How to Self-Publish a Comic Book

Instructions

• 1

  Whether you're a solo creator or part of a full team with a writer, artist, inker, colourist and letterist, you need to know what's popular and considered to be good. Study the masters. Try any books by Frank Miller, Tim Sale & Jeph Loeb or Alan Moore. Study page and panel layouts.
• 2

  Work and rework your book. Get characters nailed down before doing full pages. Ensure that your concept or story has a decent flow.
• 3

  Show your work to peers and colleagues. If you want to sell a comic book, you need to appeal to an audience. Don't be shy; if your readers bring up things they don't like, something's not working. You want to get the kinks out before you go to press.
• 4

  Now that you have something that people enjoy, make an ashcan copy. This is a preview comic, usually about 8 pages. Create a story that introduces the characters and gives some depth to the entire comic. Remember to make a strong cover.
• 5

  Take your ashcan copy to a local printer and have them make 50 to 100 copies of it. Make sure your contact information is on the inside cover or title page. This will serve as your business card.
• 6

  Take your freshly printed books to a comic book convention. It doesn't have to be Comic Con International. You can meet everyone you need to at your local convention.
• 7

  Talk to as many comic book creators as possible. Shoot the breeze, buy one or two of their books and talk about what you like. This puts them in a receptive mood to look at your book. Listen to what they have to say; you're going to need to remember their feedback.
• 8

  If you can, talk to a publicist. They are very well connected and can point you in the direction of everyone that is important in this business. They will also be useful when you need to promote your book.
• 9

  Finally, you need to talk to a distributor. Look for a distributor that can provide you with the opportunity get advertised in their catalogues.
• 10

  There's still a lot left to do. Start interacting online with the comics community. Develop a relationship with your publicist. Post the ashcan copy online. Start blogging, to get your name out there. By the time your book is ready to print, you should have already built some buzz. After all, you need to sell your comic.
• 11

  Send your comic to the distributor. Talk to printing presses that work with your publisher. If they've done business with your publisher, they're likely to take the order letter as a promise to pay. You pay them after the distributor pays you for the orders they have taken on your comic.
• 12

  Get to work on your issue of the comic book and cash the check from the distributor. Congratulations, you're a comic book publisher!