How To: Create A Comic/Part 9: Promote
Okay, so you have your comic created. You spent the time needed to collect all of your images, the energy to put it all together into a cohesive story, you’ve proofread over and over and over again until you know ever pixel in and out, and now you put your effort into getting it out on the electronic universe for others to read it.
So how about getting some readers?
For the mainstream corporate-run publishers, this is handled by a whole group of people whose main mission is to get people interested in that comic.
Unfortunately, for the rest of us, it’s often just a team of one. And that make it even harder to get the word out, because odds are you don’t have the bucks to pay an ad service to help you.
Resources
City of Heroes Forum
(Related: City of Heroes forum)
One of the simplest ways to promote your new fan-made City of Heroes-based comic is to announce it yourself in the City of Heroes forum.
Ideally, such an announcement would be in their “Multi-Media Fan Creations” forum. However, unless you’re a paid subscriber to the MMO, you wouldn’t be able to post messages there. Until the moderators make the decision to turn that section into an “All-Access” environment, you can try to post your notice in the “ALL ACCESS: City Life - CoH & CoV General Discussions” section. Just bear in mind that it could be deleted for not being “on-topic”.
Social Media
Social media is extremely helpful in getting people interested in your comic. Between MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and any other forms of social media available, you can not only share your work with your friends and contacts, but you can also get them to help spread the word for you.
deviantART Group
If you publish your finished work through deviantART, you can join specific groups that can help you get the word out. deviantART’s City of Heroes group, for instance, will allow you to link your work in their Fan Fiction gallery, and thus be seen by their members.
City of Comic Creators Compendium
(Related: City of Comic Creators Compendium)
Another way to spread the word of your creation would be to include a segment of it in the special series published by the City of Comic Creators known as the “Compendium” (or sometimes as the “JAM”). Submitting a few pages can whet the interest of readers to learn more about your comic.
Video Previews
Coming up with a quick trailer or preview of your series can be very helpful in getting the word out about your comic, especially when combined with the forums and social media. It takes a little time, but even with free video editing programs you could find on the Internet, you could come up with a decent promo for your comic and then post them through video sites such as YouTube or Blip.
A piece of advice: if you’re going to use music in your video, try to refrain from using mainstream or easily-recognized songs. Big video sites such as YouTube actively look for videos that include copyright material from the music labels and move to either silence them or else delete them from their system.
Moving Onward
What’s next?
