So after some consideration I have drop the price of membership to 9.50 initially and 4.50 per month. The logic was when you first join you get access to over 12 wallpapers and two (soon to be three) donation comics. After the first month all you get is one wallpaper a month and larger version of the comic so you get a discount for loyalty.
$4.50 is also my break even point with the current membership levels. If I get no increases in membership I will still just be able to just pay for the comic. I will be very nervous and Studio Boom will be unhappy about the pay cut but Exiern won’t collapse into financial ruin.
So I will try this out for a month or two. If I am able to maintain or surpass the same revenue levels I have now I’ll keep the new rate. Otherwise I will go back to the old membership level. Of course people who buy membership at this rate will lock it in as long as they are a member.
Which brings me to my final point; existing members will still pay the $10. There was no way to lower a price through the CCBill system as far as I can find. So if you are an existing member I would suggest canceling your membership and locking in the new one. I wish there was some way to change it automatically but I can’t. Drop me an email if you have any problems with this.
Two additions for members:
1) To cancel your membership go to http://www.ccbill.com and click on the cancel subscription button in the middle of the page. Your current subscription should run out it's month and then you can grab the new rate.
2) To get a refund or any other issues email me at Drowemos@yahoo.com
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
How did we get here (part 2)
Last post I talk about the money needs of Exiern, now I am going to talk about why there is a member’s area. You see personally I don’t like member’s areas. They smack of elitism and an implied connection between money and value. A reader that gives money is no more valuable than a reader doesn’t give, in my opinion. I still think it is pretty amazing that people bother to stop by.
So why do I have a members area if I have a certain amount of antipathy towards them. For that we need to talk about a little history:
As you know Exiern was originally draw by myself. After going on a break I got Studio Boom to replace me as the art for the comic and vastly improved the art. After the hiatus I put it to the readers we could go back to my art or if I received enough donations we could keep on Studio Boom indefinitely.
Well the threat worked sort of. The first month Exeirn did not receive enough to fully pay Studio Boom but it was close enough. Each month the donations got a little better. I tried to reward the donators with a wallpaper or a commissioned comic as a small thank you for their support.
Then I released the R-rated “Cheating Death” comic. And profits shot through the rough. I made $400 that month when in the previous month I only made about $190. Wow I though. People really like these mini comics. So I commission a second one “Moral Dilemma”. That one was a tremendous flop. The difference? No nudity in “Moral Dilemma”. It seems people on the internet liked pictures of naked women. Who knew?
Well after that I released the R-rated transformation comic. That was the most successful month the comic ever had. $1800 in paypal donations were received. It was enough to recoup my loses and start work on a second comic “Legacy” that will be going live soon.
However the popularity of that comic was both a blessing and a curse. You see one of my readers warned me that paypal had changed their rules and it was now illegal to use paypal to pay for adult digital material. If there was a physical item being transferred that was ok but if the product was purely digital PayPal would revoke your account.
Well that left me with a dilemma. The R-rated material was paying for the site but at the same time there was a very real risk that the R-rated material could shut me down. I send a inquire to PayPal about this issue but was never able to get a straight answer from them. I still find odd that you can buy the most perverted sex toys with PayPal but you can purchase nude pictures.
Rather than getting my PayPal account revoked I looked around for a different payment method. Google along with a number of other gateways has the same restrictions as PayPal. The only payment method I found that would allow the transfer of “adult digital matieral” was the company CCBill.
CCBill had some problems. First the processing fee they charged was very high, appr. 20% of all transfers. And the second problem is they only allowed a membership system for payment. You could not get an account with them unless you have a member’s area of your website. The gateway was really set up for adult websites not exactly what I was doing but lacking an in-between choice I set up an account with them.
So far the economics has worked out. Donations for the tame wallpapers bring in about $150 per month were the membership system even with the fees brings in about $650 per month. But still I don’t like having a member’s area but it is a necessity if I want to have R-rated material, which for the time being is a necessity in its own right.
When I asked for advice on how to improve the member’s area one piece of advice I got frequently was to have a members only comic, an on-going story that only the members could see. I will just not do that, it goes against my every belive in what a webcomic should be. I appreciate all the support the member give me in making this comic but that is what they are doing supporting the main comic. I try to give the members as many extras as possible but as full blown stories go I could not stand locking them away in a member’s area.
As suggested the members area could be more accurately named “The people helping to pay for the main comic” area, but where is the poetry in that. The member’s area is a way to keep Studio Boom on as the artist and ultimately get more comic created per month. You will never truly get your money’s worth in a member’s area. Membership can be thought of more along the PBS model. You get a totebag for your membership but the real value is the program continues to operate.
On a side note did you ever notice how pbs and organizes crime use the same funding model.
In short we have a members area because PayPal won’t let me sell R-rated material and I need to sell R-rated material to pay the bills. Perhaps one day the comic will have a readership high enough to do without the need of a members area but for the time be.
So why do I have a members area if I have a certain amount of antipathy towards them. For that we need to talk about a little history:
As you know Exiern was originally draw by myself. After going on a break I got Studio Boom to replace me as the art for the comic and vastly improved the art. After the hiatus I put it to the readers we could go back to my art or if I received enough donations we could keep on Studio Boom indefinitely.
Well the threat worked sort of. The first month Exeirn did not receive enough to fully pay Studio Boom but it was close enough. Each month the donations got a little better. I tried to reward the donators with a wallpaper or a commissioned comic as a small thank you for their support.
Then I released the R-rated “Cheating Death” comic. And profits shot through the rough. I made $400 that month when in the previous month I only made about $190. Wow I though. People really like these mini comics. So I commission a second one “Moral Dilemma”. That one was a tremendous flop. The difference? No nudity in “Moral Dilemma”. It seems people on the internet liked pictures of naked women. Who knew?
Well after that I released the R-rated transformation comic. That was the most successful month the comic ever had. $1800 in paypal donations were received. It was enough to recoup my loses and start work on a second comic “Legacy” that will be going live soon.
However the popularity of that comic was both a blessing and a curse. You see one of my readers warned me that paypal had changed their rules and it was now illegal to use paypal to pay for adult digital material. If there was a physical item being transferred that was ok but if the product was purely digital PayPal would revoke your account.
Well that left me with a dilemma. The R-rated material was paying for the site but at the same time there was a very real risk that the R-rated material could shut me down. I send a inquire to PayPal about this issue but was never able to get a straight answer from them. I still find odd that you can buy the most perverted sex toys with PayPal but you can purchase nude pictures.
Rather than getting my PayPal account revoked I looked around for a different payment method. Google along with a number of other gateways has the same restrictions as PayPal. The only payment method I found that would allow the transfer of “adult digital matieral” was the company CCBill.
CCBill had some problems. First the processing fee they charged was very high, appr. 20% of all transfers. And the second problem is they only allowed a membership system for payment. You could not get an account with them unless you have a member’s area of your website. The gateway was really set up for adult websites not exactly what I was doing but lacking an in-between choice I set up an account with them.
So far the economics has worked out. Donations for the tame wallpapers bring in about $150 per month were the membership system even with the fees brings in about $650 per month. But still I don’t like having a member’s area but it is a necessity if I want to have R-rated material, which for the time being is a necessity in its own right.
When I asked for advice on how to improve the member’s area one piece of advice I got frequently was to have a members only comic, an on-going story that only the members could see. I will just not do that, it goes against my every belive in what a webcomic should be. I appreciate all the support the member give me in making this comic but that is what they are doing supporting the main comic. I try to give the members as many extras as possible but as full blown stories go I could not stand locking them away in a member’s area.
As suggested the members area could be more accurately named “The people helping to pay for the main comic” area, but where is the poetry in that. The member’s area is a way to keep Studio Boom on as the artist and ultimately get more comic created per month. You will never truly get your money’s worth in a member’s area. Membership can be thought of more along the PBS model. You get a totebag for your membership but the real value is the program continues to operate.
I mean it’s an awfully nice webcomic you got here. It would be a shame if something happened to it. I’m just saying in the webcomic industry, hiatuses happen all the time. One second a comic is going along minding its own business, and then BOOM 3 months of crappy filler art. It would be an awful shame if that were to happen to Exiern here. Perhaps you should buy a membership. You know for "protection".
On a side note did you ever notice how pbs and organizes crime use the same funding model.
In short we have a members area because PayPal won’t let me sell R-rated material and I need to sell R-rated material to pay the bills. Perhaps one day the comic will have a readership high enough to do without the need of a members area but for the time be.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
How did we get here (part 1)
Well there have some questions about how the money given to Exiern works. So I thought I would go through it in excruciation detail.
The facts:
Half of all money collected contractually goes to Studio Boom. So the website takes in $600 I am only able to spend $300 of it.
What do I do with the money I collect? Well it takes $135 per month to run this comic. That is the cost of hosting plus commissioning Studio Boom to do 4-5 comics a month. Studio boom gets an up front price of $25 per comic on top of half of the donations.
All money over $135 is reinvested into the comic in some way. For example this month I commissioned two works a wallpaper to be posted soon and 4 page members reward comic for a grand total of $200. In addition I am starting a new comic Exiern Dark Reflections. The first page of that comic has cost $75 and I will be spending another $70 before the month is out. On the administrative side of things, I had to incorporate Exiern this month for tax reason and that cost $100. By the way this April 15 is going to suck for me this year.
Last month I collected $753. It was a very good month. Those of you with lighting math skills can figured out I earned 376.50 and spent 480 for a grand total of -103.50. This has been the standard way of things for Exiern since I started commissioning Studio Boom. I always spend more on the comic that I take in. The more I get in donations the more I can commission and produce. I don’t want to make money from this website. I just want to make comics.
What I want to do with collected donations:
Well first on the priority list is redoing past comics. I have set the goal to have the archive completely redone by the end of January. It won’t be the full archive but only a few select comics to connect the beginning to the ending. At long last I will stop getting letter “complementing me” on how I got ride of that lousy first artist who was a total hack and drew like a retarded 3rd grader. What these people who send me these letters don’t realize is that the original artist was also ugly and a poopyhead.
After that Exiern will move to a twice a week schedule. And hopefully to a 3 times a week schedule after that. This is of course dependent on paying a competitive wage to Studio Boom and that is depend on the amount of money the website takes in.
Tomorrow I’ll post about why Exiern has a members area at all.
The facts:
Half of all money collected contractually goes to Studio Boom. So the website takes in $600 I am only able to spend $300 of it.
What do I do with the money I collect? Well it takes $135 per month to run this comic. That is the cost of hosting plus commissioning Studio Boom to do 4-5 comics a month. Studio boom gets an up front price of $25 per comic on top of half of the donations.
All money over $135 is reinvested into the comic in some way. For example this month I commissioned two works a wallpaper to be posted soon and 4 page members reward comic for a grand total of $200. In addition I am starting a new comic Exiern Dark Reflections. The first page of that comic has cost $75 and I will be spending another $70 before the month is out. On the administrative side of things, I had to incorporate Exiern this month for tax reason and that cost $100. By the way this April 15 is going to suck for me this year.
Last month I collected $753. It was a very good month. Those of you with lighting math skills can figured out I earned 376.50 and spent 480 for a grand total of -103.50. This has been the standard way of things for Exiern since I started commissioning Studio Boom. I always spend more on the comic that I take in. The more I get in donations the more I can commission and produce. I don’t want to make money from this website. I just want to make comics.
What I want to do with collected donations:
Well first on the priority list is redoing past comics. I have set the goal to have the archive completely redone by the end of January. It won’t be the full archive but only a few select comics to connect the beginning to the ending. At long last I will stop getting letter “complementing me” on how I got ride of that lousy first artist who was a total hack and drew like a retarded 3rd grader. What these people who send me these letters don’t realize is that the original artist was also ugly and a poopyhead.
After that Exiern will move to a twice a week schedule. And hopefully to a 3 times a week schedule after that. This is of course dependent on paying a competitive wage to Studio Boom and that is depend on the amount of money the website takes in.
Tomorrow I’ll post about why Exiern has a members area at all.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Show me the money
Well a little while back I ask for suggestions on how to improve the members area. One of the suggestions was that the $10 price tag might be too high. So I ask you guy should I change the membership rate? I have posted a poll on the message board where you can let me know your opinion.
Membership cost pollSaturday, November 17, 2007
Talk to me!
Well I have signed up Mato as administrator and general membership wrangler. One of his first suggestions was fix up the message board. So I did.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Battlefield Babysitter
On October 30th DC comic launched there new online comic venture Zuda. The basic idea is to have an American idol type contest where the winner gets a contract with DC. There first crop of entries were pretty drab. High concept low content sort of things, with the notable exception of one comic; Battlefield Babysitter by American Ninja X.
It is a quirky comic about a world full of superheroes and a young girl that lives in that world. If you saw the Incredibles then you know the vibe AMX manages to capture with his comic. In short it is very good.
I want to see more of this comic. The only way that will happen is if it wins the contest. So I am asking you all for a favor here. If you could go over and vote for Battlefield Babysitter I would be grateful. Here’s the link:
http://zudacomics.com/battlefield_babysitter
PS: I have a comic of my own in the Zuda queue so consider this a trial run for when it really matter in a month or two.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
I need help with member area.
To be perfectly honest I don’t pay much attention to the members area. Even though membership is what is paying for the comic I usually just dump the larger uncensored page up there along with any donation rewards. The member’s areas is more of a repository than website. I think, because of this, I have been loosing members this month at an alarming rate. I need to make the member’s area a place people want to stay and visit.
But frankly I don’t have the time to organize and monitor the member’s area. I need someone with ideas and time to keep an eye on them. I need an admin for the member’s area. No coding skill is required just insight into what would draw people in and keep them engaged.
What do you get? Well a free membership and listing as part of the Exiern staff. If you are interested drop me a line and include some of your ideas.
Email to Drowemos@yahoo.com
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