Jamie Gambell

Hero Code - What to do, what to do...

2013-05-15T11:24:00.000-07:00

Hero Code is a near and dear series for me, something I have been working on for a very long time - perhaps all my comic reading life.

When issue one was launched with a successful Kickstarter, I really did think I would be putting out issues at the very least quarterly. I wrote ahead, plotted ahead, planned ahead, and kept going with grand ideas of an on-going indie superhero series, collected trades, phone book sized deluxe collections, the world was my oyster!

Sadly, life got in the way of that idea.

Jonathan Rector, the Hero Code artist, was tied up with other commitments, which slowed production.

Issue two came out as a fill-in, stand alone issue, with David Brame producing a great issue, something which stands alone, and works incredibly well within the bigger story.

I moved away from producing more fill-in issues, because of my own worries about the gap between issue one of Jonathan's first arc and the second part being too big.

I worked on some other projects. Sometimes my eyes got too big for my comic making stomach. Sometimes I wondered if my heart was really in the whole thing. And then real life was always there, and the amount of time I could use to write diminished.

I'm still ahead, but some days I feel like I've fallen behind.

So what should I do?

I have a Hero Code special half way done, featuring the art of Agustin Calcagno;

which leads into a separate mini-series by Gary Lister;

Which should run for 4 issues in total (part of the falling behind has been in writing this - I have it plotted fully, but only scripted to two issues).

Should I run these issues as Special, then 1-4, and then relaunch Hero Code, starting with David Brame's issue, and then into Jonathan Rector's run?

That would make sense in a chronological sense. I could continue to have single issues available at shows until I have completed runs available as trades, and then run the stories on-line or as digital books.

I have Department O having been accepted on the Comixology Submit platform, and coming soon - so perhaps this will allow me to get the other MPS books onto the service.

Do I just keep going, and keep the numbering as is, with the mini-series being put out as it's own series?

We shall see.

Basically, Hero Code is still going, it's just taking longer than originally planned. All part of indie comic book publishing, I guess...

Pay What You Like - week 2

2013-05-12T19:49:00.000-07:00

This weeks book is Issue One of The Black Wraith

By G. Brett Williams, M Lee Harris, Heather Breckel and Frank Cvetkovic.

You can name your price and enjoy a digital download of the issue by clicking on the cover now!

Pay What You Like Month

2013-05-07T15:13:00.001-07:00

May is Pay What You Like Month on MPS - I'll be running a series of digital books through Gumroad across the month where people will be able to download a pdf of the book and name their own price.

You can download the book for zero or a million dollars if you're so inclined - you decide!

Each book will be available for a week, before a uniform minimum price will be established.

First up is Department O, by Andrew MacLean, Heather Breckel and myself.

click the cover to be taken to Gumroad

You can name your price and download a copy of the book now from here.

Be sure to come back every Tuesday in May to see which book is available.

Page Previews - state of things to come

2013-03-31T17:07:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share a few things with everyone, show off some art previews and all that.

First up - The Black Wraith, issue 2 (by Williams, Harris, Breckel and Cvetkovic);

Black Wraith #2 cover - art by M Lee Harris

Line art is finished, and the lettering is nearly there. Just awaiting colours, and then we are ready to go!

The Hero Code - Theatre of War (1 of 4 - by Gambell, Lister, Breckel and Cvetkovic);

art by Gary Lister

The Hero Code - Coming of the Occultist (one shot by Gambell, Calcagno, Breckel and Cvetkovic);

Art by Agustin Calcagno

These two stories will be released as digital first books, before being collected in print for conventions only.

There is also a back up story, written by Rich Lovatt, with art by M Lee Harris, colours by Heather Breckel and letters by Frank Cvetkovic -

This should be appearing in the back of Hero Code issue 3, which will continue the Menace of the Mannequin storyline.

Jonathan is nearly done with his Standard commitments, so should be back on the main book soon, and issue 2 of Department O, as mentioned in the previous post, is ready for Andrew.

Hope you dig these!

Climbing the writers wall

2013-03-26T05:29:00.001-07:00

Last week I finished the script for issue two of Department O.

It's a little late.

No big deal, It's an indie book, there isn't a set deadline, I have a day job etc.

I had originally wanted the script done and over to Andrew for November of last year, but I encountered something I hadn't encountered before; I could not write past a block in the middle section of the issue, no matter how many times I tried.

I would write, delete, write, re-write, delete panels again and again and again.

But now it is done. The block is over-come, the script is finished and with the artist.

It also opened up another hurdle on another script for the Hero Code.

Good sign, right?

A wee update

2013-03-16T00:48:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to write down a quick projects update, partly for my own head, but also to let people know where I'm at for comic book stuff in 2013.

Department O (with Andrew MacLean) - we've submitted issue one to Comixology, and await their response. I am about half way done with the script for issue 2, and Andrew is ready to draw once it is complete. I've had a middle section of the script prove to be a sticking point for me (the front and end are taken care of, but one moment just doesn't hold together). Once that is taken care of, it shouldn't take too long to finish this off.

Hero Code (with Jonathan Rector) - I have the scripts up until issue eight or nine completed, ready and waiting for Jonathan to start on, as soon as he finishes up his The Standard commitments.

Hero Code: The Coming of the Occultist (with Agustin Calcagno) - a one shot precursor to The Theatre of War. Working on the first five pages of this 22 page story now.

Hero Code: Theatre of War (with Gary Lister) - first three pages of art are finished, next four pages are thumbed and being worked on now. Gary is onboard for the first issue in this 4 issue mini, and then hopefully he will be able to finish it up.

Resident Aliens (with Calmplex) - finishing off the first introductory chapter in this mini series.

Into the Darkness Mini - I've plotted out a small chunk of the mini comic for a challenge. Once I have the opening worked out, I'll get to drawing it.

Intranauts (with TBA) - first part of the first arc plotted, working on the rest now.

There are a few other things, which I won't be announcing just yet, but which will probably be ready a little later into the year.

For now, I need sleep. I have a five year old's birthday party to attend tomorrow!

Have a great weekend, everyone.

Home Again, Home Again - ECCC in review

2013-03-05T21:34:00.000-08:00

So Emerald City Comic Con has been and gone - how was the show?

In one word, big.

Twice the size of last years show, by many accounts.

I brought along a stack of comic books, prints, buttons, sketch covers, collectors cards and mini-comics - ultimately though I could have stuck with just comic books.

Of the attendees there seemed to be four classes - the old fans who wanted their collections signed, or to meet specific creators.

The niche fans, who wanted anything with Doctor Who or whatever (but mainly Doctor Who - there was a lot of Doctor Who fans there, A LOT!) on it.

The fans of comic book properties, who probably saw the Avengers and liked the idea of what comic books are rather than what they really are.

Luckily, there was also many comic book readers in town - wanting to find new books to read, and willing to check out new creators.

Because I only sold books, it wasn't the most lucrative show for me. Adding the costs up really made it a tough show to make money from anyway, but as I only sold books, my lowest returning item, it made it near impossible.

Overall we sold 25 books - breaking down as follows; 12 on Friday, 11 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. The days were long and the sales all seemed to come in a one hour window on each day a few hours before closing.

Pros:

Meeting people is always great, be it other new creators, established pros, old friends, new friends, new readers.

A father and son came to our table and read through a copy of Black Wraith together, laughing, cooing and smiling the whole way. They then bought that copy.

A young female reader came to the table telling us that she was new to comics, and really liked super-hero stuff. She bought both issues of Hero Code and Black Wraith.

Despite being busy, the table spacing was good enough that people weren't crowded in the aisles.

The acoustics were really quite good. I have problems in other shows where one simply couldn't hear the person in front of them because the bounce of noise around.

Cons:

Crowds didn't necessarily translate into sales. It often seemed hard to get anyone to stop at the tables in our section.

Going between the two sections of Artist Alley was made tough by the spam-logging central walkway connecting the two areas.

No one seemed interested in buying original art.

And finally, although nothing to do with the con itself, the time it took to get dinner at the Elephant and Castle on the first night was shocking!

Result - a little too rich for my blood. With people seemingly only interested in my low return items, I cannot justify doing the show and taking such a loss, sadly.

Also, around the second half of Saturday I really started to miss my kids.

I am still in search of an out-of-town show which ticks the boxes for me. For now, I think I'll try to get into Wonder Con next year, and do Long Beach at the end of this year - who knows besides that.

Emerald City Comic Con - K16

2013-02-27T06:02:00.002-08:00

Good morning, you wonderful people.

In a couple of days I will be at Emerald City Comic Con, tabling at K16 with G Brett Williams.

We will have a whole host of things for people to peruse and hopefully purchase - the list looks something like this;

Comic Books ($5 each, or x5 for $20);

Department O - cover by Andrew Ross MacLean

The Hero Code - issues one (by me and Jonathan Rector) and two (by me and David Brame)
The Black Wraith - issue one (By Brett and M Lee Harris)
Department O - issue one (by me and Andrew Ross MacLean)
Meatspace - issue one (by Josh Gorfain and Andrew Ross MacLean)
Omnitarium - digest trade (by me and J.C. Grande)
Samurai - volume one (by various)

Prints ($10 each or x3 for $20)

Hero Code Theatre of War print, art by Mike O'Hare

11x17 prints of various characters on photo-gloss.

Sketch Covers ($25 each)

Hero Code sketch cover, art by me

Various by various - some of the Hero Code issue one's that were part of the Sketch Cover Project

I'll also have some things in the $1 range - trading card sets, buttons, simple sketch cards, a mini comic...

Spidey sketch card, art by me

I have also done a couple of sketches for people, so be sure to come by and collect those, you know who you are!

Please stop by, say hi, chat comics, tell us what you like - looking forward to seeing you there.

In-box Double

2013-02-25T21:14:00.002-08:00

Here's a run at some colours for Agustin Calcagno's Black Wraith pin-up, by the ever-wonderful Heather Breckel;

I also received Agustin's inks on his Myth piece;

Sadly, I don't think that I will have time to get these two, plus the Occultist print, ready for ECCC - I'll be working right up until I leave for the show.

Still, they are great pieces - I will find some way to make use of them soon!

I'll try to write up a list of what we will have available at ECCC in the next couple of days.

Rock Your Travel

2013-02-23T13:45:00.001-08:00

My good friends, Algis Tamosaitis and Adrienne Lusby have published a book, Rock Your Travel.

An excellent guide for frequent travelers on ways to take advantage of programs and deals to travel the world in a little more luxury.

For the next couple of days you can download a free Kindle edition copy from Amazon

Look, I even just lifted the image from Amazon - you can actually look inside on the site!

You can also check out their website here.

(I'm far too modest to mention that I have a small piece in the book!)

The Occul'ist Print

2013-02-19T21:40:00.002-08:00

Here's the line work by Agustin Calcagno on an Occutlist print which I'm hoping to have at Emerald City Comic Con.

I'm hoping to add a third print to the set and have them all coloured and printed in time for the show.

What do people think of Myth as the third pin-up?

You know it's hard out here for a print!

2013-02-19T05:44:00.001-08:00

ICGeeks most definitely seems to be gone.

Noel and his team did something with their POD service, which I hadn't encountered before - they made getting books into the DM with a POD a viable option.

However, I fear that they were victims of their own success. Genuinely wanting to help creators, they found themselves on the wrong end of some wrong customers, and now they are gone.

We are left where we were, and with the service we all deserve.

Yes, I'm a little bitter!

It puts me in a position of not being able to really afford to print my comics.

I've said before here that I have been considering moving to a digital first model - that is producing 24 page comics, and posting them up on the MPS site, a page a week. I would make the issues available before they were posted as purchasable PDF's, for those who a) can't wait, and/or b) would rather own a book to read on a device of their choice.

I would do micro-print runs (using either Ka-Blam or RAComics as a POD - both decent, both expensive!) for shows.

Doing off-set will have to wait - for either trade collections or KS campaigns - we shall see...

Speaking of shows, I will try to post a more comprehensive list of prices and items for Emerald City Comic Con later this week - as I try to work out what I'll be taking and how!

Have a great week.

Emerald City Sketch Card give-away!

2013-02-12T07:32:00.000-08:00

Here is the final inks on Agustin's Black Wraith pin-up;

Really think he did a great job on this!

I'm hoping to have this available at ECCC as a print.

Speaking of Emerald City - I will be offering up 10 free sketch cards, first come first served, of any characters.

You can sign up here in the comments section, telling me which character you would like.

If I don't get 10 people signed up here, I'll have a sheet at the actual convention.

Spread the word, thank you!

Wraith Options

2013-02-05T06:17:00.000-08:00

Three weeks and three days until ECCC!

I've been receiving some nice inbox goodies this last week - the first couple of pages of The Hero Code: Theatre of War, by artist Gary Lister, a perfect fit for the story.

I also received the following thumbs of a possible Black Wraith pin-up, by artist Agustin Calcagno;

I know which one I like...

Maybe this will be finished in time for the show.

K16 - ECCC

2013-01-30T05:46:00.001-08:00

K-16.

That is where you'll find myself and Black Wraith writer, G Brett Williams, at Emerald City Comic Con's Artist Alley.

Only four weeks and change to go!

We'll have copies of Black Wraith, Department O, Hero Code, a few Omnitarium's, some prints, some sketch editions, etc...

Considering doing some sketch card head shots as give aways with those who buy stuff...

See you all there!

I regret nothing! (almost everything)

2013-01-27T12:17:00.002-08:00

"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually afraid you will make one." Elbert Hubbard

The Hero Code - a long-form, independent, super-hero sci-fi sage.

Advice from so many writers tell us that we shouldn't go for the long, sprawling stories which most of us are familiar with who grew up reading comics.

They also tell us how the market is full, fit to bursting, with super hero books - and that no one cares about the indies. Who wants to read somebodies idea of Batman, when they can read the actual Batman?

They also tell us to tell the story that we want to tell, and find the audience that we deserve.

The Hero Code feels, for me, to have had a false start. When I originally set out to tell the story, I had a chronological story starting in WWII, and heading in both directions - flash backs to tell more about the Code's particular world, and stories to move us forward up to modern day.

The problem was, I was trying to recreate comic books as I saw them, rather than create the Hero Code as I saw it. I opted, after far too much procrastination and deliberation, to start the story in the modern era.

Problem was, there were certain beats that would play out in these issues, which would require some back story to play out. Wedging the flash-back into the main story would, in my opinion, slow the pacing down and be too much of a wrench.

Couple this with the fact that the artist on The Hero Code, Jonathan Rector, needed some time to finish other commitments, which again slowed the pace of the story more.

The mistakes I made, I think, as a creator, weren't that I tried to tell a story which most people tell me isn't going to resonate with indie readers, but rather that I tried to mold the story into a shape which wasn't working.

Since then, I've started reading the excellent Copra, by Michel Fiffe. A long-form superhero saga, but told very much in an indie style.

Copra, issue 2 - all rights Michel Fiffe

I urge you all to seek out Copra, it is fantastic, and show me something I always thought - it can be done.

I am not proposing a restart, or a reboot of Hero Code, but I will begin telling the story in the manner which I first envisioned - and I will sort out the numbering somewhere down the line. The loss of ICGeeks to the indie POD world has been a tough one, and means that I am seriously questioning how to approach the print market, so Hero Code will probably be a digital first series from now on - print, I will address down the line.

I will be writing a companion piece to this at some point, addressing where I think I made mistakes in my Kickstarter campaign, and what I hopefully learned.

"Mistakes are the portals of discovery." James Joyce

Tuesday Night Thoughts

2013-01-22T21:36:00.000-08:00

I needed to write something.

I don't have that much to say, but I really needed to just tap away at the keys and remind myself and my muscles that I can do this.

I'm currently working on the first two issues of Hero Code: Theatre of War, as well as tightening and plotting the future issues of Hero Code, ready for when Jonathan is once again available to work on the series.

Sneak peek at a panel WIP for Hero Code: Theatre of War - art by Gary Lister

I'm also getting on with Department O issue two. Slowly, but surely, I am getting on with it.

With print seemingly off the tables at the moment (I can't afford to off-set print series and create, but will not be able to make the money back to create more of each series unless I am able to find a viable print method - etc), I am more and more leaning towards spending the next year or so building up each series in the digital realm.

Monkey Pipe Studios is chugging along nicely, there are currently six series with weekly updates from a variety of creators, as well as a few shorts and previews. I've held off on posting newer series, such as Hero Code, Department O and Black Wraith, there for now, but perhaps this is the time to do it?

I've also been thinking about the future.

I really feel like it might be fun to try to conceive a series told across a year per issue - fifty-two page issues, one issue a year, with weekly updates online.

Something for next year maybe?

Good night, all.

Baby, Give it Up!

2013-01-15T22:34:00.000-08:00

Some days you wake up, and just don't feel like you have the drive in you any more.

I've been in a little bit of a comics funk of late - hoping that I've learned some lessons along the way, but wondering if maybe I'm not cut out for all this.

Personal life has been really testing me, and time has once again become an idea, a thing which other people have, but which I only hear about in passing.

The seeming demise of ICGeeks has made me wonder, once more about the viability of what I am making - getting these books into stores now seems less and less likely.

The idea of conventions has started to feel me with dread, rather than excitement.

News from the world of comics has left me wondering if it is even a world worth fighting for.

So many questions, and so much self-doubt.

Aaron Schwartz - RIP

2013-01-13T13:53:00.000-08:00

Creative Commons, RSS, SOPA and Reddit.

Aaron Schwartz was found dead yesterday morning, hanged, suspected suicide.

So much of what the internet, and in particular the collective sense of the shared information that is the internet, is down to this man's work.

I have always been a huge fan of the idea of creative commons, the notion of sharing one's creativity with a more flexible form of copyright, but never really sure how to use it.

One idea that I had always had was to introduce a character within the Hero Code story, The Occultist, which I would then release into and under the Creative Commons license for other creators to produce their own stories and work with.

The Occultist, art by Andrew Ross MacLean and Dan Smith

You can read more about my plans here.

I am now, in honour of Mr Schwartz's life and work, placing this character under the Creative Commons license -

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

One caveat, I had contacted Dark Horse Comics about their character of the same name (which came after mine, I should add) and they asked that I do not name a book The Occultist, nor have the name appear on the cover of a book, so as not to confuse. I agreed.

Creators - feel free to play around with the character (please give credit to myself as the creator), create books, stories, prints, what ever you like - if you feel so inclined, please consider donating a portion of any profits to the Creative Commons project.

Prints - set of 4

2013-01-05T12:05:00.000-08:00

Only a couple of months until ECCC, and I'm starting to think about bringing some prints along - maybe offering them on the store also.

Here are four possible contenders:

First up, Mike O'Hare's take on the villains for the up-coming Hero Code, Theatre of War story,

Next is Ming Doyle's take on The Black Wraith,

Then there is Ramon Villalobos' Optiman,

And finally Giannis Milonogiannis' White Shade piece.

These will be 11x17, on photo-gloss paper.

I'm thinking of doing runs of 50 of each, selling them at $20 each, or $60 for a set of the four - bringing some to ECCC and selling the rest through the store (shipped in cylinders).

One thing I would really love to do is to split profits with the artists on each of these.

Thoughts?

I have no idea what I'm doing

2013-01-01T13:31:00.003-08:00

So, here we are, a new year, and new beginning.

The Monkey Pipe Studios website is beginning to fill up more and more, which is what I really wanted - a site that people could visit daily, weekly, casually, and catch up on some good web-comics.

As of today, Jesse Mesa Toves' Tell the Veil begins - a short piece from an excellent and extremely talented creator (check out his stuff here).

Probably next week (Friday) will see the start of Slate and Ashe, by Ethan Murphy, Luigi Teruel and Isabel Tanalgo.

Later this year, possibly February or March, I am hoping to start running The Hero Code as a webcomic also - and soon after I'd love for The Black Wraith and Department O to follow.

I'll also be adding some more shorts and the like.

With all of these, that would bring the total of series running on the site to eight.

Why am I doing this?

To be honest, I don't really know. I get around 100 unique viewers pretty much every day, so I'm guessing someone is getting something out of this.

I'm sure there is plenty I could be doing to extend the reach of this project, but for now I really am just trying to get the series' out there. By sharing the site with more creators, I am hoping to extend each of our collective reaches.

With that in mind, I am trying to work out ways of making the site more open to completed submissions - if anyone has any thoughts on this, or ideas on how to make this work, please let me know.

It's not about money, or claiming ownership - every story that appears on the site remains the property of the creators - it's about having a single point for lots of creators to showcase their works, and hopefully build all of our followings.

On the side of MPS titles and printed runs, I am in talks with a printer right now about doing some small off-set runs for our titles, and hope to have some news on that in the next few days - at the very least I will have some things ready for ECCC, even if I have to go the POD route for the show.

As you were.

End this depression, Now!

2012-12-28T16:22:00.000-08:00

I'm currently reading this.

About a third of the way through and wanted to jot some notes, especially as I am pretty sick and tired of hearing about the Fiscal Cliff.

1. The best way to get out of a recession or financial slump is to spend. The amounts of money don't change, just the flow. We're clogged. Lower spending = lower production = less jobs. Spending encourages job creation, which in turn gets us out of the hole.

2. The people who have the most money also have a greater political influence - as do the industries which move these large sums of money. Play nicely with these people (ie give them what they want - and what they tend to want is deregulation) and maybe there will be a nice fat job at the end of your political life.

3. The financial world doesn't seem to create anything innovative at any level. It just moves money around.

4. The fiscal cliff seems to be a huge smoke and mirrors get-out-of-jail card for both political parties. No one wants to raise taxes. No one wants to cut spending. Do nothing, and these things automatically happen, and you get to point your well paid, incredible health-insurance covered chubby fingers at the other guy.

5. Reading about what people in the financial world get away with gives me a hate-headache.

6. Fiscal conservatives are morons.

As you were.

The Hero Code - Theatre of War (2013)

2012-12-27T14:54:00.000-08:00

The plans for the Hero Code mini-series - The Theatre of War - are coming together nicely.

Art by Jonathan Rector

What I would really love to do is run the series as a web-comic updating twice a week starting in February.

This will hopefully build up some momentum with The Hero Code, and allow Jonathan the time he needs to finish his projects and return to the series around the same time.

I am currently doing something that I have never done before, testing two artists on the project. I have asked for sample pages* from two very different artists with very different styles, which I hope will help me come to a clear decision on what direction to take the series.

I had originally written the story with a different artist in mind, which then became a different artist, which then became a different artist... by the time I sat down to look over what I had, my mind was having a tough time picturing how the pages would play out.

I hope to have an announcement soon with the creative team tied up.

Art by Mike O'Hare

NB. I should add that the two images above are not by the two artists who are working on the sample pages at the moment. These are a couple of pin ups done a while back when Theatre of War was originally how the Hero Code was going to launch.

*paid sample pages, I think it's important to note.

Further thoughts on formats

2012-12-15T15:37:00.001-08:00

Still no word on what is happening at IC Geeks.

Still mulling over what to do, formatting wise, with future books.

I am really feeling like the quickest means of getting a book to readers is in web serialization - and to get The Hero Code moving a little quicker, I am leaning at having that series at least run online first, with a look at collecting them in graphic novels.

With Department O, I'd love to put out these books as short run prints. Not sure at the moment if I want to play around with paper, do a card stock, more small press looking book, or maybe an off print run, like I've spoken about in the past, in chunks of 1000.

I'm also thinking about more mini-comics and small printed stuff.

Until I know exactly what is happening with IC Geeks, I'm going to be pondering on this one, maybe for some time.

Flopping floppies, is there hope in selling single issues to stores?

2012-12-05T13:51:00.000-08:00

Here's a simple fact about each and every comic book I have released; based on the numbers of copies I have sold, they would have all been cancelled.

Making single issues sell in the current market seems hard enough for the big companies. Short of a gimmick, a slew of covers or an event featuring only the biggest character names out there, the numbers are way down on even the highest books.

When I started making comics I didn't really have any idea as to what I was expecting, I found an artist, I had a script, I paid some money, and then I printed up copies through a POD service.

I wasn't making any money back, but I wasn't out of pocket and left with a garage full of unsold copies.

The company I used was Ka-Blam. They seemed good, and did good enough work. For hand selling, for selling at conventions, for low risk, and for black and white books, they were about as good as it got for a while.

I didn't expect too much from them, save some books, and they delivered about what I needed.

Cracking into stores was never going to happen though - and here is where the great circle of trouble for indie creators comes about.

In order to make selling direct to comic book stores, along with a viable product, one needs to have a cover price which isn't going to keep people away.

In order to make that cover price attractive, one needs to get books printed at a good enough price to be able to sell the book for at least 50% of that cover price to stores, and still make a profit (otherwise, what's the point?).

A good rule of thumb is to sell your books at 150% of the cost of printing.

Selling a book at $2.99? You better be paying less than $1.50 to print it, otherwise you losing money.

That doesn't even take into account shipping costs, from printer, to stores, etc etc.

So, using the Ka-Blam model, and with a basic 24 page comic book, let's look at the costs to print -

Black and white comes in at $2.22, with no ad - $1.62 with the ad.

I personally don't like the ad that Ka-Blam asks you to run, but the saving is considerable.

So the cover price on each of those books should be $5.55 with no ad, $4.05 with an ad.

Rounding out to $5.99 with no ad, and $3.99 with an ad, that means for every copy you sell to a store, your profit is $0.77c/$0.37c give or take.

For colour, things change considerably - with the same 24 page book costs are -

No ad $3.27/with ad $2.67

Using the 150% model you need to be selling your books at $8/$6.99 to get anything like a profit.

Good luck selling those books to the stores, let alone direct to readers, at those prices.

It is a maintainable model for hand to hand sales, through a store or at conventions, and does keep risks down, but to stores, it isn't viable at all.

A few years later I was put onto ICGeeks as a possible POD service. This was around the time of running a Kickstarter campaign for Hero Code. I had the option of fulfilling rewards using a POD service and just about breaking even (campaign costs are a tricky thing!) or going a little out of pocket and using a pretty good looking off-set printer to create a bigger run for the book - giving me a lot more copies than the rewards with which to hope to get into stores for a more reasonable cover price - hopefully making back the costs at a later time.

ICGeeks proved to be excellent - their quality was good, their turn around was excellent and their costs couldn't be beat...

Suddenly there was a chance to possible marry a POD provider with getting indie books into stores...

For black and white 24 page books the cost was $0.85, for colour it was $1.45.

Using the same 150% model those books only needed to have the cover prices of $2.20 or $3.63 to be profitable when selling to stores.

This was almost off-set costs (which would have been about half these costs, but with the bulk up-front needed, and an order of over 2k copies).

It was a game changer, and made the possibilities of selling single issues to stores worth while.

It's hard enough to sell to stores as an independent creator - of the roughly 2000 comic book stores in the US, you'd be hard pressed and luck to get noticed by 10%. My reach has been more like 0.5%.

If you did make it to 10% of stores, and they ordered 10 copies of your book, that is 2000 copies.

It might make a self created book profitable, but probably not a collaborative project with page rates involved.

Of late, I am very sad to say, ICGeeks has been having some difficulties. I haven't been able to reach Noel there for some time, and I genuinely hope he is okay - not just from a creators point of view, but from a personal point of view.

If ICGeeks is off the table, we are back to selling to stores not being a viable option.

Unless I want to invest in off-set printing.

Here's the deal with that, and another little vicious circle... the cost of off-set printing is high, and my sales to stores haven't gotten anywhere near close enough to cover these costs yet, let alone cover the production costs on a book.

If I was to go offset, it would cannibalize my production budget considerably.

I could keep the costs down by producing black and white single issues, but these are harder sales to some stores, so you automatically shut the door on some possible buyers before you start.

Black and white single issues, with colour digital and colour collected editions are another option, but the same hurdles exist.

You can see why more and more indie creators, yours included, are starting to look at digital first models.

Putting a book out digitally, until one has a novel-length amount of work ready, and then mass printing this can be a good move.

Also, there is Kickstarter. Using Kickstarter for collected volumes seems a better ask than for single issues. It is possible that micro-campaigns might work - to use them to pay for a smaller off-set print run of single issues, but then you are once again chasing profit - something all creators at every level are doing!

I hope this posting doesn't come across as negative in anyway, it is more just outlining the thinking behind self publishing, the whys and wheres.

Ultimately I will still be producing the work I am producing right now, it's just working out how and where this work will be available in the future.