Essentially what follows is my one year plan for making the PKF more popular/profitable.
Now, keep in mind, I don’t want to live off this comic. I’d love to, but I don’t really care about that.
What that means is basically this: If it can pay for itself, The PKF will continue expanding and growing until it either tapers off or I die (or run out of ideas…which seems unlikely).
I want the comic to not be a financial burden on me, but I’m also willing to put some time and effort and money into getting it there.
So without further ado…the steps.
Step One, starting in August:
Free advertising, anything latent that will take time to build up.
-Webcomic Directories
-Load More comics into DA (late August)
-More Facebook, more twitter
-Mirror Sites (Drunkduck, CG, comicfury, smackjeeves, etc…)
Step Two, Starting in September:
Any advertising that involves instant interaction, IE: post on other’s blogs/reading sites (redit?)
-Back to Two days a week…eight comics a month.
-LINK EXCHANGE! Any takers?
-Article sites (Bukisa and Hubpages), lots of articles, maybe a short series, I don’t know yet.
-Shetoldme (I’m told its a very good platform to advertise your URLs or website address.)
-Reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/webcomics
-Webcomic news sites:
http://www.fleen.com
http://www.comixtalk.com
http://www.webcomicoverlook.com
http://www.stormingthetower.com
-Other
http://entervoid.com/news.php
Step Three, starting in October:
Find assistance
-I will looking for someone to help me sometime in October, I want someone to take the weight off of me. Realistically, I’d like a full-blown artist, someone who’ll draw/ink the comic and I’ll do the coloring. However, I don’t know if this will be possible on my meager salary. I’ll have money saved up between September and October and I’ll start my search.
Step Four, starting in November:
New artist/Paid advertising
-With some new blood in the site I’ll begin updating more often. My short term plan is to have ten pages a month, maybe bulk update each Friday? I’d love to have twelve again, but that’s totally up to my budget/artist.
-Here’s where I start shelling out some cash, just a few dollars at first. I don’t know what my advertising budget is going to be, but it should be decent. With the new help/regular updates I hope to have major retention of readers.
Step Five, starting in March (2012):
Reader driven advertising
-I intend to have a some incentives, little things, nothing huge. Maybe a print. I don’t know. Basically if you ‘donate’ your time to me and post some ‘check this shit out’ stuff around the web/your campus (don’t spam, please) I’ll give you something.
-This is where you guys really come in, if you love the comic, pimp the hell out of it!
Step Six, starting in May (2012):
Donation Drives/Products for sale
-By this point I’ll have SOMETHING for you guys to buy, unless this just explodes and I have to get on that sooner. It’ll likely be smaller stuff, maybe buttons, or something tiny for donation reasons. Like: Donate four dollars and get a button set.
-I’d also like to get prints up and running properly. IE: Buy a print of this page.
-I also wouldn’t mind some kind of shirts or something. Maybe King of No Pants (though that’s mostly because I want one…).
Step Seven, starting in August (2012):
Rounding it out/expansion
-I figure that by this point I should have a clear view of the future…or, at least, a less muddled view. If readership is up and I’m not totally shouldering the burden I’ll likely ask the artist/assitant if they’d be willing to continue on after the year is over.
-More merchandise if there’s a call for it.
-Expand/remove donations. If there’s enough coming in from sales I might shift the donation incentive into the merchandise category (the buttons, for example, would be for ‘sale’). If donations are still a huge part of the thing, I’ll probably just go ahead and make more donation incentives, more buttons, more stickers, etc…)
-Beg like a son of a bitch if we’re not doing well.
Step Eight, starting in November (2012):
To infinity and beyond…
-If everything goes well, it’s mostly going to be more of step seven. More expansion, maybe another assistant (if I’m coloring, get someone else/pay current artist to color), etc…
-If this has bombed horribly, then, well, I’ll probably just take over myself and start updating once a week again…or I’ll shelve The PKF for a while and reconsider what I’m doing. Though the former is much more likely…at least through Book Three (which gives an ‘acceptable’ ending).
-Conventions? I don’t know…that might be interesting, haha.
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Alright, there’s my plan, my rough plan. I’m thinking that it might behoove me to have some merchandise sooner (small stuff) than my current plan. So I’m going to have to look into that.
Maybe as early as December/January I’ll have buttons or patches for you guys to buy.
If ANYONE has anything to add to it I’d be appreciative. Or, hell, if any of you are decent artists that are willing to work cheap, I’d love to hear from you.
As it stands, this is what I’m going to follow in hopes of getting this comic to a place where it’s not hemorrhaging money out it’s severed neck, so we’ll see.
I’m thinking that there might be a minor website design change in September…one that highlights this plan so that new readers know what’s going on.
Either way, thanks again for sticking it out with me, you have my word that I’ll be doing everything I can to return the comic to a normal update schedule.
And bring in some new friends.
-Peace