I've put the entire graphic novel online for the month of Ick-tober because I couldn't stand for another Halloween to go by without folks getting to read it. You can go to my noisy, annoying home page at http://www.sistermarydracula.com, or go right to the pages at http://www.sistermarydracula.com/SMDsample...md_ch1_pg0.html.

It really bites!

thanks! I'll read it.

No no, thank YOU!

Oh man, that was great. I was just going to read a few pages, but I ended up reading the whole thing. The artwork and colors on the cover are great. I would love to see one of your 3D projects with that kind of look.
OK ... back to work ....

Thanks Holmes! Oh, by the way, domine domine domine, you're all Catholics now!

Pshaw. Idle threat. Catholic...Jew...no diff. GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY.

Loved reading. That Sister Mary Dracula character is just begging to be made into an action figure. At the very least, an A:M action figure.

sez Hadassah Hanna from Temple "It Couldn't Hurt"

Here's Mike Lynch's post about the finished book: http://mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com/2010...rry-mooney.html

And his review of Chapter 1 from 2007: http://mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com/2007...a-by-gerry.html

OK, I just left a comment on SMD on Mike Lynch's blog Gerry, you and Mark Largent make for an interesting study. You are both very talented, imaginative, highly motivated and prolific. One would think that would be a winning combination to attract interest from a sales and marketing type of person. But I guess there are other mysterious factors involved.

Here is one agent's perspective on the whole business. She isn't an agent for commercial artists, but there is still some insightful stuff in there.
http://drewbrophy.com/how-to-find-an-artists-agent/

Here is a blog by a guy writing a graphic novel who describes one good and one bad experience with agents. His blog is apparently read by very many people, and it has a ton of user comments. Yet he is still struggling with breaking into the market.
http://www.remindblog.com/2010/03/04/graph...iterary-agents/

Here are many articles on the business of comic book publishing:
http://www.ehow.com/comic-book-publishers/

The general consensus seems to be ... get your MBA and create your own publishing company. Once you have built a successful franchise, then you will get interest from lots of people Of course there's the question, "But how will I find the time do do my ART??"

Thanks Holmes! SMD did get declined by an editor who is an acquaintance of mine and who requested that I submit it. When he brought it into a meeting of the editorial board he said there was a "spirited discussion" of its merits. I can only imagine! Wish I could have been a fly on the wall.

But the consensus was that they are publishing for a kids market and my book didn't fit their publishing aims, and that's fair.

As for agents, my wife and I have been through probably a half dozen agents of all kinds (publishing, theatrical, licensing et. al.) over the last 20 years and not one of them is worth a cold dog turd. An agent is only interested if you're already successful. They are in it for their cut, not to help unknowns succeed. And if you're already successful, what the #!!@#!! do you need an agent for?

Printed copies of SMD are now available from the ComixPress online store. Get yours now before they run out!!
http://www.comixpress.com/store/index.php?...roducts_id=1790

O' Collectors of Nunrabilia REJOICE!

Is SMD still available to autograph my copy? Surely, she could find some time? The moon is full only once a month.

I shall order me a copy tout de suite!

Of course I'd be happy to sign yours, Nancy. But it will have to be after you get it, then send it on to me. Sorry but that's the only way at the moment.

I finished SMD today, i enjoyed that very much. Thanks for putting it online! Maybe l'Osservatore Romano should serialize it.

When I was growing up our next door neighbors were Catholic and I always wondered about the school they went to. They mostly had complaints about nuns pulling their ears.

You scared me when they went up that tower. I was sure that wasn't going to end well.

If you animated this whole thing like you did the trailer, how long do you suppose the running time would be?

Thanks for the nice words, Robert. I have toyed with the idea of sending review copies to all the Catholic newspapers in the U.S. and was just last night reviewing a list I downloaded, but it's from three years ago and I can't locate a newer version online. I'm sure it's somewhat out of date.

Animation? I wouldn't do it in Flash like the short; I started creating models for an A:M version a year or two ago and I would go that way, toon-rendered and flat-looking but with the advantages of 3D. Anzovin Studio did a short some years ago, interpreting a folktale from India, and rendered to look like cut paper, very flat and designy. I still think about that approach. I'd want the running time to be at least an hour to 90 minutes. Animation feature-length or so.

Noooooooo! Don't do it! You end up compromising a lot on quality because you have so friggin much work to do and you want to get it done sometime before you die. There are many areas in Scarecrow of Oz where the quality could be a lot better, but in order to get it finished in some kind of reasonable time frame, like 2-3 years, it just wasn't practical to obsess over the details. Unless you have 5 or 6 dedicated people who work on it at least a little every single day for the entire 2-3 year production time, I would strongly suggest dividing the story into shorter episodes of 5-10 minutes. Perhaps tweak the script so some of the episodes can be joined together at a later time into something longer, like, say 22 minutes.

... just my 2 cents.

Perhaps I neglected to mention that this is my dream scenario...where I can build on the "success" of the book (here's where the dream part starts), get backers, have complete creative control, assemble a team, open up the story even further, and do a movie that against all odds becomes a runaway commercial hit. Then the licensing and lawsuits.

I have not the slightest intention or inclination to animate this all by myself.

sistermarydracula is a scary blood sucker great work, l love the opening with the evil school in the back ground. Ever try trade shows in addition to what you already doing
Thank you for sharing Gerry

Thanks Kat! I would love to spend next year taking it to all the cons etc. But it would be nicer to have a publishing deal. Heard from a friend who is an entertainment lawyer, who back last spring advised against self-publishing because there were deals to be made, who told me yesterday that all his contacts are totally on hold. No one knows what the future holds for publishing.

Gerry,
What are the prospects for getting your trade paperback into comic book shops?
All it would take would be the right fish to take a bite at the bait... and the book would be mass published.
Just watch out for the sharks!

I have often seen lesser works on view in Borders and Waldenbooks.
My thought is that Walmart wouldn't bite simply for fear of controversy.

Hehe... maybe quality christian bookstores would buy it.

Hey Rodney! yes, that's definitely a prospect. I've opened an account with Lulu.com, which I was surprised to see issues an ISBN number and bar code almost automatically, in fact I've already got one. With that you can sell through Amazon and possibly even get it into bookstores.

so that's my Plan B, but I want to go through my list of publishers first. I'll be submitting it to a lot of places between now and the end of the year.

When I was publishing my magazine, getting in bookstores, magazine racks was a tough road to plow, and this was close to 6 years ago. The issue is you have to go through a distributor, and distributors have their own criteria as to what they will pick up (size of publication (physical dimensions) page count, paper type, etc.). Then the deal is pretty much anti publisher, since the distributor takes the publication, sends it out to the racks, then after a few weeks picks up the unsold issues. You got those back, and then get paid a percentage of those that sold. That's why rack prices are so high. Most of the time a publisher sells on racks to get readers to subscribe directly, thereby avoiding the rack from that point forward. My magazine had world wide subscribers, was a 8.5x11 size, 62 pages 4 color glossy, and I still couldn't get it on the racks. I'd think you'd be better off being your own publisher (perhaps file a DBA as a publisher to help keep your financials straight). I'd also seriously consider filing your own copyright filing for the publiscation (do it NOW!) and file for your own ISBN. I don't know about Lulu, but some of those print on demand places own the ISBN they issue for the publication, so if you go somewhere else, the ISBN may not go with you.

If you want pointers, help, etc. on publishing from someone who did it and learned the hard way, drop me a line, I'll be glad to help.

Hey fae alba, That's great advice and I appreciate the offer! I looked at the Lulu contract and restrictions on the ISBN number weren't mentioned but I will look into that before I go further. Copyright's already applied for. How do I apply for an ISBN myself?

The central question that I always end up at is, there don't seem to be any rules anymore, so picking the "best" approach gets pretty amorphous. I want to get my story out there, but in a deliberate, careful way. I really screwed the pooch back in '99 with Bugbots, rushing into a bad animation contract and tying up the property for four years, but compromising it forever. That's why I changed the name, ditched the web comic and went directly to animating it myself, so it would be a quantitatively different project without changing the premise or characters.

I was going to write a big long post about our dealings with distributing to the comic shops, but realized that it's probably waaay out of date. I'm sure there's current info available on how to submit your book to Diamond for them to consider distributing it.

The biggest differences between now and then all stem from the fact that Diamond is a monopoly. It wasn't back in the early 90s. Now they scrutinize the books more and have large minimum orders ...so if they don't get enough orders, they don't distribute it. A quick Google search says that as of last year, that was $2500. I'm assuming that's from their 60% of the cover price (you get 40%, at least that was the norm back in the day.) So, if your book retailed for $10, you'd have to have orders for 417 books. You only get 300 orders and Diamond just doesn't fill those orders and you don't get a cent. It would seem to me that graphic novels would be in a better position than floppies, since the higher cover price means you have to sell less units.

It's worth investigating. Be cautious, though. I vaguely remember the distributors having some kind of stipulation about your not being able to sell the books for less than what they were (or something to that effect) during a time period. "Online" didn't exist back then, but I wonder now if that becomes an issue to where you can't charge less for online sales.

go here
ISBN.Org



To me this is a good application for a grass routes effort. You've already started that...I don't think a large scale effort (ie distributors) would be in your best interests; best to keep as much of the revenue in your pocket.

...and by revenue, of course, you mean <airquotes>revenue</airquotes>.

what would you rather get from SMD... fame or money?

Groupies, my boy, groupies!

Just gotta clear it with the wife.

Aye, laddie...it's all subjective!

My publishing company allowed me to work from home for many years while the kids were in grade school. Taking them to/from school, being a part of all that instead of the desk-jockey/office schlepp that I am now was the best revenue I got from it...as far as cash flow...well not so much. But crazier things have happened, and there's no reason why you shouldn't give it a go, otherwise it will always be a case of could have been, should have been. And that's no fun.

I appreciate the support. I'm taking this one all the way, been here too many times before. Just want to do it smart!

from what i understand about lulu isbn is that they hold the publishing rights
where as the isbn for create space dose not and is for amazon use
you can however republish the same book on amazon with your own ispn at a future time

j

more info
here are some of the steps I'm taking to publish a book on create space
my book is also an audio book and I have a publisher for that ( it will be on all sites including amazon)
because I wanted it out as an actual book and full control they suggest create space

the only problem i ran into was trying to setup a template for the book
I had to reformat it and that took some guessing (tech support is nil unless you want to pay )
so getting it approved is a bit tedious it took me about a week to get it right
i used Scribus to make the book ( its free) and it does a nice job
i will also be doing it as a Kindle which is another hurdle altogether

1) the book is copyrighted
2) and i got an ELN tax number ( don't use your ss#)
the ELN # will be for sales and tax purposes and you can use it for all products you create
3) the isbn is from create space but unless i missed something its for amazon publishing purposes and i still own everything
4) there are several selling pricing levels and i went for the pro package I think that was $39 one time cost
it gets you on everything,however there are different royalties for each level

as of this writing I'm still proofing the finale copy
so i have not published yet but most likely by weeks end if i don't find any more typos

and one more thing all the art work was done in AM love it

That made me smile!
Awesome!

Jim, thanks for the info. I spent some time on Lulu's user forums and there's a lot of dissatisfaction there, mainly due to Lulu's diminishing user support and response time. So I'm rethinking the wisdom of going with them. I'll look into createspace in the meantime. Thanks again.

EDIT: How do you apply for the ELN#?

go here
Fed Tax ID

To do it right I'd file at the very least a DBA with your county. Then get the EIN/Tax ID from the feds. Then open a separate bank account. Why do all this you may ask? Because of the IRS. If you use your own SSN, or your personal bank account, the IRS will most likely count both personal as well as business revenue ass one, taxing you at much higher rates. While a DBA won't protect you personally from any sort of liabilities, it makes accounting much easier (to fully insulate your personal life/assets from your business you need to create a C-Corporation, which takes on a life of its own. Basic rule of thumb is to keep your business life/financials separate from your personal.

Okay. I've already got a DBA and a business account. We were incorporated for several years back when we were flogging "Bugbots" so we've been through most of this, and the tax prep was really onerous and expensive for such a small operation, but we can take these steps without being *too* in the dark.

EDIT: I'm wondering if the number we had for the corporation is transferable for the DBA. We *may* be all set already.

Tax ID's, to my knowledge, are not transferable. But if you don't mind tying your current project to the "Bugbots" corporation, and you've kept up on your tax filings for that tax id, then use that corporation.

sounds like your almost there with the Tax thing
when you go to create space they make you jump threw the hoops
when setting up your first book
but don't fret it all the info can be changed before you publish
except for the isbn if you go the free isbn route and some other things

but if you don't publish your first submission then that isbn will not take affect either
and you can start again

and remember you can publish as many different versions of your book
pocket size, hardcover, kindle ect
so i suggest you spread the wealth, no what i mean

here are some cost #'s
my book is a 58 page cream pages ( a note i thought their cream was a tad darker then some others i've seen so i changed my type to make it pop)
5.25x8 blk and white full color cover and back
to do the proof the cost was
Order Total:
Subtotal: $2.15
Shipping: $6.39
Tax Collected: $0.00
-------
Total: $8.54

i went with a faster shipping I'm in Ct and the first time it took over a week and the are in Carolina
so i upped it

the end product is very professional no problems with the look
colors are spot on text is crisp

j

fae_alba, we let the Bugbots corp. lapse some years back, so starting over for Sister Mary is the thing. No biggie, but I don't want to incorporate again. Too much trouble for a little project.

jimd, thanks for the figures and breakdown. are you incorporated for your project?

General rule of thumb...if your company is set to make $100,000/year, then a c-corp is in order, otherwise an S-Corp or dba is in order. The down side of a dba is that you essentially get taxed twice for the income (first on the dba tax return) then again on your personal. Also, any good bean counter will tell you that you should Never! show a profit on a DBA tax return.

I'm a little fuzzy on it at the moment, but I think the tax savings on the S-corp were more or less cancelled out by the tax prep fees. My wife is good at doing our tax returns, but for the corporation filings we had to have an accountant do it and it got expensive.

But this is all stuff I need to look into.

Yes indeedy...cost me a couple of hundred bucks for the tax prep, plus $300 a year to keep it an S-Corp..don't pay the $300, and the biz automagically turns into a C-Corp...

Hey Gerry
no I'm just doing this as an individual and take it as it goes

Double post.

No danger of that this year. Or next, most likely.

So I lied! I had every intention of sticking to my word and taking these pages down after Halloween...but I got a ton of traffic from France for some reason (two French ELS websites were responsible for more hits than all other sources combined), and one of the websites that has a link to it asked if I could please leave it up longer. How could I say no?

So the entire story will be up for awhile longer, and I'm also adding the pages to Facebook photos page!

cool!

What's "ELS"?

Should be ESL, English as a Second Language.

Oh cool! They are using it to learn English. I think you just discovered a potential new market!
It reminds me of my French classes in school. We read Asterix and Obelix comics in French because it was waaaay more fun to learn that way.

Holmes, you're nudging me dangerously close to the Way-Bac machine! I've still got my Asterix books packed away in storage.

I visited France twice when I was in college, and the first time stayed with the family of my pen pal Gigi (yes Gigi!), a redheaded young lady with an infectious laugh. SOMEHOW I talked her stepmother into taking me to the offices of Pilote magazine, just outside Paris, and I guess because of my lame French, actually talked my way into the office of Rene Goscinny. A very elegant man with graying hair, gold cufflinks and a three-piece suit. We spent a few minutes talking (mostly me listening I'm sure!) and he couldn't have been nicer. I have no recollection of the conversation, just the elegance of his dark-panelled office and sharp suit on an ordinary work day.

Only on the way back to Paris did the stepmother find out I just talked my way in. She thought I had had an appointment to see him!