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Saturday, September 26, 2015

Farlaine the Goblin ~ Book 4: The Twistlands is out now!

OK, it's been a weird week, but here's the deal - the distributor split the book between hitting stores on September 23rd or September 30th. So in some places Farlaine In The Twistlands is out and on stands. In other places it will be out this coming Wednesday.

Apologies to everyone who's as confused as I am:)

But, since it is already released in some places, that means we're going to start selling it through Farlaine.com now! Just head over to Buy The Comic at the top of the page.

Farlaine the Goblin ~ Book 4: The Twistlands 
$5 - 56 pages - All Awesome!



Gorgeous alternate felt cover by Charles Paul Wilson III is also available! 

"The most amazing alternate cover ever made." - Everyone Who Touches It

Saturday, September 19, 2015

The Twistlands hits stores in 11 days! NYCC October 8-11!

The last two months has been full of all the 'other parts' of doing a self published comic while having a day job.

Getting the books printed, dealing with complications and tweaks to files, changing inks to get the blacks to look better, sending the book off to reviewers, trying to find new reviewers, and all of the marketing prep and misc stuff you need to do.

The New York Comic Con is also right around the corner and there'a s lot of prep work needed for that, so there's a fun overlap. It's expensive to go to NY, but you can make it back easily. I went 2 years ago when I only had Book 1 and 2 and came out ahead, which was good for NY being my 3rd ever show:)

I skipped last year, but figured the timing with Book 4 was too perfect not to come back. I got a nicer outside corner that should get a good amount of traffic. Got a nice new 7'x7' banner, new t-shirts, little backpacks, and there will be Books 1, 2, 3, 4, TPB, and the alternate cover 4 by Charles Paul Wilson iii. A lot more stuff to offset costs and introduce more people to the book!

And now that I finished ordering gear and getting things en route for the show, reviews and press are starting to roll in for Book 4: The Twistlands!

Here are the first 3. I'll post more in the Reviews & Press section as they appear!

Graphic Policy: "Farlaine The Goblin #4 is, in all honesty, and without any exaggeration, probably the best comic I’ve read all week."
http://graphicpolicy.com/2015/09/17/review-farlaine-the-goblin-4/

The Pullbox: "This is a must have for readers of all ages!!!"
http://www.thepullbox.com/2015/09/ftg4/

Positively Nerdy Podcast: Starting 3:40 in:
http://positivelynerdy.com/?p=3449

The book hits store shelves September 30th worldwide! If you can't find it at your local comic shop you'll be able to order it through farlaine.com!

I'm also going to be set up at the New York Comic Con this year in Small Press at Table 1341! Swing on by!

Oh, and on a final note, the physical books arrived yesterday. They came out AMAZING.

My cover was a bit darker, but it really pulls the eye into the inner drawing and helps set the mood.



Charles' cover was amazing. Off the charts amazing. I got a felt paper used on this that wasn't glossed over or anything, so it's all tough and starchy. Combined with the painting Charles did and the texture of the paper, this looks and feels like one of the coolest alternate covers ever. Very 90s. Anyone who ordered 3 copies of this book is gonna smile when they see and feel how cool this is.


Monday, June 29, 2015

Book 4: The Twistlands - Available for Pre-Order!!

OK! This is it!
Book 4: The Twistlands, is finally available for pre-order! 
This is when it matters the most, when the orders roll into the distributor!
If you like Farlaine the Goblin then please pre-order a copy or five! Give them away to random people if need be!!
You can pre-order it at your local comic shop or online at places like Midtown Comics, which has it discounted to $3.25/book, so with shipping only $3, you end up paying $6.25 delivered for a $5 book!

Farlaine the Goblin - Book 4: The Twistlands
Diamond Code: JUL151594
ISBN: 978-0-989-00584-5
Street Date: September 30th

Here's the regular cover art by myself, with gorgeous color added by the great Jean-Francois Beaulieu

And here is the very cool and amazing alternate cover, done by the great and powerful Charles Paul Wilson III! He'll be on a third of the covers, so you *should* be able to order 3 copies and get the CPW3 variant cover, but confirm it with the store/site - I can't control if they snag them because of how awesome it is!!


Thanks again to everyone who likes the books and orders it! 

Thank you!! I hope you enjoy it:)





Saturday, June 13, 2015

The Final Stretch of Book 4

Long story short, Book 4 has taken a while, but the end is in sight!

When I first started the series I drew for 9 months straight, treating it more than a full time job, living off unemployment and savings. I produced books 1-3 in that time and got in a rhythm. Then I ran out of money and had to get a job again.

Book 4 has taken 17 months.

A combination of reasons behind this, mostly not finding enough time to devote to the book. Some weeks I'd get less than a page done. Tough to finish a 50+ page book at that rate!

So it has taken a long time, but it is almost done, and the urgency is on since it'll appear in Previews by the end of this month!

I have 8 pages left to draw, and my goal is to be finished by the end of the 4th of July weekend. It will have been listed in Previews for almost 2 weeks at that point. I'll have a few weeks to polish it before it'll go to the printer in early August, hitting store shelves sometime in September.

Oh, and if I hadn't mentioned, it's got an alternate cover by Charles Paul Wilson III. It's gonna rock.

I have the Boston Comic Con coming up July 31- August 2, and will then be at a small press table at the New York Comic Con October 8-11.

Then I'll need to start writing #5!


Friday, May 22, 2015

The Joke That is Comixology

Yup, I found Comixology to be a complete and utter joke.

At least for self-publishers looking to it as a revenue source(excluding superstar SPs like Jeff Smith and Terry Moore).

Let me backtrack a little...

I held off on going digital for a long time. Farlaine the Goblin was meant to be held and seen large and flipped through. It was meant to be read in print.

Going digital provided one large draw - availability. No longer were there shipping costs or printing costs. You were never out of stock. People around the world could find and read the book easily.

But there is also the reality that as soon as you go digital your work will be stolen and spread. People will be able to get it for free. It is a guarantee. People will always be too lazy to scan the printed book, but if they can download a torrent of the PDF and repost it in 30 seconds? Of course people will do it.

So I gave the idea of going digital a lot of thought, and after two years, I finally decided to do it. The potential growth of my audience, both to digital readers and overseas, seemed a fair trade-off.

But the idea was still that you’d expect it to sell.

That you'd expect in exchange for worldwide piracy you'd sell a bunch of copies. You’re already discounting it dramatically($4.99) from the printed version($13), so you’d think the people who'd heard about it would give it a try. Even impulse buy it to read later.

Well, don’t look to Comixology for that.

My book first hit their site on January 28, 2015 via Comixology Submit.

Within 10 minutes of going live it was appearing on torrent sites.

Yes, that quickly.

A lot faster than I would have thought. I rolled my eyes at how little protection they offered, and their empty claim to "inhibit unauthorized distribution of your book".

But I still hoped that the piracy was a good sign. That it meant people were buying the book on the first day. Having no experience with Comixology and their sales numbers always unpublished, I had no idea how many copies were likely to sell in a day or month.

And this is where Comixology fell to utter-garbage.

Although my book went on sale in January, it was a complete blackout of information until mid-May. They tell you nothing. Silence. I could have sold ten copies that first day or a thousand and I wouldn't have known.

This made me a little suspect about the honor of the company. This is a website. Everything is stored and easily accessible in a database. There is no reason not to let publishers see how their sales are doing. To tie marketing strategies to results. Even a weekly or monthly number would be helpful, but honestly, there's no excuse not to have it live and instantaneous.

Yet they don’t. It’s a complete secret. You need to wait until May to find out how you did. Four months of silence.

And what makes this troubling is that there is no “digital inventory”. No way of knowing anything beyond what Comixology wants to tell me. For all I know maybe the book sold 50 copies on its first day and Comixology lost the data in a power failure. Or maybe they deflate sales numbers and play accounting games.

The point is, there's no visibility...and I think it's pretty clear why - they don't want you to know how weak the numbers are.

After four months of silence I finally heard from them last week. Before I opened the email I wrote down some numbers. What I was expecting and thought I’d be happy with.

I knew how many copies my books sold through Diamond. I knew how many I sold at a convention. I knew how many I sold on my website.
This was four months of sales, a $5 price tag, worldwide digital, wide-screen friendly, and posted on Comixology, the biggest digital comics publisher out there, owned by the mighty Amazon.

My breakdown:
< 25: Complete waste. Don't put anything else on there. You gave my book away for free. Butthusks.
25-50: Still a waste, but maybe post the other TPBs eventually. People read it at least.
50-100: Worth putting up single issues, starting with Book 4.
100-200: Pretty cool. Worth doing.
200+: Awesome! I love digital!

Want to guess how this turned out?

It sold 5 copies. 5.

I got a direct deposit of $11.85. Not even the retail of one physical book. Not even worth the time to put together the PDF and submission.

To say I’m disappointed is an understatement. This is a joke.

At this point the damage is done, so it'll stay up. We'll see how sales of the digital TPB goes after Book 4 appears in Previews. Maybe that will trigger some orders. But I doubt I'll be putting Book 4 up on Comixology anytime soon.

And I do need to leave a little bit of hope here - that there will be a longterm impact on growing the audience not measured in sales; that the free books were read and enjoyed. Maybe hundreds or thousands of times.

Or maybe 5.

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Comixology!

Anyone who's chatted with me knows I wasn't a huge fan of putting Farlaine in the digital realm. There's something about paper that I find to be so much bigger and crisper and better to read.

But that's my opinion, and I realized I should really embrace anyone who wants to read Farlaine, no matter the format!

So in that vein, Farlaine the Goblin is finally on Comixology starting today!

If you like digital comics(or their cheaper prices), go buy yourself a copy of the first trade for a bargain basement price of $4.99

https://www.comixology.com/Farlaine-the-Goblin-Books-1-3-The-Tinklands-The-Saltlands-The-Racelands/digital-comic/182345