Nov 04
First things first. I start getting depressed as winter sets in. At least I see it coming this time. So please bear with me over any self-pity evident here-in.
Some of you may have noticed a rather shocking Project Wonderful ad the other day. (As near as I can tell it drove away as many as 2000 readers.) I’ve removed it, banned the advertiser, and gone back to reviewing new advertisers. The drawback to holding ads for review is that many advertisers pull their ads before I get to approving them. But not reviewing them clearly opens the door to unsuitable material.
I was trying Google ads again too. There’s similar disadvantages in that I don’t get to review what shows up on my site. I’m also bothered that third party scripts are allowed. I can supposedly ban ads I find unsuitable, but only after the fact. At the same time, some ads that show up really miss the target. I don’t see how the ads for streaming Indian TV are reaching their demographic here. (Mom tried Adwords and was similarly disappointed by how her ads were placed.) They payout isn’t all that great and, frankly I think the Google ads have had a negative effect on readership. So I’ve pulled Google ads and I don’t plan on trying them again any time soon.
As a matter of fact, ad revenue is pretty weak. The main reason is that TMI isn’t a very popular comic. I’m thrilled when I see a day pushing ten thousand readers, as opposed to a number of comics with hundreds of thousands of readers. Daily updates have proven to improve readership and ad revenue, but I’ve probably mentioned before that I’m “motivationally challenged” (OK, OK, lazy). Still, I’m going to try to overcome these coming Winter Blahs and ensure regular updates. Even if it means cutting into my WoW time.
I’d like to do away with ads entirely. Reader donations almost always bring in more money, especially when I’m in a fix, which seems to be more the norm than the exception. Not going to do anymore “shakedowns” as the last one offended a bunch of readers. The donors gallery seems to have plateaued out in attracting donations (tho adding to it might help – Carly next?). I can’t try the “do an extra comic for each number of dollars” thing until I stop missing regular updates.
I’m still applying for work, but not even getting interviews these days. It’s possible that not using a pen name exclusively may have been a mistake. I’ve been reading that many companies shy away from hiring bloggers and such. So I may be a victim of my own success.
I’m looking for options, and open to suggestions, but I want to assure everyone, that pulling the plug on TMI is not on the table.
Cheers!
Seasonal depression is a real bear; try getting out into the sun when feasible, I’ve read that decreased levels of melanin or melatonin (which I often get confused and no doubt miss-spelled) are a contributing factor, particularly with the shortened days. As to your financial woes, I’ve seen other webcomic authors offering thier “original” panels for sale, which might not be feasible but is something to consider…also commissions. I realize the medium you work with is rather limiting in that area, but fans might be interested in seeing thier favorites in particular poses or whatnot. As one of the ten thousand or so, good luck, continued success, hang in there and other random cliches. Cheers
What pistkitty meant was SEROtonin a mood regulator. If you can’t get out into strong sunlight enough, there are special sunlight lamps (not sun lamps that just give you a tan) that help increase serotonin production.
I missed the ad. What was it – just for curiosity.
A sextoy for men.
I knew it was one of those chemical-y thingy type deals, I need to remember not to post right before bedtime. Thanks for the save
Ideas:
1. A store – Sell t-shirts and prints of your characters. I don’t know how much that brings in, but even if it doesn’t bring in a whole lot of money, it might bring in some new readers as well (it’s advertising for your comic that others pay you to do). I’ve heard that cafepress doesn’t really generate much revenue, but it’s some. Similarly, if you were interested in doing a book of your material (probably with an extra story in it), then there are companies like Lulu.
2. Make the donor’s membership more formal. I know that there’s already the gallery there, but maybe put the TMI-Bonus things there as well. Obviously, you don’t want to put the main strip out of view without donations, since that will kill the strip, but seriously look at putting other content there.
2a. If you do this, remember, you need to make sure that you’re updating this content from time to time. Ideally, there should be new donor’s material once per month at least to encourage people to keep signing up. People will pay for extra stuff, but there needs to be the extra stuff there to pay for.
Your site says that you need $600 for donations in November. Assuming that this amount is for every month, that works out to $7200 per year. If you set up a donor’s area, or special donor content, or whatever, and committed to provided something worth $25 per year (Even a single, High-Res wallpaper a month would probably do it), then you’d only need something like 290 people to sign up to make that $7200. If there were a new desk-top wallpaper every month, I’d be willing to pay $2.00 a month for that. Sure, 290 sounds like a high number, but it’s 3% of your readers.
Oh, I’d love to see some merch too. I buy t-shirts for my friends from various places online. Usually they don’t even know what the t-shirt is about, but right now obscure and esoteric is the IN thing for t-shirts. (There are some comics I read just for the shirts, I kid you not.)
Maybe you can get people to pre-buy for a small run of shirts to see how it goes. Or even vote on the designs ahead of time. This will let you do a printing run of the shirts without having to resort to using something like cafepress, which is less profit for you and/or more expensive for us.