Well, sort of… PKD Media‘s Shawn Pryor and Memphian Jon Carroll (The Oblivion Bar blog) give me and Antone Wade (Jetta:Tales of the Toshigawa) a call to talk about self-publishing comics, distribution, this site, ninjas, M.C. Hammer pants and more!

The PKD Black Box Podcast

Episode 3: Roger Corman & the Memphis Mafia battle Ninjas.

Oh, don’t forget to check out LinWorkman.com to find out more info on the First Annual Broad Avenue Holiday Art Walk featuring artist George Hunt!

Type at ya later-

Lin

Tags: Broad Avenue Art Walk, Bushi Tales, CGS, comic books, Comic Whore, comics, Diamond Distribution, digital printing, free, Indy Planet, Jetta, Jon Carroll, Ka-Blam!, Lin Workman, Martheus Antone Wade, Memphis, MSCA, Nicki, Phoenix Cactuscon, print on demand, promotional items, self-publishing, Shawn Pryor, writing comics

Hey gang,

My friend Shawn Pryor (PKD Media/The Black Box Podcast) turned me on to a new comics site by the guys behind Discount Comic Book Service and In Stock Trades.

It’s called My Didigtal Comics.

It’s a print on demand service where you the creator set your own cover prices and get 70% of each sale. 70%- that’s huge!

The site and service are pretty new, but will be growing rapidly. DCBS and it’s sister store InStockTrades.com have got a huge customer base and are very indy friendly. They work great with independent publishers through special price discounts to thier on-line/retail customers, special promo offers (Dave did free sketches for Bushi Tales #3), and their First Light project which helps to shine light on new comics, publishers, and creators.

For more info on DCBS, In Stock Trades, My Digital Comics, or First Light contact Zack Kruse or Cameron Merkler (the head honcho of DCBS).

Digital Comics LLC
6011 Highview Dr Suite B
Fort Wayne, Indiana 46818

E-Mail: support@mydigitalcomics.com

And speaking of Shawn and My Digital Comics, you can order PKD Media comics there!

This week Shawn and his co-host Jon Carroll invited me and Jetta:Tales of the Toshigawa creator Martheus Antone Wade to be on their upcoming podcast The Black Box. We talked about self-publishing, pros and cons of Diamond and alternate comics distribution options, digital comics, the Memphis Mafia, M.C. Hammer and more. As soon as I have an air date for it I’ll post it here and on my site.

Stay “tooned” here for more info on self-publishing, print-on-demand, and Nicki’s new Web-Wednesday columns about using the internet to promote you and your comics.

See ya Monday-

Lin

Tags: Bushi Tales, CGS, comic books, Comic Whore, comics, Dave Beaty, Diamond Distribution, digital printing, Jon Carroll, Lin Workman, Memphis, Mercury and the Murd, MSCA, Nicki, print on demand, self-publishing, Shawn Pryor

New Denny O’Neil article at bleedingcool.com-

#6 – Whoever Knows Fear…

…one way to create characters is for the writer to ask and answer four questions.

*What does my character always want?

*Who or what does he love?

*What is he afraid of?

*Why does he involve himself in extreme situations?

Check out Denny’s blog to find out more!

Thinking outside The Black Box

Last night I recorded a podcast with my friends Shawn Pryor, Jon Carroll, and Martheus Antone Wade for an upcoming episode of The Black Box. Not sure when the air date will be, but as soon as I know I’ll post it here. We had a great time talking about self-publishing and the ups and downs that can come with it.

I’m hoping to start my own Comic Whore podcast in the near future, but it’ll at least be after the holidays. Got enough on my plate right now to keep me plenty busy!

Like writing more Comic Whore updates for Mondays. If you have any ideas, questions about self-publishing/promotions, or things for me to pimp please send them on. You can reach me at lin (at) linworkman (dot) com.

Type at ya later,

Lin

Tags: Bushi Tales, CGS, comic books, Comic Whore, Dave Beaty, DC Comics, Dennis O'Neil, Denny O'Neil, Diamond Distribution, digital printing, free, Indy Planet, Jetta, Ka-Blam!, Lin Workman, Martheus Antone Wade, Memphis, Memphis Mafia, MSCA, Nicki, Phoenix Cactuscon, print on demand, promotional items, self-publishing, writing comics

Ok, so we’ve talked about how to make the most out of a convention, but what do you do if your well thought out plans just don’t seem to be working? Well, if you can think quickly on your feet you improvise.

This time around I’m going to share some con stories about what did go wrong for me at conventions and what I did to make the best of those situations.

Being able to improvise and change your game plan as needed is a big advantage for small press. Yeah, the big boys have more money, but you don’t have to run every idea past your boss or discuss every decision with a committee. YOU are the boss and can make choices on the spot.

A few years back my BT partners Dave and Micah and I were at Anizona, an anime convention in Phoenix. We were set up in artists’ alley, which was located in a hall just outside of the dealers’ room. We were there promoting our comic Bushi Tales and had brought along some Bushi Tales logo buttons to hand out over the weekend. They were very nice, professional looking promotional buttons and we were handing them out for free. Well, we were trying to hand them out. We would offer someone a button and say, “Hi, would you like a button?” Most would ask what it was for before declining, some would try to avoid eye contact with us, and others had looks on their faces like we were trying to give them an S.T.D. or a hand full of dog doodie! Dave was beginning to get a bit frustrated, so he handed me the basket of buttons and said, “Here, see if you can give any of these things away.” I put on a big ol’ smile and tried my best, but didn’t have much better luck at it. He suggested maybe it would work better if I stood out in front of the table. I did, and when the next couple walked by I said, “Here ya go.” and handed them each a button. They asked, “What’s this for?” I replied, “You need one of these to get in there.” and motioned behind me towards the dealers room doors. “Oh, OK!” they said as they put on their buttons, thanked me, and proceeded through the double doors. Dave shook his head in disbelief and said, “That’s shameless.” “Yep!” I replied and continued to hand out buttons until they were all gone. The next day everywhere I turned I saw someone wearing on of those Bushi Tales buttons. OK, I was a little dishonest, but they got a cool free button out of the deal and by thinking on my feet I got a con full of people wearing my comics logo and web address on them. Lemons into lemonade, or buttons into billboards if you will.

Later that year we were at the Emerald City Con in Seattle, WA. It’s a really great show and we had a great spot in artists alley. Near us we had guys like Phil Hester, Ande Parks, Sean “Cheeks” Galloway and Tim Sale- who was just two tables down and always had a line of fans. The first morning after the doors opened we saw a heard of Tim Sale fans making their way to line up in front of his table to get autographs and sketches. Once Tim arrived, he sat down and was knocking out some great sketches and signing books left and right. He’s a local creator and had his mom and dad hanging out at the booth with him. A few hours later they left to go get some lunch and the fans dissipated for a while. Before Tim and his parents came back the fans started lining up again in front of his table. This time instead of the line forming from his table and towards the entrance it now was forming in front of our table. Before we knew it we had a wall of people in front of our table. We watched as potential customers walk on by. Well, we watched the top of their heads pass by. Dave looked at me and said, “Well, there goes our sales for the day.” I looked up and down the line of fans waiting for Tim’s return and said, “Nope, we’ve got a captive audience.” I picked up some of our freebies and started asking them all, “Have you heard of Bushi Tales? Would you like a button? Would you like to check out a copy of our book while you wait? Did you get a postcard?” Dave and Micah joined in and we started making some sales, educating them on our comics, handing out some promos, and meeting people. It also gave us some time to work on a couple sketches, and people waiting stood and watched us draw.

We could have given up and cursed Tim’s name while just sulking in our chairs. No, we took an unexpected situation and turned it around to our advantage. That’s the kind of opportunity you have to keep an eye out for.

Apparently the Wizard staff at the 2005 San Diego Comic Con didn’t know that. Not going to beat up on Wizard Magazine- they’ve done a couple positive write ups on some of the projects I’ve worked on and I thank them for that. I do think the way they ran their booth that year left a lot to be desired. I’ll explain.

It was my first time to attend Comic Con, and we had just got out of the Kevin Smith Q&A in the big Hall H. Kevin was going to be signing at the Graphitti Designs booth so we made our way through the sea of people on the con floor and took our place in line. The line was already a good size- between 100-200 people. It was down one aisle, turned, down a couple booths, and back up the next aisle past the Wizard booth. Our place in line was on one side of their booth. While we stood their we looked at some of the books they had out to sell, did some people watching, and picked up a couple free promo comics they had scattered out on a folding table next to us. We noticed someone behind the booth start to raise his voice and become very agitated. Apparently he was mad about us standing in front of his booth. Well, not us personally, he was mad about 200+ people blocking his booth. He said a few more things about the crowd surrounding his space and left to go find some con staff to take care of the situation for him. While he was gone Dave tried to get the attention of the remaining booth staff to buy one of their Wizard art books. They were too busy talking to themselves and ignoring the line of comic fans around them to be bothered with actually selling anything. Finally getting frustrated with the lack of customer service Dave gave up and said, “Screw it- guess I don’t need to spend my money here.” At one point we saw the head of Wizard, Garub Shamus, open the door to the V.I.P. portion of their booth, stick his head out, look around, and then disappear back behind the door. A few minutes later the irate booth manager returned with the con staff in tow. They asked us to move a couple feet away from his booth so people could get to it. We did, which put us all in the middle of the aisle. Apparently this didn’t completely satisfy him, and the fire marshal arrived to disperse the crowd. We were all given tickets and told to line back up in order upstairs- which is a whole other con story for another time. The point to this con story is the people in charge of Wizard’s booth didn’t make the most out of what seemed like a bad situation. They didn’t see the line of comic fans surrounding their booth as a captive audience. None of their staff or volunteers asked us if we read Wizard or subscribe to it. Nobody offered us any issues to read while we were standing there. No one told us about any specials they might have been running at the con. Nobody picked up the freebie comics off the table and passed them out down the line. The people behind the booth wouldn’t even make eye contact with us- well, I think the booth manager did, but it was because he was giving us the “stink-eye”. He was so busy trying to run off the people he thought were preventing him from making potential sales he missed the opportunity of making any to the fans who were already there. I’m sure it didn’t buy him or the magazine any good will, either. It was several months before I even thought about picking up a copy of Wizard. How many others in line felt the same?

When you get the chance, make lemonade.

Up next- I’m  going to discuss creating a show of your own, and what some of the pros and cons of that can be. When you can’t go to the convention, why not have to con come to you..?

Lin

Tags: anime, Anizona, Bushi Tales, buttons, Cheeks, comic books, Comic Whore, comics, Dave Beaty, Emerald City Con, free, jackalope, Kevin Smith, lemonade, Lin Workman, Phoenix Cactuscon, postcards, print on demand, promotional items, S.T.D., San Diego Comicon, Sean Galloway, self-publishing, Tim Sale, writing comics

Back again for another Pimp It Friday.

First up this time around I’m going to pimp Club Flyers. They do business cards, promo postcards, CD inserts, brochures, and more. Their prices on the postcards and business cards I’ve ordered were very reasonable, and the quality and turnaroud was excellent. They also have special offers on FREE promo materials- my favorite thing about ClubFlyers.com!  Right now they offer 500 free 4×6 full color postcards or 500 free business cards (your art on one side, their ad on the other) and all you pay for is shipping (which for postcards is only about $12-13 to me in Memphis). These are great for taking to conventions, leaving at comic shops, bagging in your comics, dropping in mailouts, or handing out to promote an upcoming art show- like I just did. They also offer short run printing, too. 1000 2-sided 4×6 postcards are only $69.99, and if you want to multiply that amount of postcards x 5 then it’s only $139.99 for 5000 postcards (plus shipping which usually runs between $20-30 for me). 5000 may seem like a lot, and it is, but it will keep you in promo materials for many shows to come. I try to mix the freebies and two sided ones I do for my comic Bushi Tales. You can order 1 free order a month, so I’ll do one image this month, another the next, and then maybe a full paid run of 1000-5000. It gives me a variety of cards to have out and offer potential readers and to have something different each time I go to a show. Many folks have told me they collect my postcards and keep them on their fridges at home or office cubical walls at work!

The next company I’m going to pimp is ELB- Everyone Loves Buttons! We’ve used them for BT promos for years now. Great company with great turnaround time. We’ve done logo buttons, character buttons, round ones, square ones, big ones small ones- all kinds of buttons. And like postcards I’ve had folks tell me they collect them. At Cactuscon in Phoenix one year I was talking to a guy after one of our panels and when I handed him a promo postcard he opened up his messenger bag and on the inside had every Bushi Tales button we’d ever done! ( I’ll also be telling you another PHX button story in an upcoming Comic Whore blog update soon.)

And with any promo items, always make sure you put your web address on them. Don’t have a website- then get one, and check back here for my webmaster Nicki’s new Wednesday column to find out ways to use your website to promote yourself better. I’ve learned a ton about the internet and opitmizing search potential and more from her. I think you’ll get a lot out of what she has to say, too.

And while I’m pimping things, don’ t forget that the Haunted Web Of Horrors haunted house is now open. It’s in the Trinity Commons shopping center in Cordova (outskirts of Memphis, TN) off Germantown Parkway. It offers two haunts in one and benefits Youth Villages. I just wrapped up my painting work there this week and took a tour of the place. It’s looks great! Some familiar things here and there, but many scenes have been expaned and there are a ton of new things to experience, too. This place is HUGE, and there’s usually something going on in the parking lot and up and down the queue lines- zombies, dancers, dancing zombies, klowns, serial killers, and more.

And don’t forget about the  October Horror and Comics show next weekend in Nashville, TN.

See ya Monday for another Comic Whore update.

Lin

Tags: Bushi Tales, business cards, ClubFlyers.com, comic books, Comic Whore, free, Halloween, haunted house, haunted web of horrors, HauntedWeb.com, Lin Workman, Memphis, nashville october horror and comics show, Nicki, postcards, print on demand, promotional items, self-publishing