Quotes From Publishers:
From Brett Warnock – Co-Founder of Top Shelf Productions. From an interview with About.com guide Aaron Albert at the Emerald City Comic Con.About self publishing – “If you want to be a creator and make your own comics or you want to be a publisher and publish other people, my advise is just do it. That’s how I got started. Start small, live within your means, but just do it, don’t talk about it. There’s so many people who are like, I’m going to do this, and they never do. I got started with just a handful of tiny little comic books I just did it and had a modicum of success and just built on that and built on that.“
From Todd Allen – Columnist at Comic Book Resources and writer of "The Economics Of Webcomics, 2nd Edition." From his column at Comic Book Resources – Comic Book Publishing Follies.
About going from webcomics to published comics – “Your rule of thumb should be 1% of your online audience might buy something of yours in the physical world, so if you have 20,000 regular readers, you shouldn't reasonably expect more than 200 of them to fork over for a book. Sometimes the percentage is higher, sometimes lower, but your goal here is to network and get noticed, if that's the game you're playing. Think of it as an internship with a stipend and it may be more palatable.“
From Dan Vado – Founder and Supreme Commander of SLG Publishing. From an interview at Newsarama.
About different avenues of publishing – “The direct market has moved itself into a place where only a small handful of stores really support a company like ours in any meaningful way. It has become a vicious cycle, really. A lot of retailers don't carry the comics because they don't sell, but then the potential customer has given up going into most comic shops because they don't see what they want. This and our other online sales address that."
"We are not giving up on print, obviously we still print some things in comic book format and our emphasis is now going to be on graphic novels and books as well as associated merchandise. Even retailers who are generally supportive of our line tell us that there is a "wait for the trade" attitude out there that makes selling indie comic books unprofitable, or less profitable, for them."
"I think if you are going to be in this, or any, business today you need to be able to embrace and be present in as many sales channels as possible. Online and downloadable comics are just one more channel for us.“
