72 Days to PaizoCon: Making the list...

I just made a list of all the things I need to have at my booth at PaizoCon. Once again, this great list comes from  How to make Webcomics.  Tomorrow I start picking up the items on the list. Talk to you later... 

74 days until Paizo...

Today I put together our PVC banner stand and I am planning on doing a a 2 ft x 5 ft banner for the stand.  I got the idea from the How to make Webcomics on page 163. For less that $4, I now have a light wieght and sturdy banner stand.  The 2 ft x 5 ft vinyl banner is going to cost me $40 from Clubflyers.com.   Best of all, I have one for a lot less than the typical $80 and more that you would pay for a pull up one.  Now I have to make a t-shirt stand too.  Home Depot and PVC pipe here I come.  Talk to you later...

Countdown to NeoExodus: 44 Days...

When I original conceived of NeoExodus, I planned for it to be flush with many transmedia connections including comic books, art books, short stories and novels.  The first attempt can in the creation of Grand Theft Exodus, a webcomic based on the NeoExodus setting.  While, due to several issues including several unreliable artists, the Grand Theft Exodus concept never really got off the ground I did learn a lot for the experience (Thanks again to all the great advice from the guys at Webcomics.com and Webcomics Weekly).  So I put the concept of it in the background, but I kept thinking about bring it back. Someday. Maybe sooner than you think.   Talk to you later...

Why aren't you using Pulley and Big Cartel for your store for your website?

OK a while back (like a few months back) I heard on Webcomics Weekly during an interview with Scottie Young that he was using Pulley and Big Cartel to sell products from his website.  Since I’ve been in the PDF publishing business for a while I have heard of LOTS of services that act as a web store for you to sell your products online. None of them really appealed to me for various reasons but while listening to this interview, it answered almost all the issues I had had with other companies’ web store programs. 

One of the main issues that I had in the past were the percentage rates. On RPGNow I pay them 35% of the sale and on Paizo I pay them 25%.  When I first got into this business I was paying 20% at RPGnow, so you can understand that I might be a little upset with 75% increase in the cost to do business at RPGNow over and decade. Since I am always on the lookout to save money and keep that money in my pocket, I always check out any good money saving ideas I hear. So like any highly intelligent and highly educated business person, when I heard about Pulley and Big Cartel I rushed right over there, Right? Hell no, I didn’t do that. That would have been smart. The reason why I didn’t? I don’t know. Most likely I was distracted by something else “shiny” and “new” (That happens a lot in the world of business) and forgot about Pulley and Big Cartel.

Fast forward to this last weekend while working on the new website design from LPJ Design, I kept thinking about what links I was going to add to the web store and out of the blue, I remembered about Pulley and Big Cartel.  I decided now was a good time to check them out and that made a complete difference. Pulley and Big Cartel do exactly what I want my web store to do: make it easy for me to sell my products online as either print-on-demand, PDF or both.  Pulley and Big Cartel work great separately and work even better together. I am amazed how much I like them both. Best of all, they give me the ability to make very specialized products that I can sell at a low to reasonable price and still make a good profit on them and the money side is handled by Paypal.  There is a lot of WIN in these two sites. On top of all that goodness, you can check the both out for free (Pulley gives you 14 days to try it out for free then you have to pay. Their lowest monthly rate is $6; Big Cartel gives you the ability to try it free indefinitely, if you have five products or less). Just something to think about when you are trying to put together your web store.  Talk to you later…