Self-Publishing - Dissemination - Stockiest Research

I contacted OK Comics and Travelling Man, two local comic shops to discuss their approach to stocking small press/self-published work. Below are the responses:

Travelling Man

"Most of the time it is Sale or Return but sometimes Wholesale, depending on how many we order to be honest, it really varies. We mostly wait for people to get in touch with us but again, sometimes we seek out and contact creators. Quantity wise, usually 2 or 4 copies per shop, but it really can vary! I've attached our guidelines too!" 

Mama, who runs the small press for Travelling Man, also added their guidelines for me which detailed the ins and outs of getting paid and it was really useful.

OK Comics

"We used to purchase small press on sale or return but this was hard to manage, buying at a discounted rate (usually between 40/50%, we usually discuss this with the creator and find a price that works for us both) and letting them tick over works better for us. We also find that this gets us more excited to stock and sell the comic!

We tend to order a small amount to start with and gage customer response before ordering more,

Hope this helps!

All the best,

Danielle"

Self-Publishing - Setting Up Pre-Order

I have gone and set up a pre-order store page for my two comics. It took a while to set up as I had to ensure postage and package was all correct, and write out descriptions, but now the page is set to go! I plan to make it live in a week or so, when I've really got more pages complete and feel more comfortable about fulfilment. As well as having more images to share to help me promote it.

I have used the inbuilt store option on my already existing website, purely for ease, it does up the subscription cost to £25 a month (including domain and hosting), which means I've added on an extra 50p per comic to go towards that. At markets and in-person I'll be selling each comic for £6.

The delivery time for the pre-order is set for August; I need to get everything printed by July 1st (my first comics fair), so I do feel reasonably confident I can meet that date.

My initial aim is to order 50 of each comic, dependent on how well the pre-orders go, which means I'll have extra stock to sell at the two comic markets I have lined up.

I will put together some graphics to help me promote the pre-order too, which I will use on my social media.