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Suppose that you have a graphic novel that you want to do; a manga graphic novel that
you really believe in. But you're having trouble. Publishers aren't that interested in it, or,
maybe they are, but you want complete control over your creative vision. You might consider
self-publishing.
Now, there are two ways to do that right now. Electronically, or in print. Print has some
real challenges, if you're going to go that route. With print, you have to take returns
from the store. They send it back to you if no one buys it. You have to ship it to them.
You have to make it, which is even more expensive. And the worst of all, most retail bookstores
will not stock on the shelves, a self-published book. Why? They have just so much shelf space,
and no more. They need to make sure that every author's book that they put on that shelf,
is a good selling author with a track record, if they can help it.
However, on the other hand, in cyberspace, there is no bookshelf. Retailers can stock
everything they want to. There's space for you. There's usually not that resistance.
You don't have to ship anything to anybody. You don't have to take returns. It's cheaper
to make than a print book. And instead of taking a year, or a year and a half for it
to get produced and published, an e-book can get made and published in months.
Many online retail stores, even very, very big ones, will stock your e-book, even if
it's self-published. But in cyberspace, there's unlimited shelf-space, so you have a better
shot of being listed. Now if I were to go the electronic way, what I would suggest first,
is try to serialize your graphic novel on a website. That way, you can get feedback
from your readers. You can adjust it, change it a little bit, maybe discover that they
like Character A more than Character B, and maybe try to feature that one more.
You know, this is the wave of the future, especially for comics, because there always
have been successful self-published comic book authors, whether it's manga or American
comics.
So, these are several options, I hope this has been helpful.