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I Couldn't Figure Out How Spend Ten Grand if I Had It (Kickstarter)
Linespider5
ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered User regular
ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered User regular
As a creative type, I'm always on all the socialtech stuff that lets stubborn individuals claw out their dreams to the world as they see fit. I've become increasingly fascinated by the inner world of success stories brewing at Kickstarter, where people of many different stripes are able to get their wagons circled and put something out for the people that give them the resources to make it happen. That's awesome. There's just no way to be glib about the fact that this platform is something that is happening and the makers are making the money to make stuff for the people that want the stuff with minimal interference dictated by conventional logistics.
Then it hits me: I don't have a goddamn clue how to use this. It's one thing to be able to make a comic book, but how do you ring up the machinations for getting it done once you've got your materials ready for production? How do you figure that out? And I thought, that'd be funny if someone managed to get the venture capital but doesn't have a lick of sense of how to choreograph the hammer-and-nail realities of generating the actual, for lack of a better word, product based on the personal results once the initial work is done.
So...let's imagine for a moment the money is here. To make it simple, let's say it's ten grand. Let's say it's a book of illustrations. Let's say, oh, I don't know, 120 pages, black and white, paperback, coffeetable size.
Money+Artwork+(?)=Run of art books for people that donated the money.
How do we get such a thing made?
Then it hits me: I don't have a goddamn clue how to use this. It's one thing to be able to make a comic book, but how do you ring up the machinations for getting it done once you've got your materials ready for production? How do you figure that out? And I thought, that'd be funny if someone managed to get the venture capital but doesn't have a lick of sense of how to choreograph the hammer-and-nail realities of generating the actual, for lack of a better word, product based on the personal results once the initial work is done.
So...let's imagine for a moment the money is here. To make it simple, let's say it's ten grand. Let's say it's a book of illustrations. Let's say, oh, I don't know, 120 pages, black and white, paperback, coffeetable size.
Money+Artwork+(?)=Run of art books for people that donated the money.
How do we get such a thing made?
Linespider5 on
0
Posts
Let 'em eat fucking pineapples!
Contact a couple of printers, get quotes, info on what they need to print... no magic there. I googled 'printer' and 'books' and found plenty of info to get started on.
Also the printer may even offer a mail service else it's packing time and if the volume is big enough making a deal with UPS, US Postal or a similar service.
PS. Kickstarter means ensured sales not money up front.
Well, that much I did know. But my question still stands of, had I a budget I'd still be ignorant of how to use it to get my whatever to people that want it made.
This is the sort of thing that reminds me there's no substitute for experience. I don't know a thing about book publishing, or the process of turning artwork into a product you can sell as a comic book. I assume it involves storyboards, sketches, an editor, and so forth, not to mention a company who will take your "gold master" copy and turn it into a book, including typesetting and layout and so forth.
So I'd have to ask you - do you have the knowledge to produce the master copy? If you don't, you really can't deliver a product and my advice is to go get some experience starting projects and completing them, on your own, before you start asking people to fund your education! You need to go find some people who have done it and ask them how they did. After you have some idea of how to make one copy, you'll have a much better idea of how much it would actually cost to produce a bunch of additional copies you can sell.
If you do have this ability and knowledge now, and you just don't have the resources or the experience turning your work into a product, that's a whole different subject and your question would benefit from more specific details. What you want to make will dictate how you get it made! Advice on how to publish a book will be useless if I think you have a collection of short stories and you're trying to sell a cookbook or a table or a robot.
I'm an art guy, through and through. I'm in the process of making a long-form comic, as well as doing quite a bit of other art at the same time. The way I see it, it's only a matter of time before I have to begin confronting the goal of getting some of this stuff made into a collected book that people can enjoy. My art doesn't really seem to work for people when it's a single image, I don't really like trying to sell paintings and prints hold some of the same issues for me, but I'm beginning to see the real point that works for what I can do is in books, be it collected artwork or comic work.
Asking people who've done it is...very reasonable, and I should identify some of those people I'd feel comfortable asking that sort of thing to.
Call up companies that do printing and publishing, ask them how much a run of 100, 500, 1k 5k 10k and 50k would cost you. You aren't going to be large enough to be economical doing it in house. It is easier to contract out the production.
Also if you are going to sell comics, you might as well sell t-shirts.