Returns and rejects
During the course of selling your comics or art books, there are bound to be several copies that are not sell-able. This can be that one odd book that has color problems, the book that has misprinted pages or the book that was torn or damaged during transportation or unpacking. We call them rejects or returns, based on the conditions.
The rejects are usually books that were damaged during transportation and storage or books that had a problem during the printing line. This is not a major issue and it is actually pretty normal for a couple or several books to be rejected mainly because it is not in a condition to be sold to customers. The rejected books will most probably be returned to you if you have sold them off to wholesale or bookstores (most probably deducted for payment returns).
The other part of this is on books being returned. This usually happens when the bookstore selling period of your books has expired and still have books that have not yet been sold. These books, in most cases, will be returned to you. Though some bookstores are going to need explicit orders to get them to return the book to the owner, there are also other bookstores that “discards” the books away without notifying you, in order to make space for others (especially if they agreed to buy the books off from you in the beginning).
Law – Taxes
Taxes are something you should look into immediately as soon as you decide to publish your books or sell anything, anywhere. Things can go downhill really quickly if you got yourself into things like tax evasion or failure to pay taxes and can end up being a real nightmare.
Things like this often occurs simply because they do not know what tax they are supposed to pay once they start selling. Hence, not paying taxes is tax evasion.
Check with your local authority on what sales taxes you should be paying. Even if you are doing things in a limited or scaled down size like printing comics in small numbers or selling at your local conventions, it is better to know what taxes should be applied where. Just be on the safe side of things.
There are different types of taxes such as income tax, sales tax or even tariffs if you are doing something that involves customs or moving of goods across borders into another country, so be sure to check which one you should be required to pay. Look into your country’s tax system. Tax collections are usually done by government agencies and can differ from one country to another. For example, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is responsible for tax collection for the United States of America, while Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) holds the same responsibility in the United Kingdoms.
Measuring Success
In the end, how do you measure your success with your comic art work and books?
Is it by how much money you make by selling your comic art stuff?
Is it by how many of your art stuff you have sold?
Is it by having tons of fans of your work?
Is it by getting your name well known in the comic industry?
Some are content with their work being known while others measure success by how much they earn. Getting known for your work and what you do is a normal thing and it is natural for anyone to make a profit from their craft. But there are a couple of things that you should keep up to ensure a greater success, regardless of how well you do (financially or popularity-wise) with your comic artwork: Quality and Consistency.
Quality and consistency are not really a good pair to begin with mainly because it can be quite difficult to consistently maintain exceptional quality in your artwork, as the workmanship standards will deteriorate if done in a repeated and untimely manner. But once you find the right balance or if you are capable of sustaining the quality be it by time management or by training, your comic art works will be known in no time. From penciling, inking, coloring all the way to the final print, your comic work must be done at the highest quality.You do not need to actually change your art style or approach altogether.Polish and improve on your existing style and be consistent with it.
Poorly drawn or colored comic will not do well against comic that was drawn beautifully in detail and well thought out. People will almost certainly go for the more visually pleasing and excellently done comics. This is why comic covers play an important part in getting people’s attention.It can be straightforward and tricky at the same time( Simple minimalist, two-color comic covers can sometimes get more attention when compared to the action pack, vibrant and explosive comic cover) – For more on comic covers (Click Here)
But looking at the bigger picture, what you get is not what you should be focused on, but instead you should pay more attention in what you give and this, to us at Creative Comic Arts, all rolls back to your reputation in a big way.
The reason we suggest improving on the quality and standards of your comic work is because in the end, the result of your works are the one that matters the most. When you draw comic art or create comics books, some part of you love it. You create characters, environments, worlds , technologies, write great stories, that keeps the readers wanting more and all of it comes from you.Instead of holding back you are letting your creativity break free.You want viewers to be interested in your art works and let them know you as an individual who is passionate about your work through your art.In this case, monetization or money-making comes in as secondary.The main reason is that you will not be profiting much if you do not have people interested in what you do and that depends on the quality and creativity of your art works.
The effort and time that you put in your work will show the quality and value of it.This is especially true as there are comic artist that spends hours even days to get the result that they want.This however, works in a pretty straightforward way.The less effort and time you put in your comic works, the less improvement you are going to make and the quality of the work will not be as you want it to.The more you spend your time and hard work on your comic works, the more you will improve as well as learn from mistakes and the quality of your works would also get better.
The improvement or degradation of your comic art works will be clear enough and this depend on the effort you put in, which in turn results to the quality of your work. Good or bad, it will show in your art work and your fans or viewers will be the first to notice. Despite wanting your fans/readers/ viewers to see the best of your art works, The quality of it will speak for itself.
If you have spent hours, days, weeks practicing, experimenting, improving on your art skill and ends up being able to create high quality, detailed, and attractive art works, then, congratulations!. Great!. Awesome!. Really though, you have reached a milestone that most would have given up halfway through.
People are going to look forward to your next update or anything new from you. Your fanbase will grow, commission request will be pouring in, plus because you spend more time and effort on your comic art works ,you will notice that you will naturally strive for improvements of your art and not settle for anything less than that.All will work great and your reputation as a versatile comic artist will be well known.But that does not mean that you should stop practicing and improving.There will always be space for improvement.Keep drawing.
Practice, practice, practice is what we preach at Creative Comic Art. Though this may take time and a whole lot more effort, the result is what people will know you for. Remember to share your experience with others, while at the same time polishing your talent to become a better comic artist.
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