Sunday, August 14, 2011

Loviatar No. 3 Progress Report: On the Hunt

photo from my old scrollworks accounting notebook
When publishing a monthly zine, I've found that there's three weeks to write, edit and to do layout. The fourth week is used for printing, assembling, mailing and handling the promotion and new sales. Throughout the entire month, money is being carefully monitored.

    My goal with Loviatar is to have the zine pay for itself. We are two issues in and so far, so good. The main reason for this is a lack of freelance fees. When I was publishing Scrollworks, the cover illustrations alone were $40 to $50 per month, with interior artwork easily totaling $75 to $100. As you can see from the photo, at one time I had freelance fees of $305.00. That money had to come from my own pocket because printing and mailing fees were funded by subscriptions. I fronted the freelance fees. Brutal.

     I've spent a fair amount of time this weekend hustling for cover art and should have something soon. With a zine, you really have to rely upon the kindness of strangers.  Once I have a cover piece, I will be sure to share it.
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6 comments:

  1. The Happy WhiskAugust 14, 2011 at 11:17 AM

    It's amazing how it all adds up so quickly.

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  2. The Happy WhiskAugust 14, 2011 at 11:18 AM

    PS: Unrelated to gaming or zines but I just put a five and a half pound bird in the oven, and already the house smells yummy.

    Ah ...

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  3. christianAugust 14, 2011 at 12:17 PM

    That sounds so great! Nom nom nom!

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  4. mattAugust 14, 2011 at 12:20 PM

    +Whisk Sometimes I just want to ignore what you post. :)

    +Christian! Man, I cannot believe you were dropping that much on a zine. My wife would kill me...repeatedly.

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  5. christianAugust 14, 2011 at 1:23 PM

    It was brutal. Granted that was the art budget for a few months, but still, even $100/mo was crazy. At the time the zine was just starting to get into distribution and was getting good reviews from people like Monte Cook and Mike Mearls. I was pushing hard to get it on as many store shelves as possible. Part of that process was making sure the art featured was plentiful and looking good.

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  6. The Happy WhiskAugust 14, 2011 at 5:36 PM

    Matt: Hey now :-)

    ReplyDelete

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