The grown-ups lied to you. Drawing comics is fun, and it doesn’t stop being fun even when you become an adult. Actually, it gets better when you become an adult, because you improve, and you can up end becoming a professional, making a living from it, and having thousands of people reading your stories. Or you can choose to not make a living out of it, but still have thousands of people reading your stories. The order of the factors is not relevant in this situation, thanks to the advent of Webcomics.
Sure, you are not making any money out of it at first, but if you gather a faithful following, and it’s large enough, then you absolutely make it your full-time job. It’s not an easy path, but here are some tips on how to get started.
Publish in a Webcomic Hosting Site
There are hosting sites for absolutely everything there is to host, from gardening to computer web templates. In this case, a Webcomic hosting site is a great solution for your needs because it’s already designed to make the publishing of pages easy. You can pick from any different templates that you can customize, or, you can upload your own design, but the essential tools to navigate the pages and chapters, and make reading a comic possible are already there.
Usually, you also have extra pages for character bios, background story, author blog posts, and comments from the readers. Another great asset is that your comic will be hosted in the site’s listing, and you can set a series of keywords based on genre and content so readers can search stories like yours and find you.
Promote Your Work Everywhere
Don’t be shy about self-promotion. If you want to be heard, you have to scream loudly. Use social media sites, forums, join Webcomic rings and listings, art sites, and any place where you have a chance to talk about your comic and leave a link to it. Another great idea is to contact other Webcomic artists, and exchange links and banners so their readers can check you out, too. Art exchanges or host pages are another good way to promote yourself.
Sell Your Goods
Once you have a steady number of followers, and your Webcomic has been running for a while, it’s time to consider offering more to your readers. Readers always want more. Merchandise is a good way to start, and once you have enough content, you can print out a book of the published chapters of your masterpiece. The merchandise sales can help you pay for any expenses you have if you host your comic in an independent site, or you are attending conventions. So will selling out books.
You can find several printing services online that focus on comics and will charge you only for a first copy. Afterwards they will only charge you for the printing costs every time a copy is sold. This is a good cost-zero method of printing your comic, but first make sure you have gathered enough interested readers, and good luck with the pencil!