Friday, November 18, 2005

Pimping my new Comic Series



So, where have I been in the last month.....

Having just finished all the work (writing, design and artwork) for the debut issue of Action Figure; From the Journals of Richard Marzelak and with it's listing in this month's (November) Diamond's Previews Catalog (Diamond, the distributor for comic books to comic shops, for those of you who are unaware of this) I've just finished the hardest part of small press/self publishing your work...

Marketing!!!!

In the last month I've been putting together Press Kits for the book and have been mailing them off to comic shops across the country and in Canada.

• Each kit come in a color portfolio (see cover above) with the Baboon Books logo on the cover.

• When the shop owner/manager opens the kit they see two pockets. In the left pocket is the cover letter and behind it is a printed synopsis (with artwork) of the series:



• On the bottom of the right pocket is a free magnet, featuring the cover artwork.

• In the right pocket is a printed background/history of Baboon Books and a full color printed flyer. The flyer depicts a lot of artwork from the book and gives a lot of info about the book (another synopsis, price, availability, etc...):



• On the back of the flyer is a picture of the cover and more info about the book:



So the last few weeks I've concentrated on putting these together (lot's of printing, copying, magnet making) and postage, postage, postage! (as well as many trips to the Post Office.)

Will this do any good?
Will Comic Shops react positively to these and order copies (or more copies if they had intended to place an order intially)?
Or will they just ignore them and chuck them in the garbage bin?

I'll find out in early December when I get my order from Diamond.

Meanwhile, the countdown is on, until the release of Action Figure; From the Journals of Richard Marzelak in January........

2 comments:

Rob S. said...

That's a fine looking press kit, very professional and informative. I think youcovered all the bases there -- good luck!

Mark Fossen said...

I think this is impressive. Glad to see you taking marketing into your own hands, and not relying merely on a Diamond solicit.