Post #282,005
4/16/07 11:28:10 AM
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Thinking out loud re. Help Desk
I'm just writing out loud... feel free to ignore or join in.
Here's my basic problem: on May 19 my wife and I are moving to Monroe, LA. So far I have been unable to find any kind of work in Monroe that has anything to do with my job skills... which means I need to either get new job skills fast, settle into a misery-inducing job until I go off the fucking deep end, or find a way to go into business for myself and make it work.
In the last category a few people I know who are familiar with my situation have suggested I focus on Help Desk (and Kernel Panic) and try to eke out a living with them. The problem, as I see it, is that at present Help Desk doesn't make me any money (well, about $100-200 a quarter, but that's not enough to live on). For the last eleven years my business model has been "get a full time job in order to support doing what I want to do" -- now that it's possible I may not have a full time job, doing what I want to do is in danger of collapsing under its own weight.
I can think of a number of reasons of why I can't support myself with Help Desk (lousy artist, saturated market, too many people who think Help Desk is "just an anti-microsoft comic" or "just a User Friendly Clone," to name three), and not very many ways to change it. Part of this is because I don't really have a head for business -- a significant strike against me there -- part of it is a certain entrenchment that has set in (when you do something for eleven years it's very difficult to see alternatives) and part of it is just a hell of a lot of stress about suddenly being faced with the inability to contribute to the financial well-being of my family.
It's driving me nuts. I need a new perspective on this. All thoughts are welcome, good and bad...
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
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Post #282,006
4/16/07 11:46:15 AM
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Swag? Subscriptions? Tie up with LargeGiantCorp?
Those seem to be the usual ways to generate income from comics. Mutts, for instance, offers large prints on heavy stock with an embossed seal that we've taken advantage of a few times. (They've still got the pixelated background use in newspapers, so they're not fancy copies of originals.) They have the usual T-shirts, etc., too, but having an inventory of such things can be risky.
I'm sure you've thought about all these things, though. :-(
Best of luck with the hunt.
Cheers,
Scott.
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Post #282,014
4/16/07 12:29:32 PM
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have you tried the dead tree market?
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 51 years. meep
reach me at [link|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net]
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Post #282,017
4/16/07 12:46:28 PM
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Two factors working against me there:
1. I've always designed the comic for the web, so all images are naturally at 72 dpi. Over the years due to various hardware problems, changes to software and random stupidity I've managed to lose about 75% of the originals of my comics, which means that any serious effort at creating dead-tree reprints will require redrawing comics.
1a. All my comics are in color, which vastly increases printing costs.
2. You need a certain level of readership to make selling compilations viable... I get about 8.2-8.5K readers a day, but that's peanuts compared to the really successful webcomics out there. Given that only a very tiny fraction of a comic winds up willing and able to purchase reprints, t-shirts, and other kinds of swag (general estimates based on the observations of cartoonists who *do* sell product is around 1%) I'm not sure it'd be worth the initial investment at this point.
I did think about using Lulu at one point, but while they're apparently really good for publishing black and white compilations, color is very expensive for them and that hikes up the base cost per page of what you're trying to sell...
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
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Post #282,018
4/16/07 12:48:48 PM
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was thinking of newspaper comic page
Any opinions expressed by me are mine alone, posted from my home computer, on my own time as a free american and do not reflect the opinions of any person or company that I have had professional relations with in the past 51 years. meep
reach me at [link|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net|mailto:bill.oxley@cox.net]
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Post #282,019
4/16/07 12:52:42 PM
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Nearly impossible these days.
Johnny Hart, creator of BC and Wizard of ID, just died -- what does the syndicate do? Decide to keep the comic running IN PERPETUITY through various clipart and story ideas supplied by Hart's children.
I'd have to scale down and reformat the comic too much, and cut down on the dialog too much, and pretty much castrate the comic too much just to make it fit in to the traditional newsprint format, and after all that the most likely outcome is that no syndicate will be the slightest bit interested.
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
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Post #282,016
4/16/07 12:42:00 PM
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Thinking gets you into trouble...
I know this, I am in the same boat, currently.
For you, you have a writing skill. Find a niche you love and can own.
I've been looking around for things, IT work is indeed few and far between in West Michigan.
Recruiters are crap, the customers they have are "Hurry up and wait" mentality... things just don't have a good outlook.
[link|http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/01/11/how-to-market-your-blog-in-2007/|Pro-Blogging] might be something you might want to consider. Writing, and being able to stay on task is a good thing, this is what can make you money.
Just to give you an idea, a friend I have currently has one blog he uses 1 hour a week to maintain it... $500/month. It is a niche market, but caters to them very well. He also has 4 other blogs about different things that he works on and researches and does foot work for (well e-mail and phone calls) and he currently makes about $800-$1200/month on each. He isn't a spammer, just well placed ads and referrals get him the money, along with submitting articles to some news organizations.
I wish I had the gumption to do that. It is just me being a flailing idiot when it comes to these things. Things could be better for me if I could get my act together.
-- [link|mailto:greg@gregfolkert.net|greg], [link|http://www.iwethey.org/ed_curry|REMEMBER ED CURRY!] @ iwetheyFreedom is not FREE. Yeah, but 10s of Trillions of US Dollars? SELECT * FROM scog WHERE ethics > 0;
0 rows returned.
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Post #282,307
4/18/07 10:59:52 PM
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Also check out Copyblogger
Lots of [link|http://copyblogger.com|good tips] on writing for the web. Lots of people there making money off their writing.
===
Kip Hawley is still an idiot.
===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
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Post #282,068
4/16/07 10:00:43 PM
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Something to check:
Just recently. I ordered a book from [link|http://www.authorhouse.com/ContactUs/Publish.aspx|Author House]. It is a book about [link|http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail~bookid~3720.aspx|National Forest] campgrounds in the Southern region of the US. Note the cost $16.54 plus of course shipping which as I recall was about $6. The same book at [link|http://www.amazon.com/U-S-National-Forest-Campground-Guide/dp/1587213087/|Amazon] is $34.95 and free shipping. The way I understand it, Author House prints the book "on demand". They don't ship immediately but schedule the printing and ship after that.
Anyway, if you can compile a tome, it would possibly be a way to sell it with minimal effort, perhaps with link in the strip. I have no idea how they work with authors, Also, the book I ordered is black and white except for a glossy cover. Who knows what the restrictions are?
Anyway, it's just a thought.
Alex
When fascism comes to America, it'll be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross. -- Sinclair Lewis
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Post #282,070
4/16/07 10:37:52 PM
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Split the difference
If you can't get a full time job doing what you like could you get a part time one? You can split the difference, improving Help Desk into more of a paying project while still holding down some sort of job.
And don't discount a bad job out of hand. You can always keep looking for a better one as you put in your hours of misery.
If you want ideas for your web site, how about a Binky desktop toy? Something that can be beaten savagely.
Jay
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Post #282,072
4/16/07 10:42:41 PM
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Looking forward in a similar way.
It might not surprise you to learn that there is a webcomic of only middling graphic quality, but the artist is now managing to live off it after only four years. She even documents [link|http://devilspanties.keenspot.com/FAQ.html|just how she did it] (scroll down about a third of the way).
Now I realize that your cartooning is in a wholly different league in both style and content to [link|http://devilspanties.keenspot.com/|The Devil's Panties], but perhaps you could find Jennie's journey encouraging, nonetheless.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
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Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
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-- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. | · my ·
· [link|http://staticsan.livejournal.com/|blog] ·
· [link|http://yceran.org/|website] · |
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Post #282,139
4/17/07 11:43:54 AM
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Yes but you forget
that Jenny is really, really cool. :)
"We are all born originals -- why is it so many of us die copies?"
- Edward Young
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Post #282,230
4/17/07 9:24:22 PM
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And that is holding you back, why? :-)
I had an interesting encouragement last night.
About 2 weeks ago, my niece wanted me to do some drawing with her. This caught me quite by surprise because she'd *never* seen me draw, but I did anyway. She drew a line down the middle of a page in her sketch book and we drew independantly on each half of the page. I got inspired by what I drew and a few days later bought some coloured pencils and a small sketch book of my own. I draw on the train.
So, last night, I was sketching (or trying to) and found I had an audience of 4 or 5 11-yro boys in awe at my relatively poor artistry. :-)
You're better at it than you think.
Wade.
Is it enough to love
Is it enough to breathe
Somebody rip my heart out
And leave me here to bleed
| |
Is it enough to die
Somebody save my life
I'd rather be Anything but Ordinary
Please
|
-- "Anything but Ordinary" by Avril Lavigne. | · my ·
· [link|http://staticsan.livejournal.com/|blog] ·
· [link|http://yceran.org/|website] · |
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Post #282,308
4/18/07 11:02:00 PM
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Do you *need* to work?
If you're willing to relocate for your wife's job, does that mean you can survive on her income? If so, then you're free to pursue what you really want to do.
Is it that you need the second income, or that you feel useless not contributing? If it's the latter, dude, be a kept man and chase your dream. No one gets rich working for someone else. If you've got fame and fortune in your future, you've got to work for yourself.
===
Kip Hawley is still an idiot.
===
Purveyor of Doc Hope's [link|http://DocHope.com|fresh-baked dog biscuits and pet treats].
[link|http://DocHope.com|http://DocHope.com]
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Post #282,337
4/19/07 4:50:55 AM
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Yeah, and if it works out great, he can always pretend...
...he's one of that other famous kind of "kept man" in the States nowadays, i.e, a med student -- and dump her once he gets into the real money.
[link|mailto:MyUserId@MyISP.CountryCode|Christian R. Conrad]
(I live in Finland, and my e-mail in-box is at the Saunalahti company.)
Ah, the Germans: Masters of Convoluted Simplification. — [link|http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=1603|Jehovah]
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