Self-Publishing and All the Crazy Stuff That Goes With It...

The past couple weeks, I've been trying to get back in the swing of things with Project: Camelot, the comic book I am currently doing the art for. The premise is pretty simple, but effective-the government brings together some of the best soldiers from different branches of the military to form a top-notch team for fighting terrorism. Named after different knights from Arthurian legend, they are each fitted with their own high-tech, battle-blazing armor, armed to the teeth with sophisticated weaponry, sensors, and communications technology. Pretty cool, huh? The story is by writer Travis Legge, who has other projects in the works, as well.

The plan is to release the story in graphic novel format, but it will be roughly 110 pages so don't look for it on the bookshelves for a while. It's slavery, I tell you. They don't let me stop until my eyes have swollen shut from punching myself to stay awake at night. :D

There is always the option of letting a third party publish the book, but unless it's Image, or fairly notorious company, I am wary of any deal that might be struck. The reason is this: when you publish your comic book and present it to Diamond, they are given 35% off the cover price. Usually, a comic book company will want a cut from the profits. We will use a 40% discount as an example. Say the cover price is $9.95, and Diamond gets the first $3.48, leaving $6.47. We'll set the printing costs a little high, at $4.27, leaving $2.20. Comic book company gets the next $.88, leaving you with $1.32. Selling 1,000 copies leaves you with $1,320 or $2,200. If you were lucky enough to sell 10,000 copies, you would get $13,320 through comic book company, or $22,000 on your own.

Just starting out, though, it may benefit you to have the publicity a comic book company would bring along with it. That may be worth the 40%, depending on the amount of publicity one receives from the company. Just food for thought...