Canister X – A.P. Fuchs: Zombie, Paranormal Romance and Superhero Novelist, Blogger, Artist, Publisher

Recently I sent a letter to Dave Sim and one of the things within was my outline for how, at the time, I approached publishing my Axiom-man comic book series. The other day I got an email from the A Moment of Cerebus website along with a letter from Dave suggesting that Tim, the owner of the site, run my 8-step model. So I said yes and the 8-step model ran on the site today. I’ve copy/pasted the 8 steps here for archive reasons, but please visit A Moment of Cerebus for the article, Dave’s comment, and also for the other cool Cerebus-related stuff on that site.

Since my company is web-based, with 95% of books ordered being online (whether for print or eBooks), the remaining 5% sold at conventions and booksignings, and since I’ve been able to sustain a living for close to three years based on that, and given the state of tech these days, I think I’m onto something.

Though I’ve slipped recently due to a major burn-out but am now getting back on track, I agree that, as you’ve stated – can’t remember where – that when folks ask you for the secret to Cerebus’ success, you said keeping the book on time is the reason. I believe you. On-time books keep readers interested, give them their fix at regular intervals, and, assuming the sales are there, enables the creator to maintain a steady level of interest as he can sink all his time into his book instead of dividing the comic against a day job.

Here is my current model for Axiom-man. I’m open to any feedback and/or suggestions and/or “what you’re doing is crazy” comments:

1) Release the book on time in print, electronic download, and twice a week post a page from the comic on Mondays and Thursdays. The reason for the webcomic is to raise awareness of the character to help feed print sales and downloads, likewise, if folks like what they read, they will be apt to pick up one or more of my novels.

2) Forego Diamond for the print periodicals. Due to finances, discounts and such, I’m opting out of Diamond Distribution for the monthly book, instead releasing the copies of the comic for direct sale, short-running each issue at 300 copies. This cost enables me to keep the price low on the book and still make close to a buck an issue. Direct sales include direct ordering, conventions, booksignings, and trunk-of-the-car sales.

3) Release each print issue through Ka-Blam (which is like ComiXpress), and utilize their print and digital storefront at Indy Planet and Indy Planet Digital respectively.

4) Release each issue in digital format through as many channels as possible (Kindle, Nook, iPad et al.), treating each download as if they are the print counterpart. A sale’s a sale, after all.

5) Once a particular story arc is complete, collected into a graphic novel. Also, ala Mike Mignola, include a bonus story to set the graphic novel apart from the periodical book.

6) Use Diamond for graphic novel distribution.

7) Use my printer’s amazing distribution system to make the graphic novel available to all the online hotspots like Amazon.com and its sister sites, Barnes and Noble.com, and others. Also offer for direct sale, whether by order, conventions, booksignings, trunk-of-the-car sales, etc.

8) Offer the graphic novel at a fair price for digital download via all the same channels the periodical was. Perhaps offer the same direct as long as I can ensure proper shopping cart procedure and security through services out there that specialize in online digital product ordering.

Part of being a one-man-band, as you know, is time management as it would be all too easy to turn the running of the company into the fulltime job and not the creating of comics. All of what I mentioned above–aside from direct sales–is based on the do-the-work-once-than-don’t-worry-about-it model I’ve been using for eight years. This then frees up time for creating, marketing, and personal time with family. Might even be time for sleep, if you’re into that sort of thing. Har har.

Added for the sake of the article:

The idea(l), I think, is to cast as wide a net as possible distribution-wise without unintentionally getting yourself into a sea of paperwork and a big mess of places to keep track of, in turn losing yourself in the chaos and losing money and time as a result. Streamlining is so critical when it comes to being a one-man operation. I’ll keep an updated list of distribution channels on my blog How To Self-Publish Books & Comics The Right Way.

March 13, 2007

Dear Dave:

How have you been? The last I wrote you was July, 2006, so quite sometime ago. Man, has it been that long? Guess so.

Anyway…

I’m about 30 pages away from completing Collected Letters 2004. I would have been done much sooner but had misplaced the book for several months and finally recovered it about a week ago. Very intriguing material all around. One thing that kept popping up in your letters was the question of when/if the mail would taper off and you’d finally have some actual retirement time. Aside from this letter taking up space in your mailbox, has your letter-answering load lightened since, say, May of 2004? I know it hasn’t dropped off altogether since you now post at Dave Sim’s Blogandmail (speaking of which, is that where I should find a reply to this letter, if you do reply? I must admit, I don’t check the blog all that often, namely due to there not being enough hours in the day to read through everything).

Things have been going well over on my end. Just the other week my wife and I found out we’re pregnant with our second child. We’ll find out within the next couple of weeks the actual due date but we’re estimating it to be somewhere between late October to early November. This also means that we’ll begin house hunting sometime in May to allow room for the newest addition to the family.

On the self-publishing front, I crossed a milestone in my career on September 29, 2006, when I released my independent superhero novel entitled, Axiom-man, who was a character I created back in my high school drawing days and finally, after all these years, decided to actually do something with him other than fantasize heroic tales about him in my head. The reason the release was a milestone was because of the wonderful media attention—not to mention sales—that resulted due to the character being Winnipeg’s own superhero. TV, Radio, Newspaper—very exciting as most self-published authors are usually swept under the rug because they’re not “real” publishers. What I always found interesting about that argument was that, in the end, the reader doesn’t care if you’ve been published by a “real” publisher or not. They just care about getting a good story.

At the beginning of March, the first draft of the sequel was completed, coming in at about 119,000 words, which is nearly double the length of its predecessor. It’s called Axiom-man: Doorway of Darkness and takes place right where the first one left off. This second book is planned to be released end of July along with a short novella called Axiom-man Episode #0: First Night Out which chronicles, you guessed it, his first night out. The Axiom-man “episode” series is there for those stories I wish to tell that aren’t large enough scale-wise to warrant a full 80,000+ words to make it a “feature.” I’m viewing them more like half hour cartoon episodes ala Batman: The Animated Series, where, though there’s a couple of plotlines going on, it’s more light-hearted and simple compared to the depths of character and story I can get into with a full-length novel. (For example, book two carries five plotlines.)

Which brings me to stating what an honor it will be for our two characters to stand side by side in 2008’s War of the Independents, which, I understand, Cerebus will be participating in. I think the project will do well and the premise of the mini series sounds interesting. We’ll see. I trust Scott Lobdell, who is writing the project.

I wanted to ask you about how you went about writing and drawing the Cerebus storyline? That is, how you planned out the 25-or-so issues for a particular arc and what a day in the life of Dave Sim was like? It’s one thing if a person was only the artist or writer on a series. Pretty straight forward in regards to their day-to-day tasks. But when you couple a few creative tasks together, time management is critical. I love hearing about how other artists approach their craft—habits, routines, etc.—regardless of medium so, please, spill your guts as I’m all ears.

Hope to hear from you.

Take care.

Sincerely,

July 10, 2006

Dear Dave:

Taking a breather and a step back, in short, yeah, there are different issues in society that do fluctuate (like your Canada in Afghanistan example) and those which do not (like abortion). We’re faced with something that no matter what you choose (i.e. what “rule” is passed), someone is going to be unhappy. Ah, the wonderful world of politics. If I read your reply correctly, a summary would be to basically reach a compromise of some sort amongst the masses on 50-50 issues. It may not float everyone’s boat but it’s the best we got and all other alternatives are substandard in that regard. The only thing I can think of to say is that a compromise would be a “best case” scenario or an ideal. My only concern (or anybody’s concern, for that matter) would then be to ask if the “compromise” is the right decision (meaning was it truly right in the purest sense of the word or was it either not-right but something else, or absolutely wrong). And I think that’s the real issue when dealing with such sticky subjects. The old saying of, “What I think is right is not necessarily what you think is right” and vice versa, comes to mind. And that’s what I meant right from the get-go about the “fluff” of society, or the gray stuff as we’ve been calling it. Either something is white (right) or something is gray (not-right) or black (wrong), but either way, the latter two aren’t white. It’s basically the quest for truth in the end on how things really and truly are, what things are really and truly right, and what things are really and truly wrong. So then the shift/goal would be to ask how we can discover what is the right course of action and what is the wrong one. And answering that is a huge topic on its own, depending if you’re talking to a “religious” person or a “secular” person. And even if we did present a way that proved “this is right” or “this is wrong,” it’s still up to that individual to accept it or not. The only danger in a person not accepting a proven point would be them putting themselves in a position of denial and/or self-delusion on how things really are. Either something is or it isn’t. It can’t be both.

Thanks for answering the question on your decision to self-publish. I’m of the same mind in that I’d rather get my stuff out there than have it sit in a drawer or make its way through the mail from one publication to another on submission. And by getting it done on my own, it’s opened up doors for me that wouldn’t have been opened had I played the “traditional” writer’s game of writing, submitting, waiting, writing, submitting, waiting, and so forth.

Sincerely,

June 4, 2006

Dear Dave:

This is the second time I’ve apologized to you for my tardy reply. I got your letter beginning of April but with tax season demands, looming deadlines and my recent business trip to Florida (of which I just returned from), I wasn’t able to write to you. Have you been to Florida? Aside from the business aspect of my trip, I was also there for pleasure. The major highlight was Universal Studios, namely Islands of Adventure featuring a plethora of Marvel characters and, best of all, an incredible (or should I say amazing) Spider-man ride. You might enjoy something like that if you haven’t done so already.

So, on to our discussion.

Regarding objective standards for continuity in any given manuscript, there has to be some measure of which to adhere to. What I mean is basic commonsense “rules” that apply to any story. I may have mentioned it before as an example, maybe not, but one would be your main character’s hair color should remain the same throughout the entire book unless you specifically state he/she took the time to dye their hair. Or, you can’t have one guy start off as African American (Canadian?) and then turn Caucasian halfway through. Or if you make it clear Character Joe needs to get to Hotel A to solve his crime but then have him go to 7-11 to solve it there without mentioning why 7-11 was a suitable substitute or ever mentioning Hotel A again, it’ll cause a problem. That’s the continuity stuff I was referring to. Just basic things.

On the abortion issue, in short, whatever the jurisdictional rules are regarding having an abortion, they would need to apply to all jurisdictions in the province otherwise it would open doors to the gray issues again, which could lead us right back to where we started from. Your rules in Kitchener-Centre are the most rigid I’ve heard of, and of which I side with. (Though on a personal note I’m against abortion regardless of the circumstance leading up to it; after all, adoption once the baby is born is a possibility.) To be frank, I don’t know if we’ll be able to continue this “debate” based on that because killing is killing no matter which way you slice it. I don’t think I’m trying to reclaim the moral high ground (I freely admit I’m far from perfect) in comparing abortion to murder or drawing lines between the two. It’s more just me calling a spade a spade. Whether it’s abortion or the intentional pulling of a trigger, the result is the same: loss of life. One has taken the initiative to deny a human being their existence whether just a baby or a full grown person. Who are we to decide who lives and who dies? Who or what gives us that power? My original intent in writing you was not to get into any heated debate (I don’t think we’re at that point at present) but if this abortion discussion will take us down that road, then I politely withdraw from it and we can move on to something else. So that said, in summary, yeah, the jurisdictional approach would be best provided all jurisdictions are on the same page. I like the idea that if you had sex, had an unwanted pregnancy, now it’s your problem not society’s. That I agree with because, to me, it seems far too many folks (at least here in Winnipeg) dump their issues on “society” versus taking responsibility for them themselves. And that’s one of the things it really comes down to in the end when it comes to this thing called life: taking responsibility for one’s actions. Too many people are passing the buck and pointing fingers instead of raising their hand and saying, “Yup, that was me and here’s what I’m going to do to fix it.”

The idea for the Cerebus e-volumes was just that–an idea.

Opening the book of another discussion, I know the story of how Cerebus came to be so I won’t ask you to repeat it. However, I was wondering what prompted you to self-publish it instead of trying to sell a publishing firm on the idea? I always enjoy hearing the motives behind a self-publisher’s ventures. For myself, it was the age-old thing of being unable to sell my first manuscript, which led to my originally being duped by a vanity press. But after that, I took control, started the company and went from there. Since then I’ve found the experience rewarding despite some of the more trying days. The knowledge and experience gained is something you can’t buy nor learn from reading a how-to book on the subject.

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my letters. It’s always good to find a reply from you waiting in my mailbox.

I wish you all the best, Dave. I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

March 8, 2006

Dear Dave:

Thanks for your recent letter, the latest having covered a lot of ground. I’ll just go through yours in order and do a point-by-point/section-by-section reply in the interest of staying organized.

My rate for copyediting is 1 cent US per word and for a Canadian client it’s still 1 cent US per word but then come invoice day, whatever the US total is, it is exchanged at that day’s current exchange rate to arrive at the Canadian dollar value of the total. Since the Canadian dollar is doing well these days (lately we’ve been hovering around 1.11-1.13 on the exchange), it’s not too big of a deal. If this was a few years ago where our dollar stunk and the exchange averaged at around 1.65, then unfortunately for the Canadian client, the service would cost them more.

The comment about “by Dave Sim as told to so-and-so,” I see where you’re coming from. I don’t believe it’s an editor’s job—copyeditor or just proofreader—to rewrite anything or “redo” anything. The job is to point out to the author where he/she messed up regarding continuity, grammar, spelling, etc. Sure, an editor corrects words or puts question marks beside word choices (especially ones that don’t fit the context of any given statement), but it’d have to be a super heavy “redo” for them to have any righteous claim to a joint byline. That, and any suggestion/correction an editor makes, the author can say no to especially if they’ve hired someone on a freelance basis to go over the manuscript. There’s always a written agreement, too, that so-and-so was hired for such-and-such a service, he/she is to be paid X amount for said service and that’s where the relationship ends.

I liked your idea of just stepping back from all this “creative” stuff and getting a McJob. Trust me, I hear you. I’ve toyed with that idea too and instead of being glued to my work station for 10-12 hours a day, it’d be nice to do my 8 hours and not worry about work until the next block of 8 hours rolled around. Ah, the price we pay for following our dreams and seeing our goals through. And, in truth, I wouldn’t trade this job for anything. Well, maybe being an action star.

You haven’t sent me a copy of the Cerebus Guide to Self-publishing, but it’s okay; I already have a copy (see my first letter to you). Thanks for the offer, though.

So on to the “meat” of our correspondence: our foray into the world of the gray stuff. You had used abortion as an example in your comments. After I first read it, I quickly saw that such a topic could open a door into a discussion on one’s morals and religious beliefs (yours, mine, whoever’s). But I’ll try to keep that separate for now as best I can because, since you and I are dealing in the medium of letter writing, I’ll attempt to keep things simple instead of sending you a 10-page letter each mailing and vice versa (though, of course, I’m not opposed to long letters written and sent by either one of us). So in summation, if I understood your point correctly, we take an issue like abortion, create a “spectrum of extremes”—so Abortion Yes on one end and Abortion No on the other—and then with our pens draw up lines where each line is connected to a “reason” for the abortion and depending where that line is on the spectrum, it would either be closer to Abortion Yes or Abortion No. Or am I making it too complicated? Before delving into that, I’m not sure if the jurisdictional approach to abortion (or the prison terms for a certain crime or whatnot) would work in that if I live in the north end of town and want an abortion but in my jurisdiction abortion is illegal, what would stop me from going to the south end, where it is allowed, to get it done? Unless, of course, that the jurisdiction you live in is the one you have to adhere to lest you face a fine or jail and even if you went to the south end they wouldn’t perform the procedure for you because you would be required to produce two pieces of ID that state your address and what jurisdiction you’re in. You’re from the north, tough beans, buddy!

The spectrum approach is an interesting one, but by allowing different nuances to see where upon it you fall, are we not then opening up the door to more gray stuff? If one end is white, the other black, the stuff in between has to be varying shades of gray. For the record, I’m pro-life (which we can always get into a discussion on at a different time) as murder’s murder no matter which way you slice it. Even when you kill someone in self-defense, you’ve still killed them. And depending how you look at it, abortion is a form of self-defense as the female is “saving” herself from something—fill-in-the-blank, here. But then what of our incest victims or our rape victims or our twelve-year-old teens who were taken advantage of by Daddy’s friend and are now with a thirty-year-old’s child? Wherever that situation(s) falls on the spectrum, should they be allowed to end a life if either a) it’s just a cluster of cells in the womb so by ending it you’re denying it the right to develop into a child and live or b) it’s a maturing fetus that’s four months into development but then you’re disallowing his/her birth? I think the real question is: where are we getting our laws from and what are we basing them on? This, of course, could sidetrack us into the religious arena so I’m trying to avoid that for now, but it does make one wonder from where/when we got our laws and who made them. The nuances thing could work but it would have to be on a very tight and, dare I say, rigid platform without room for leniency, because the thing with nuances is, in the context we are talking about here, each circumstance is different—especially when dealing with rape or incest (i.e. was the defendant coerced into the intercourse? Was it forced? Did they go into it willingly but then things got out of hand and so it was rape? etc.)—it opens the doors to a plethora of nuances and thickens the gray area. In Winnipeg alone, there are around 700,000 people and over half are women, so for the sake of discussion, if all the women in Winnipeg ended up being either rape or incest victims, we’re dealing with a possible 350,000+ unique circumstances that each carry nuances of their own. I know from this and from my previous letters to you that my personal desire to see the restoration or black and white in society may come off as if I want to live in a dictatorship or under a similar type of government. That’s not the case but I thought I should clarify that just in case. My main issue would be to challenge those “in charge” (and I use the term loosely) and Mr. Everyday Joe to take a real hard and objective look at how things are run, how we’re living our lives and, further, why we are heading down the road of “anything goes.” Which then kind of takes us back to the “each circumstance is different so yields a unique outcome” argument, the “we’re all different and unique so what I view as wrong might not be what you view as wrong” thing, which then takes us back again to why we think/feel the way we do. We only have three possible scenarios of outcome if two disagreeing people were to find out why they thought something: either I would be wrong, you would be right, or I would be right and you would be wrong, or we’re both wrong. The thing of it is, we can’t both be right when you’re dealing with yes or no, true or false, up or down, left or right, black or white issues (which most issues are if we dare to trim away all the “fat” that we’ve layered around the things of everyday life). But those “outcomes,” referring to the aforementioned “each circumstance is different so yields a unique outcome,” each yield a different specific result but on a broader scale. For the sake of example, let’s take murder. Whether I killed someone intentionally, killed them in self-defense, or abetted a murder, they all resulted in the specific outcome of someone’s death. Then the real question is to what degree should I be held accountable? Dare I say fully? Regardless of the original intention or circumstance, the way it panned out resulted in the loss of life. I’m responsible for that loss of life because of my actions. I was involved therefore I am responsible. Then what of my punishment? Should it be the same as that if I went out and killed someone I disliked or if I instead shot you because you had a gun aimed at my head? This is why other evidence comes into play when they sentence someone: was it premeditated? Was it done out of malice or out of defense? As a thought, how about a set penalty for a crime that can be added to based upon the “other crimes” perpetrated at the time of said crime? Example, the penalty for murder is ten years in the pen regardless of circumstance. If I pre-planned the murder, another five years. Was it one victim or two? If it’s one and it was intentional, I get put away for 15 years. If it’s two people, then I go away for 30 and/or a sentence where the death of each person on your deathlist has to be paid for in increments of, say, 5 years. That’s not to say a person’s life is only worth 5 year’s in the pen—as obviously the victim’s family would no doubt like to see you hanged or put away for good—but the point would be to set a set penalty for whatever crime. I’m not a lawyer, a cop nor politician nor will I pretend to know the law inside out and backwards. Maybe this approach is far too simple. But then again, maybe it isn’t.

Moving on…

I’m pleased to hear you possibly doing future Collected Letters editions. I’m still reading the first one. I admit to taking a break from it as I just dove in to and completed a 12-book fiction series so wanted to take the time to read those. But I’ll be getting back to your book any day now. As a suggestion—and also from the point of view as a consumer/reader—please consider making them at least 200 pages long, 250 being ideal, if/when you release more. From the consumer’s point of view, it’s the whole bang for your buck thing. The current 2004 edition is printed at 8.5” x 11”, right? If you decided to pursue POD for it, and utilize the Lightning Source option I suggested, as a FYI, to POD print at anything larger than 6.14” x 9.21” it increases your per unit cost (I believe that’s the top size before it costs more though I don’t have my notes in front of me; I know there is a page size limit before increase though). A suggestion might be—depending on how much material you have—to publish each volume as a quarterly publication, where, say, Jan-Mar ’05 would be in one book, Apr-Jun ’05 in another and so forth. Of course each book would be slightly bigger or smaller than the previous based on the volume of mail you received. Then if you took your reply letters and formatted them at, say, 5.5” x 8.5” or 6” x 9”, to fill that 200-250 pages wouldn’t be a problem and you’d save a little on your per unit print cost. As an idea, too, I wonder if adding even a three-page Cerebus story or one-panel/page Cerebus gag would get readers from the regular storyline to pick up the Letters book(s) because of the included art?

The other day I thought, “Gee, I wonder if Dave has ever thought about crossing over into the electronic publishing business either through Aardvark-Vanaheim or via a partnership with another firm?” I’m referring to eBooks. Though I don’t see them ever replacing an old-fashioned print book, they do open the doors to readers who prefer the electronic reading format. There’s 10+ different e-formats ranging from a simple PDF file you can read on your computer screen to a format where you can download the text into a handheld device that’s akin to a Tricorder and you can tote it around like a regular print book. I had thought, “I wonder if Dave has considered doing this for either his text-based Collected Letters volume(s) or even for the Cerebus trades?” Obviously the goal with any creator is to share his/her work with as many folks as possible. As a thought, putting the Cerebus trades into e-format might be beneficial to the sales of your phonebook volumes. Your phonebooks retail for about $25-30 Canadian. Well, if I’m new to Cerebus and his world or just have a partial interest in it, I might not be willing to spend the $25-30 for the book. However, I might be willing to spend $10 for the eBook edition (eBooks typically retail for less than the print version by about half). If I liked what I read/saw in the e-version, I might get the next volume in print and/or replace my e-version by shelling out for the print version (I know of some people who do this for novels). EBooks are a good way for people to try out authors they’ve never heard of or are just interested in but are unsure if that author can deliver the same wallop every outing like, say, Stephen King or Alan Moore. Anyway, it’s just a thought, Dave, but since eBooks require zero maintenance save the initial work to format them, the profits yielded might be a nice additional income during your retirement. Passive income. I believe Gerhard has a site set up for auctioning off some original art, right? If you pursued the “e-option,” he could put up some links on there as to where online readers can purchase the e-versions of Cerebus, make an announcement to the Yahoos, send out a press release online, and all the rest.

Anyway, I’ve rattled on a little longer than I originally estimated. I hope all is well with you. I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Dear Dave:

I apologize for my delay in answering your letter dated Dec. 31, 2005. January has been a very busy month for me both personally and professionally. I’m also susceptible to migraines and have had a couple this month. If you’ve ever had one, you know they can cripple you if not caught in time.

To clarify my previous point on a flat-rate-per-unit when it comes to a POD book, that flat rate varies from project to project based on that book’s page-length (i.e. some POD books are the previously mentioned $3-something per copy, others are $4-something, etc., all based on final page count). I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of printing and printing technologies, but I assume POD books, once setup with a POD printer, are sold to the publisher at a flat rate per unit because the publisher can order any number of quantities at any one time, 1 or 1000 or even a weird number like 431. In offset, as you know, the more paper used and the more ink used, the cheaper it is per “part” as a whole hence the ability to lower the final per unit cost of the printed product (usually ordered in blocks of 500, if I understand offset correctly). I wouldn’t necessarily say POD’s flat-rate-per-unit is a “computer thing” though, unless I misinterpreted your meaning. Or if “computer thing” was meant as a reference to POD technology, which is basically computer-based because all it really is, is a computer hooked up to a giant photocopier, then I understood your meaning. Ah, the joys of letter of correspondence.

Likewise I feel I should clarify the statement that POD books are usually not edited. This is the result of—as mentioned in my previous letter—subsidy/vanity POD outfits accepting any material under the sun regardless of literary quality. If the manuscript is riddled with errors, who cares so long as you have the money to pay them to set it up in their system for you. Sad but true. It could be the greatest story in the universe, but if every sentence starts with a lowercase letter, hey, you got the money? Great! We’ll print it.

Interpretation writing. Ha ha! More like nowadays it’s “interpretation living” for the most part given our politically correct society based on, as you mentioned, “You know what I mean.” The absence of clarity in our country (and throughout the world) astounds me daily and I feel a swell of pity for us as a race because (as mentioned in my first letter to you), our concept of black and white, right and wrong, yes and no—has gone the way of the dodo. It will also lead to our eventual undoing because if history is any indicator, any time a society has let itself go soft on what is and what isn’t correct/right/proper/fill-in-the-blank, it eats itself from within and falls. If you’ve noticed, more people today are pressing the “to each his/her own” attitude than ever before. I wonder what spawned this or, better, why it’s suddenly more vocal today than at any other time in history? Any thoughts?

Have you given further consideration to a Collected Essays volume? I’d very much be interested should it occur.

Anyway, I’m off to go finish up preparing dinner so I’ll leave you for now.

Take care.

I might be phoning in an order for the next Cerebus volume on my list, but I might also get my copy via another means (being the on-line shopper that I am). Just a heads up.

Sincerely,

December 13, 2005

Dear Dave:

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my letter. Your letter is dated December 6 and I got it today, so given that it takes 3-5 business days for a letter to arrive from one Canadian address to another, it arrived right on time.

You had asked me in your letter if I use Print-on-Demand. The answer is yes. What really got me excited was that you said you might consider using it sometime in the future. I have to admit, I was tempted to give you a call and tell you everything I know about POD, but then I thought, No, I better write it all down so that way Dave has something tangible to refer to instead. So here we are. I will add, before I go on and on about POD, that you are more than welcome to use me as a “POD resource/info trough” as I’m quite versed in how it works, the pros and cons, and how the publishing world currently views POD. I have enclosed my business card for that purpose and printed on it is my phone number should the mood strike you. Sometimes quick questions are better answered via phone than waiting for old Postman Pat to deliver the news.

I have no idea what your POD knowledge is at present so I’ll tell you the main points of what I know under the assumption that you know very little or nothing about it. That way, I figure, I’ll cover all the bases.

So here we go.

Like most anything, POD has its pros and cons. Off the top of my head, unlike offset printing, your per-unit print cost doesn’t change with quantity (i.e. printing one copy is going to cost you, say, $3.50 per unit, and printing one thousand copies will still cost you $3.50 per unit; I’m also speaking in US funds as that’s where my current printer is located. More on that in a second). So that’s a con. It is advantageous for the self-publisher who doesn’t have $3500US lying around to print up a thousand copies in one go, or whatever the per-unit cost would be at a thousand. Can only afford to print a hundred or two? No problem. Get the rest when you’re ready.

You’re Canadian, as well as I, so this next bit might be useful. Currently I’m using a printer in the US called Lightning Source (www.lightningsource.com; feel free to have Gerhard look it up for you online; perhaps also consider giving them a call). The advantage with them is that it’s true Print-on-Demand printing, meaning they follow the “print anywhere from one copy to a zillion copies” rule. In Canada, I have only found a handful of “digital printers” but each still requires a hundred-to-five-hundred-copy minimum print run. I have yet to find one that would print me up only one copy, should I ever need just one copy or even, say, ten copies. The other advantage with Lightning Source is that they’re owned by Ingram, the wholesaler giant in the US, and each title you set up with them can be included in Ingram’s catalogue with nothing more than the simple click of the mouse (it also lists you automatically with Baker & Taylor, one of the main library ordering systems in the States; for both the Ingram and Baker & Taylor listing, there’s an annual fee; for myself, since most of my readers are in the States, utilizing US distribution works to my advantage). This helps for not only bookstore orders, but also for being listed with online retailers like Amazon.com (and listed with any online retailer tapped into the Ingram feed; the listing with these websites is automatic). The disadvantage when it comes to the brick and mortar stores is that though your title is “available” through Ingram, it’s still up to the bookstore to order it in and unless you’re an author with a name, that can be difficult unless you solicit the stores themselves via whatever marketing method(s) you choose. Another advantage to using Lightning Source is that if either an online or offline retailer orders X amount of copies of your book via Ingram, Lightning Source takes care of the fulfillment and shipping for you (which would take care of the problem you had with Amazon) and you get a check ninety days later for however many you sold (the formula being: retail price less bookstore discount (which you set) less per unit print cost equals your Net take home pay for one copy). This definitely frees up more time for the self-publisher to create future product and/or to market his/her current work and/or take care of any office work and/or fill any direct orders to both readers and libraries (that is, Canadian library orders). It is also worth noting that Canada’s main wholesaler, Indigo, can also hook up to Ingram for order fulfillment (i.e. if Gerhard goes to www.indigo.ca, he can show you my own titles and the others my company has produced; this is something you’d have to set up with Indigo.ca though, the website listing; having your titles listed in the main Indigo system, meaning the system the major Canadian chains use to order books, is a different matter as the Indigo website is a separate system altogether; strange but true; hope that made sense). The good part about my printer being in the States is that I get paid in US dollars, which works well for me as our dollar is worth less than the American dollar. More bang for your buck, depending on how you look at it.

One of the major cons of POD is its reputation. What has happened is a bunch of vanity—or as they call themselves, “subsidy”—presses have been using POD because of its low overhead. This in turn has allowed anything under the sun to be printed, namely unedited material and terrible, terrible stories (i.e. clichéd fiction, rip-off fiction, you name it). Over the past few years bookstores have wisened up to this and are very reluctant to stock POD titles unless it’s by a well-known and respectable firm like Random House (who uses primarily offset but also uses POD for its smaller titles or just to keep slow-moving titles in print, or so I’ve heard) or other firms like them. It’s even hard for those with a small press like mine—those of us who take this business seriously and produce edited and quality original material—to fight our way through the mentality/stigma that POD equals, essentially, crap. In short, subsidy presses (which are bad news altogether; I used one for my first book and, man, what a HUGE mistake; it was a nightmare start to finish) have given POD a bad name. Same with other outfits like lulu.com where, though there is no cost to you to set up your title, anything can be printed and there is no monitoring of content. Lulu.com makes their money by charging very high per unit costs to their authors (i.e. what would normally be a $4 POD book, they would charge around $9, roughly). Yikes! I think their service is a great one in allowing an author to “test the waters” with his/her work, but I really do wish there was some sort of standard one had to adhere to regarding what is published (I’m mainly referring to having it mandatory your material is edited). What needs to happen, in my opinion, is for these companies to be exposed for what they are and, further, shut down. I could tell you countless stories about dozens of authors whose dreams have been crushed by these so called “publishers.” (“Publishers” who, even after charging an author an arm and a leg to “publish” their book, only pay out to their authors a small royalty of 10-20% Net.) I think a writer (or comic book creator) has only two options when it comes to seeing their work in print. Either a) go the traditional route via a small or large press or, b) self-publish the work via your own company. The option of subsidy/vanity publishing shouldn’t be there. Too many people get hurt (I was one of them). The only “out of house,” in my opinion, that a self-publisher should do is pay the printing bill. And even then, if you had a million or two to spare, then by all means get your own printing press. (Provided you’ll recoup the cost, of course.)

One of the downsides to POD is the per unit print cost, which, as mentioned, is a flat cost per book regardless of quantity printed. I look at the justification (perhaps just for my own comfort) of the higher per unit cost like this: a) Lightning Source is fulfilling all my wholesale orders for me so they should be compensated for that (fair is fair), b) though there are no physical books until the book is actually “printed when ordered,” they are acting like a virtual warehouse so instead of spending X amount per book housing them somewhere (like the big publishers do; or they buy their own huge warehouses or pay for “land” in another warehouse), I give the printer a little bit for that as well. So, if you took away those two costs, I suppose my per unit print cost would be about what it would cost via offset printing, again depending on quantity produced.

In the end, yeah, if you’re looking to sell five hundred to around a thousand copies of something, POD is definitely a good choice and, as said, with Lightning Source, most of your fulfillment is taken care of (that is except for direct market orders and any Canadian library orders you might get). Otherwise I’d stick with offset.

I hope the above information was helpful, Dave, and like I said, my door is open to any questions you might have.

I hope this letter finds you well. Say hello to Gerhard for me. Thanks again. Keep in touch.

Sincerely,

PS. I just finished watching the Ye Bookes of Cerebus Dvd the other night. Jeff Tundis sent me a copy. Very informative, and the Cerebus artwork—from what I could see on the Dvd—was truly amazing. The exhibit runs till end of January. How is it going so far?

. . . I didn’t end up writing him until late 2005 because I hadn’t gotten into Cerebus until early 2004. Regardless, in my mind, Dave Sim’s Collected Letters 2004 is an important book and an insight into a man who stands by his convictions, tells it like it is, and had inspired me into firmly adopting the “I don’t care what anyone thinks of me” attitude. This last point was especially critical during my very vocal arguments for self-publishing back when self-publishing was the greatest crime one could commit as a writer aside from maybe plagerism. There’s something precious in that–individualism–especially given our politically-correct-let’s-be-careful-what-we-say-even-if-what-we’re-saying-isn’t-true-so-as-to-not-hurt-anyone’s-feelings culture. As time has gone on, the more weary I’ve gotten of this gray world we live in. It seems that the moment I step out my door–granted, that’s not often at all–it’s like stepping into a steam room where all you see are vague silhouettes of people, ones who are primarily putting up a front so as to be liked by all. You can see it in their eyes, that insecurity, you can hear it in their voice, you even get that all-so-interesting-yet-all-so-mysterious “vibe.” The irony of this, of course, is that folks crave those who are themselves as is evidenced when they come up to you later and say stuff like, “Thanks for speaking up. I was thinking the same thing but didn’t want to upset anybody.”

Anyway, that’s my little prelude to the next series of blog entries, which are my side of the conversation when Dave Sim and I wrote back and forth for a short while discussing the vagueries of our current societal climate and living in a world of “you know what I mean.”

_______________________________________________________________________________

November 27, 2005

Dear Dave:

A nearly two-year belated congratulations to you and Gerhard on the completion of Cerebus. I’m a fairly new Cerebus reader, having started reading the book around the time 300 came out. So far I’ve read the first two phonebooks and am about a third of the way through Collected Letters 2004 (which actually prompted my writing you today). Funnily enough, I wasn’t aware that you corresponded with your readers until having started reading Collected Letters 2004. I believe I had first heard/read about Cerebus when I stumbled upon your self-publishing guide several years back, back when I was interested in putting out my own comic. I read it, filed it way as useful info to utilize when the time came and, as things unfolded in my own life, moved from writing and drawing comics to just writing books (although I do dabble in scripting now and then). Just recently I re-read your self-publishing guide–as I’m a self-published author myself and like to read the opinions and thoughts of like-minded individuals–and have to agree with what was presented there, namely the fact that the truth about self-publishing is finding what works best for you then utilizing that to its fullest potential. Kind of like how Bruce Lee approached his art. He took what worked, discarded what didn’t, added other things that he found worked for him and got rid of the things that stopped working for him. It truly is an individual process, with the only “mandatory” things–and this goes without saying–being creating it, printing/packaging it, getting it out there. The rest and “how to” of it is finding the method(s) that work for you and running with the ball.

I also found it encouraging, of course, to read a self-publishing success story because, as said, I’m a self-publisher myself and, though not having yet achieved the same level success as you have, it’s good to see what it possible if you stick to your own thing, do what works for you and go at it no holds barred. Will everyone agree? No. Like yourself, I’ve had my run-ins with name authors in the traditional press who, in the book biz, are of the mind that when it comes to fiction, that it’s New-York-traditional-publishing-or-bust. Sign your contract, get your advance, and go home to crank out the next book. Though of course the big contract is most any struggling writer’s dream, the hard reality is that getting that contract is extraordinarily difficult especially in an industry where the bottom line is all that matters and art has taken a back seat. (I’m friends with many writers who could nearly build a house out of their rejection slips.) Of course, in order for any business to function and last, the bottom line has to be kept in mind. That point is understandable otherwise any press would have gone the way of the Dodo long ago. But what drives me nuts is the fact that art has become secondary and profit is all that is cared about. That’s a discussion for another time, but I do take great comfort in knowing there are small presses out there and self-published efforts by writers who put art first, new ideas first, new angles and views first, instead of writing cookie cutter fiction for the sake of the dollar and reaching more readers. Makes one wonder where the world might be at if new ideas and new thinking had been/were allowed into the popular media?

Anyway, so far, yes, I really enjoyed the first volumes of Cerebus and in a behind-the-scenes kind of way, it was interesting to see you grow as an artist and writer since the first issue till the end of High Society. I’m eager to see what happens in Church and State and so forth till the end. It’s too bad things didn’t work out with Amazon.com/.ca (I skipped forward to only that letter) as Amazon.ca is where I grab most of my reading material (namely because that’s where most small presses I buy from have their catalogue listed in one convenient location). But I understand your reasoning behind your decision and, because I also run my own press, can see how their handling the back-and-forth regarding orders had caused problems. Speaking of the volumes, you had hinted in your letters collection at publishing a Collection Essays volume sometime in the future. Whether there still are plans for this or not, I don’t know, but if there are, you can count me a customer. Since I have to get the Cerebus storyline in the collected volumes format, I won’t be able to read the essays that filled the back part of your book for the twenty-six years it was running. I’m also a part of the Yahoo! group online and there are talks about a color volume. Whether this was your idea or the group’s idea, I don’t know, as I never saw the beginning of the discussion. Regardless, if it does come out, again, count me in.

Lastly–and you knew this was coming; I think you even said it yourself in one of your letters that you wait for the reader/letter writer to start commenting on your viewpoints toward the end of their letters–regarding the viewpoints (of what I’ve read so far) presented in Collected Letters 2004, I have to say that I agree with you that, in summary, society has a hard time dealing in what reality is. There is no true black and white thinking anymore. No “yes,” no “no,” no real right or wrong, no real true standards. That’s the problem with living in a politically correct climate. Basically “everything goes” for fear of “offending” someone else. Sad but true. On an unrelated topic, I agree with your statement about a creator being judged based on the work itself and not on who they are as a creator, and being against the idea of having their work judged with the influence of who they are as a creator. It’s all about the work, in the end, as that’s the stuff that–God willing–will be around after you and I have left this world.

Anyway, thanks for the good reading so far. I’m sure you’ll hear from me again once I’m further into the Cerebus storyline. All the best and I hope retirement has been treating you well.

Your fellow Canuck,

Regular visitors of this site know that since about mid March I’ve been running the new Axiom-man comic book as a webcomic over at www.axiom-man.com

The idea of offering the comic free is to help increase public awareness of the character, and also tell a serious superhero story via the Web as I’ve read elsewhere that a serious superhero webcomic is hard to find.

At the same the webcomic runs–twice a week: Monday and Thursday–the book is also released more or less monthly as both a print comic and a downloadable digital one.

The hard reality of the current print comic climate is that, unlike the glory days of the late ’80s and ’90s, and even up until a few years back, the comic book shop market for indie comics has shrunk so considerably that they are extremely hard to find. Even some stores, as per the comment section of Terry Moore’s blog a while back, don’t even carry his stuff, and he’s right up there in terms of indie comic successes. Making things worse, Diamond Distributors, the only game in town to get your stuff into comic shops–again, unlike the glory days of the ’80s and ’90s–has raised the bar in terms of how much money your book has to bring in as a gross each month. Currently it’s at about $2500 and as per this report, which makes it about 1,667 orders needed to hit that number. Sure, if you’re a big name already, you’ll probably pull this off. If not and are unknown to the comic field like myself, then, well, have fun. Likewise, you have to keep that sales level at least at that amount to keep being listed month-to-month. Since–not always, though–a monthly series’ readership falls each month, again you have a major issue.

Yet there are so many creators out there who want to make comics for a living and not just as a hobby. My current challenge to myself is: can it be possible to carve out a sustainable comic book career, one that provides for oneself and family in today’s market?

Is it really Diamond or bust?

I love a challenge. In fact, my entire literary career is built on that. I’ve fought tooth and nail to make a career out of writing and publishing books. Even been homeless once. I’ve also lived in major poverty where my wife and I had no food in the house aside from a can of soup and no money for groceries. My folks would drop off a loaf of bread and other small items to see us through until the next maternity leave check came in. Hard times, but during those hard times, I was paving a road and laying the foundation for what would later be a career in publishing and being able to support my family with it. The price was a ton of sacrifice, hard work, no sleep, ridicule, condecension, financial uncertainty, and a whole other mess of stuff that could be an entire blog entry on its own.

So . . . that said, let’s get back to making a living doing comics. Is it possible nowadays? Especially if you’re a nobody in the field and have zero “name weight” to throw around?

I think there is. I also have zero data to back up this theory/ideal, but if I have learned one thing duking it out to have a creative career, is that, as Marty McFly said, “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.” This includes comics.

Quick side note: I refuse to take all the credit for my current career. I thank Jesus Christ first and foremost for being blessed enough to have such a career. I also thank the support of my wife and others.

If you talked to a marketing guru and asked how to be successful–in any field where something is manufactured–they’d tell you to “find out what people want, make it, then sell it to them.”

Makes sense.

But if you’re an artist–and without sounding pretentious as all get out–sure, you can make what people want, but the final product wouldn’t be as good as making what you want. So then the question becomes personal and you have to decide whether you’re going to go short or long term for other folks’ desires, or for your own.

After having done both, I’m sticking with the latter. If my heart and soul is going to go into a project, I better be passionate about it. I remember something Kevin Smith said a long time ago, something along the lines of, “If I like what I write, then odds are there is someone else out there like me who’ll like it, too.” Good advice. Of course, how many people are “like you” varies. (Actually, who else out there is like Kevin Smith?)

My new comic series, Axiom-man, is part of my life’s work, that is, when I leave this planet, I want a giant saga about a superhero to be left behind, one encompassing books, comics, audio books, etc., all done by a single creator. I also want this work to be true to the vision I have for it, which is not quite your usual superhero fanfare. The Axiom-man Saga, though chock full of superhero action, is also a life-and-times piece and chronicles the life of a superhero starting from when he first donned the tights at age 24. There’s drama, some of the daily mundane, introspection, romance, superpowers, and a pile of other stuff (including what it’s like to fly all the way down from Canada to Florida when you’re top flight speed is about 60km an hour).

The books are like that and I want the comics to be like that, too. I’m also taking a huge risk in the comic’s presentation since I’m heavily inspired by indie comics, namely independent, black-and-white books. The Axiom-man series is in black-and-white with a hand-colored cover. No digital. The inside has a touch of digital here and there, but nothing super fancy as I personally find today’s digitally-colored comics distracting and the overuse of gradients and effects dragging down the original artwork.

A black-and-white superhero book? Are you crazy? Well, maybe a little, depending who you talk to. So far as I know, Axiom-man is the first single-creator, long-term comics narrative done in black-and-white, and also the only one done by one creator. Not only is this cost-effective, but it’s also a smart choice in making the book stand apart. Of course, for some superhero readers, it might take some getting used to.

Anyway…

Below are some numbers and figures regarding the first issue. Though a monthly book, the figures below cover the first issue since its first page aired on the Web to its last page, cover-to-cover.

Webstats: 1,100 (equaling an average of 11.34 hits per day. Since my counter doesn’t tell me which are unique hits, let’s just assume that each repeat visit was by the same person.)

Money out: $416.59 (print costs, taxes paid not included in this total)

Money in: $33.30 (sales income, taxes collected not included in this total)

Profit: – $383.29

It’s a decent chunk of change to be in the hole, but the good news is a) the comic is still for sale and will move copies (I’m fairly well-known at C4 Comic Con), and it’s also available in digital via Kindle and that will be one sale perpetually b) I’m used to thinking longterm for this business. I’m also encouraged by what Dave Sim said when he talked about the early days of Cerebus. He said for the first couple years on the book, he would have made more money babysitting.

Comics is a marathon, especially when you’re an unknown comics creator jumping into the water.

Take the above as you will, but I thought it’d be fun to share this journey with you.

If you would like to help turn that negative number into a positive, Axiom-man No. 1 is available in both print and eComic through multiple venues. Please see the comic book store here for details and issue summary. Info on the second issue is also there. Thanks in advance for your support.

Feel free to sound off in the comments below. Perhaps we can all learn something from each other.

For a long, long time–over a year–I’ve been talking about bringing Axiom-man to comics. That’s finally going to happen as I’ve now decided on how I can produce the comic myself in a timely manner and not get slaughtered monthly by the book’s production. Thanks to ideas from my wife and some of my own, a manner of presentation has been reached. I also believe I’ve come up with a business model that will move the book from just being a hobby into an actual viable way for indie creators to make their own comics and actually make money on it.

Working hard on the pages now. They’re already drawn, inked, the lettering is done–just need to add in more crosshatching and graytones.

What? A superhero comic can’t be in black-and-white with graytones? As if. One of the things I pride myself on regarding the Axiom-man Saga is that his story is different than your usual superhero fanfare. It’s a life and times story, approached from the idea if this happened to a regular Joe tomorrow, how would reality most likely pan out? That said, I’m willing to push the envelope a bit and try a superhero comic with a presentation akin to Sin City and The Walking Dead as opposed to your typical DC or Marvel gradient color-fest. I also have a passion for good black-and-white comics (i.e. Cerebus, Echo, Rachel Rising, Walking Dead, Sin City, Alec, etc.) and know that tha medium is wrought with potential and just plain awesomeness.

The first story arc is a brand new tale which also covers Axiom-man’s origin and takes place one year after he got his powers.

My goal is to get the book out around the beginning of February.