does print pay off?

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kaos_de_moria
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does print pay off?

Post by kaos_de_moria »

hey everyone,

i wondered if print pays off? how much does an artist get per sold book or does he get paid a certain amount fixed? and how much does he get off translated comics? is the amount rather dependent on the length of the comic or the price it is sold for? how much difference is their for a well known artist compared to a first publication? is there different situation from country to country or is it rather publisher to publisher?

(these questions can surely be ansered by scott, if anyone else knows some stuff, i'd be intrested aswell. thanks for the answers in advance.)

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Post by William G »

Y'know, recently Ghastly of "Ghastly's Ghastly Comic" announced that he gets more hits a month than issues of Spiderman are sold.

So, I'm going to assume this means that, no, it's doesn't pay.
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Post by Greg Stephens »

But at a consumer price of close to three dollars per issue of Spider-Man and only some fraction of cents paid per internet-ad impression, whose work is paying off?

As to Ghastly's claims, we'd really need to see how that's tallied. I'm skeptical that it's an accurate accounting of readers. Anybody know what kind of tracking Keenspace offers for their websites?
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Post by William G »

Greg Stephens wrote:But at a consumer price of close to three dollars per issue of Spider-Man and only some fraction of cents paid per internet-ad impression, whose work is paying off?
But how much of the cover price actually gets into the artist's hands.... I know it's not as bad as the recording industry as far as upper management gouging is concerned, but still...
As to Ghastly's claims, we'd really need to see how that's tallied. I'm skeptical that it's an accurate accounting of readers. Anybody know what kind of tracking Keenspace offers for their websites?
Dunno. He did post a link to a site that keeps track of the print sales though and compared the numbers to his hits
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Post by Greg Stephens »

Well, there's some numbers for print comics on this page (scroll down to section 3-18 ). Remember, Spider-Man is a corporate-owned character and anyone working for Marvel is getting paid up front for the work they do, not after the book comes out (though some creators do get royalties after a certain point), so it's not a strict matter of the money a reader pays coming back to the artist. (And, since you mentioned it, this is quite different from how most of the recording industry typically does business, where they front the money to the artist to produce a CD and then expect it to be paid back out of the artist's royalities after the CD is released. Royalties in comics are almost a non-issue whereas in music they're a central issue.) It is, however, significant that Marvel sells many books each month for around $3 each, which enables them to continue paying creators salaries or page rates.

When you're talking about digital comics on the web, it's another matter. It's more comparable to self-publishing (also discussed at the end of that page) where there is a more direct link between the money that comes in via any given revenue stream and the money that winds up in the creator's hands. And to do either of these well- Self-publishing in print or on the web- you've got to be a good businessman in order to make a profit, let alone live off it. I don't think comparing page-views to comic book sales is any proof of whether or not there's more money to be made in one medium vs. the other.
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Post by William G »

This... is true.

Then again, there's plenty of "get your foot in the door" room for the web so the good business minded folk do have a chance to shine where they probably wouldn't in print. I think the print world is like pro wrestling- You can train all you like, but very few people get called up to the big time.

The odds of making a living off of your work may or may not be similar in both mediums, but at least the web seems to give everyone an equal chance of succeeding.

Or not.

I'm not feeling so determined to slap the deadwood publishers tonight. :wink:
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Post by Greg Stephens »

William Beckerson wrote:...but at least the web seems to give everyone an equal chance of succeeding.
Agreed.
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Post by BuckBeaver »

Greg Stephens wrote:As to Ghastly's claims, we'd really need to see how that's tallied. I'm skeptical that it's an accurate accounting of readers. Anybody know what kind of tracking Keenspace offers for their websites?
Aren't hits really meaningless? I suppose if you rely on pageviews for ad revenue they can be important, but it's not an accurate gage of how popular or widely seen your work is. I don't pretend to be an expert on how counters count hits but don't they lump search engines, spiders, things like that in with legitimate pageviews?

For example, my site has (I'm told by my webhost) 30,000 or so hits per month, but I've only had 5,000 unique visitors in the last year, only about 500 or so of them regularly returning visitors and by my own unscientiffic reckoning a die-hard group of 70-100 people who come by frequently, mostly for my blog.

Now I can say I have 30,000 hits per month but that's a long way up from 75 regular visitors and kind of misleading isn't it?
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Post by kaos_de_moria »

this reminds me how different the comic landscape is in the states compared to europe. i was first of all not thinking about serials, but single book publications like UC & RC by scott, blankets, cages, and alot of others. especially interesting would be the numbers for comics, which have been translated into another language. if a publisher decides to translate a certain comic they usually approach the artist, which gives the artist a freer hand in making his deals. (or does the first publisher usually have the rights for translations as well?)

(scott... in case you read this. i'd really appriciate it, if you could share some info. you don't have to be specific on your own deals, but i'm sure you have a quite good general insight as well.)

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Post by Tim Mallos »

Unique sessions is the number to watch. Yup, 'hits' are irrelevent unless you are metering your server load or performance.

A 'hit' is a file request recieved by the Web server. So, if a page has a .css and 10 images in it, it registers a total of 12 hits: 1 for the html, one for the .css, and 1 for each image on the page.

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Post by Greg Stephens »

As it happens, Checkerboard Nightmare has a comic today about the topic of page views v. visitors.
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Post by William G »

Y'know... This reminds me of when I first started. I was looking at the number of server requests my site had gotten and I was blown away by the huge numbers that a site that had been up for two months had gotten.

Then my host taught me how it all works, and my happiness was crushed. Still, I'm proud of the modest traffic I do get.
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Post by losttoy »

I think the only way to gauge just how many readers you have is to have a subscription service on your site. That will tell you just how many people actually bought your comic. And that is the point.

I remember an article in Nexus back when it started publishing that they get more mail from different readers than their actual sales numbers. I guess all those people who read their friend's comic, loved enough to send fan mail, but still did not buy it. Either that or they read it in the store. I have done that on a day that was busy enough where the guy behind the counter did not look over my sholder too much.

I guess if you have to compare web hit counts to print comics: hit is everytime a comic is lifted up from the shelf and is looked at. Of course, if the book is not you taste, you will put it back on the shelf without buying it. I always wonder that with my site ... whether they actualy like the comic, or if they followed the link and then put it back on the shelf.
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Post by Guest »

When I was using Yahoo to host, the report that I got from them weekly had a hit number for repeat vistors from the week before. Then when I switched to GoDaddy, I was dissapointed to find out that there report didn't have that stat. But it's not so important (to me) as to spend another $10 a month for that info.
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Post by Eric F Myers »

That was me. Greg, I keep getting logged out as I post.
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page rates...?

Post by gazorenzoku »

back to the original question: what DOES an artist (or a writer, for that matter, or an inker, or the drummer, or whatever) get paid for print work?

I just got a work approved to be published in a print comic. I don't want to give out the details until I've signed a contract, and the deal is set, but at this point the publisher said that they will put out a short four page story of mine in a magazine in July.

I still haven't heard about the pay yet. I assume I'll know sometime in July...

ANYHOW, I imagine there is a page rate for this kind of thing. I heard somewhere that a pro can expect US$100 per page. Don't know if that is JUST pencilling or JUST inking or what.

So I am hoping that, since I did everything on my pages from writing the story down to the lettering, etc., that I can at least see $50 per page.... is that a reality? Anyone want to comment?

Though, if you are thinking of what a pro (or maybe someone just "comfortable" in the print industry) must make to support a family, really $100 per page seems pretty low. You only hit, what, $2,000 per month with that (assuming a page every weekday). Which would be cool if you didn't have children, I suppose. A heck of a good starting salary. But if that is ALL you could EVER make.... EVER.... hmmm... you'd have to have an understanding family, I imagine.

Then again, I really don't know what other people out there make, and what a normal salary is. I make WAY less than $2,000 a month right now, but I consider this my "starting out" period...

I used to hate talking about money.... guess I'm getting older... (and heck, comics are just so EXPENSIVE!!! If I'm supposed to be a fan AND a creator, I want at least enough to be able to buy, say, two or three graphic novels a month.... is that too much to ask?!)
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Re: page rates...?

Post by Greg Stephens »

gazorenzoku wrote:ANYHOW, I imagine there is a page rate for this kind of thing. I heard somewhere that a pro can expect US$100 per page. Don't know if that is JUST pencilling or JUST inking or what.
I posted a link with some info back up in this same thread, but I forgive you for missing it and will repost it here. If you follow this link and scroll down to section 3-18, you'll find some info about page rates. The relevant information I'll quote here:
PENCILS (per page)
Beginning Rates: $80 to $120
High End Rates: $180 to $200

INKS (per page)
Beginning Rates: $40 to $60
High End Rates: $100 to $140
So, it's not that $100 per pencilled page is all you can ever expect, but it's not a bad number to think of as a starting goal when working for a major company. Working for smaller companies will yield smaller numbers, of course, and some don't even use page-rates, but simply pay per story.

This is all second-hand information, by the way, as I've never been paid for any comic art.
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Post by gazorenzoku »

That seems fair. I would imagine someone like, say Mike Allred getting $200 for a page.
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