So your comic is finished, it's beautifully written with gorgeous art and a fantastic eye-catching cover. What's next? Well, you have two choices – either you can go straight to a printer and get a couple of hundred copies knocked out to sell through your website and at conventions. Or, alternatively, you could hold fire on the printing and approach Diamond about getting your comic distributed to direct market stores all over the UK, ROI and North America. If it’s your first attempt at publishing a comic, it might be an idea to wait a while before approaching Diamond. That isn’t to denigrate your efforts but, let’s be honest, your first attempt isn’t going to be anywhere near as good as, say, the fourth or fifth books you publish. In 2002, I sent Diamond the first book I ever wrote and published – Devilchild Volume I: Hell Is Round The Corner – and they rejected it. Back then I was a bit upset but now I can see that they were absolutely right; my comics needed to improve in every area before it would be good enough to sit on the shelves alongside books by actual professional writers and artists.

As hinted above, it isn’t a good idea to get your comic printed before you approach Diamond. Why? Well, if Diamond accepts your book, and retail orders are decent, chances are you’re going to have to go back to your printer for a second print run and, being a tiny self-publisher, that’s the kind of profligacy you could probably do without. It’s better to produce a good quality “dummy” of your book (on nice paper in a decent folder) and send that to Diamond instead. Trust me, it won’t put them off. Before going any further, a few things you should know about Diamond. First, they’re going to take 50 per cent of your cover price – the most recent book I had solicited through them was a one-shot title called Blood Psi, which sold for $3.50/£2.20. That meant Diamond took $1.75/£1.10 on every copy ordered by a retailer. I’ve heard indie publishers whine about the 50/50 thing but Diamond are not your mates and they’re not a charity – they are a business that wants to make money from selling your comic into stores. That’s capitalism! And it isn’t like you get nothing back from Diamond in return. I don’t know about you but where else are you going to be able to sell hundreds or thousands of your books in one hit? And if your answer to that question is “Through our website and at conventions” then your experience of both is vastly different to mine.

Secondly, once a retailer has ordered your book through Diamond that, as far as you are concerned, is a firm sale for which you will definitely receive your 50 per cent of the cover price. Somewhere down the line you aren’t going to get a letter or email saying, “Sorry mate, but your comic only sold three copies of the 1500 retailers ordered. They all want their money back.” Thirdly, from January 2008, Diamond insists all publishers – even tiny little ones like me – use US barcodes on their comics. There seems to have been a lot of negativity about this move – especially in this article:

www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=pd&article=2892 – but for the life of me I can’t really see what all the fuss is about. Yes, it’s going to add a few quid to your publishing costs but seeing as how individual barcodes are available on the net for around £40 a time I can’t see it putting anyone out of business. Your printer might charge you a few extra quid to make up the barcode but again we’re really not talking a lot of cash here.

I don’t want to dwell too much on the barcode situation but there’s a copy of the original letter Diamond sent out to vendors (that’s publishers to you and I) informing them of the change here: http://scottking.info/blog/2007/09/27/barcode-details/ . It’s worth reading because in it Diamond explains why the move is necessary and also provides details of a few websites from which you can buy official UPC barcodes for your books.

Anyway, back to your dummy. Send two copies of it to Diamond UK. One will be assessed by someone from the UK branch, the other will be sent on to the States to be raked over by the five members of Diamond’s Comics Purchasing Team and the editor of Previews. (At the time of writing Diamond UK is about to undergo a big change – the company is moving its accounts and purchasing departments from London to Warrington. Also, the guy responsible for UK indie books – Ben Cornish – is handing the role over to someone else. I’ll update all the relevant information in my next column). Along with the dummies send a letter including your name, address and email. There’s no point rattling on at great length about your book in the letter. Describing how great it is will cut no ice at all. Just list all the information you need to convey about your title in the form of a solicitation. Here’s what mine for Blood Psi looked like…

BLOOD PSI (one-shot) Writer: Andy Winter Artist: Keith Burns Cover: Declan Shalvey Published 2007 32 pages, US format, saddle-stitched, colour cover + back cover, black and white interior. Retail price £2.20/$3.50

A vampire murder mystery set in gothic London. When her best friend in the capital’s close-knit vamp community is slaughtered, Ruby vows to track down the killer – but the hunt may just unearth painful memories from Ruby’s human past she hoped would remain buried forever.

Basically, you’re just telling them everything they need to know about your title’s format and price. By the way, the term “saddle-stitched” is just a fancy way of saying “it has staples in it”. A month or two will pass and then you’ll receive a yay or nay from Diamond. If the answer’s “thanks but no thanks”, it’s back to the drawing board. If the answer’s more positive that’s when the hard work begins. Diamond will tell you when the book is going to appear in Previews – usually a month or so after they’ve accepted your solicitation. You then need to do as much as possible to get retailers to order it. A few of your options...

1: You could place an ad in the Previews catalogue itself. These are not cheap – even a half-page black and white ad is going to cost you around £400 (maybe a bit less the exchange rate being what it is at the moment).

Taking out an ad might be necessary for one good reason: there are so many comics and graphic novels out there from so many different companies that your “product” is in danger of being swamped. You need something to give you an advantage over other guys in a similar position to you; something that might just catch the eye of a retailer flicking through Previews looking to round out his order with a few untried indie books. Your ad can achieve this in two ways. Firstly, you could use some new art in the ad (i.e. not the cover, a colour version of which will be featured very close to your ad anyway) to really ram home exactly what your book is about. Secondly, approach a couple of comic professionals, give them a copy of your book and ask if they’d mind providing you with a glowing testimonial to use for publicity purposes. You’d be surprised by how many are only too happy to help.

2: Use your brand manager. When your book is accepted by Diamond a brand manager is appointed to stay in touch with you and field any questions or problems you might have. Mine on Blood Psi gave me some good suggestions on how I could publicise the book and also made sure it was given one of those nice “SPOTLIGHT ON” boxes when the solicitation appeared in Previews.

The brand manager is also your go-to guy for details on the range of other services Diamond offer, such as market research and targeted messaging. Of course, neither of these services comes cheap but you can find out more about them here: http://vendor.diamondcomics.com/public/.

3: Contact retailers direct by phone, email or post. The phone and mail options can be very expensive; last time I checked it was 60p to send a single postcard to the States. With Blood Psi, I sent out 200 postcards and probably reached less than half of the indie-friendly retailers on this list: www.indyworld.com/comics/stores.html

For the contact details of UK stores, check out any issue of Comics International which always carries comprehensive listings. A few weeks before Previews comes out your brand manager will notify you of your product’s order number (Blood Psi’s was MAY073621). The order number will make ordering your title easier for retailers so, if possible, ensure it is prominently displayed on all publicity material you send out.

4: Set-up a website dedicated to your book, and make sure its url is clearly visible in your Previews ad and/or on any of the material you send out to retailers. The most important thing your website should have is a downloadable preview of your book – between five and ten pages with fully completed art and lettering.

5: Publicise your book immediately. Don’t hang around until a couple of weeks before your comic is due to hit the shelves, do it before your solicitation even appears in Previews. Retailers will want to see that you’re doing everything you can to help sales of your book and that’s likely to encourage them to order more copies.

There are loads of comics-related websites and magazines out there. Sure, not all of them will feature you but plenty will – cast your net far and wide and get as many reviews, previews, interviews and news stories pertaining to your book as you can.

Once Operation: Inform All Retailers is completed you then have to wait for your order numbers to arrive – it can take several weeks and is the part of the process I find most nerve-wracking. To keep Diamond happy what you’re aiming for is a minimum of 500 orders generating a minimum of $1500 (£750) of business for them. It sounds a lot but as respected US retailer Brian Hibbs says, “If you can’t generate orders for 500 copies of a $2.95 comic in Previews, then you almost certainly shouldn’t be publishing comics in the first place.” Harsh but true.

Andy Winter has been publishing his own comics since 2002 and is the writer of the Eagle Award-winning Hero Killers. Check out his regularly updated workblog here: www.winterworkblog.blogspot.com