graphic novel class 10 - then what?

I’m going to take you through the process of a graphic novel in a series of posts. This is from my perspective, as a writer and artist who makes fantasy books for middle grade and young adult readers - but hopefully it will be helpful even if you’re interested in making a different kind of book!

The part that people rarely talk about is the After: what happens when the book is handed in, what happens when it comes out. Here’s some thoughts on that! Most of this is relevant specifically to working with a publisher.

Handing it in

When you’re done with a graphic novel, you’ll send the publisher all your finished files. They might have a specific way the files should be organized—I’ve spent many days at the end of books combing through layers and making it all easy to navigate. This is something your art director should convey to you, hopefully at the start of the project.

Once the art is the hands of your publisher, there’s a period of waiting while the print file is put together. You’ll be given a chance to proofread it before it goes to print, and a chance to consult about the book layout. You have the power here to weigh in; if they chose an image for the spine of the book or a font for the cover that you don’t like, speak up!

I wrote about the cover process in this post. Some publishers like covers designed early in the process for a book announcement, others wait ‘til the book is wrapping up. I always prefer to design my covers near the end because I feel like I can summarize the book and draw the characters best at the end.

ARCs

Many publishers prepare Advanced Reader Copies of their upcoming books. These are paperbacks that can be distributed to reviewers and people in charge of ordering books for stores, schools, and libraries. They are also sent to other authors who can provide blurbs, or ‘pull quotes’ (these are the bits that say “this book is great and the author is a beautiful genius! signed, a somewhat famous author” on the back of books).

Arcs are often unfinished and unedited, and are printed on cheaper paper than the final book. You might have gotten some for free if you’ve ever gone to a publishing convention. A prose ARC is pretty simple: it’s the text of the novel, usually needing proofreading. If there are meant to be illustrations, they’re normally not included.

A graphic novel ARC is a little different. Since printing in color is too expensive for free promotional items, they’ll usually be black and white with 16 pages of color in the beginning. Because of this, once your lineart is finished, the publisher can get to work putting together the ARC. They want it to come out a significant amount of time before the book itself, to drum up excitement.

It can be a little nerve-wracking to have an unfinished version of your graphic novel out in the world! I know one author who got frustrated because reviewers always commented on their ‘simple’ lineart art style, not realizing the graphic novel would be fully rendered in the color stage. Once, I received another ARC that had chosen their favorite, most dramatically colored pages to showcase in the beginning (rather than pages 1-16, which is standard). If you have an idea of how best to present your work, talk to your art director and editor about it!

You can see my dog’s nose slowly creeping into frame in this gif.

My ARCs always end up with some mistakes—missing text bubbles, unedited art, color issues on the cover. This is agonizing, but it’s just part of the process of publishing (also known as the mortifying ordeal of being known).

There will always be mistakes that go to print, and you will always notice them the instant you have the physical ARC in your hands, and not a moment before! I think there’s a certain blindness that sets in when you’ve been working on something for so long; it’s like if someone asked you to proofread the back of your hand.

If you’re a perfectionist who is horrified by the idea of mistakes going to print, try printing out the comic pages before finalizing the ARC. Just changing the medium in which you view it (printed paper rather than on a screen) can help spot mistakes. Your editor will also work with you to carefully proofread the text and fix visual inconsistencies. And the good news is that since this is an ARC, you can fix any mistakes before it goes to print.

Audience Reaction

Having a book come out is…weird. You know it’s a huge day, but sometimes the reaction can feel kind of muted.

The truth is that books are an intimate experience. While a movie or TV debut can be watched in a group, with everyone jumping online to discuss it, books are quieter and slower. The book won’t always be in bookstores on the day it’s supposed to release—or it will be in stores weeks early—and people will pick it up and read in their own time. This can feel like a letdown when you want to know what everyone thinks the second it’s on shelves!

I don’t have a ton of advice for dealing with this letdown feeling; more just letting you know to anticipate it. Getting a few friends and family to read it the day it comes out will ensure you get some of that delicious feedback! Organizing a launch party is also awesome; more on that below.

What has helped me with this, in the long run, has been understanding that reader engagement is an ongoing thing. If you make a TV show, it’s incredibly exciting to have everyone in the world binging your show and talking about it the week it came out…but then the hype is over. Books are more steady and more private, in my experience. People are always discovering them for the first time, and reaching out to authors to share their personal experience.

I can’t tell you not to read reviews, but I can advise you not to seek them out. Your editor will share big reviews with you—articles from Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, etc—and let you know the tone of the review before you dive in. This kind of emotional protection is important, I believe. Authors are generally sensitive people and it sucks to read a sentence in a review that ruins all your good feelings about your book. Be careful with comment sections, searching your name/book title on social media, and Goodreads. Do what you need in order to protect your heart!

This is NOT to say you should ignore critical feedback. If there are integral issues with your book, you will probably hear about them from your readers, from reviews, from your editor. Try not to obsessively seek these out, because the important points will make their way to you. The instinct to rush to fix problems in your book is very strong, but once a book is out in the world, the difficult truth is that you cannot change it (Death of the Author and all that).

If you’ve put something in a book that has hurt people, focus on a simple, material apology with a promise to do better. An apology should avoid lengthy explanations of why you wrote it. We all have blind spots, and having a book in the world is a great way to shine a spotlight onto those blind spots. Once you know about a blind spot, you can educate yourself. I try to use criticism as a way to look to the future and improve as an author so my next book is better.

Publicity

Promoting your book is a whole job in and of itself. There’s a common perception that a publisher will arrange book tours, readings, and events for you. This sometimes happens, but the reality is that a lot of that work is up to you.

From my experience and observation, it seems that publishers choose a few books every quarter to really highlight. Sometimes these will be debuts (the first book an author has published); sometimes they’ll be a book from a highly acclaimed author; I’m sure there’s other determining factors I’m not aware of. If your book is one of those picked to highlight, your publisher will work closely with you to come up with events and put together a book tour. But for most books that come out, you need to take initiative to make this happen.

Get to know the publicity people at your publisher, and let them know what you want to do. Are you interested in doing readings? Visiting classrooms? Doing live drawing demonstrations or workshops for kids? Being on panel discussions? If you’re planning to be at conventions, let the publisher know so that they can pitch you for panels.

When you make comics for young audiences, there’s a whole business of doing school and library visits. I don’t do these often because public speaking isn’t my favorite, but if you’re good at it, this is a great way to make some extra money. School and library visits usually pay a couple hundred dollars or more—this is referred to as an ‘honorarium’. They usually entail a reading, Q&A, maybe a workshop; this can be in-person or virtual. You can let your publisher know if you’re interested in doing these!

If you’re a convention-goer, most publishing contracts allow you to order copies of your book at a steep discount. You can sell these at cons or sell signed copies online. There is something really cool about hand-selling your own books and getting to talk to people about them!

Finally, organize a launch party for yourself! Find a local bookstore (independent ones are so much better than chains, if that’s an option) and ask them if they do events. Often bookstores will be happy to host a local author in exchange for you signing stock, and maybe doing a reading. They’ll probably place a big order of books, which is always great. Sometimes I’ll make a little giveaway—for the Witch Boy I made magnets, for the Girl From the Sea I made bookmarks. Invite everyone you know and give them a chance to celebrate your enormous accomplishment of having a book out!

Royalties

Most book contracts work on an advance system. The publisher will give you a large chunk of money—some on signing the contract, sometimes a second check halfway through the process, and the rest when you hand it in. This is your advance, and is meant to tide you over as you’re making a book (I already grumbled about low advances here).

When the book is out in the world, you might eventually earn royalties. The concept is that you get a certain percentage back on every book sold (amounts vary between publishers, deals, and within the deal for paperback vs hardback vs ebook). These percentages go back to your publisher, until they equal the amount of your initial advance. This is called earning out. Once you’ve earned out, those percentages begin to go to you and are called royalties.

Not everyone earns out, and sometimes it takes quite a long time. It really comes down to quantity of books sold, which has to do with how the book is marketed and distributed. This is one of the ways in which doing school events and bookstore events can help—those venues will place large orders for books. And of course, if you had a large advance, it will take longer to earn out.

Besides royalties, you can also earn money from translation rights. This is exactly what it sounds like: a foreign publisher will pay a couple thousand dollars to buy rights to translate and publish your work. They’ll send you a few copies (my closet is FULL of Witch Boy copies in Spanish, Hebrew, French, Italian, and Swedish) and if you haven’t earned out yet, a portion of translation rights will go towards your advance.

Royalties are great when they start happening. You’ll never know exactly how much they’ll be, but getting a regular check twice a year, or four times a year, is always a good thing. It’s one of the ways that authors can afford to slow down once they have a few books out.

The Blues

I wish that someone had told me about the depression that happens when you finish a big project! When I think back, it makes sense. You’re rushing so hard towards a finish line, pouring everything you have into a story…and then it’s done. You get the rush of dopamine that happens when you complete your task, and then the dopamine fades and leaves you feeling empty.

I know this isn’t everyone’s experience, but it’s mine, and I’ve seen other creators talk about it too. The thing is: making a comic is a really special experience. You’re getting to live in a story. Getting to see it change and expand around you. You and the comic are kind of the same being, in this stage; it’s a part of you that you’re cultivating and growing.

And then suddenly, it’s gone. The metaphorical umbilical cord is cut. It becomes a separate thing, something looked at by other people, something you can no longer alter. It’s still a part of you, but it’s like a photograph from the past. You will continue changing, but the comic will stay the same.

And this hurts! It’s okay to feel it as a kind of loss. It’s okay to grieve the end of a project, to feel like the comic—once a living, changing thing—is now as dead and static as an amputated limb. When you’re working in traditional publishing, there’s a long stretch between finishing the book and having it out in the world, and that stretch can be painful.

When will my comic come back from the war?

The other side of this emotion comes when the comic goes out into the world. It becomes a part of other people. Readers will interpret it in new ways, specific and personal to them, ways that you never could have anticipated. Years after it comes out, a child will come to your signing with a copy of your book, old and battered and pages falling out from how many times it’s been read. And you’ll realize the comic is not dead, even though it’s been separated from you—it’s living and changing in the minds of readers.

That, to my mind, is a kind of magic.

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-This is the last post of this series, for now! At some point I’d like to do a color class, and maybe a class about adaptations and tv/film writing, but this has taken us through the process of a graphic novel, so I’m going to give it a rest here.

-I have a big announcement coming up on this newsletter next Thursday, October 28. Which is also my 30th birthday!