Yeah I also cringed at the title, but it is what it is.

“What happened to making webcomics just for fun?” I don’t know. My webcomic is still my baby, it’s still fun for me, I just also need it to pay me a living wage, and lots of folks are trying to do the same thing, so here’s how I made it work for me.

Diversify Your Income Streams

No single way of monetizing your webcomic will pay you a living wage, but the sum of several monetization avenues might be able to!

These are the 4 major streams of revenue that make up my income and they are all built around my webcomic. I’ll break down each way I monetize my webcomic and alternatives you can look into.

WEBTOON or Digital Publishing

How can you get paid for simply the act of creating your webtoon? Most of the ways of monetization I will mention are dependent on some of the webcomic contents/chapters/episodes already having been created, after some of the story is available to read and there is a readerbase that will be receptive to those ways of monetization. So how can you make money by just creating your webcomic?

A digital publisher is going to be the most money and most consistency you can be paid for the creation of your comic. My comic is digitally published by the digital publisher WEBTOON as a WEBTOON Originals series. WEBTOON pays me per episode to create weekly episodes. Through our agreement, I am also able to monetize early access and receive ad revenue, though WEBTOON takes a significant chunk of both.

Alternatives to WEBTOON

Tapas is also another big player in the digital publishing industry, however last I heard, they are no longer taking on original series, but I thought I should mention them should things change in the future. Hiveworks is another one. There are also new digital publishers starting up platforms all the time, and other international digital publishers beginning to dip their toes into the western webcomic sphere (Manta, Toomics, etc)

And, while not exactly paying you for the creation of your webcomic, the creator programs on WEBTOON Canvas and Tapas are pretty good at monetizing viewership, allowing you to be paid a high portion of ad revenue and sometimes early access without being beholden to the strict weekly deadlines of an Originals publishing agreement. Publishing on the Canvas side of WEBTOON is not my forte so I would suggest finding other resources for better information, just know the ad revenue and early access split is far more generous for Canvas programs.

The likelihood of getting ‘picked up’ as a WEBTOON Original is quite slim, but there are several webcomics out there that provide their creator a living wage by a combination of the other ways of webcomic monetization that I will mention. I’m also not sure how tight future digital publishing contracts (cough specifically webtoon cough) will be regarding rights, as every iteration of a contract I see is more and more aggressive regarding digital, IP, print and merchandising rights. You might be tying up a number of monetization avenues in signing these digital publishing contracts. As previously mentioned, you could be making more money in ad revenue and more money from early access just by self-publishing.

2. Patreon

Patreon is another way of monetizing your webcomic, but not one you can count on in the early stages of making your webcomic. It is highly dependent on growing your readership, which is highly dependent on how much material is available and free to read. You probably won’t see much of a dedicated readership or patronage until your story ‘goes somewhere,’ or rather, a degree of emotional investment is established. I see a lot of webcomic creators frustrated their patreons aren’t gaining traction despite their webcomic barely making it past a prologue. Your patreon is highly dependent on having a good chunk of story available to read and pull in and hold onto new readers.

What should you offer on patreon?

Okay to be frank, the majority of what I offer on my patreon is NSFW. There I said it LOL. That’s what works for me. 90% of my every waking moment is spent on creating my SFW webcomic and working on other parts of my ‘business.’ I don’t really have time to post bonus illustrations, or create tutorials, and the nature of my agreement with WEBTOON means that I can’t monetize early access through Patreon.

However, through my observations and just being a fan of other webcomics, you don’t have to post NSFW contents to grow a thriving patreon. Early access to comic chapters and updates is probably your best bet. The comics I follow post early access on patreon to updates 2-6 weeks in advance of their public release schedule.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen exclusive access to SFW bonus illustrations or anything outside of NSFW bonus content and early access to comic chapters be effective in maintaining or growing a patreon. People are there to 1. support you, 2. see r18 stuff, or 3. read ahead. That’s basically it, so don’t over exert yourself offering a bunch of things that don’t really retain patronage.

3. Print Publishing

Print publishing is another way of monetizing your webcomic, but you’ll likely only be able to pursue this avenue of monetization after a significant amount of your webcomic has been created, at least enough to be printed in a book. Crowdfunding a printed version of your webcomic is the most common and accessible way of doing it, but traditional print publishing is also becoming more and more open to printing webcomics. I’ll be talking more about traditional print publishing, because that’s the route I went with my webcomic.

Traditional Print Publishing

Yes! Did you know? Even if you are being digitally published, or self-publishing digitally, you can still seek out traditional print publishing opportunities! Although WEBTOON is my digital publisher, I was able to secure a print publishing deal with Oni Press with the help of my agent! What’s super important and the key to ‘doubling up’ on publishing opportunities is retaining your print publishing rights. Do not sign away your printing rights to a digital publisher. That is a LOT of money (5-6 figures of money) you might be signing away for free!

To seek out print publishing deals, you will need to get an agent. An agent is someone who will represent your comic to print publishers in exchange for a % of the publishing deal. I’m really sorry but I do not know how to query agents and there are a lot of resources out there so please go look to them for advice on how to get an agent (mine kind of just happened)! I do know that in querying to print a webcomic as a graphic novel, you will want to emphasize that your comic is done, or enough of it is done to print, and you will want to emphasize the size of your online readership as this is a key selling point for publishers to print graphic novels!

Traditional print publishing pays in advances and royalties. Advances are lump sums paid to creators to fund the production of the book. Royalties are percentages of book sales that will be paid to the creator, but only after book sales make back the total advance paid to the creator. When negotiating print publishing deals, focus on the advance. Most books never see royalties! Don’t let publishers negotiate a low advance with the promise of high royalties! Also, keep in mind that the average graphic novel advance in the North American graphic novel industry is $30k/book. It’s okay to accept a little lower than that, since in printing webcomics, you cannot give the print publisher total exclusivity, but don’t let them lowball you because of that! A large online readership also translates really well into sales, so definitely leverage that in your negotiations!

One thing to keep in mind is that traditional publishing works SLOW. Even if your webcomic is already done and ready to be printed, the advance money can come in slowly and all graphic novelists know that it’s kind of a nightmare to live off of advances alone. I’m super grateful for my print publishing deal, but that advance is going to come trickling in over the course of 2 years.

Kickstarter and Crowdfunding

Again, not my forte as I’ve chosen to go with traditional publishing. I just wanted to mention it since several of my peers have run extremely successful kickstarter campaigns for their webcomics, some way more profitable than a traditional print publishing deal could be. Don’t think that just because your webcomic is available to read for free online that no one will want to buy the printed version. This is absolutely not the case!

4. Merchandise

Opening an online store to sell merch related to my webcomic has been another successful but also FUN stream of revenue for my webcomic business. Now I kind of understand why toy sales are important to other mainstream IP businesses. It does require an upfront investment to manufacture merchandise, but if you start small (prints and stickers etc) to fund bigger merch (standees and pins) it’s not so scary. It’s also nice to be able to draw something I would normally draw for myself that is related to my series, and then sell it a bunch of times over as a print or standee or keychain. Being able to sell merchandise related to my series is also another reason I don’t really take commissions because if I draw something for myself, I know I can sell it whereas the same can’t be said for something I draw for someone else.

This year, I’ve also started tabling at conventions! I wish I had more time for this as it is more profitable for some reason than simply having an online store. I think people really don’t like waiting for shipping and also like the opportunity to talk to the creator, which is cool!

Also, just a reminder to not sell exclusive merch rights to anyone as it will prevent you from doing anything related to merchandise that I have mentioned. Non-exclusive merch rights is totally fine, but do not sell exclusive merch rights.

Final thoughts

I wanted to end this blog on a note about how I think of my business. Yes these are 4 different streams of income, but they are all tied back to my webcomic, and so my main focus is on creating a good webcomic because that is the backbone of my business. When I promote my webcomic, I know I am promoting the rest of my business. When my webcomic grows, so does the rest of my business. If readers fall off because my webcomic falls off, so does the rest of my business, so the pressure is ON.

All 4 of these streams of income can be considered separate jobs, and they very much are. I do work a ton keep up with them all. For reference I don’t really have weekends and I work well over 8 hours every day. But that is because that is what I want to do, at least at this point of my life. I strongly believe that a passion project like a webcomic can and should pay the entirety of a living wage. It doesn’t have to be a side hustle, at least for those who don’t want it to be.

For people who want to keep making their webcomic at their own pace and have something else pay them a living wage, I totally respect and support that, and am also a bit jealous. For me though, I can’t imagine living any other way, at least for now. And for people who also want to live this way, while I can’t entirely recommend it, I hope this helps you and gives you a little insight on how I do it.