This is the first in a series of monthly editorial pieces by yours truly. Firstly, last month saw the introduction of two new webcomics for IndieReview, which will be updated regularly (bi-weekly for Shaun Spalding's strip, and monthly for Leonie O'Moore's strip), and we introduced Vicki Paull's bi-weekly column on webcomics. All of these have been great additions to the site, and we'll be planning on adding more webcomic content all the time. If you want to submit your webcomic, we have a new button set-up in the Submit Content area of the website.

Now, onto my main subject this month, and it's about getting indie books sold. My current view is that many indie creators are going about things the wrong way in regards getting their books in shops and seen by a bigger audience. It's always great to get something you've spent many hours and hours of hard work on getting into a comic shop, but is that really the best option for most indie creators?

The mainstream in comics (superheroes) is a niche outside of comics, in the larger world of fiction and storytelling, and the kinds of things we call small press here are really the mainstream there. Creators getting their comics into comic book shops is brilliant, and it gives a wider readership that normal, but for most of the indie guys it's really one of the worst options to go for.

The comic book shop. A haven for those fans who love to discuss the long and convoluted histories of their favourite tights-wearing hero, but for anyone not up to date on their superhero histories (or, God forbid, someone who has no idea at all) the comic book shop is a daunting place. The image you'll get if you ask a standard person on the street is a geeky little outlet, and really that's what it is. Nothing against comic book shops, they are great places for comic fans, but for your small presser, this isn't how you're going to sell your books well. Your selling your mainstream books and stories to the niche supermarket fans, and overall it won't work out, which is probably why indie comics are called "small press", we're the niche in that market.

Ideally, where the books are going to sell is a book store, or on magazine shelves. Magazine shelves pose a different problem, however. You need huge print runs, a regular schedule, and many things that can't be met by your average indie comics creator. Which leaves the option of standard bookshops (or the book department of a shop). It may sound strange, but this is where your market really is, but to enter it a lot of things would have to change. This is your standard mainstream market, and it's people outside of comics who will be there to buy your books (look at Oli Smith & Co's London Underground Comics to see how effective this is).

To effectively use the bookshop as the outlet to sell your wares, the very nature of creating your comics would have to change, and this is probably where the biggest problem will occur. You won't sell well releasing regular short comics to bookshops, as they just won't take them, and it would be far too expensive. The idea would be to sell volumes of stories, either from the same creator or an anthology type project. Give it an ISBN, use a quality printer and create a nice looking comic book. It will take longer to create from the larger size, but the cover price can then be higher from the quality, and the fact these aren't your comic fans buying a 24 page comic for £2.50 and looking at a black and white 12 page comic with a price of £1.50.

Which brings me to the end of this editorial. I've left it open here, as there's numerous good and bad points I could keep talking about for days. It's a break from the traditional way of creating comics, and maybe it goes away from the point in the first place: that we do this for fun and not always for a profit. Or it could just be that the indie scene has got used to not making a profit, and again to bring up Oli Smith and his London Underground Comics, he's shown money can be made in this untouched market. If we think outside of the comics bubble, we're the mainstream here, the stories that people enjoy in other mediums are being created in comics all the time by the indie scene, and the people who ideally would eat these up have never heard of them.

In a few months I'm going to be running an online panel with a set of indie comics creators from the UK. I'll be giving more information nearer the time, but this topic is one of the subjects we'll be discussing as part of the panel. The past few years have shown a push and increase in the knowledge of the UK indie comics scene, and it's time to help push it further. As editor of this website and a big fan of this market, I've seen comics that could sell as easily as Superman does to comic fans, but to your mainstream book reader. And that's a much bigger market.

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