NOTE: This blog presumes you have a webcomic site already functioning somewhere on the web with interesting content (remember there is no substitute for great content - no amount of promotion will help a crappy webcomic.) DO NOT SACRIFICE YOUR WEBCOMIC CREATIVE TIME FOR PROMOTION TIME - BALANCE HERE IS KEY!
Want to increase the readership and / or maximize the money you make off your webcomic for FREE with just a little hard work? Heck, who doesn't! I will share with you (in several parts) the methods (this blog is one of them). I have used to promote my webcomic,
BLOOP. Some people look down their nose at some of these methods and call them 'pimping'. These people are ________ (fill in the blank with your favorite disparagement). There is absolutely nothing illegal, immoral or wrong about
legitimately promoting your webcomic! The bottom line is, you can have the best webcomic in the world but it won't matter if nobody sees it. And getting people to see your webcomic is presumably why you posted it on the web in the first place.
So anyway on to the good stuff . . . The First Step of setting up 'Friend' or 'Social' sites for your webcomic was discussed in Part I of this series. Now that you've done that, the Second Step is blogging and its cousin, posting in forums! Blogs are weblogs - basically mini websites where you can post written blurbs about your webcomic and forums are areas of a specific website where you can enter written posts. Since you have a webcomic site and now a few 'friend' sites - blog and post on forums about them! Make sure your content has something to offer and is relevant - don't just blog / post "Here's my site." (a mistake I made early on.) You can blog about most anything. New characters. New story / plot lines. Upcoming events. Even mundane things like - "I've changed the color of my characters hair." Most webcomic sites have forums and there are plenty of blog sites out there. I prefer
Blogger: http://www.blogger.com and
BlogCharm: http://www.blogcharm.com. Live Journal is also a favorite of many webcartoonist but I find it limited. Comixpedia has both forums and blogs and they also offer promotion icons at the bottom of each blog. How sweet is that! For examples of what you can do with blogs check mine out at:
BLOOP's Webcomic BLOG: http://www.blogcharm.com/bloop/
Finally, you should also list your blog on
Technorati: http://www.technorati.com/ They keep track of over 50 million blogs and automate a lot of the blog promotion process for you.
HOT TIP: After you've created your blog and made a few posts you should link, link, link! Link your blog to your webcomic site and also to your 'friend' sites that you created in Part I of this series. Preferably via an RSS feed . If promotion were a chess game, linking would be the Queen. Post links back to your webcomic site every opportunity you can. Post links on your blogs, on your forum entries, on your 'friend' sites, even at the bottom of e-mails you send. You never know when a little extra linking effort will pay off with a brand new shiny happy reader.
With these two Parts now under your belt you will have planted a promotion 'seed' which will soon begin to vine it's way about the internet promoting your webcomic for you. In Part III of this series I will discuss the combined topics of: attending conventions, the power of word-of-mouth and e-mail marketing (NOT SPAMMING!) Good luck with promoting your webcomic!
Check out BLOOP at: http://www.webcomicsnation.com/blooptoon
