Not all pitches are created equal

Welcome back.

First off, the final issue of Exorcism Island is no out for your reading pleasure!

Read it in the UK - https://amzn.eu/d/0cBBiWDJ

Read it in the US - https://a.co/d/0gwFEL9c

This one is action-packed as we wrap up our tale of worn out priests pushed to the edge and forced into a series of no win situations on island full of possessed souls.

Chris did an incredible job with all the action I threw at him in the script for this one and we hope that you all like how we end things.

As ever, five star ratings and reviews on Amazon are greatly appreciated to help the series get to more people and hopefully allow us to make more comics together in the future.

PITCHING AND BITCHING

Today I also thought I’d throw out some thoughts on pitching for any newer or aspiring comic book creators out there.

When taking your first steps in the world of professional comics - as in attempting to get paid to actually create the work, rather than just doing it in your free time and putting it out there - the pitching process is definitely one of the more mysterious and often frustrating.

First off, if you’ve had no comic work published it is very hard to get an editor to take a look at any of your pitches. This of course creates a chicken and egg scenario whereby you need published work to get the opportunity to pitch, but how do you get your work published when no one with the power to to make it happen has any interest in it?

This is advice that I’d imagine ever comic creator will give you - you just have to get on and make stuff yourself to start with. I got started making comics through crowdfunding and then managed to get several of these completed books picked up by publishing on back end money deals. That is where they pay you nothing in advance and you just make money based on sales. So low risk for the publisher. This then enabled me to start having serious conversation with editors and publishers.

That’s pretty much rule no.1, if you haven’t already proved you make good comics no publisher will pay you to make more, that is, unless you’re a TV writer or a celebrity. Publishers absolutely fall all over themselves up and down the industry to give comic writing jobs to TV writers. It’s an unfortunate inferiority complex the comic industry has and is probably part “This person already has connections that might help this get sold as a TV show and make us some money” and part “Oh, wow, you work in TV that’s incredible take what you want from us lowly comics types and tell me stories about meeting one of the guys from Supernatural, pretty please”.

So, yeah, getting work in TV first is probably the best way to get work writing comics. So maybe try that?

Back to the point. So, you’ve gotten some cool comics made, enough that an editor will now take a look at your pitches. At this point you may think the most important thing is a really great pitch. Unfortunately, that is not exactly true. You need a great pitch but your chances as a newer creator will also be significantly increased if it’s for a genre that the industry considers as one that currently sells. This is because the comics market is frankly not great unless you’re a DC Absolute book or have the word Tynion on your cover.

Here’s an example. I sent an editor a pitch set in the buildup to World War II and got this response:

“The second idea we fell in love with—great characters, great drama. The only main drawback is the WWII aspect of it all—these types of projects can be a very difficult sell. And I doubt it could be repurposed to a different time era, right?”

This didn’t go ahead and few years later I saw that same publisher announce a World War II book written by a higher profile writer than I.

I won’t lie and say it isn’t frustrating, but I also totally get where these editors and publishers are coming from. It is hard to sell historically set (or any other niche genre) comics in the English language market (the Franco-Belgium market is a different story) and if you’re going to try then it’s going to come from a bigger name with a bigger fan base to try and tip the scales in your favour.

It’s also a little tough to know what genres are considered the safer bets in an industry that’s constantly shifting, but what I would recommend you do is checkout a site like League of Comic Geeks and see what Dark Horse, Boom, Oni, IDW, Mad Cave etc. are releasing currently to get a feeling for the types of stories being picked up.

Horror is generally your safest bet. But there tends to also be a solid amount of sci-fi and fantasy. Right now specifically it seems things with serial killers are weirdly popular. There’s so many comics coming out about serial killers.

Of course you need to find your own original twist on these genres, but as a new creator I would say your chances of getting a book picked up by one of these publishers is much higher if you come with a horror pitch or something that’s got a over the top story with a lot of extreme action as opposed to anything historically set or a western or even superheroes as a lot of these places feel the Big Two have the monopoly on those.

And if you have an amazing idea but you’ve set it in 1930s France, it may be worth considering if you could create a sci-fi or fantasy world that the story could work just as well in.

That’s all for now.

Stay safe out there.

Jordan