The Success in Comics Seminar has come and gone and it was a GREAT SUCCESS! Thanks to all the brave folks who attended! And a very special thanks to all the wonderful speakers for taking the time to be there - We couldn't have done it without you!
Check out the DAILY CARTOONIST website to read details about how the seminar went and what folks thought of it - Just type "Success in comics seminar" in the word search.
Thanks to an anonymous sponsor, the seminar price is now only $350 per person;
and that includes all of you who have already signed up!
Success in the world of Comics Seminar!
Have you ever wanted to know how to succeed in the world of newspaper and/or web comics? Then this is the seminar for you! Chad Carpenter and Bill Kellogg, the duo that has become the most successful self-syndicated team in the history of newspaper comics, is letting you in on all their little secrets!
But, this won’t be just a self-syndication seminar - we will, of course, be covering self-syndication in detail including how we added 275 papers in 2½ years and how other cartoonists managed to do it as well - but we will also include information on how to get your strip picked up by a syndicate and how to make money off of your comics in general, whether it’s through syndication, self-syndication, internet, licensing, merchandise sales, etc. The seminar is open to anyone who is interested in making a living from cartooning.
As most struggling cartoonists know, getting picked up by a syndicate can be quite a challenge, but if you're able to self-syndicate in 40 or 50 papers, the syndicates will definitely show interest. At that point it's up to you to decide if you want to continue the self-syndication path or possibly sign on with one of the professional syndicates.
At the risk of sounding braggy, I want to list a few of the successes we have had since we started self-syndicating Tundra in the Spring of 2006.
1. We have added 276 new newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Daily News, the Chicago Tribune, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Denver Post, the St. Petersburg Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and many more.
2. We just signed a book and calendar deal with Andrews McMeel for a new Tundra book and a page-a-day calendar.
3. We managed to get our self-published books and calendars in select Wal-Marts around the country, Calendar Club US and Calendar Club Canada. We also got major distributors for the books and calendars in the US and Canada (although the US distributor did an awful job and we dropped them). We’ll tell you who to stay away from also.
4. We signed licensing agreements for souvenir items and t-shirts in the mainland US, Alaska and Canada.
5. We got a card deal with Recycled Paper Greetings and Tundra greeting cards can now be found in every Target store in the country.
6. We were picked up world-wide by King Features Syndicate with the exception of the United States and Canada which we continue to do on our own.
7. We have had written or verbal offers from almost every syndicate.
We will be doing a two-day seminar at the Tuscany Suites in Las Vegas www.tuscanylv.com on September 26-27. The cost of the seminar will be $350 which is mainly to cover the expenses including flying in and putting up our ‘guest speakers’ etc. We have a special room rate for the seminar of $85 per night for the 25th & 26th.
One item that should be of interest to anyone wanting to attend. You can’t seriously get a bunch of cartoonists together without including a bit of alcohol. Bill is renting a hospitality suite for each evening where all the participants can gather to talk shop and enjoy complimentary beer, wine, sodas and snacks.
We have lined up several guests to speak to the group and answer questions to make this as well-rounded as possible. We wanted to include cartoonists that have been successful on their own, through the web, selling to magazines, through a syndicate, selling merchandise, and with editorial strips. There will be plenty of question and answer time to ask individual questions to the speakers.
The list will include:
Chad Carpenter and Bill Kellogg
We will discuss how we got Tundra in 275+ newspapers without a syndicate, including some of the largest papers in the US and Canada. We will also talk about syndicate contracts, self-publishing books & calendars, licensing and distributors. We will go over the advantages and disadvantages of self-syndication and the hurdles we have faced with getting Tundra into newspapers and how we got past them.
www.tundracomics.com
Amy Lago
Amy is the comics editor for the Washington Post Writers Group. Yes, Writers Group. Do not ask her why it's not "Writers and Cartoonists Group," as this will only annoy her. And because this is a great chance to show your strip to a big syndicate boss in person, we suggest you avoid annoying her. In addition to looking over attendees' strips and giving individual suggestions, she will answer questions and talk about what the syndicates are looking for. Not that she knows what they're looking for. If she did, she'd write the danged comic strips herself. Duh. Anyway, who knows, she might find the next syndicated cartoonist at our seminar. And that cartoonist might even be you.
In case you think we are being harsh to Amy here, she actually wrote much of this herself; we even toned it down a bit. We can't say enough good things about Amy, and you will like her too! Unless she doesn't like your strip I suppose.
www.postwritersgroup.com
Andrew Feinstein
Andrew Feinstein is a seasoned animation producer as well as the co-creator of Girls & Sports, a comic strip about dating and sports that has appeared in over 300 newspapers nationwide. What began as a comic strip for college newspapers, Andrew self-syndicated Girls & Sports into over 200 college and non-college newspapers in 2004, making Girls & Sports the most widely self-syndicated comic strip ever at that time. Girls & Sports is now syndicated by Creators Syndicate. In addition to the comic strip, Girls & Sports has appeared as a series of animated cartoon shorts on Fox Sports.
www.girlsandsports.com
Daryl Cagle
Daryl is the daily editorial cartoonist for MSNBC.com and he runs the popular http://cagle.msnbc.com web site for political cartoons.
For the past 30 years, Daryl has been one of America's most prolific cartoonists. Raised in California, Daryl worked for 10 years with Jim Henson's Muppets, illustrating scores of books, magazines, calendars, and all manner of products; he worked as a cartoon illustrator and toy inventor, before drawing a syndicated panel and becoming an editorial cartoonist. Daryl is a past president of the National Cartoonists Society.
In 2001, Daryl started a new syndicate, Cagle Cartoons, Inc. (www.caglecartoons.com), which distributes the cartoons of over 50 editorial cartoonists and columnists to nearly 800 newspapers in the United States, Canada, and Latin America. Daryl's newspaper web site is at http://caglecartoons.com and his online store is at http://politicalcartoons.com.
Mark Anderson
Mark Anderson is a widely-published cartoonist, and the creator of Andertoons.com one of the web's most popular cartoon websites.
Anderson's cartoons appear in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping and more. His cartoons appear on greeting cards by Marian Heath, Gallant Greetings and Papyrus. Corporate clients that have used his cartoons include Microsoft, GE, GM, TIAA-CREF, Walgreens and others.
Mark also sells his cartoons directly from Andertoons.com for usage in newsletters, presentations and advertising. Read more about Mark and Andertoons here:
www.andertoons.com/about/andertoons/
Mark lives in the Chicago area with his wife, their children, two cats, a dog and several dust bunnies.
Howard Tayler
Howard Tayler is the creator, writer, illustrator and marketing mastermind behind “Schlock Mercenary,” www.schlockmercenary.com. A self-made artist with years of experience in other industries, Howard is an advocate and poster-child for the Free Content business model and comfortably supports his family of six with revenue derived from his webcomic.
Howard's site sees 200,000 unique visitors each month, delivers five million page-views per month and supports his business through ad revenue and a web-store where five Schlock Mercenary books and numerous tie-in items are available for sale.
He will speak and answer questions on a wide range of topics, including the nuts and bolts of running a micro-publishing house and bookstore out of your home, building an audience and a community online, and marketing basics for creative professionals.
For more great info on Howard, just read “Howard Tayler’s journey to profitable webcomics” at this ridiculously long link from Feb 12 on the Daily Cartoonist: http://dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2009/02/12/howard-taylers-journey-to-profitable-webcomics/
www.schlockmercenary.com
Cam Millward
Cam Millward was part of the team that founded and pioneered pagination for the comics, puzzles and sports pages for daily newspapers. Since its founding in 1998, Canwest Editorial Services has grown to become the leader in newspaper pagination, with many of North America’s largest newspapers as their clients; including the Washington Post and Dallas Morning News. Cam’s extensive knowledge of comic strips and keen eye for design has made him an important link between the syndicates, self-syndicated cartoonists, and the features editors.
Cam will be bringing to Las Vegas a rare, behind-the-scenes look at what happens to your comic strip once it arrives at the pre-press departments and newsrooms, and his unique knowledge of the ‘final product’ will be enlightening for all cartoonists.
When he isn't juggling comic strips, puzzles, crosswords, features editors, syndicates and independent artists, you'll find Cam pursuing his other passion: hanging off a fly fishing rod on any good river within a 60-mile radius.
Keith Knight
Keith Knight is the Harvey award-winning creator of three comic strips; the self-syndicated multi-panel/autobio strip "The K Chronicles", a political single panel called "(th)ink", and "the Knight Life", a daily strip syndicated internationally through United Features Syndicate. He is also a frequent contributor to MAD Magazine.
www.kchronicles.com www.knightlifecomic.com
Alan Gardner
The Daily Cartoonist guru! He will be covering the seminar for The Daily Cartoonist. Alan is an award winning professional web designer/developer. Attendees are free to ask him technical questions on creating (or improving) a web presence, getting involved in social media and tracking their efforts.
www.dailycartoonist.com
John Read – Stay Tooned Magazine
John will be covering the seminar for his magazine. Maybe he will find some cartoonists to profile in future issues.
www.staytoonedmagazine.com
If you would like to attend this ground-breaking seminar, please click on the following link:
Registration Form
REGISTER NOW - SPACE IS LIMITED!!!!
I encourage anyone who plans to attend to e-mail me with any questions or topics they would like us to cover at the seminar. My e-mail is bill@tundracomics.com.
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