Prospective Authors
The best thing about comics is that a successful series can have a long life in terms of literature sales with derivative items (games, films, mugs & clothing…) as the icing on the cake. Because graphic novels are often quick to read, they are often re-read. Isn’t it wonderful that the entertainment business can contemplate making Tintin films over half a century after the first publication… It’s not quite as long-lived as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but still impressive. Comics can also live on through a genuine collectible market in first editions.
Submission guidelines
There are more illustrators out there than good stories, so the most important thing is to convince a publisher that:
- you have something worthwhile to tell and a marketable cast of characters; ideally we are looking for ‘kidult’ stuff: understandable to 11-12-year olds but with added significance for adult readers.
- you know why you are doing it as a graphic novel rather than (say) a screenplay, a series of strips, an animation or even a prose novel; dare we suggest that one unconvincing reason for choosing the graphic novel format is because you can draw well!
- the quality of the background ‘world’ you have created is fertile enough to provide hope for follow-up books and derivative products
Contracts
Ideally, you should go to a publisher with an idea before you sink hours of work into the project, if only because of questions about format, length and RRP. Maybe the publisher prefers to market two volumes of 128 pages than a single volume of 256 pages! We know of three quite different formulae for the agreement between creator; Usharp currently applies the last of these, but creators need to think this through:
- Creator-owned (eg Walking Dead / Image comics formula)
This is the path of self publishing sometimes solo but more often as a cooperative or franchise (this is the Image Comics formula). This can be a great success particularly for solo authors but for teams it is prone to break up in acrimony: e.g. what are the rights of a creator who quits before the publishing property is discovered? How do you discipline a partner who is late in submitting his work? - Publisher-owned (eg Batman)
Illustrators and writers are employed on a freelance basis by the Publisher. They get a mention on the cover, and it certainly boosts a career to have worked in a known franchise. Nonetheless, the creators in this model do not get much income over and above their agreed per-page rate; so they can be frustrated when they see the publisher / owner of the series making money with derivative products such as mugs or t-shirts or even coining it via video games and films. - Classic book or magazine license (publisher only gets volume and possibly ebook rights)
The book is published on the same basis as an illustrated children’s book. The problem here is that the publisher’s budget is to pay a royalty of 12-15% of wholesale price and that will mostly come short of paying the creators’ true cost of time. That means that comics creation is an income-producing hobby rather than a livelihood until you hit the bestseller lists. And even then, at any one time in the UK there are probably no more than 20 authors who can expect to live the next decade on the basis of royalties!