How Comickers Create A Business Plan

A lot of artists suck as businessmen. They just don’t want to deal with the business side of art; they don’t want to deal with the math and the rules, and it always makes them feel a little dirty.

Well, they need to get over that.

The first step is to create a business plan. You don’t have to make it really complicated and you don’t need a degree in economics to do it; it’s actually pretty straightforward. The plan just sets down what your basic goals are and how you’re trying to accomplish them. You don’t need to make it formal; you can set it up on a whiteboard.

[A whiteboard may actually be best for some people: It makes it all visible and allows you to check things off the list as you accomplish them. It also allows you to change things quickly, allowing you to adapt to changing situations as needed.]

At its simplest, a business identifies your goals, your marketing strategy, and any challenges you foresee. By setting these down on paper (or other medium) you are better able to plan ahead and deal with challenges as they come up. You should not be afraid to change this as you change your goals, how you do business, or if new challenges present themselves; this is your document so feel free to make changes as you see fit.

Business Plan Basics

The first thing you want to do is set basic goals. You don’t have to be grandiose; just make the goals straightforward, like how often you plan on putting out your comic on which days how big your buffer is going to be, and how long until you basically get enough strips together before you feel comfortable tying it all together and turning it into a trade paperback. Not everyone’s goals are going to be the same, but you need to set some sort of goals if you want to move forward.

You also need to set some sort of goals when it comes to how you want to get out the news that you have a comic and when it updates. This marketing plan. should include social media, but should also include comic ranking sites; even if you never really get high up into the rankings, it does help getting your name out there.

You want to figure out merch; this is how you plan on making money from your comic (advertising, shirts, a trade paperback, using it as a portfolio). You should also consider these prints and posters; too many great artists forget that their fans want to see what they can do and that means artwork. The key here is that you want to define how you plan on making money just so you basically have a detailed out what exactly you’re planning to do in order to make money.

[Even if you’re doing this a writer, this is important. Just as an illustrator is looking at print-on-demand sites, you should be looking at freelancer sites and blogging, as well as how to monetize your blog. Even a Youtube channel can work if you have something interesting to say.]

And then you want to look at your challenges. This can be a lack of money, resources, legal issues, pretty much any potential issue that can come up. This can be your need to pay for convention passes, printer ink, even allowing for software or hardware upgrades; anything that can possibly be a problem needs to noted here so that you can better deal with it.

So…What Do You Need Again?

Ultimately, a business plan is your pathway to the success of your comic. You need to establish goals, how you plan to make money from it, and what challenges you foresee; the business plan establishes these and how you plan to conquer them all. So even if it’s just something on your whiteboard or it never leaves your computer, you need to establish some sort of plan to succeed. You can’t succeed without a plan, so make sure that you have one.