compugasm's Journal: Making Money In Webcomics: Revisited

Since my interview a few days ago, I've gotten more email questions about webcomics and money. So, I will expand on what I said in the interview:
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The two most important "things" that will make a successful webcomic, are having a comic worth reading, and consistency. These two things build off each other. If you don't have one, you don't have the other. If you don't have a comic worth reading, promoting it will be much harder, because you won't have the word-of-mouth boost. Consistency is much harder than making a good comic. The only way to measure consistency is calendar time, and most people just don't have the stamina for years of effort. Therefore:

Success = Consistency + Quality

The reader of your comic, probably doesn't care about why the comic is made, or how much it cost to do so. If you've never supported a comic in some way, by donating money, or clicking ads, why expect people to flock to your site and do it? So, anyone who wants to make money in webcomics, realize that the REAL money comes from someone who hires you to work on their stuff, and your own webcomic is training to get hired. The dictionary definition of succed means "to come next". So, to be a success means you have to do whatever is coming next. And this is all the more reason to promote your effort.

I kept track of the time it took to draw comics between January 1st 2006 -> 4/15/2006. If someone had hired me to develop content for them during that time period, It would have cost them roughly $36,000 to hire me. [more info on what was involved.]

Sample Math:
So, I was asked about how much money you can make in comics. Look at the problem from another angle: How much would an average webcomic artist need to make per year? You need to honestly calculate how many hours you spend on webcomic production. Then pay yourself an annual salary, of $10-100 for an hourly rate.

Creating webcomics is skilled labor. That should pay at least $25/hour. If you work 40 hours a week, (and be honest -- don't count reading comics and surfing the forums) then you'd earn:

* $ 50,000 a year @ 40 hours x 50 weeks x 25 dollars.
* $100,000 a year @ 40 hours x 50 weeks x 50 dollars.

I spend 6-9 hours a week on webcomic production. But like most freelancers, you won't get 40 hours x 50 weeks of work. You'll spend lots of time on promotion, business, lost effort, idleness, etc. I charge $150/hour because I do productive, billable work only a fraction of my total time.

Advertising:
In my opinion, there is no excuse for not spending at least $10 a month into advertising your comic, even if it's a crappy comic. If you're not old enough to get high paying job, anyone with a bank account can make $10 on the web in an hour. In this post I proved this assertion, and verified through paypal it works. Throw $10 into advertising for 10 months, and get a boost in traffic without out of pocket expense for promoting your comic. You will get better results with small, consistent effort, than spending $100 in one month. It will take trial and error for each individual creator to see what works.

I've bought a print advertisement in DJ Coffmans Yirmumah #3 book, plus a sponsor banner on his site for a total of $110. I also bought a banner ad on BadBloodComics website for $2. It was totally worth it, and essentially "free" advertising, because I've made back the money I spent, with my own comic. Start small, and be consistent. Get to it people!!