You can get more info on the even by going to the Frank & Son Website at: http://www.frankandsonshow.net/star-wars-day-feb-2010.html The Frank & Son Show is a twice weekly comic book and collectible convention held in the City of Industry in Southern California. The show’s address is: 19649 San Jose Ave., City of Industry, CA 91748.

I hope to see you all there!

-Mat N

http://www.ElfSong.com

-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
http://www.MatNastos.net

Just got word that I’m going to be a part of Star Wars Day on February 20, 2010 at the Frank & Son show here in Southern California. The event is going to be insane, with Ray Park (Darth Maul), Daniel Logan (Boba Fett) and the 501st all making an appearance. I’ll be there doing Star Wars sketchcards. I’ll post more info here as I find it out. You can also drop by the Frank & Son Website at http://www.FrankandSonShow.net

I believe we’re going to have a table right up front near the guests, but the Comic Book Art Institute Booth (#807) will be open and active with some additional Star Wars related artwork and merchandise, so make sure to check us out at both locations.

-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
http://www.MatNastos.net

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120516773967  (Starkiller)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120516773205 (Maris Brood)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120516772772 (Evo Trooper)

-Mat N.

-Mat N.

The Frank & Son Show is located at 19649 San Jose Ave. City of Industry, CA 91748.  Our current schedule is:

Wednesdays
3:15-4:30 – Comic Book Art
4:45-6:00 – Comic Book Art
6:15-7:30 – Comic Book Art
7:45-9:00 – Advanced Comic Art (ongoing)

Saturdays
9:30-10:30 – Cartooning for Kids
11:00-12:00 – Cartooning for Kids
12:30-1:30 – Cartooning for Kids
2:00-3:00 – Cartooning for Kids
3:30-4:45 – Advanced Comic Art (ongoing)

Comic Book Art Workshop
Instructor: Mat Nastos
Next Workshop: Wednesdays starting at 3:30pm
Location: Frank & Son Show, Booth 807
Workshop Length: 1 hour 15 minute workshop
Cost: $25
Age: 16+
One of the most exciting forms of art and entertainment, comic books have been a part of entertaining childred and adults the world over for nearly 100 years. In this intensive 1+-hour workshop, students will be exposed to the art and techniques of professional comic book creation. This class will deal in-depth with working with a script, breaking down and laying out a comic book page, story pacing, visual storytelling techniques and how to pencil a comic book. At the end of the workshop, students will have the knowledge to be able to go out and create their own comic books. Contact us for more information on this workshop.
Note: Drawing ability is recommended but not required.

Advance Comic Art Workshop
Instructor: Mat Nastos
Next Workshop: Wednesdays 7:45-9:00pm and Saturdays 3:30-4:45pm
 Location: Frank & Son Show, Booth 807
Workshop Length: 4 consecutive weeks; 1 session per week at 1 hour 15 minutes per session
Cost: $100 + $30 supplies/materials fee
Age: 16+
Comic Books are one of the only truly American forms of art. In this 4-week workshop, participants will be introduced to that art by a professional in the comic book industry. Students will be taken through every step of comic book creation: creating characters, writing a script, laying out pages, pencilling, lettering and inking.

Over the 4-week course, students will work towards creating a finished comic book page featuring a character they have created. Students will design the character with model sheets, write a one-page story featuring the character and then, in the remaining weeks, layout, pencil, ink and letter that page.

The course will explore comic book writing, page layout and design, figures in motion, visual storytelling techniques, pencilling, inking and more.
Note: Drawing ability is recommended but not required.

Cartooning for Kids
Instructors: Mat Nastos/Hal Hefner
Next Workshops: Saturdays
Location: Frank & Son Show, Booth 807
Workshop Length: 1 hour workshop
Cost: $25
Age: 4-12
This course goes over the fundamentals of cartooning for children. The basics include drawing faces and figures, creating cartoon characters and drawing for fun.These courses have been run off and on by the instructors for more than 6 years and are now returning to the San Gabriel Valley.
Supplies will be provided for the students.

About the Instructors:
Mat Nastos is an industry veteran of the film, television and comic book industries, with nearly 100 film and television credits to his name as a storyboard artist. He was been called a “legendary industry talent” in the comic book industry by Tony Caputo in the book “Visual Storytelling: The Art and Technique,” and his comic book work has appeared in 27 countries and been translated into 9 languages. Mat’s work has been published by Elfquest, DC Comics and Marvel Comics, as well as everyone from Playboy Magazine to Highlights For Kids. His publishing company, Nifty Comics, has sold more than 250,000 copies of his comic book, the Cadre, since 2005. Nastos is currently working on his 3rd film as writer/director/producer.
Visit Mat online at www.NiftyComics.com and www.MatNastos.net.

Hal Hefner is an artist, designer and colorist whose work has been featured in many industries. Hal has participated in numerous shows and exhibits, while winning several awards for his art. His professional experience includes science fiction and fantasy magazines as well as role playing games, movies, books, comics, cartoons, video games,murals, children’s brochures and commercial illustration for advertising. Hal combines traditional drawing and painting techniques with digital technology (Photoshop) that still maintains the integrity of an original painting. He has worked for companies such as Gensler / Studio 585 where he worked for clients such as Coca Cola, DirecTV, Citysearch,Strange Horizons, Nova Eth Publishing, Spacedog Entertainment, Eleventh Hour, Challenging Destiny Magazine, Shadis Magazine, Basement Games, Fractal Dimensions and the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Hal has recently joined Nifty Entertainment as an artist, writer/creator and digital distribution director for comics and other entertainment properties.
Visit Hal online at: www.catmonkee.com & www.catmonkee.net

-Mat Nastos
http://www.MatNastos.net

-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
http://www.matnastos.net

I’ve got a lot of pretty cool stuff going on these days that I’ll be announcing here and over on the Nifty Comics website (http://www.niftycomics.com).  The first thing is that The Comic Book Art Institute (http://www.ComicBookArtInstitute.com) now has a regular booth at the Frank & Son Collectible Show in Industry, California.  The shows take place twice a week on Wednesday and Saturday, and we’ll be there giving free comic book art workshops, doing sketches and giving out more information on the school itself.  If you’re in the area and want to find out more, then drop on by and check us out!

You can get more information on the F&S Shows at: http://www.frankandsonshow.net/ 

Look for more information on the school and new Nifty Comics news in the upcoming weeks!

-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
http://www.MatNastos.net

Anyway, today I received another such request from a good friend of mine and fellow indie comic publisher, Hal Jones.  Hal does a comic called “Beyond Human” (and did a really cool superhero book back in the late 80s called “Alternate Heroes” that I wish had gone for more issues).  You can get more info at his website: http://www.haljonesbeyondhuman.com/

Hal sent me a note that said, “Mat, I really do admire your business savvy and would like to get your skew on what I’ve been trying to do with (comic title removed), where and how.” and goes on further to say, “I’m not quite sure who, among comic readers, exactly ARE my demographic. On Drunk Duck, it seemed a wild and wide mix of people enjoyed it...”

Here is the response I sent him.  Hopefully there will be some tidbits in there to help out other indie publishers as well.  Of course, I’m sure I’ll still get the same questions from someone else tomorrow.

Hal:

I’m not completely sure what you’ve been doing to market ”Beyond Human” at this point and don’t know much about the book itself, so it would be hard for me to give you an assessment. 

The first thing I want to say is:  your line about “I’m not quite sure who, among comic readers, exactly ARE my demographic” is a bad one.  Comic Book Fans or the comic book industry is an incredibly tiny and very inbred market…yes, and one I’m a solid part of as a reader.  It’s bad to focus on it because you automatically limit your sales potential and, even worse, you’re aiming your marketing at a group who is largely uninterested in indie material as a purchase.

I also don’t really know enough about the book itself to make any sort of intelligent suggestions.  All I remember, and this is not a judgment in any way, is that it had a fairly religious bent or orientation.  That is a good and bad thing — on the good side finding groups with similar sentiments are a great way to build readership and get sales (any niche market is an absolutely fantastic thing to target, religious or otherwise);  the bad side is that it may turn off a more mainstream audience, forcing you to stick to the niche.  Not a completely bad thing at all, especially for an indie comic without a lot of funds for advertising or marketing (I’m making an assumption there and apologize if you don’t fall in to that category).  As a business person, I’d rather have a solid niche than a more general product. This is how I make a living, both as a comic book publisher and as an internet marketing person.

Obviously, the key to any type of sales is letting your potential customers know about your product and make sure it is easy to find and purchase. Comic books are no different than any other product and work the exact same way.  What you need to do is start researching where your potential demographic congregates (either on the internet or even locally to start) and then begin to frequent those locations — be they message boards, coupon websites, local businesses, etc.  Figure out where they are and then make your presence known.  Join that community and begin to build back links to your website — or to where they can purchase your books.  It’s tough with Indy Planet because you are sending people away from your website and to a third party site to purchase — the more clicks you ask someone to perform, the more potential sales you lose.  Having a shopping cart on your own website, where the majority of information on your products should be found, is always optimal. (note: I really wish Indy Planet would offer publishers a way to tap directly in to their shopping cart system instead of forcing them to just link to a product page.  They’d see a significant increase of sales conversions if they did this.)

The same goes with Drunk Duck: building a following on Drunk Duck doesn’t do as much for your potential sales as you might thing.  First off, you’re building traffic and readership more for Drunk Duck than for yourself (their site owns the traffic and benefits from all page rank increases from your comic, for example).  Second, that audience has been trained to get product for free.  Converting that traffic and readership to sales is incredibly difficult.  You’d be better off offering a small sampling of your book there and then funneling traffic back to your own website where they can get more of the story and have a buying message placed before them.

The thing you need to do, in addition to promoting your comic, is to promote yourself as the creator.  The reason for this is you want to give a face –  a real person — for your audience to connect with, as opposed to faceless corporate comics.  Achieving a connection with your audience as a creator and a person with something to say is going to result in a higher conversion rate than someone who builds a site just around their comics or publishing company.  As part of this, video of you working or talking about your comic and how excited you are about it is an absolutely essential part of your grassroots marketing.  Showing people the person behind the curtain is fantastic for your sales conversion rate.

In terms of promo material and the like, having previews before a book comes out is fine with the comic book industry but is an absolutely disaster for an indie book or someone trying to work outside of the industry.  The reason is this:  if you’ve brought a potential buyer to your site and they are interested in buying something, you need to have a product available for purchase right then.  If there is nothing to purchase, they will leave and forget about your books.  Period.  There is so much out online for people to buy that, even if they are 100% interested at the time, they’ll forget about your product as soon as they exit your site.  Have product ready to purchase before you start any marketing or PR for your series.  Once you’ve got a solid following, then you can start offering sneak peaks.  Until you have a market established, no one cares.

In other words, don’t try to sell until you have a completed project a customer can buy as soon as they discover it.

With the information I have and with my limited time, that’s what I see in terms of getting your book (or any comic) going.  First up, get your book done; second, get your website working.

I hope that helps!

That’s it for today.  Until next time, it’s back to the drawing board!

-Mat Nastos, Super Genius
http://www.MatNastos.net

Affiliate Marketing Workshops by Mat Nastos

Until next time, it’s back to the drawing board for me!

-Mat Nastos
http://www.MatNastos.net