On Publishing

So I’ve decided that instead of aligning with a publisher that it would be best to publish my own works. But now that I’m printing my comics, I start to wonder what type of publisher am I or what type of one I want to be. When I think of publishers, I think of 3 types, Vanity Press , Self Publishing, and Full Publishing. Sure there are other types of publishes and subtypes of each publishing, but this isn’t a dissertation on publishing, just me trying to figure my place in comic publishing.

I try not to think negatively of Vanity Press, but I can’t understand the point of publishing for publishing’s sake. I understand about having to express one’s self creatively, but to do so with no real plan beyond that hurts the left side of my brain. What do you do after the comic book is out? Vanity Press doesn’t seem to cover that. But then that’s probably why Vanity Press isn’t for me because I don’t get it.

Currently I’d say I am operating as a Self Publisher, but I trying to focus on the Publisher part as much as I can. I have a publishing plan and schedule and I’m try to work toward that. Currently Volume 2 of Dusk is being worked on and should be out this winter. Then I plan on releasing a super hero graphic novel in Spring 2010, and then Dusk Volume 3 on Halloween. The idea is that this will give plenty of room to promote Dusk between releases and then build toward a big push/release on Halloween. Oh ho, I’m so clever to try to do a big marketing push of a vampire book on the holiday Halloween.

Now I am thinking about moving into Full Publishing, but that involves being responsible for other people’s creations adds a whole new dimension of issues to address and manage. But then the other day one of my artists came up with a simple idea. “Hey why don’t you do a anthology,” she asked. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself. Anthologies are a great way of releasing a variety of other people’s work. Yes that also means there’s more work to organize the pages from the various art teams, but considering I produce Dusk very similar to an Anthology, using different artists and such, it’s not that much of a stretch for me.
So no I don’t plan on launching a new line of books from various creators, but I like to think I’m starting at a good speed for me to manage.