We had another successful #webcomicschat tonight. Thanks to everyone that participated. For me it’s great to meet other artists and talk shop. Here are some of the highlights: In the beginning we talked about writing. There’s no one way to write a comic strip but according to tonight’s participants most prefer to script their comics before drawing them. Ultimately I guess it depends on whether you consider yourself more of a writer or a cartoonist or both. For me I like having things written down ahead of time. This lets me work further ahead on my strip while giving me a chance to revise and improve my ideas as I go. A great suggestion that came up was to use G Docs so that you can access your documents from anywhere at any time. This will really help me because inspiration rarely comes when I’m planning for it so I love the idea of being able to write down ideas on my phone, computer, or whatever.
We also talked about promotion and advertising. We all want to know how to get more readers. There’s no easy answer but many good tips were discussed. First and foremost is the method I like to call the “Field of Dreams” approach. Which is to say “If you build it they will come.” In other words, if you create a good quality comic, readers will find you. We also talked about advertising with Project Wonderful. It’s an inexpensive service that allows you to create and target ads to potential readers. It was suggested that advertising on sites with larger audiences and a similar genre to your own works best. It’s probably better to pay more for a visible ad box on a more popular site then to have higher impressions on a lower traffic site. It’s also important that your ad is easy to read and makes a good impression to attract clicks. It’s always helpful to try and think of things from a potential readers point of view. What would make you click the ad and look at the site?
Thanks again to everyone that participated, and if you’re interested, join us next week at hastag #webcomicschat at 6pm/Pacific or 9pm/Eastern.
