Alright, I figure some of the big guns have posted their two cents about how to become successful at making a webcomic. Well, now it’s time for a small-timer to offer his advice.

Now, I know some people are thinking “Yeah, right, you’re not even famous, and I haven’t heard of your comic, why should I listen to you?” Well, the reason is if you keep taking advice from the big name guys on how to make yourself successful, you set your sights too high and won’t ever achieve it. So I’m gonna offer some advice on how to really start. I know I’m not super-popular, but I’ve had a pretty good start, and I don’t know whether or not I’ll ever be up there with the Steve Napierskis, Tim Buckleys or Jeph Jacqueses, but in 6 months I’ve achieved more than I did in 5 years with the first comic.

1) Don’t bite off more than you can chew

Now, this doesn’t just mean how many updates per week you do. I’d recommend starting at two a week depending on how much time you have, and going from there. I just mean in general, don’t try and overachieve right off the bat at everything, because you will burn yourself out. Figure out how good of an artist you are, and stick to that at first. If you want to be a better artist, fix that BEFORE you start. Everyone will gradually get better with time, and you will find more ways to be efficient. But don’t try to re-create your art style aftr three comics, because having a constantly changing style may turn off readers. Looking at comics like Questionable Content and Ctrl+Alt+Del, there is constant change to the art style, but it’s not right off the bat, it’s over the course of the years they have put into the comic, whereas a comic like Collar 6 changes constantly, not within the art style, but in the way it’s colored, the layout of the comics, the size, all that. Now it is still enjoying some success, but that’s moreso based off the dominatrix/S&M theme it uses. I enjoy the comic, but the constant shift in direction on the art is really annoying to me.

Another way you can screw yourself up is guest strips. Now, a guest strip is a great way to advertise yourself, but you’ll want to be sure you really polish that sucker up before you submit it (the strips I’ve done haven’t been like that, as they were rush jobs to help out friends). Doing a few of those won’t hurt, but you need to be careful you’re not doing so many that your comic falters for it. I’m sure I could do up strips for some of my favorite comics, send them up and hopefully see them published, but that would be using time I would normally spend on my comic, so either I’d start missing updates, or the finished product would be so terrible I may as well have not done it.

2) A buffer is great, but not necessary

When I started Space Between, I drew the first four strips before I actually launched it. I ate up that buffer very quickly, but that was because I was getting into the swing of doing my two comics a week. That’s why I would suggest one, but that’s my preference. I don’t like doing a bunch of comics at once, I prefer it to go somewhat down to the wire. However, if I have nothing to do and a lot of time, I will get myself ahead. Really, what you need is to find a way to focus yourself to work on the comic. A lot of us have found that Ustreaming while you work is the best solution, as an audience will force you to keep at it. Some people prefer to go out to a coffee shop and work, some just prefer their rooms with music blasting.

Really, all a buffer does is give you an excuse to slack off. Now, if you have plans and you know that you won’t have time to do it when you normally would, a buffer is perfect. I’ve done comics a couple weeks in advance so I could go out to a party or something, but really don’t be one of those people who stops drawing the comic for three weeks and spends two weeks playing Halo and one week drawing a buffer just to repeat the process. Being ahead is never bad, but if you find yourself saying “No, I don’t have to do my comic, I have a buffer”, start worrying, because you will get yourself in trouble.

Long story short, only build up a buffer if you have plans or if you’re adjusting to a new comic/update schedule (like I will when I try doing 3 comics a week starting at the end of July).

3) TheWebComicList.com is your friend

I’ve said this to every comicker I know, and I’ll put it here: TWCL is a great place to start off advertising. It’s only $15 for a month to put your image in rotation, and you’ll get some excellent exposure from it. Sure, dropping $50-$100 (per day on the banner ad on QC will get you more hits, but if you’ve only got 3 or 4 comics, it’s not worth it. TWCL will expose you to comic-readers, and a lot of comickers. Which brings me to my next point…

4) Twitter is the best free advertising in town

I can chalk up a lot of my success to Twitter (and Sam’s naked body on ads). It’s always been a good idea to befriend fellow comickers, and Twitter is the best way to do that. Kris Staub isn’t going to be best buds with you just because you sent him a Tweet, but becoming friends with the lower-tiered guys and gals will help you even more. By becoming friends with one person and Tweeting back and forth, his or her followers will see your name mentioned, click on it, and hopefully read your comic. Advertising by socializing. Really, you can’t beat that.

5) Project Wonderful is the best thing ever

There are a lot of ways to advertise, but the easiest is PW. Even if you use their ads in combination with others, you should. It allows other comickers to search for your site indirectly, and advertise. Even if you’re only making 5 cents a day per ad, that will build up. Then, you can use that money to advertise your site on other sites, increasing your traffic, and thereby increasing how much your ads make, rinse and repeat. The only catch is PW wants you to have a minimum of 30 comics up, so once you hit that milestone, submit it immediately. It can take a couple weeks sometimes, so the sooner you can submit it, the better.

6) Doing a webcomic isn’t for everyone

Just because you CAN do a webcomic doesn’t mean you should. I had a couple friends in high school who were creative and good artists, but couldn’t deal with drawing on a constant schedule. Just because doing a webcomic is a bad idea doesn’t mean you can’t draw a comic. Maybe you could draw it, have it printed up in book form and try to sell it that way (Lulu.com is good for print on demand). Or if you can’t do a comic at all, you can just get a Deviant Art account and draw pictures and have people find you that way (this just in: not all artists draw comics).

7) Be considerate

One of the best ways to get popular is to get plugs from the bigger comic guys, but let them find you. Remember, everyone who draws a webcomic also reads them, so they’ll find your comic the same as the other readers. Sending Jeph Jacques isn’t going to get you on his homepage, as he is a very busy man and doesn’t have time to read your two-week old comic about video games. Now, he still may find it someday and read it, and he may even plug it, but if you bombard him with e-mails, he’ll hate your stupid face and never read it. I’m sure if I sent an e-mail to everyone of the comics I read, I may have gotten one or two people to read it, but I probably would’ve pissed off the rest of them.

I managed to get lucky and one of those said guys, Steve Napierski, actually reads my comic, or at least liked it enough to put it on his links page and toss a Follow Friday at me, and me and him Tweet back and forth. I didn’t bombard him with e-mails, I Tweeted him a couple of times but never mentioning my comic (I don’t think I did), or at leats never saying “Hey! You should check out my comic!” Maybe I should’ve been more aggressive in my self-promotion and done that, but in the end someone whose comic I read before and is a pretty big deal in the comic world reads my comic. Just remember, if and when this does happen to you, you’re not going to get a massive blog post on the front page (you might, but it’s not very likely), so don’t say “Well this sucks, all I got was a link buried on a seperate page”, because there is a reason people have a links page - people GO TO IT AND CLICK ON THE LINKS. So stop being so ungrateful, you stuck up twit.

8) Set REALISTIC goals, achieve them, then continue to go up

I’ve said it so many times people are probably sick of hearing it, but I’ll say it again: my goal when I started The Space Between was to have 10 fans/readers, and to make a dollar off advertising. Yes, it can be considered very much so low-balling my abilities, but in all the time I did Jelly Bean Sniper I never made a cent (I never had ads), and not including my friends who read it as a courtosy, I MIGHT have had 3 or 4 readers. Regardless of what I may have set as goals realistically or jokingly, I never thought I’d have the fan base I have now, and it’s constantly growing. I’m not one to change my goals as I meet them, I prefer to ride it out and see how far this goes. Do I think I can ever do this for a living? No, absolutely not, but I also never thought I’d be averaging 900 hits per update day and 500 on non-update days, so who knows what will happen. I’m going to work on doing things that will hopefully increase my fanbase, because I would like to be more popular than any other comics with “Between” in the title (Looking at you, Between Failures), and also I don’t want to sit back and be content with what I’ve got just yet. After all, it’s only been 6 months.

9) Most importantly, have fun

I know it’s a point made by everyone, but really if you’re not having fun, you can’t create anything good. I’ve used this example on the TWCL forums, and it’s a pretty good one: pretend you’re playing The Sims and not using the max_motives cheat. You can make your Sim workout for a while, but they need other things and will occassionally want to watch TV. So if you want your Sim to get that perfect 10 body rating, you’re going to have to let them watch the tube or listen to some rock every now and then. The same holds true to real life. If you spend all of your free time doing comics, even if it’s fun now, it will burn you out. Make sure you have something to offset it that isn’t work. Video games is a common trend, but I prefer to sit down and watch some TV shows (Community, Top Gear, Destination Truth, River Monsters) and take a little break, or I’ll pop in a movie I’ve seen before and loved (Wayne’s World springs to mind) and watch that while I draw. The comic will take longer, but the workload will be offset by entertainment. Also, I’ll play my bass or go play with my nephew for a bit, but some people don’t have musical talent or an irresponsible brother who doesn’t know what a condom is, so they don’t have that option.

That’s really it, just follow my advice and you’ll be mediocre in no time!

(Also, use boobs for advertising, they work very well!)