Chewing Pencils

Method 5:- Online Selling

The internet has given rise to all sorts of markets for cartoonists to exploit. In addition, it has also seen a number of ways for cartoonists to sell work directly to the general public without having to go through a publisher, editor or advertising firm.

For example, some of the more unusual things that I have been asked to as a result of the internet include:

* A cartoon zebra for the sail of a yacht

* A billboard advertising a free range chook farm

* several cartoons for power point presentations by public speakers

All of these clients found me through my website, rather than through an agent or a direct approach from me (See this post for more tips on setting up a website). However, there is far more you can do when it comes to selling your work online. Here are a couple of suggestions to help you sell your work over the internet.

1. Merchandising through service like Cafe Press

Cafe Press allows you to get your work onto mugs, t-shirst, post cards, stickers and a whole range of other things, without having to do any of the hard work yourself. All you need to do is set up an acocunt, upload some of your images, set a price and Cafe Press does the rest. Obviously, the Cafe Press folk keep a cut of the sale price, but it is a simple way to set up an online shop front to sell some of your work.

One of the really good services of Cafe Press is being able to sell prints of your work. I occassionally get requests for prints of different cartoons, but because I work digitially, I can’t really be bothered going to all the trouble to get a decent quality print out (my home printer is terrible!). But Cafe Press can do it and send the print for me. Easy.

2. Print your own books with Lulu or Comix Press.

I was involved in a project recently where a group of us put together an anthology of cartoons and comics to help raise money for disaster relief. But rather than go through a book/magazine publisher, we used Comix Press. The quality of the anthology was great, the turn around time was fast and all we had to do was upload the files. We sold the anthology at some pop-culture conferences and was able to send a good amount overseas.

Other cartoonists I know have put together collections of there own work that they then sell through their sites. Australian cartoonist Nik Scott has done this with his book called “Web Junkie - Cartoons About Virtual Addiction”. Others have put together calendars and the like, making the most of Christmas and other peak ‘buying’ seasons.

3. An online agent like Cartoon Stock

Some artists see services like Cartoon Stock as the spawn of Satan. Their argument is that any ‘clip art’ type service makes it more difficult for cartoonists to get a decent price for their work. I don’t want to get bogged down in that argument here, but do want to acknowlege these services as a way to make some money from those cartoons that are sitting around on your hard drive.

As I type this, I’ve got a bunch of cartoons that were rejected, and another bunch that have been published ages ago that I should try and sell again. With time at a premium, I’ve decided to try and license these cartoons through Cartoon Stock and see what happens. The very worst that could happen is that they sit around on Cartoon Stock’s server instad of mine. The best is that I gain an additional stream of income without any extra effort. That’s a good thing!

4. Your own e-commerce set up.

As I mentioned back in this post, Mark Anderson’s site has perhaps the best e-commerce solution for cartoonists that I’ve seen. Click on the toon you want, pay for it and down load it to your computer. This sort of set up is expensive and complicated, and my guess is it relies on decent amounts of traffic to be successful. Nevertheless, it’s something to aim for!

If you’ve got any other online ways of selling your work, point us to them by leaving a comment!

For the other posts in this series, click here.