Thanks to everyone who has e-mailed me in the last few days with encouragement and suggestions. I am a tremendously lucky guy.
Also, I’d like to recommend the following book:
Unlike most attempts at geeky humor, it’s actually funny to the non-geeky! It’s one of the handful of comics I read every day.
Of course, the link above does feed into my Amazon Affiliate account, and here are Amazon Affiliate links for the UK And Canada.
Thanks to everyone who has e-mailed me in the last few days with encouragement and suggestions. I am a tremendously lucky guy.
Also, I’d like to recommend the following book:
Unlike most attempts at geeky humor, it’s actually funny to the non-geeky! It’s one of the handful of comics I read every day.
Of course, the link above does feed into my Amazon Affiliate account, and here are Amazon Affiliate links for the UK And Canada.
This comic is another rerun, but there’ll be fresh comics on Fridays starting next week.
This seems like a good time to discuss the ugly, businessy side of things. Anybody who gets into web comics in hopes of making tons of money is an idiot. My only goal for Basic Instructions when I started was that it would be a good creative outlet. It has been, and still is, that.
That said, it would be nice to make a living off of this thing.
Ad revenues are down. Way, down, and not just for me. My understanding is that across the web ad revenues are dropping at a dizzying rate. There are ways to get more money from ads, most of which are pretty distasteful.
As an experiment, for the next month I’m going to include a brief text message and an Amazon Affiliate link at the bottom of every comic I post. If you go to that link and buy ANYTHING on Amazon, I get a small percentage at no cost to you. I like this idea because it is voluntary, doesn’t slow down the site, will display in the RSS feed*, and as a customer I feel comfortable endorsing Amazon.com.
Thanks for your time, thanks for your patience, and thanks in advance for clicking this link and buying pretty much whatever you want at Amazon.com.
*The few of you who are still using my original RSS feed do see a small ad. It doesn’t actually make any noticeable amount of money. If it bothers you, I apologize and invite you to subscribe to my newer RSS feed that does not have that ad.
This comic is another rerun, but there’ll be fresh comics on Fridays starting next week.
This seems like a good time to discuss the ugly, businessy side of things. Anybody who gets into web comics in hopes of making tons of money is an idiot. My only goal for Basic Instructions when I started was that it would be a good creative outlet. It has been, and still is, that.
That said, it would be nice to make a living off of this thing.
Ad revenues are down. Way, down, and not just for me. My understanding is that across the web ad revenues are dropping at a dizzying rate. There are ways to get more money from ads, most of which are pretty distasteful.
As an experiment, for the next month I’m going to include a brief text message and an Amazon Affiliate link at the bottom of every comic I post. If you go to that link and buy ANYTHING on Amazon, I get a small percentage at no cost to you. I like this idea because it is voluntary, doesn’t slow down the site, will display in the RSS feed*, and as a customer I feel comfortable endorsing Amazon.com.
Thanks for your time, thanks for your patience, and thanks in advance for clicking this link and buying pretty much whatever you want at Amazon.com.
*The few of you who are still using my original RSS feed do see a small ad. It doesn’t actually make any noticeable amount of money. If it bothers you, I apologize and invite you to subscribe to my newer RSS feed that does not have that ad.
I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who let me know about this tumblr post about an android app that was "helping" me and 89 or so other cartoonists by giving people access to our comics with all proceeds going to the developer. His app has been pulled from the marketplace.
In the interest of fairness I should point out that I've not talked to the developer in question, and it's entirely possible that the whole thing is based on a misunderstanding. In fact, my policy has always been that people are free to occasionally repost my comics in other places as long as they leave my URL intact and don't edit the content. It was the fact that he was giving access to every comic I did and selling an app that was competeing with my Android and iPhone apps that was the issue.
I just want to take a moment to thank everyone who let me know about this tumblr post about an android app that was "helping" me and 89 or so other cartoonists by giving people access to our comics with all proceeds going to the developer. His app has been pulled from the marketplace.
In the interest of fairness I should point out that I've not talked to the developer in question, and it's entirely possible that the whole thing is based on a misunderstanding. In fact, my policy has always been that people are free to occasionally repost my comics in other places as long as they leave my URL intact and don't edit the content. It was the fact that he was giving access to every comic I did and selling an app that was competeing with my Android and iPhone apps that was the issue.
