Xeric Foundation
I’m putting together a package to send to the Xeric Foundation for their March 31st deadline. If you never heard of the Xeric Foundation, it’s a private, nonprofit corporation started by Peter Laird who co-created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The corporation gives out grants for self-publishing comic book creators bi-annually. Here’s more info. It looks like they gave out over $54,000 in grants in 2009 alone. I know they wont give me the full amount I need to publish reMIND as a hardbound book but anything I can get will help.
In applying, I need to write a little essay of why I’m self-publishing as well as give my full financial statements and business plan with printing estimates and all. It’s a bit overwhelming to put together. I was planning on submitting last year but didn’t get my printing quotes together in time.
[Update 6-14-2010] I got the grant! See more info here.
Overseas Printers
As far a printing quotes, I’ve contacted CrossBlue and Regent Publishing. Both of these companies are full service overseas printers with offices in the US. If you print a hard bound book in China vs the US you can save up to 75% I’m told. The only drawback is waiting for the books to get shipped on a boat across the ocean. I hear I should expect the whole process to take up to three months.
I went to the Crossblue’s office in LA about 2 years ago when reMIND was going to be a 64 pager. I was really impressed with them so I decided to ask for a new quote with my new page count. They already got back to me with new quotes in only a day.
On the other hand, Regent was referred to me by a friend who published through them and was very happy. He said that tons of his friends have used Regent and they always turn out perfect. But the first time I emailed Regent it took them 2 weeks to send me an email back. Then it tool another month to get samples mailed to me. I tried to email them again a few days ago to get a quote started and still haven’t heard back from them. I guess I just need to trust my friend and keep trying here. If their printing service is anything like their correspondence then I’m in trouble.
So I bet you are wondering what the quote price is for printing reMIND. Well hold onto your seats, it’s a bit much. Here we go.
For 2000 copies, hardbound, (cloth binding) 136 pages, full color, plus shipping. We are looking at around $10,800.
For 3000 copies of the same specs we are looking at $12,300.
Now keep in mind that this is the best quality I can get and it will look beautiful on thick paper. I’ve seen their books and they look amazing. I’ve also seen Regents books and they look amazing too. This turns out to be about $5 a book. If I can actually sell these for $20 a piece then I could actually make a little money here. I’ve heard that 2000 is the magic number for printing hard bound indie graphic novels. You can most likely sell all 2000 copies if it’s a good quality book. (from what I’ve heard)
I might get another quote for a non-cloth bound version and see if I can knock a few more dollars off the price.
Does anyone else know of a good printing company they would recommend? Please only tell me about printers you have used. I’m only want first hand experience for this subject.
P.S. I got my first $20 donation the other night! It works! It really works!
Though those sound like pretty reasonable rates for what you're getting, that is still a very significant capital outlay for an individual artist. The donation thing is kind of the NPR model, like "if you like it, help support it." I have only ever used local printers, and never for a porject like this, so it's hard for me to contribute anything of substance at the moment. It's all about the cost/benefit analysis, in the end, though: the hardcover clothbound reMind would be a beautiful product, but working that close to the margin is a tough proposition from a capital standpoint. There's very little room for anything to go wrong. My best advice, having done freelancing at the margins, is to make sure the contract with the printer is extremely explicit.
–M
I see what you are saying. Like having a statement in the contract that says if the books are printed wrong then they need to be reprinted for free. I have many friends who knew someone who printed books that had major mistakes and most of them got a free reprinting. It's definitely something I will be asking about.
I'm really just keeping my finders crossed with the grant. If that works out then it will really be helpful but it's a long shot. I think I need to start a savings account right now and put money in it each month. I plan on starting the printing process exactly a year from now. I have a lot to save…that and asking for donations to go to the printing cost might all make this doable.
I'm not really sure about the book printing world but I can tell you that DVDs start at around $1 per DVD for 1,000. Which is interesting when you compare that the DVD is going to, most likely, be sold for $15 – $20 which is the same price range that you have. One big difference though, is that, generally, it costs a lot more to make a movie (from production) than a graphic novel.
I do like the fact that you are going to price it reasonably. There actually is no reason why you couldn't charge $35 – $40 for something of this nature.
Regarding funding and financing, I suggest you check out http://www.kickstarter.com. It might be a really viable opportunity.
Yeah, it seems like people in my situation try to charge $30 to $40 for a book of this kind with less pages. The equation is that a distributor like Diamond or Amazon take somewhere around 60% of the cover price. So if I paid $5 a book and sold it through diamond for $20, they would take $13.20 off the cover leaving me with $1.80 profit. That's without factoring in any other costs like marketing or convention costs. (I think my math is right there)
I figure I need to make the price something that I wouldn't mind paying myself if I saw this book at a Con. If I were to mainly sell through conventions and the internet then I could keep $15 from each books sale. Minus taxes.
Plus if I can get donations and grants then I can get away with a lower price too.
As far as the link you shared: I've seen these sites before and it's been an idea that I've thought about many times. My only problem with it is it's an all-or-nothing system. If I don't get what I'm asking for then everyone gets back their money and I'm back at square one and I've wasted some valuable time.
I think I like the idea of publicly displaying how much I have saved up to the printing cost though. But it would be an account I own. Every month I'll update how much has been collected, either money I've added my self or donations or selling originals. That's what I'm leaning towards anyway.
By the way, I used your add idea and I really like it. It drove quite a few people to the site too. Thanks for the suggestion and example. Here's a link to the ad I made based on your suggestions:
http://www.remindblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010…
Sorry for the delay in getting back to your reply, it's been crazy around here. I agree, Amazon (or most retailers) take a huge chunk out of the "retail price." The only way that it is worthwhile is that people buy a lot of stuff from retailers. So if the amount they sell makes up for the low profit per piece then it's worth it. Amazon might be somewhere to turn to after you've exhausted your personal fan base that would be willing to buy from you.
I'm glad to see that used the ad idea and even happier to see that it worked!
And I look forward to your future blog relaying your successful Kickstarter campaign.
Yeah man, thanks for suggesting kickstarter. I was reluctant to try it at first but after I thought about it a bit more and hearing others suggest it too I gave in. ha. But it really does look like a great way to raise funds for this kind of project. This would have been impossible to do this kind of stuff even 5 years ago. Well, maybe 10 years ago but that's still soo cool.
Great point about Amazon too. I'm continually impressed with the great suggestions in the comments here.
As for printing in China —
my father had catalogues for his art exhibit in Beijing printed there. It was definitely cheaper, probably by 50%, but it also had its drawbacks. First of all, I can second the wait on the shipping, and depending on the bulk of the order, shipping can get REALLY expensive.
Also, it's just not easy dealing in China. They will almost never give a foreigner the lowest price, and because so many people go to China looking for crazy profits, they're automatically suspicious of being lowballed. The quality of the catalogue was great, but that was because we didn't keep pushing the price lower — a friend in the publishing business told us about the bugs and foodstains he gets in some orders.
And it's hard doing things like this overseas in general. You have less control over the process. There are miscommunications. The more precise you are about the quality of the production, the less worth it the lower price will be.
I've heard other stories that back this one up — but maybe other people have had very different experiences? This is just from personal experience.
Thanks for sharing your experience here. I never heard about bugs or food stains on the books. I'll have to pay close attention. Did your father use a full service printer who did all the communications or did he do all the communication himself with the printers?
Hey, Jason!
I just wanted to thank you again for the very interesting insights you provide in this blog. I stumbled upon some interesting figures linked by Fleen.com the other day:
http://astroboy12.livejournal.com/93339.html http://astroboy12.livejournal.com/92941.html
Seems like a big deal of selfpublishing costs hide in convention visits and the whole" distributing it on your own"-stuff.
You'll be able to save a lot by selling the book over your website but you should also keep in mind, that processing these orders is work, too. For example, I'm selling prints of my artworks on my website and although I have hardly 3 or 4 orders to process every month, it really is time that I loose on my creative work. In fact, at the moment I'm keeping the price of my prints high to prevent too much orders (which is ridiculous, because my original concern was, if anybody would by the prints on the internet…). If I wanted to raise my sales I would have to work with a partner, I alone could't handle it. Sending out books surely would not mean as much work as sending out artprints (with the wrapping and everything) but the data processing, correspondence and walking to the post pffice all takes time. I just wanted to point that out because it is an aspect that I had totally neglected.
That said, are your hopes so low to find a publisher for your book? Or have you decided to self publish out of the huge piece of cash the publisher would take out of the cake?
Daniel, Sorry your message went into the moderation pile because of the links. Those are GREAT links by the way. Really good information there. I've talked to a few guys who have experienced the same thing so I'm somewhat prepared to spend most of the money I make from reMIND.
To answer your question. I'm not sure yet. I don't think I'll find a publisher who will make the book the way I want it. I could be wrong though. I am only use to these American publishers like Image and Darkhorse who are pretty set in their ways. On the other hand, I'd rather not publish with a small company who is just like me 5 years from now if I can do it myself. I don't really expect to make much money in the end. I'm more looking at it for the experience of at least doing it once all the way and then deciding if I want to keep going this path later.
Some friends of mine used to publish a high quality magazine. They started in the US and eventually settled with China because of the cost difference. I have done print projects here and there and quite a few years back helped a gallery in New York publish some small artist books and catalogs.
I remember meeting with a rep for a company in Sweden that did really excellent work, but the name escapes me. I remember that in all of my dealings with them phoning them was ALWAYS better than communicating via email.
Also other things you may want to factor into your production costs would be things like shipping of the finished books and also sending physical proofs back and forth. I get the feeling that if you are spending that amount of money you may not want to trust digital proofs.
Goodness, the name of that Swedish publisher is going to drive me nuts until I can remember it. I also have a friend who works at Harper who I can maybe see about getting leads from. She handles design and print projects for them.
That makes sense to spend the extra money for the proofs since it’s costing so much for the printing, might as well make sure it’s done right.
I finally called Regent and they were very nice and helpful over the phone. I don’t think I’ll try emailing them anymore, it’s pretty much a waste of time. So I agree with everything you said here.
Also try setting up a Kickstarter campaign. You may be able to get your costs covered for printing, or whatever remains that needs covering. You could have different tiers for donators where depending on the amount they give they get something back. 5 dollars or less gets nothing, 25+ gets a copy of the book, 50+ gets a signed copy of the book with a doodle, 250+ maybe gets the book along with original page art, etc.
Check out this Kochalka / Pixeljam collab on Kickstarter as an example. They use the tier system: http://www.kickstarter.com
You are the third person to suggest this and at first I wasn't really into the idea because it's an all or nothing thing. BUT since so many people are suggesting it I figured I'd think about it more. I dug into the site and talked to my wife about it and then sent them a message suggesting reMIND as a project. They need to approve it before it goes live because it's still in beta apparently. So now I just need to sit and wait to see if they want to accept it for their site. I think it's a great suggestion now so thanks for bringing it up!
woops, correct link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pixeljam/jame…
I'm not too familiar with the printing process but wish you all the best with it. A fellow artist printed her stuff in Taiwan and it was much cheaper. Good luck with the Xeric foundation.
(By the way . . please count me in for a copy when you start printing!!)
I really appreciate it!
wow, I found your site through blog elite and I'm amazed! the graphic novel artwork is really atmospheric and i can't wait for my time off tomorrow to start it from the beginning.
I want to wish you luck on getting a grant!
Thanks Andy! Hope you enjoy it when you give it a read. Let me know what you think.
I started it and I keep coming back to it in pieces. So far I'm loving it!
How did you go about writing a storyboard? I have a story which I think is good for a graphic novel or even a short film. I am a professional graphic designer/illustrator and can do the illustrations myself. But for me the tough part (for now) is whether the structure is alright or not. Any thoughts, Jason?
I'm a bit unsure about what you mean by "writing a storyboard". With a graphic novel you usually don't have storyboards. Plus storyboards is more for film and animation. I drew storyboards for reMIND when it was planned as an animation but when I converted it to a GN I had to redraw the storyboards as thumbnails for an entire page.
If you are just talking about writing the outline structure then I'd suggest looking into The Hero's journey. There's a thread devoted to this at MakingGraphicNovels.com here: http://remindblog.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&am…
Another thing I'd do is get Scott McClouds book called "Making Comics". It's great for breaking down all kinds of storytelling techniques in comics. Hope this helps.
Thanks a lot, Jason. Mistake is mine. I meant to say "script for the GN."
I got a sample script from Anthony Johnston http://www.antonyjohnston.com/ that looks very similar to a film script.
I'll definitely take a look at Making Comics. Another book, "The DC Comics Guide to DIGITALLY DRAWING Comics by Freddie E Williams II," was a big help in understanding how to do it all in Photoshop. It appeared to be a good way to do detailed comics, but not an option for me right now. I'd rather take your route of pencil and Photoshop. Thanks once again, Jason.
I'll keep in touch as I tread along the GN road.