Featured, Newsline »

The IndyPlanet Digital main page will include a large rotating banner showcasing titles at the site. The spot will be — to borrow a terrible cliche — prime real estate on the site, appearing directly below the site header. However, this spot is NOT for sale. You can’t buy it at any price … because we are making it available completely FREE of charge!

Here’s what you have to do to get your banner in the rotation —

1) You have to make and submit a banner to our EXACTING specifications.
2) You have to make your banner — in our sole judgement — worthy of inclusion on the main page.

Worthiness has nothing to do with sales or sales expectations and everything to do with how great the banner looks. If you send us a great looking banner that conforms to our specifications, then we’ll put it in the rotation and it won’t cost you anything at all.

Here are the specifications — (btw, you can also read the specs on the sample graphic accompanying this post)

1) Your banner must MUST be 800 pixels wide by 240 pixels high with NO border.
2) Your banner should consist of a single background image and include the comic’s logo or title, the issue number, the names of the creators … and NOTHING else.
3) All text or logos must be at least 24 pixels from all edges of the banner.
4) One corner of the banner (you can pick which one) must have a 100 pixel square area free of text or anything that cannot be covered with an overlay.

We’re writing a banner uploader into the IndyPlanet listing editor on your “My info” page where you can upload your banners. It’s yet there, but should be up soon.

Now a few caveats …

While there is absolutely no charge for running a banner, there is also no guarantee that we will put your banner into rotation. The banner area takes up a very large part of the main page and the banners that we choose to put into rotation must fit both our technical and aesthetic needs. We can’t stress this enough — banners that don’t conform to our specs or that don’t convey the kind of instant eye appeal that we need will not be considered. It’s got to be right and it’s got to look GREAT!

The decision on whether or not a banner makes it into rotation is ours and ours alone.

Similarly, if a banner does go into rotation how long it stays in rotation is entirely up to us. Banners with high and consistent click through rates will certainly stay longer than most that register low click through, but that won’t always be the sole consideration.

We will consider only one banner submission per issue, so please give us your best work. We’re going to do our best to spread the banner impressions around as much as possible, so we reserve the right to limit the number of banners any one publisher may have in rotation at any given time. And only one banner per title will ever be in rotation at the same time … so if you have a comic with more than one issue available be sure you highlight the issue you believe to be your best strongest work or perhaps the best entry point to your series.

Featured, Newsline »

IndyPlanet Digital will feature listings by publisher. This is something we’ve never done at IndyPlanet (although we will be implementing the same feature there soon). The listings by publisher will be showcased in two ways — one will be a simple list of publishers which when clicked will show all of a given publisher’s offerings and the second way will be a tab incorporated into the listing of each item. When this tab is clicked the user will see all of the issues available from that publisher without leaving the listing that they were viewing.

To go along with the publisher listing we’ll be allowing publishers to submit a publisher banner graphic. As with our IndyPlanet Digital mainpage banners though we’re going to be very exacting in our requirements and whether or not a submitted banner is actually used at the site will be at our discretion. We’re not going to be as strict about the aesthetics on the publisher banners as we are on the mainpage banners. The standards for a mainpage banner that will be seen by almost every site visitor is understandably different from that of a smaller banner that appears on an interior site page. We are going to demand strict compliance with our specifications however and any banner that doesn’t conform to the specs will not be included. Unlike with the mainpage banners, if your publisher banner is rejected then we’ll let you know why and you’ll be able to make the changes necessary to submit a banner that can be listed.

Here are the specifications — (these can also be seen on sample graphic accompanying this post)
) Your publisher banner MUST be 800 pixels wide by 90 pixels high with NO border.
2) Your publisher banner should consist of a single background image and include the publisher’s logo … and NOTHING else. No slogans, no urls, no creator names, etc. Just a background image and a logo. That’s it.
3) The publisher logo must be at least 24 pixels from the right and left edges of the banner, centered of course is always best.

The uploader for the publisher banner can be found in the “edit profile” section of Ka-Blam User Control Panel.

Newsline »

We’ve been receiving a lot of videos to post at IndyPlanet Digital, but unfortunately we’re having to reject most of them for one reason or another. Let me run down a few of the most common mistakes we’re seeing see that you can insure that your video makes it to the site —

Far and away the biggest problem we’re seeing is the use of copyrighted music in the videos. This is a HUUUUUGE no-no. I understand that you want awesome music in the video, but you can’t use copyrighted music without paying a licensing fee. We absolutely will not run a video with unlicensed music.

The second problem is the inclusion of things that would cause confusion to our site visitors. For example, many of you no doubt created these videos a while back to help you sell copies of your printed comic. I understand that and don’t mind the re-purposing at all. However when a visitor to IndyPlanet Digital sees order instructions on your video, or Diamond re-order codes, or “for more information visit www.mywhatever.com” that doesn’t help them decide to click the “buy it” button. It only muddies the water and makes them wonder whether we’re trying to sell them a digital download or a printed comic. Similarly, we can’t have a big plug in your video for a competing site. (I hope I don’t have to explain that one.)

I hate to make an analogy to movies when comics get so over-compared to movies already, but think of a movie trailer — it tells you the studio it’s from, it teases you with text, video, and music, and other than a release date or a “coming soon” that’s pretty much it. There’s no instructions on how or where you can see it, etc. There’s no extraneous information at all. Your video should follow a similar format — you don’t even have to put a release date or a “coming soon” since the comic is immediately available.

Finally, we’ve had to reject a few videos for content problems. The comic that you’re selling at IndyPlanet Digital does not have to be an all ages comic — however IndyPlanet Digital is an All Ages friendly site. Back to the movie trailer analogy … think of the MPAA notice at the beginning of the trailer. Your comic can be rated “R” … that’s fine. However, your “trailer” must be suitable for all viewers. This means no nudity in the video, no F bombs or other inappropriate language, and no overly graphic violence or disturbing images.

If you’ll just keep those things in mind then your videos will have a much, much higher chance of making it to the site.

Newsline »

Effective immediately, Ka-Blam will print no item containing ANY material under trademark to any person or entity other than the user or publisher actually placing the order WITHOUT written confirmation of a waiver or license from the trademark owner.

What this means is that before we can print any sketchbook or artbook or mini-poster or doujinshi that contains a Marvel character, a DC character — or ANY trademarked character REGARDLESS of ownership — you’ll have to demonstrate to us that you have permission either by license or waiver to use that trademark in your work. There are no exceptions.

This applies to new orders as well as to re-orders of previously printed items.

The following numbers might be of use in obtaining a license to use a trademarked character in your work …

DC Comics Rights and Permissions — 212-636-5946

Marvel Comics Business Inquiries — 212-576-4000

Headline »

It’s been a while since we’ve made any really big changes to the way we operate … but that’s all about to, well, change.

Some of you may have noticed a couple of things we’ve already implemented.    Cardstock covers and maximum page counts on saddle-stitched comics for starters.   We’ve purchased some new in-line finishing equipment that’s going to speed our production up quite a bit (if all goes as planned).  We had expected to already have the equipment in place and operational by now, however there have been some delays at the manufacturer and as of this writing we’re still waiting for delivery.

While the new finisher will make most things go faster and run smoother … it does come with some limitations.   The maximum sheet count that can be folded and stapled is lower as is the maximum weight of the cover stock.  So rather than wait until the equipment arrives, we already implemented those changes by adjusting our maximum interior page counts on saddle stitched comics down to 44 pages and we’ve eliminated the cardstock option for saddle-stitched comics as well.   We’re sorry to have to take this step, but in the long run it really will make things a whole lot better.

For those of you who had previously ordered cardstock covers on your comics by default now those items when re-ordered will come up as standard covers and standard pricing.   For those few of you who had previously ordered comics with more than 44 interior pages you’ve got a couple of different options now.   You can either upgrade to paperback (with a cardstock cover and optional lamination) OR you can take advantage of our new glue-bound comics (with interior page counts from 48 to 64 pages).  Comics with glue binding are similar to paperbacks only the cover stock is not cardstock, but rather our standard comics stock (80 lb gloss text) and there is no lamination option.  The cost is a bit lower than on paperbacks as well.  If you’d like to see one just place a “1″ copy re-order and we’ll get one out to you ASAP.  I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how great they look.

Another change we are VERY excited about is happening at IndyPlanet.com.   It’s not quite ready yet, but it’s reached the point where the implementation is by necessity going to become visible, so we decided we better announce it before it starts to create undue confusion.

We’re going to be merging ComicsMonkey (our direct market distribution site) into IndyPlanet!    This will make IndyPlanet both an online comics shop AND a comics distributor (once the merge is complete ComicsMonkey will become a redundant site, so we’ll be closing it down).    Here’s how the new IndyPlanet will work  … participating publishers can choose to offer multi-copy pricing on the comics and paperbacks they list at IndyPlanet.    The multi-copy price is 25% off of the cover price and will automatically apply whenever anyone orders 5 or more copies of a single item.   This means that ANYONE — not just comic shop owners — can now easily become a comics reseller (without any of the verification or certification required by ComicsMonkey).

To participate in the multi-copy discount program all you’ll need to do is login to your Ka-Blam account, go to your items, click the edit listing button, then check the multi-copy-sales-allowed option.  There’s a automatic process that verifies that your cover price is sufficient to cover both the printing cost and the 25% discount.   For example, if your printing costs are $1.50 per issue and your cover price is $3 then the multi-copy price at IndyPlanet would be $2.25, which means your profit on a regular sale would remain $1.50 per issue, but on a multi-copy sale your profit would be $0.75 per issue.  If, however, the multi-copy price is below the print cost then you’ll need to adjust your cover price upwards in order to participate in the program.

Those of you who have items presently listed at ComicsMonkey will find those items automatically included in the new program at IndyPlanet.  It’s always a good idea to login and double check that your listings and pricings are the way you want them to be,  but you’ll automatically be in the program.   The only differences for you will be 1) that your profit per copy will likely go up –  at ComicsMonkey you got 10% of the cover price, on IndyPlanet multi-copy sales you’ll get the remainder of  your cover price minus the printing costs and the multi-sale discount, which in most cases will be more than 10% of the cover price — and 2) bar codes will now be optional rather than required.   We still recommend the bar code because it makes things so much easier on the reseller who has a Point-of-Sale system in place, but since this program vastly opens up the pool of potential resellers (most of whom probably won’t have a POS system) we’re going to drop the bar code requirement.  Again, recommended but not required.

For those of you who have never participated in our distribution system at ComicsMonkey — this presents a new and easy opportunity to increase your sales, but you won’t have to participate if you don’t want to.   It’s your choice, you can add multi-copy pricing for any or all of your items or you can keep everything just the way it is.   The program is completely optional, but we do highly recommend it.

This is a big change, but one that we think will benefit us all and we’re very excited about it!

Believe it or not … there are still more changes we’ll be announcing soon …