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Hi all!
Yes…Paddington has a burnt bum.
🙂
Hope you enjoyed this week.
I have to say…it was a really rough one for us.
I’m really considering the donate button now…ha ha.
IF…and that’s a big if…I were to do it…
What’s the best way? Does Paypal have it all worked out?
How do you get the access to behind the scenes things?
Any help would be great.
And thanks for the encouragment.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Scott
PayPal has a good, secure, reputation, as far as I can tell… many webcomic artists use it, for the convenience and simplicity of the whole deal…
I want my Paddington medium rare please…
“Wow. Paddington’s got a hot ass!”
Kind of hard to see the damage, though, because of the shade from the trees…
I just hope it’s not too painful for him.
Hmm… do rocks feel?
well paddington, at least we know pokemon didnt lie to us xD
Scott – a pity that it is getting rough for you… Until you go for a donate button (it’s actually not a donation, as many said already, but a patronage; nothing to do with begging!), a couple of questions with regards to your shop:
– do you ship to Europe? How expensive would shipping be?
– What’^s the difference between “Dreamland Chronicles Books 1-3” and “Dreamland chronicles #1-#7”? Is one hardcover and the other softcover? or is also the content different?
Regards, and best wishes for a less tough future!
Aww! Poor Paddington!
On a second not, I swear I will scan the logo talked about a week ago. There’s ton’s of family drama going on right now, but I’ve technically had it done since sunday. If I get the time before monday, it will be right here. I think it was JakesDad who said a logo might be a good idea for a t-shirt. It may need tweaked, I’m no where near perfect. It may be to wordy as well, let me know, I’ll see what I can do without photoshop. The logo goes: Wndsor McCay University Rodents of Unusual Size, We Are the Terror of the Fire Swamp And We Are Not Afraid To Dream.
Maybe i can help there a bit. 🙂
Yes, Scott ships to europe. As a mater of fact i just placed an order with him and received the stuff last week. 🙂 Have a look at the packages offers he got on his page.
As far as i can see it the chronicles got colleted into the ‘Books’ 1-3. Content over all will be the same.
HAH! Called it! Woooooooooooooo!
Haha! All they need to do is rouse the rock giants, and old Nic will be *ahem* toast. I don’t suppose they have a mega-sized tub of aloe vera for paddy?
I only stumbled across this a few days ago and all I can say is OMG! This is one of the best web-comics I’ve come across. I’ve just spent the last couple of days power reading through the entire archive and I love it. I love the writing, I love the artwork and I’m going to really love sitting down with my 3 boys (aged 8, 6 an 3) and having them get just as entranced with your magical world as I have been.
Admittedly I did know I was onto a good thing when I started noticing the Princess Bride references. Princess Bride = All Good
It’s good to know that old Nic can’t burn Paddington, that could be a real advantage in the future
how about offering the deals in your store that you previously offered right before you closed it – the combination deals? i would go for one if you did that now…
I had some bad experiences, like paying a book 20$ (which I do gladly because the history is great and it support the author) and having to pay 30$ in stamps (which I don’t do so gladly because I don’t really want to support post offices specifically). Hence my question was specific: how expesive the postage? Is it more expensive than the books?
I did not see any special deal except the “collector” limited edition. I would prefer a deal like “pay today, get Books 1 to 4 whenever Book 4 is available”, for e.g. 4×19.99$ = 74.99$.
That gives the author an advance payment for his up-front costs of edition; I am not especially in hurry to get the books (I can read them online!), and I get the full collection in one shipment which saves intercontinental postage… Note that make sense only if Scott actually makes some benefit on the books – we knoe how expensive color edition may be.
Cheers…
Ah, Paddington. Such a good dancer, yet his own natural defenses…namely resistance to fire…are taken for granite.
Nya. It’s funny, how Paddington says “my backside” to his back. This tells he is not just made of rock rather than actually is and thinks like a rock. Very nice!
Some weeks ago, when Nic held his monologue, I really considered to leave, because it was really boring with just him in other poses and with big, long speech bubbles. I’d prefer if You would just make one big panel with a huge bubble or a fight of epic proportions, where someone tells teh stuff. (It’s not realistic, but a common method.)
Paddington’s got a pot belly.
Oh no! It’s just like jakesdad said! Paddington’s butt was cleverly hidden behind his massive body! =O
Hey Scott,
Personally I think paypal would be a great idea. I have personally used them in the past from everything from ebay stuff, personal payments and full blown credit card processing. I have a paypal debit card and can easily get at my funds without having to wire them to my bank too so I love the web bank though I know some people have had issues in the past. Though I’d question if those issues were really paypal’s problem or just dealing with a bad seller/customer on paypal etc..
As for a donate button seriously, it’s a great idea. I don’t see it as begging at all, I think most of us here would like to be given the opportunity to support one of our favorite stories than see it fall offline or lose quality of content because of times when “life just sucks” for the artist/author. If you feel like you still need to earn it beyond all this great free content make a monthly wallpaper / sketch or something that you can e-mail anyone who donates to you. Would be a cool bonus anyways. Just some thoughts to consider.
cont..
Sorry lol thinking about this some more… You might also consider making a link “ad” to your printed version of this story and place it under the other ads on the right hand side of this page. I think if people see a picture of the books they’ll be a lot more likely to think about buying them then just seeing the “store” link on the top of the page.
Also back to the picture idea.. Something else that could be done would be to take a few of your existing wallpapers, print them out on photo paper and sell signed copies of them in a paper frame. I think people would be willing to pay $10 for something like that, or even $20 if there was a way to add a personalized message.
Ok lol enough of my ideas. I hope next weeks goes a lot better for you. ^^b
aww charcoal paddy!
Hee. Paddington is a good bit more, um, pear-shaped than the rest of his fellow rock giants. A Rumblebottom family trait, I presume? 😉 Hey Paddington, smudges add character!
I use paypal for ebay, donations and other payments. It’s worked fine for me.
*groan* Oh, the PUN-ishment. =)
While I also support the “donate” button, it is probable that it won’t make a huge difference at the end.
Because if you assume 100’000 daily hits, this makes perhaps 50’000 daily readers (at least 2 hits to go through to the discussion, more if you follow the discussion during the day and reload). Assume that every year 1% of those give an average of 10$ and you come to 5’000$. Don’t know how “generous” the assumption is, but it’s probably more optimistic than conservative.
That’s not the kind of money to support a family for a year, probably not even close to financing the costs of production of the comics.
That means that on the long term you will have anyway to find another solution… and while I hate saying this, that probably means using your incredible artistic talents to make money and hence sacrifice some of your time for other professional activities beyond The Dreamland. That may mean updating only thrice or twice a week… that would be too bad but actually would not change the lifes of your readers as long as we can keep reading the story. Better than stopping completely because you cannot afford to do it longer.
Well, sorry for ranting without any clue about the situation. Best wishes!
Any
Don’t use the current store. It’s through IDW.
I’ll set up the new one soon.
That’s kind of what I’m thinking.
There’s no way the donations could help that much.
But…it may get us through the hard times. I don’t know…
Thank you. And welcome.
As a father of twin boys (7 years old)…I hope your boys enjoy Dreamland as well.
Mine love it…but want me to skip over the “talky parts”.
🙂
I shall definitely do that.
Scott –
I think setting up a donate button would be fine. There are things in this world worthy of support, and making it possible to do so with a few mouseclicks is a good thing. Paypal is the way to go.
Coming from animation. I’m really not EVER going to do more than one…sometimes two word bubbles a panel.
I always hated in comics where two people are fighting…and about 25 word bubbles fill the page. As if all of this dialog is happening in the blink of an eye.
The only reason why it was done this way is because they’re given 22 pages to tell a story.
I’m not.
So while it may seem “boring” on a day to day basis. (trust me…I totally understand that)
It flows much better in book form. When you’re not waiting for the next day.
Just have a bit of patience. Or wait a few weeks and store up the pages.
But I promise…it flows better in bunches.
🙂
*huggles Paddington* Is that a permenent scar or would a bath and a good scrubbing clean him up?
I guess both of us had a pretty bad week then, Scott. I sincerely pray both of us can rise above it.
Well, it’s good to know that Paddington’s alright, if a bit singed. 🙂 That said, I second Alex’s take on it.
As for Paypal, I don’t receive funds using it since I’m not in any kind of web-based business. I’ve made plenty of donations using it though (to comics, charities, or other people). It’s been exceedingly easy for me, and as a payer, I trust it much more than other donation methods. I’m MUCH more likely to give something if I see that I can pay by Paypal. If I can’t…well…I don’t give anything. I hope you put up something like that. I know all of us would love to show at least a fraction of our appreciation for the gift you’ve given us.
Scott – are you saying no one should use the current store to purchase books – or just people in Europe? Tough to know how to help if we don’t have a way to purchase your products. Confused.
The books 1-3, soon 4, are a collection of multiple chapters in a bound paperback form. # 1 – # 7 are more like comic books that collect a single chapter I think.
International shipping is expensive and there isn’t much way around it. It looks like a single book could be packaged in an envelop for $13 or a bulk order will probably be a $42 box. Those are USPS rates that I think the store uses but don’t have an order to test it with. If shipping is a problem Amazon or Borders might have better shipping rates because they ship so much.
I’m afraid I’m gonna have to send you to the PUN-etentiary for that one.
I’m thinking that little kids will enjoy the “yuck” observation!
The books will probably still need to be your main source of income but I think that the donations or other small sales could help to get you a little more income, to help with conventions or getting by between book releases.
Okay I know your having a sticking point on the “Donate” Button so instead make a “Patron” button. We all know the Grand Masters had Patron’s… Besides we get the chance to see you at a Con more often so we can shake your hand tempt you with delightful home made goodies or take you out after the Con closes for the night to get you drunk (if you drink) Plus it will help get more products for you to sell in your store and at the Con…
We all have times in our life where we have our good times and our bad times…I keep thinking what I was told by my Grandpa “This too shall pass” lol he told it to me when I was on top of the world and at the bottom of a self dug mental morass, and anytime I needed the reminder things change life goes on… Enjoy the moment…
Well, at least singeing didn’t turn his Rumblebottem into a Crumblebottem…
Don’t overlook google checkout as well. Not sure if there is a setup fee, but if it’s just a cut then you may as well open up to multiple forms of payment.
If you’re taking suggestions for the name on the button, how about “Payola,” or “Shameless Bribe,” or “Mamma needs new shoes.” 🙂
Maybe Paddington’s new nickname will be “Brickette.”
I agree that it’s a bit hard to tell where the soot starts and the shadows end.
Paddington Sootbutt Rumblebottom. Thanks Scott, I’ll be laughing myself silly all weekend on that one.
No. Everyone should wait until I put up the new one.
I’ve seen no money from that store…or IDW to date.
So direct sales will definitely help.
Just give me a couple weeks.
What a pungent reply
If you do make a donate button, expect for the cash to ROLL IN AT RAPID SPEED. As in a guy I knew on youtube did it so he could fix his comp, he had about 10000 watchers, he got about 1000 bucks in two days…
I was actually going to ask about the IDW thing. With the app for my iPhone, if I purchase chapters 1-4, do you see any of that money, or does that go to a different company and you just get royalties (which I suppose still help, though not as directly)?
I don’t know if you saw what I posted before, but is Amazon a good place to buy your comics as far as you getting money from it, or should we just wait for you to open up your new online store so that you see the money more directly? I still do like the idea of someone organizing a book event on Amazon to see your book make it’s up the Amazon best sellers-list, but not sure if that helps you to see financial results more quickly.
Trust me- any money that you can sack away will help you through the harder times. Even if you only get $5000 a year from patronage, that’s $5000 a year you wouldn’t have otherwise.
I’ll be checking back later today to see if you had time to respond to my question or not. I work until like 9 our time.
I marble at the horrible puns. =P Or maybe I should stop the sarcasm and just be gneiss.
Awww…poor Paddington got his cheeks scorched. What a good guy!
Is Alex touching Paddy’s butt?
What? ‘)
Totally go with PayPal. I have a donate button on my music website (linked), and while I don’t get a lot of money through that, I get a decent amount through selling my music. People like to support their favorite artists, whether they be graphical or musical, and the PayPal donate button makes it really easy to toss a few dollars towards them. I’ll probably throw a small (very small…I’m a very poor college student) sum your way if you get a donate button set up on this site. 🙂
They TELL me I’ll see money from the iphone, psp, xbox, amazon, etc.
But I’ve not yet.
Direct is the best way to go.
I’ll get the store working this weekend if I can.
A little thought to help donations. If you had a certain amount of money that had to be covered each month, whatever exceeded this amount could go to charity. Any comments on that?
Alex, don’t poke it! It probably hurts. And thank him properly!
As far as monetizing your comic goes (and I know that’s a stupid crappy business way of putting it), you may want to take a look at another comic for an example, in this instance Sluggy Freelance (http://www.sluggy.com). He’s got this whole “Defenders of the Nifty” thing going where for an annual fee members can get extra comics, access to a private forum and a special blog just for them…and yet there’s still tons of content available for non-subscribers. To me it seems like a great way to generate some extra cash without having to “beg”. I know I’d sign up in a cold minute.
Its getting warmer, kids are getting older, Yard Sale! 🙂 Except for the holiday decorations, stuff thats been sitting around in boxes not being used or havnt been used in years or have never been opened or worn, Sell it. If it all doesnt sell, and theres enough left, hold another one later and whatever is left over give to charity and now you have a tax write off 🙂
I used to have a paypal account but I ended up having to close it. A few months later I found out they were still charging my bank account the monthly fee for paypal. Many phone calls, headaches and finally threatening to sue them they stopped charging my account. Kept telling me that I didnt have an account open and they werent billing me. That was a few years ago. I just use one of those pay per visa type cards for online stuff now and only put enough on for my purchase.
A donate button on the site would be a good idea. You probably wont make enough off of donations by themselves to support a family but it will help out. Another way that might help is setting up a booth at the local farmers market or a craft fair. Most are only about $10 for the day. Another venue you could sell stuff at are hamfests. People show up with all kinds of stuff to sell ive seen everything from touch lamps to one of those stainless steel 2 tubs kitchen sinks.
Sorry if I’m repeating anything here. I don’t have time to read all the comments at the moment, but if I don’t respond now I’ll probably forget! I agree completely that there is nothing wrong w/ a donation button. You are providing a free service for people to enjoy. There is nothing wrong with allowing people to reward you for it. Paypal does have a method, though I don’t know how it works. I would suggest you do something like the Foglio’s do at Girl Genius. They create incentive wallpapers on a monthly (or two if they are really busy!) basis. It is a thank you gift for donating. You see a small image of the wallpaper on the main page, and a slightly larger one if you click on the donation link. Once someone makes a donation, they are redirected to a page that gives them access to the high-res image. To quote Kaja, that way it doesn’t feel so much like “standing on the street corner with a cardboard sign”. 🙂 Personally, I try to donate a little something each month to the people like you who put so much effort into their storyline. It may not be a lot, but hopefully it would add up if a number of people did it.
Yippeeee. Just checked the bookstores today. All sold out so ordered all of them and preordered book 4. Now just have to wait for them to get their shipments. Better then dealing with the cross border duties myself on delivery. And pooched on name of char from other fave webcomic, it Flora not Laura. I’m so bad with names, even with virtual peeps :}
We’ve worked out some good shipping. I don’t think it’s THAT much. Especially if you buy all the books at once.
Just please wait until I get the store up. THe current one is at IDW…and it’s not the right one.
I’ll announce the new one once it’s up.
Hey Sleel.
Where did you buy the books from?
I haven’t put the new bookstore up.
Yes, Alex. That’s the perfect way to thank Paddington for saving your girlfriend’s life. Poke him in the butt and say “Yuck.”
Great idea.
If I can create the extra content…I definitely will do that.
poor paddington. but not to worry, he;s made of rock, so he is rough. lol.
yeah, usually paypal is the best way to go for donations, mostly because it is easy to do. that is all i know.
Other comics I’ve followed I’ve been thoroughly surprised by alternately how much revenue one will generate, and how little another will get. It can vary widely one month to the next, some get a lot some barely any.
And no, I’m not sure where the disparity lies. But you put the button up and I think you’ll be surprised by the result either way.
No. You gotta be tuff or they’ll keep shale-ing out harassment.
Amazon.
Sounds like this is a more important issue than a donate button. I’d cut out the middle man if possible, the fact that people are talking about buying stuff and you haven’t seen any of the money is worrying. Most of the other successful comics I’ve read over the years such as pvponline.com or megatokyo.com had a personal store going long before they gave the operation over to a third party to handle the sheer quantity of sales. Until you have sleepless nights because you are boxing up so many books to sell you probably should consider handling the whole thing yourself.
* Talking about the donate button again though.. To sum up my thoughts from above, I agree with the books etc.. being your main source of income. But I think a donate button is pretty much standard, 5k may not support a family but that’s what the books are for right, on the other hand I wouldn’t scoff 5k if you could pull that off, or even 1k. That is easily one – three months home payment plus utilities, a serious medical emergency or even a used car.
Welcome, fellow Dreamer!
Nicodemus: “I can’t burn the rock giants? Inconceivable!”
Alexander (in a Spanish accent): “I do not think that word means what you think it means … ”
😉
P.S. Don’t forget to VOTE!
Yeah, you never can tell how you’ll fare in the quartz of public opinion. (I better quit there; if I don’t I’ll lignite someone else’s imagination, and they’ll be digging out more puns in the same vein … )
Well, Scott, I’ve never used a “Donate” button, but I’m pretty handy with a Google search and have had a lot of practice digging around other people’s web sites for info. It looks like PayPal has some easy options for setting up this service:
https://merchant.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?&cmd=_render-content&content_ID=merchant/wp_standard#tab01Item3_list
As far as I can tell, there are no setup or monthly fees. There are transaction fees, but they seem pretty reasonable. (And that way, you only pay a portion of what you get, so you know you’ll never get upside down, with the fees outweighing the income.)
There’s also a related article on Experts Exchange that you may find useful: http://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/Other/Miscellaneous/How-to-Get-Money-via-PayPal-in-almost-One-Click.html?sfQueryTermInfo=1+30+donat
Hope this helps!
Hmm … my comment is awaiting moderation. I keep forgetting that more than one hyperlink makes your spam filters twitchy …
😉
1) I anxiously await, then. I actually have money now to get purchasing some gifts.
2) Sounds like there are some royalty issues…. I may purchase them just so that you know they owe you something to make sure you get paid. 😀
Yeah- I saw that Amazon has book 4 ready for pre-order. Hence, my talk about making an actual event out of the release date to get as many people to buy it there as possible, so it will raise the book to Best Seller’s List.
*to buy it there on that particular day
Scott, do you want someone to help you organize a release date mass purchase idea for Amazon?
Nah. Remember what Scott said earlier? He’s been promised revenue from the old store, Amazon and others, but HAS YET TO SEE ANY OF IT.
I suggest waiting for his new store to go online and getting it directly from him.
See above. Scott would like people to buy directly from him. Not from Amazon.
well…now paddy and the princess has somethin in commion… theyre rilly rilly hawt
The two options people mentioned (Paypal and Google Checkout) are both easy to use; I don’t know if the later one accepts donations.
One site (Erfworld) has a subscription model that works nicely. You can pay an annual (or monthly) fee, and the money is credited towards their store. That way they have a steady monthly/annual income stream and the people donating are really just giving an advance for store purchases down the line. (Those patrons also get the site ad-free.)
Hm…that’s pretty cool.
I just got a picture in my head of Paddington sitting on top of Nicodemus, considering he seems to be more or less immune to the infamous dragon ‘breath of death’
PayPal (in my opinion) is far easier to setup for donation/patriot/fri-itanz-plx button. Getting a PayPal account is very easy too. Takes little over 24-hours to 3 business days to get (depending on your bank speed and when you signed up).
Sadly, though, I do not deal with ads as they can be too intrusive on a person (I have, however, found an add on here that I did like when I was remotely connecting to my work’s pc and forgot what web browser I was on).
I do believe in supporting the artist or group and would gladly be willing to donate money when possible (not too much into buying comic books anymore after having over 100 of them destroyed by rodents).
If Amazon is giving you problems when selling your comics, you might want to try this site: Ookoodook I’ve seen another popular webcomic sell off of there, maybe you can multisource to there as well.
Just wanted to comment about the ‘behind the scene’ things with PayPal. Normally it’s all done via your PayPal transaction section. You can view them at any time. PayPal even offers a donation button generator Here. It’s pretty much simple and easy to follow and to use.
Or a college fund. Worthy cause if I ever heard of one.
HA!
Coles Bookstore, up here in Canada. Winnipeg to be specifically. Don’t really like buying online. Got burned first time I did, only reason it wasn’t worse is they didn’t get the exp date, but had to cancel cards and all that bull anyway. Also dun like getting hit with custom fees when the package gets to the door. Hope that way you still get your resids. If not I got no probs shooting ya some more via paypal when ya get the donate/patron button up. Hell, had the account for years but aint used it for anything so you would end up being my paypal cherry as well. Saw while makig the order there is a Felicity fig, prob gonna snag that at some point too. Less then a week since I stumbled on ya and I’m hooked worse then crack.
At first I thought these puns were fine, but I think now I’m becoming jaded; If you want to keep my attention, you may have to seek other quarry. 😉
Perhaps we just need to take a boulder approach …
😉
My, what an igneous notion.
Paddingcoal!
I like that Paddy is the smallest person in this group. He has always been so huge in comparison, and now he looks like the little guy… A great turnaround!
This line of discussion is utter schist, the lot of you.
Kids, let this be a lesson on why you surround camp fires with rocks.