Locus is a collaboration between two small independent publishers in Melbourne, aduki independent press and Vignette Press, run by Emily and Lisa. They got together to run market stalls (and now also a blog) because they knew doing it with a friend would be more enjoyable than going it alone. They were kind enough to share their advice on selling indie books and zines.

Doing market stalls probably won’t make you rich or sell a truckload of books. Our best market day ever made about $750, mostly we make a lot less than that. Beer money, really. But even if you don’t sell a lot you’re still spreading the word and marketing your product, which is important in the long run. We learned what kind of markets work for our particular books and what sorts of places just don’t. The only way you can figure this out for yourself is by getting out there and trying different markets. Here’s some tips for running a successful market stall. Read the rest of this post »

I published my graphic novel Therefore Repent! in Canada in August, and IDW (who put out 30 Days of Night) just released it in the US last week. I just got a copy of their edition and it looks great: they used a slightly thicker paper stock and a slightly lighter ink, but it’s otherwise pretty much identical to the Canadian edition. Even though I’m best known for writing articles on do-it-yourself publishing, I’ve learnt a lot in publishing with other folks too. So today I’m going to answer one of the questions I get asked the most:

“How did you get a book deal?”

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Just coming down from the high of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival where we not only found an excited audience for our new graphic novel (we sold 90 copies in two days!) but I got to sit beside my favourite comic maker at the convention, Carla Speed McNeil — who, incidentally, I first heard about through the first TCAF when we were on a self-publishing panel together. I did a quick 20 minute interview with her and we talked about why she creates anachronistic science fiction societies, how she gets around the fact that her work is complex and hard to promote, and the development of her sin-eating aboriginal bad-boy. Click play to hear it.

 
 Carla Speed McNeil interviewed at TCAF 2007 [20:21m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Keep reading to hear about the other amazing cons I went to this summer, as well as some tips for enjoying them! Read the rest of this post »

I’ve always prided myself on the fact that the DIY publishing articles on this site have a certain lack of, shall we say, bullshit. And normally, a book called How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead would smell a little funky to me. However, Ariel Gore, Hip Mama mag creator and indie culture maven wrote this book, and like all her books (I’m particularly fond of her memoir Atlas of the Human Heart) it is excellent. As well as sharing her own considerable experience, she interviews folks like Ursula K. Le Guin, Dave Eggers, and even me, and manages to pack more wisdom and practical advice than I’ve ever seen in a book of its ilk. (It had an extremely high nods-per-minute ratio.) She even gets the folks she interviews to give “assignments” at the end, making it a writing class unto itself. Plus it’s extremely readable — I intended to skim to find something to excerpt but I found myself sucked in and reading most of it. Below is one of my favourite sections in the book. Read the rest of this post »

Benny had told me we could use a paint-roller extension as a boom pole, but I figured I was going to have to tape on my shotgun mike somehow. Much to my delight this was not the case. The day before the third Infest Wisely shoot, when I got my $15 Home Hardware Extension Pole (8′, #4538-682) back home I noticed there was a small hole in the removable black tapered tip. My Rode VideoMic has a shock mount that connects to a shoe mount for use on a camera, but I saw that the shoe mount was screwed in. I removed the screw and threaded it through the tapered tip of the paint roller and it actually fit!

The next day, we did an eight hour shoot and it was rock solid and sounded sweet — when I was perched on a rusted-out catwalk high above an abandoned factory floor, I was glad I didn’t also have to worry about the mike falling off.

Of course this is almost ridiculously specific to Rode VideoMic owners living in Canada, but it’s too neat a trick to keep to myself. For some more generally useful DIY Sound tips from my sound guru Carma, keep reading!
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Silkscreening is such a great happy medium — nestled comfortably half-way between hand-drawn and mass production, more colourful than photocopying and with an aesthetic all its own. Artist Shannon Gerard broke out her silkscreening gear to make cool shirts and posters for her upcoming comic launch, and despite being crazy busy has shared her skills in this funny and detailed tutorial. Read on to learn how to print your own posters, shirts, or whatever you fancy printing on, and how the Virgin Mary and Spiderman join forces to help her out.
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By Hamish MacDonald

Back in 2000, I wrote an article for this website about how to produce your own book. Things have changed considerably since then, both in the technology available to individuals and in the services available in the marketplace. It’s all good news for us independent publishers.

The original article was called "DIY Book Production." Aside from being a clunky term, you now have more power than that: You can be your own press. I now produce my own books at home from start to finish, and in this article will explain what I’ve had to learn and acquire in order to do that.

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Distribution is one of the toughest nuts to crack when it comes to publishing. There’s a few reasons for this, one of which is that it’s boring. It’s hard to get excited about receivables, warehousing, and invoices. But good distribution has made it possible for me to make a living off my books.

When I started thinking about No Media Kings six years ago I thought through doing distribution on my own. I would have to write letters to all the bookstores in Canada, and ship out the orders myself. Assuming that they took it seriously enough to order, and I shipped out the books, they sold, and I followed up with an invoice, I then hit a snag. My invoice would naturally float to the bottom of the pile: those from distributors representing a number of books and publishers would get paid first. They had the leverage of not shipping out any more of their books (and a collection agency), while all I had was the threat of not sending out any more Jim Munroe books. So I discovered the strength-in-numbers value to being with a distributor.

Over the years I’ve discovered a few more things about getting your books out into the world. Let’s start with some general concepts of the book distribution business.
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I’ve come to realize that I don’t hate advertising so much as have an allergic reaction to a high-hype-to-low-content ratio: like when the inner ear is imbalanced, when marketing TALKS LOUD and SAYS NOTHING NEW it induces what I call hype nausea. So promoting my books was initially a challenge for me. But since I wrote my first DIY Book Promo article five years ago, I’ve brought public attention to three more novels and now quite enjoy it. Here’s some of the things I think about when I craft a promotional campaign.
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Videogames are magical. There’s this guy on the screen and he’s doing what you want. Sure, it’s just an animation on ‘roids, but somehow it delights and amazes: it manages to be more than the sum of its code.

Raigan and Mare taught me how to make a little guy walk around on the screen with Flash MX, and if you’ve had a bit of experience with the program (or a bit of patience) you too can learn how to breathe life into your characters. This is the first time I’ve written something this technical, so if you’re stuck, feel free to leave questions in the comments. And if you make a lil walker of your own, please post a link to it there, too!

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I first noticed the Red Panda, his hands outstretched hypnotically, on a street poster in my neighbourhood. “Adventure! has a new address… decoderringtheatre.com” the poster announced. I checked it out and spent the next few days listening to the adventures of Canada’s Greatest Superhero (and his sidekick, the Flying Squirrel) on my MP3 player as I walked around town. More homage than spoof, I thoroughly enjoyed these additions to a genre most assume is long dead, and emailed Gregg Taylor to tell him so. A couple of emails later, he’d graciously agreed to “give the nickel tour” of how to make radio drama, from the high-tech of podcasting to the lo-tech of vegetable-based sound effects.

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by Emily Pohl-Weary

Everyone has a graphic novel inside them. A picture paints a thousand words, right? It’s easy to be seduced by the old truism. But it’s not as easy to produce a 24-page comic, especially not if you’re the kind of person who wants your work to actually look good.

I publish Kiss Machine magazine, so I thought it would be simple to turn my hand to publishing my indie comic, Violet Miranda: Girl Pirate, with illustrator Willow Dawson. I didn’t realize how steep the learning curve would be.
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So my pal Sean is the creator of the TTC Subway Rider Efficiency Guide: a small booklet that helps you plan which car on the subway to get on so that when you get off, you’ll be at the exit stairwell. He got a lot of media attention for this fascinating and obsessive project and he’s very generously offered to share all the things he learned during the process of media outreach which (true to his nature) he extensively catalogued as he went along.

While media outreach is only one part of promoting a project, it’s one that a lot of people find intimidating. He’s broken down a lot of the key things in a very approachable way. Check it out and feel free to add your own tips or questions in the comments.

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I’ve received five grants in the past eight years. Amounting to about $50,000, they’ve allowed me to take some time to work in different mediums and build community resources instead of focussing solely on making money through publishing books. The grant system isn’t perfect, but overall I am a big believer in it — I wrote an article a few months back on free money.

A lot of people have asked me about this over the years, and while I don’t think there’s any trick to grant writing, I do think there’re certain strategies that have helped me.
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