Phil Foglio on why he posted his Hugo-winning comic online

Mike sez, "Phil Foglio describes why he posted Hugo-winning comic Girl Genius online for free."

First of all, printing comic books is expensive. I figured that by not having to do the comic book we were saving close to $20,000 a year. When you lay out a comic book and then lay out a graphic novel, it's two entirely different jobs. You have to do it all over again. All we do now is sell the collections. Also, printing the comic was really expensive, and we were in a cash crunch at a particular time and we were like, "Is this really worth it?"
And thirdly, for years people had been coming up to me and saying "I would like to get into comics" and I had been saying "Screw comics. Do a webcomic. It's the wave of the future and your production costs are super low," and eventually I realized that instead of just giving this advice I should take it.
A lot of the success of Girl Genius I think could only have been done by a person like myself who had a long career building up an established name and being in independent publishing, because that meant I was publishing my own books. So when Girl Genius went online, we were able to sell people Girl Genius books from day one, whereas almost everybody, who starts a webcomic has to collect material before they get a book. It takes them sometimes up to two years before they can begin to monetize our core product. We went in with a functioning store, and all we had to do was say "Like it? Buy it now."

Unbound: Talking with Phil Foglio

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Snig

Really a top notch read. Funny, well written, whimsical art, engaging characters, and comes out like clockwork MWF. Also the major characters are championed for their intelligence, problem solving and creativity.
Krackatoa

I personally preferred Buck Godot over Girl Genius. Such fantastic characters in both series. I’ve spent hours upon hours reading and enjoying his stuff.
traalfaz

The other thing that the Foglios have that many webcomic authors lack which allow them to make money is talent. There are hundreds of webcomics out there that just aren’t really any good. The Foglios stuff is in a whole different class than most of what’s out there.
AsteriskCGY

Well so far I’ve only heard of his stuff by listening to other stuff talk about the stuff in the stuff he does. Which is all you need to get around the internet.
Dewi Morgan

I discovered that the comic shop near me (like, 200 yards away) stocks these. So that’s where my next $100 or so of fun money’s going.
Dewi Morgan

I love your marketing strategy, Mr Foglio, almost as much as I love your comics.

I’m kinda leery of buying vol1, though, since it’s b&w, and the local comicstore guy suggests there might be a colour version someday semi-soon.

Is this trueish?
Dewi Morgan

Immediately after my last comment, I see the banner ad about the colour vol 01. Yay!
ADavies

FYI –

I stumbled accross the Girl Genius comics around last June. Bookmarked them because I was too busy. Re-discovered them (via my delicious bookmarks) when I was bored and looking for an amusing web comic.

Read all the volumes posted online in about a week.

Kept going back from time to time and reading newly posted adventures.

Decided volume one would make a great Christmas gift for someone. The decided I should also have all the volumes.

Couldn’t find them at any local comic book store, so bought them all on line (v. 1-5). Now I’m reading them all over again in print. Up to volume four. Plan on buying any future vollumes as well.

Ripping fun stuff. Really well done.
MadRat

I’ve loved Girl Genius from the moment I saw it and stay up late so I can see the next page a little early. I’ve been grateful that I could read it online, legally and guilt free. I consider Girl Genius to be at the same level as the legendary Elfquest and I hope that someday it will be viewed by others in the same light. (And an animated series/movie wouldn’t hurt either.)
chris7crows

“Girl Genius” is top-notch quality stuff. The Winslow says so, and who are we to argue with the Winslow? Yowza.
Jack

You really can’t argue with true believers. I understand the concept of restrictive copyright. And I understand there are creative ways to monetize your work by selling books, shirts, baubles and such to accompany these things. But prior to 1995 one could really make a living off of selling their comics even if they weren’t major players. Nowadays it’s really sad. Yes, some make some money. But as long as readers simply read for free and don’t pay for work done, nothing will change.

Copyright is not the issue as much as it’s figuring out how to reign in the moochers. I regularly tip folks in the real worldâ€”and onlineâ€”when they provide value to something I have done, experienced or bought. But few other folks I know instinctively do that.
Anonymous

Best comic ever!
Robotech_Master

Seems like an opportune time to note you can download a 90-minute-long talk show podcast I did speaking with Phil and Kaja Foglio on my podcast The Biblio File at

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=7022

I wish TalkShoe still paid me by the download. Or for that matter, anything at all. :P
yri

First of all, Girl Genius utterly rocks.

Second of all, I avidly read each online update as soon as it comes out, and yes, I am buying the books as well, despite the fact that I can read it free online. Let me repeat that for all the book publishers out there: getting this content online, for free, =makes me want to buy the hardcopy=.
Phil Foglio

“Keep in mind, Phil’s entire point is that the monthlies _cost more money than they make_. So even if your print comic is doing great, you’re bleeding cash until the TPB.”

Hi, obviously, as this quote from one of the comments shows, I was not clear in a few things.

Okay, first of all, to be slightly didactic, the Girl Genius comics were (at best) quarterlies. I have never been able to do a monthly book in my life, as many patient editors can tell you.

Secondly, The comics did indeed pay for themselves. Make no mistake, this was our business. Our initial orders from our main distributor (Diamond), always covered printing and production costs, with a couple of thousand bucks left over, and that didn’t even cover the copies we sold at retail.

Now a couple of thousand bucks isn’t much, true. However whenever we had a new comic come out, we saw a sudden re-energizing of sales of our entire product line. THAT was where we made our rent and grocery money. We realized that the Girl Genius comics were, in effect, a giant, super effective ad for our books that was, in addition, making a small profit on its own.

By putting Girl Genius online, we massively cut our advertising costs, while bringing out a new ad every three days, as opposed to every three months.
OneAmp

I discovered Phil and his distinctive style when I was a young lad of 13. He used to illustrate for TSR back in the day and I was just discovering D&D. Thirty years later and I’m still a fan!
efergus3

I love the strip and it was great when they reran Buck Godot. They’re now doing MythAdventures Tues/Thurs/Sat for our enjoyment.
- alg24
  
  “They’re now doing MythAdventures Tues/Thurs/Sat for our enjoyment.”
  
  … They are?
  
  *zoom*
  
  They are!
  
  Thanks!
Jack

I’ve been a tad harsh on the whole “copyfight” stuff in the past, so I will say this: It’s refreshing to read Phil say “…I think could only have been done by a person like myself who had a long career building up an established name…” That’s really the key to making a living off of doing something like this.
- Anonymous
  
  I’d also like to add, do you really believe that someone just getting into comics _espeically indy comics_ could turn a profit from day one?
  
  Phil’s point about Webcomics taking 2 years to monetize can just as easily be applied to indy print comics. The only difference is publication. Two years to construct a Trade Paper Back, or two years building an online audience?
  
  Keep in mind, Phil’s entire point is that the monthlies _cost more money than they make_. So even if your print comic is doing great, you’re bleeding cash until the TPB.
  
  So which costs more money up front? Which gives you a more predictable ROI? What if your print comic flops due to bad reviews or lack of audience? You’ve still bled all that money on the monthlies and you still haven’t recouped your loss.
  
  At least with the webcomic, you know how many hits you’re getting daily, and can make some reasonable assumptions about your print sales.
  
  As for living off of webcomics: Phil is unique in that he moved from print to online, _not_ in that he makes his living that way. Dozens of people earn their rent from webcomics. Sounds like a small number? Ask yourself, how many regularly-updated high-quality webcomics do you know? Practically all of the top-tier in webcomics make their rent from their comic.
  
  Granted, past a few superstars, none of them are _rich_, but hey, no one said it was a goldmine.
- Chrs
  
  Except for the various others who started a webcomic as a hobby, only to have it develop into a full-time job.
  
  It’s definitely not something you could jump into directly and make money at off the bat, but in the webcomic world the Foglios’ experience is rare. Usually, it’s a longer process toward profitability, but they’ve taken a strange path for sure. Certainly cool to see someone originally successful outside webcomics jump into it, though, and it’s probably my favorite of the many that I read.
- rikchik
  
  I think you skipped an important part of that paragraph, Jack. What worked for Phil was immediate monetization of a webcomic. Other people can do it (and have) but there’s a long runway of getting your name and work out there. (Fortunately, expenses are pretty low during that time.)
Nelson.C

I love GG, but I’ve never been able to get into reading the story a page at a time. Instead I wait for a few months and read a bunch at once. I suppose I should be an ideal customer for the books, but I’ve never got round to buying any.
Camolai

The first webcomic I ever followed. :)
Egypt Urnash

If you have quality product, it’s really not all that hard to get a webcomic going towards profit. The comic I do with my boyfriend (Five Glasses Of Absinthe, NSFW) isn’t paying my rent yet, but selling out my first lot of Lulu-printed books has been a significant help in covering my costs for cross-country trips to conventions – it’s been a major part of paying for funtime. And we only launched it this past year.

If I could work full-time on my comic and keep a regular schedule, instead of being on lengthy hiatuses between chapters to rebuild the buffer, do the dayjob, slack off, and do other art, it probably would be paying the rent. It’s the “thousand true fans” theory in action.

It does not have to take two years to have something people are willing to buy – but Phil and Kaja sure as hell had a big boost to making GG self-sustaining as a webcomic by having those couple years of print backlog to flog as collections!