Thread by @DerfBackderf

Good thread! Moving forward, comics creators should heed this info here. This is a how-to on how to make a living in comics right now.

1. A couple addendums. I'm with Abrams. They are very generous and I'm very happy with them. They don't publish a lot of GNs, but the 10 or so they do every year of are very high quality. Big names are flocking to Abrams now.

2. But not every book is an Abrams book. Learn what a publisher likes.

3. And if you reserve your big works for a large publisher, that doesn't prevent you from doing smaller works for indie publishers like Fanta or Kilgore. Noah van Sciver does this a lot, to great success. Others, too. I haven't yet, but I'm thinking about it.

4. IF you sign with an indie publisher, be sure to keep all foreign rights, and all secondary rights (mainly film & tv). I'd try to keep digital publishing rights, too. This is crucial. DO NOT give any of these rights away.

5. For example, my first GN, Punk Rock & Trailer Parks in 2009, was published by SLG. I got paid a $1000 advance, and made no US royalties. I got 500 free copies in trade instead, and sold those at shows. So that's another $8000.

6. But all the rights are mine. There are French and Dutch editions and I've made over $20k in advances and royalties from those. Digital royalties via Comixology brought in another $5000 or so. I also got a $15k arts grant for a (as yet unpublished) sequel.

7. Factor in sales of original pages, mostly in Europe, and I'm guessing I made another $10k from those. So all total, that book made me over $50k.

8. That's nowhere near what I make from an Abrams book (especially if it becomes a movie) but it's not bad for an indie GN that came out before I "made it" and sold only a couple thousand copies at first release.

THAT'S how important it is to retain as many rights as you can.

9. And remember, as Alex points out, Kid and YA comics are where the big sales are. Kid comics are always kid comics, but you can make a book that appeals to both adults and YA. I stumbled into this with My Friend Dahmer. I never DREAMED it would be a big YA book, and it is.

10. Trashed was, too, and I hope Kent State will be. But I don't write solely for YA. I write for adults, but in a way that doesn't eliminate the YA market. That mainly comes down to sex scenes.

11. Swear words, violence, politics, that's all acceptable to the YA market, but graphic sex? Nope. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do those scenes if you want, but understand what your market is and adjust accordingly. That's not selling out, it's just being pragmatic.

12. At Angoulême there's a big publisher of sex comics, both soft and hardcore, and kinky stuff. They sell like crazy and there's always a big crowd at the tables. It's quite lucrative in Europe. Sex sells. In the US? I honestly don't know what the market is.