Marketing journal #4 - The inside track

This site is a must read for all cartoonists.

http://dailycartoonist.com/

'nuff said.

Marketing diary #3 - A stiff upper lip

So today has been busy ... and not overwhelmingly positive, but that's ok.

Or is it? I mean 100 or so hits on the website per day and only 16 people have voted ever. So in two weeks, out of 1,000 visitors only 16 have liked it enough to have an opinion. That's not even 2 people in a hundred!

Should I consider this as 16/1,000 people like the strip or should I just put the lack of voting down to web-habits? I think I'll put it down to web-habits.

First rule of freelancing. Expect rejection. It is your friend.

Currently, it is my BEST friend!

:)

Marketing Journal #2 - Too little time

The problem I have is simple: too much to do too little time.

So what marketing has been done today? Nothing! Absolutely bugger all. And I've not seen any feedback relating directly to the Nowhere Wolf.

STRIKE!

I did spend a little time ironing out some kinks on the blog, but that's about it. I'm trying to run a business, work a full time job AND push the Nowhere Wolf.

Before this becomes a "poor me" post, I'd like to say I love what I do. Just some days seem to have less hours than others. I'm not sure whether this proves or disproves Einstein's theories.

The moral here is TIME MANAGEMENT.

And rather than waste my time posting about how little I've done and wasting yet more time, I'd better do some work.

Marketing Journal #1 - The numbers game

So I've been trying the syndication game. Why? Because I need to eat. Don't get me wrong here -- the Nowhere Wolf is not my only project, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The Nowhere Wolf has been sitting in various sketchbooks since 1998. There's even a sketchbook of final art -- panels that have been drawn up over the years. It's garnered as much interest as my entire illustration portfolio and drawn many more laughs.

So why not see if it's actually marketable? It's like finding that old painting in your attic and taking it to the "Antiques Roadshow". What's it gonna be worth?

So I start reading up ... just type "cartoon syndication" into Google ... and blammo! Here's the first piece of advice I read:

TIP NO.1

Unless you're already syndicated, so this tip goes, PROVE YOU CAN DO IT!

Ok, so I hastily set up a blog, decide on a publishing schedule and stick to it. Right. That's that. I can prove that between 5pm-7pm every day there's a new cartoon online.

But this is where I get greedy. It's not enough for me to just prove the point of regular publishing -- I actually want people to read it and give me feedback.

So here we go ... the blog promotion thang! My dear God. I've submitted to directories, listings, forums ... I've spent more time promoting it than doing it. But I think that's a short term thing. I'd like to keep promoting it, but I'll limit myself to an hour a day to find new ways to do so.

The blog's getting traffic. I have some regular readers and I'm proving I can be consistent with the cartoon.

That's TIP #1 covered. YAY!

Now to the numbers game. The big syndication companies (Kings, Tribune, United, Universal and Creators) get somewhere between 15,000-25,000 submissions per year between them (I could be optimistic and think that maybe they all get the same submissions which would mean that only 3,000-5,000 new cartoons surface each year, but let's not be optimistic). They each take on 2-3 newcomers each year.

Do the math -- That makes your statistical chances of getting published somewhere between 0.1% and 0.04% (0.3% if you're optimistic).

They're long odds. So what about direct marketing? What would happen if you emailed every newspaper editor in the US and asked them if they wanted your cartoon?

Well, that's what I've just started to do. Take a look at http://www.usnpl.com/. It's a fairly comprehensive list of American newspapers.

So far I've got half way through California. I've emailed every newspaper editor I can find in Alabama and Arizona (I skipped Alaska, maybe I shouldn't have -- It just seems like it's a long way away).

The result? Out of 160ish emails I've received about 10 views of the website, three rejection emails and that's that.

It's easy to think that the work is just no good -- and maybe that's the case. I wish I new. Without knowing all you can do is plug on. I have a suspicion it's my cover letter. Each time I've altered it, it's gotten a better response.

There's about 2,000 more newspapers to go. That should mean about 125 more page views and 37 and a half rejection letters.

I've yet to contact the syndication companies. I'll let you know when I do.

Diary #1 - The origins of the Nowhere Wolf

So here I am, 19 posts into the series and still with a bank of cartoons yet to publish before I run out and need to do more.

The Nowhere Wolf has been in development for about 8 years -- hence the backlog. Eight years ago he didn't exist. I almost remember the day he was conceived. I say almost, because like most guys on the eve of conception I was hideously drunk.

I was around a friend's house having a few beers, listening to some tunes when my friend put on a new record. Now, I need to explain, that amongst other things, my friend was a vinyl collector and a connoisseur of 80's music ... and I was about to hear his newest find. It was rubbish. I don't even remember who it was or what the album was called. I think it was some obscure European band. But as I looked over the sleeve, wondering if the record was ever going to end, I noticed a song called "Nowhere Wolf".

I think I'd just finishing reading Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse, so the title of the song struck a chord (no pun intended). In my innebriated state I draw parallels with the wolf from the Steppes and the wolf from Nowhere.

"Poor wolf. He has nowhere to go, nowhere to be. Poor little fellow", I thought.

And then I got distracted by my friend offering some more beer or some more peanuts or something and largely forgot about the whole thing.

Days later, I somehow remembered the Nowhere Wolf. I jotted the title down in my sketchbook and as I wrote it, it occured to me that NOWHERE and NOW HERE used the same letters. This poor little lost wolf wasn't really lost at all. He didn't belong NOWHERE, he belonged in the NOW and HERE.

"There's a story in that ... one with a moral. It'll be a modern fable! It'll be like Aesop's fables all over", I thought

And so the Nowhere Wolf was conceived.

Welcome

Hey all!

Glad you're here.

The Nowhere Wolf's Vowel Movements has finally gone live.

For those (and that'll be most of you) who don't know the Vowel Movements, it's a daily single panel cartoon aimed at bringing a little silliness to your day.

Isn't there enough silliness on the web already? Yes and no. There's an awful lot of silliness on the web, some of which I'm pretty sure was never intended as silliness.

Some of it is really, genuinely funny -- I hope to update my links to bring you some of the better sites in the future. Some of it is rubbish -- I may also update my links to include them as well (naming and shaming is always fun, and besides you may well enjoy them). But none of it is mine :) until now.

So here's my addition to the daily fray of inane tooing-and-froing on the periphery of cyberspace.

There's of course a more serious reason to publishing this than a purely altruistic endevour to bring a smile to someone's face and that reason is cartoon syndication is tough business.

Out of 5,000 queries sent to major syndicates, only two or three get taken on. Also, the budget that newspapers have is growing smaller and smaller.

When you think that over the course of a year a newspaper may spend tens of thousands of dollars (sometimes well over $100,000) to buy their cartoons, you can see why they don't want to publish stuff that hasn't already been tried and tested or turned into a matching wall-clock and telephone.

Anyway, enjoy the Nowhere Wolf

Best Rgards

Paul Bowers