Canadian Mac Forums at ehMac banner

Turning Webcomics into Cash

2K views 13 replies 10 participants last post by  CubaMark 
#1 ·
HOW TWO OF THE INTERNET’S TOP COMICS NAMES TURN CREATIVITY TO CASH


Grizzly bear plus Pteradactyl equals Bear-o-dactyl. Bear-o-dactyl plus a couple other comics per week equals half a million bucks annually for 29-year-old Matthew Inman.

Inman is better known as The Oatmeal,...
full-time web comic artists, however, have made the majority of their greenbacks through other means. At the end of the day, they’re not selling comics or eyeballs; they’re running online stores.

The web comic’s innovation is merch. Funny drawings get people in the door. Regular updates turn them loyal. Loyal fans buy T-shirts.

Inman says The Oatmeal makes $400,000 a year from merchandise--posters, shirts, buttons, magnets--twice as much money as he makes through ads.
(all emphasis mine)

(FastCompany)
 
See less See more
1
#5 ·
Wow that's amazing! I agree with Bryan, I'd have been surprised to see him making $4000 a year from it.
On a related topic. What do you guys think of apple's new ibook business model? I can see HUGE potential for creative individuals to prosper through ibook production. It totally bypasses most of the hurdles and barriers an author would have to overcome to get published via traditional means. I think we'll be hearing lots of success stories like the one above from some guy with a laptop producing ibooks. Many have raised red flags over the EULA however.

Cheers
MacGuiver
 
#6 ·
What do you guys think of apple's new ibook business model? I can see HUGE potential for creative individuals to prosper through ibook production. It totally bypasses most of the hurdles and barriers an author would have to overcome to get published via traditional means. I think we'll be hearing lots of success stories like the one above from some guy with a laptop producing ibooks. Many have raised red flags over the EULA however.
I downloaded the iBooks author tool and started messing with it before the keynote was even over, and I'm extremely optimistic about the idea in principle, but I think it'll take some time before much of real value comes from this technology. Ultimately, the content has to be good, and producing a book with real content takes real effort, no matter how good the tools are.

From my perspective, I don't really care about the money (which is probably a major reason I don't have any :( ) but I think there's a great potential for university professors to form small consortia, and produce a really good text book covering their subject really well (and with continuous updates), and provide it for students through iTunes for free. This is something I intend to discuss with my peers at conferences over the next year. I'm daunted by the prospect of putting together a whole text, but I'd happily contribute a chapter (and work to keep it up to date).

From the perspective of someone hoping to generate revenue from this, I think it's tantalizing but far from a slam-dunk decision. Apple has a great brand and a great history in the past few years of making this model work, but wether it can be done again is an open question. I think what they'll need to do is try to facilitate the production of a few really excellent books that sell really well, and thereby create a lot of wealth for their authors really quickly. Like Angry Birds and various other early successes on the App store, this will show content creators that there's money to be made and start the gold rush.

I guess I should get to work on getting something together to upload... might be able to surf that wave for a change?
 
#7 ·
Article doesn't say whether that's gross or net, but if gross that would put it at $600k including ads. Out of that I'd imagine he pays someone to do the logistics and manage the products (printing cards, t-shirts, shipping, etc.) plus maybe pays someone to do the web programming, manage the hosting which needs too handle millions of hits and pay 3rd parties for things such as credit card processing etc. I'm sure he has legal help and accountants to pay as well.

The expenses associated with all this can add up quickly. If he personally takes 40% after expenses, that would reduce it to $240k...still a good chunk of cash.
 
#11 ·
I believe it. The owners of CTRL-ALT-DEL and Red vs Blue(not really a webcomic, more of an animated cartoon based on a game) must be making alot of cash.
 
#14 ·
I started it, so I claim the right to resurrect it :)

I just came across this comic from the Reddit /comics/ subreddit. At first I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me... what do you think of this implementation? Is it javascript? Gif? HTML5?

Nautilus - The Art of Painting
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top