Andrew Grossman: Publishing Online

Cartoon Branding

-Andrew Grossman

April 22, 2009

The online sales culture for content promises to radically change the relationship

between contract cartoonists and their home magazines/websites. Specifically,

the low expense of publishing and drop shipping books through print on demand,

rather than risking print runs upfront that may not sell, makes it affordable for an

individual cartoonist with a substantial fan following to be his/her own publisher.

Logically, the same capacity for matching production runs directly to orders will be

available for the sale of cartoon t-shirts, tote bags, calendars and other products.

25 years ago the leading magazines in the country that included cartoon content were

National Lampoon, Playboy and The New Yorker. National Lampoon ceased publication

in 1998, but the other two magazines continue to flourish in their hard copy editions:

Playboy reports a worldwide circulation of 6.3 million as of October 2008; the New Yorker

reports that their circulation is over a million, and has increased an average of 3%

annually over the last five years.

The power of the Playboy and New Yorker brand name has always added lustre to the

reputations of their contract cartoonists. Eldon Dedini, Gahan Wilson and Shel

Silverstein based much of their fame on their Playboy presence, and a large number of

outstanding cartoonists, such as Charles Addams, Charles Barsotti, Roz Chast and

George Booth followed similar career arcs through the New Yorker's pages.

The question now is: once a cartoonist has built a fan following through association

with the big two magazines, do they still need the active connection, or can they, like

movie stars, become their own producer and make a much heftier share of the sales profits.

Each magazine has established a sizable online presence. Playboy's attempt to avoid

cannibalizing their hard copy sales has come through a strategy of refusing to allow

fully nude photos and videos unless viewers subscribe to the Cyber Club, which

costs as little as $7.95 per month. Text content, such as the famous Playboy Interviews,

is available in its entirety without an online subscription, and cartoons can be

viewed for free in a slide show format. What this suggests, of course, is that in the

online world, Playboy assumes their soft porn pictorials have more value than

their other content.

The New Yorker goes even farther in offering free content online. Virtually the entire

content of the current issue is available for free. Also, by signing up for an online account,

the viewer has free access to much of the New Yorker archives going back to 1925.

For a small fee the viewer can have full access. Product sales of New Yorker cartoons

are offered through their cartoon store at CartoonBank.com. Revenue is split between

the New Yorker and the individual cartoonist, but the prime online revenue that really

counts to Conde Nast, the New Yorker's publisher, is ad sales, and subscriptions to

the hard copy magazine, as well as to other CN titles, such as GQ, Gourmet and Vanity Fair.

There would be a price to pay if a contract cartoonist broke away from the New Yorker's

sales engine in favor of selling through their own store, but would the price be economic?

Contracts can be renegotiated, or one party can choose not to re-up. Does Roz Chast need

the New Yorker at this point in her career, or does the market value of her work now depend

solely on her brand name?

This column is part of a larger article. To receive the full article, contact:

andrew@andrewgrossman.net

Category: Cartoon Income, Online Sales

The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached

or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Andrew Grossman.

He can be contacted through the All Content Network at: andrew@andrewgrossman.net

Creatives Fight to Survive

-Andrew Grossman

April 8, 2009

The fight against unauthorized use of copyrighted content on the Web is not merely being taken up by large media outlets such as AP, which on Monday announced that they will pursue copyright infringement suits against web sites that use work from AP without permission. Individual content creators are also part of this life and death struggle for payment and control of how and where their content is used. Professional writers, journalists, columnists, cartoonists, illustrators, photographers and film makers are on the front line of this battle. What is at stake is their capacity to make a living from their creative work. In other words, their careers.

In the Old Media, freelance creatives in print media sold their work to magazines and newspapers. Some would eventually sign contracts with media companies such as United Media and King Features to distribute their work in return for splitting the profits. Others were able to forge successful careers by representing their interests directly in sales to print media. That success has now been made inestimably more difficult by the advent of the internet.

At first, when the internet was young, the sale of rights was made in a package-the primary rights, those that would allow media to publish the content in hardcopy editions, were what the publication was purchasing. Subsidiary rights, for online publication, were considered too minor to charge additional money for. Print media certainly treated online rights this way, since there was no prospect of generating additional revenue from online editions.

As the internet has matured, and as hardcopy publishing is moving rapidly toward near extinction, the online rights are now the primary reason for purchase. Print publication has become the subsidiary sale. That means that for profit creatives have been sucked into surviving in the internet world, and that means that individuals face the same daunting task as media companies-how do we make money in this new form? What complicates the formula is the tradition of the internet, back to the pre-dawn of web

history, for providing an open source culture. Open source essentially means that everyone shares and shares alike, no money changes hands.

Battling this online model is now the primary and formidable task of media and its content providers. The enemy comes in many forms: amateur artists who 'are just delighted to be published on the web'; bloggers who have never expected to be paid, since most of them approach their work as non-information oriented diarists; savvy creatives who have assumed that offering free content online will swell the audience for their work and thus make offline sales more likely; overseas creatives who look

at the internet as a chance to break into the American market.

They are all making one fundamental mistake-they do not realize that the internet will soon be the only surviving content delivery system. There will be no other forum in which to sell content. It must happen online or not happen at all. Given these parameters, the imperative of the new model has changed how to conduct a creative career: it is no longer of paramount importance whether the content is of highest quality (although quality is still a factor in become a professional). All that matters is name branding. All that matters is strengthening the perceived value of what you present electronically.

Category: Copyright Laws, Article Income, Cartoon Income

The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached

or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Andrew Grossman.

He can be contacted through the All Content Network at: andrew@andrewgrossman.net