thanks to a misunderstanding between me and the printer, the covers will be B/W, standard 50# offset, just like the interiors. Going back and reprinting the covers in color would effectively double the price.

Always be very clear with the printer, people. Learn from my example.

DOING THE WORK: I suffer, so you don't have to.

* * * * *

This is going to be a long one, folks.

It's been an interesting week, here at Caer O'Malley. The past ten days have marked the celebration of Fiesta, an annual event that consists of parades, nightly celebrations, oyster bakes, Fiesta Royalty and copious amounts of alcohol.

This year, Fiesta involved my going to a party on a bridge over the San Antonio River, tossing beers to the cute girls on the barges as the River Parade floats by and hanging off the sides in preparation to leap onto one of the barges, push the driver off and claim it in the name of my father. Ah, good times, good times.

Of course, it also marked my getting BETWEEN THE CRACKS back from the printers and receiving my first orders. It's an interesting feeling, offering something you've created to the public. There's a nervousness that I think is only comparable to stage-fright, or being naked in front of your lover for the first time. And really, the only thing to do is just yell "FUCK IT!" and plunge ahead.

"FUCK IT!" is the family motto, here at Caer O'Malley.

After having brought the first issue of BETWEEN THE CRACKS to the printers, I went about establishing myself as an honest to god business. I won't go into the details here (that's for the next column… gotta save something to keep you coming back), but I've quickly learned that while this isn't hard, per se, it's damned time-consuming. Frankly, between trying to coordinate with the printer, consulting with lawyers, filing paperwork and getting my accounting straightened out, I've barely had time to get any actual artwork done. And of course, I've just received a new surprise.

(Jens, I'm working on the pages. I swear.)

In addition to running Studio Underhill, I also work at an insurance company, mostly doing heavy lifting and hauling old computers around the complex as they busily re-model their offices.

During a break, my supervisor got to talking about people's enthusiasm for their work and how people who express love for their jobs are usually lying. Naturally, I remarked that, while hauling old Dell CPU's around a complex the size of four city blocks wasn't my dream career, I loved working in comics. In fact, I said, I've just recently started self-publishing.

"Ah," he said sagely, "You love it?"

"The way some men love their wives," I replied.

He grinned, moving in for the metaphorical kill. "So..." he said, crossing his arms, "do it for free, then."

I don't think he was expecting me to laugh in his face.

I'll be realistic here; because BETWEEN THE CRACKS is a mini-comic, its very format severely restricts the options I have in terms of getting sales and marketing. Diamond isn't likely to carry it, and paying for ad-space in Wizard or Comic Buyers Guide would leave me in greater debt than I'm already in.

This leaves me with the DIY approach.

Taking a page from Larry Young, I plug my work at every conceivable opportunity. This has taken many facets.

First: Local promotion.

One of my goals is to get BETWEEN THE CRACKS into the hands of the mainstream audience; people who don't read comics, in other words. Now, if I were as rich as, say, Mark Alessi, I'd probably follow Warren Ellis' advice from a COME IN ALONE essay and hire a reputable firm to make a marketing blitz in Entertainment Weekly or some such. Lacking such finances, I decided to do the next best thing: hit Kinko's (yeah, yeah, I hate them. Shut up.) and proceed to paper San Antonio with ads. My strategy here is fairly simple: if there was a community bulletin board, I was there. If bands advertised their CD release parties, or announced concerts, you could find me. If college students begged for cross-country rides or announced the latest beer-bashes, I was right next to them, stapling up my signs.

This is something to think about folks. If you want to promote your stuff, don't just stick with comic stores. Hit your local independent CD stores. Art supply stores. Arthouse theatres. College campuses. For GOD's sake, hit the college campuses. This is where you'll probably find your largest audience. Buy ads in the college papers if you can afford them; try your alma-mater's first, they'll probably give you a discount.

And remember: ask for permission first, if you're planning on distributing your ads in stores. It's not always necessary, but it can help get you space in places that don't normally carry fliers. Politeness is, sadly, a rare trait these days, and some basic courtesy can open a lot of doors.

By the by: If you're interested in helping the cause, there's a printer-friendly PDF of my ad here. Make some copies and go spread the word. I'll give a free, signed copy of BETWEEN THE CRACKS #1 to the first person to e-mail me with the URL of a picture of my ad in a new city.

Second stage: Guerilla marketing.

This stage is currently in progress. I've just ordered stickers from 123Stickers.com, which I shall also be plastering across the city, with the URL for Studio Underhill. We shall see what results I get from these. I will also have stickers to give away and bumpers tickers for sale. Keep checking back if you're interested. Thanks to some quick trips to CompUSA, I've also made custom business cards with my URL and contact information on one side and a small, color image on the back. I hand these out at the drop of a hat, with the hope that the art will intrigue people enough to come to my site.

It's also a fairly simple way to hand cute girls my phone number. What, me with ulterior motives? Naaah.

Third stage: The Internet.

Too many people, even in this day and age, underestimate the value of the Internet as a marketing tool. It's not surprising; when most people think of Internet marketing, they think of those damned X-10 web camera pop-ups. This, naturally, misses the point.

The first thing any aspiring comic artist needs to do is build a website. There are no excuses for not doing this, short of not having an Internet connection, and frankly, if you don't have one, then you probably wouldn't be reading this anyway. There are any number of free web-hosts out there and even more who charge a nominal fee. Scores of sites exist whose sole purpose is to teach basic HTML. Others, like GUIStuff.com offer website templates, which takes most of the heavy lifting out of the job.

Next, you want to get your artwork in as many places as possible. For example, you can find my work at Renderosity, Elfwood and DAZ3D. The more on-line galleries you get your work into, the more chances you have of getting people to check out your site and buying your work.

After that, get the word out that you exist. I'm a regular at the Warren Ellis forum, so naturally, they're the first place I hyped my books. After all, the WEF is the largest anglophone comic-related forum on the net; on an average day, the WEF receives well over 2000 unique hits. These are 2000 people who will see your posts, each day. Spread out to other forums; obviously, I hype my stuff at the Savant forum, but I've also made announcements at Speechballoon, The Small Press, Comicon and Usenet. If you're into manga and anime, and can either read Japanese or find a decent translation, see about getting your site listed at Tinami, the end-all,be-all listing of manga artist's sites.

Get a copy of Larry Young's TRUE FACTS. Read the chapter about press releases, then write one and send 'em off via e-mail. Larry conveniently includes a small host of appropriate e-mail addresses, and even provides an example of one of his press releases for you to emulate.

And in case any of you doubt the value of Internet marketing: not only have I found a store in England that would like copies of BETWEEN THE CRACKS and hopefully be selling copies through Renderosity's marketplace, I just got hired for my first professional job through the Warren Ellis Forum. I'll be doing inks for Gettosake Entertainment's THE LIFE AND TIMES OF CREDENCE WALKER mini-series.

It works, folks. You just have to make the effort.

* * * * *

It just wouldn't be DOING THE WORK if I didn't plug someone. With that in mind, here's an e-mail I just received from my friend, aspiring filmmaker Lance Brown:

Go see this, people. You won't be sorry.

And finally, in case you missed it earlier, the first issue of BETWEEN THE CRACKS is fresh off the press and ready to be bought. Head to http://www.studiounderhill.com/comics.html to read the virtual ash can, then tromp over to http://www.studiounderhill.com/order.html to get yourself a copy.

Support the arts. Buy two.

Discuss this column on the SAVANT forum.