Trials and Tribulations and now...the Official T!

As an independent publisher we have to be very smart about how we spend our hard earned dollars. There are factors that affect us that the big guys in the industry laugh at. For example; The idea of printing costs? Hahahaha! Selling out a book? Hahahahaha! Getting our books into stores? Hahahaha! I think you get the point. The bottom line is that it costs money to get our books out to the public. How we do this is a creative process in its own right. We have to figure out how to get projects that we put our hearts and souls into to the public with the lowest amount of money spent as possible. And it ain't easy folks, there's a lot of trial and error that goes into this. Unfortunately, trial and error can be costly! Especially when the "trials" lead to many errors.

In my time as an independent publisher, I have stepped in a lot of poop! The key to staying in the game however, like in everything else, is learning from your mistakes, and not repeating them! I'll give you two quick examples.

Mistake #1: Putting out issue #1 without completing issues 2, 3, 4 etc...

Way back in 2003 I attempted to self publish Russ5377 for the first time. It was the Fall of '03 and the Big Apple Comic Con's National was in town; a huge three day show where we were sure to kick butt! At the time I was working with a buddy of mine, Mr. Samuel Vera and his company Crazee Comics, and we were amped! I had just finished issue #1 and felt great about the fact that finally I would publish my first comic book. I was so excited about this accomplishment that I totally overlooked a very important factor... there was no issue #2! It took me a while to complete issue 1 it would take me close to a year to complete issue 2 and I won't even tell you about issue 3. So anyway, there we were weeks before the show and now we needed to print these bad boys! This leads me to...

Mistake #2: Printing too many copies

We searched for printers and found out really fast that printing comics can be expensive! It was our first go around at this so we wanted to make an impact! We wanted color! Color is even more expensive! Especially back then. So Sam managed to get a hook up where we would print the books dirt cheap! The catch? We'd have to fold and bind the books ourselves! Oh yeah! Sweatshop style! But whatever! It was our moment and if we wanted to shine, we would have to put in work! Ok, so now we had a printer, how many books should we print? We weren't going to print thousands, that's ridiculous! Plus who has thousands to spend on printing? So we went with 500! Yeah! 500 copies of a book we ourselves stapled that no one had ever heard of!

Ah, the memories! That was quite a show! Surprisingly enough, the show was a success! We sold a lot of books (not 500) and began on this path. And the road has led me here! Seven years since that show, I learned to have at least four issues in the can before you promote the first, (I am happy to report that issue #5 of this new incarnation of Russ is being completed as we speak) and I discovered printing on demand!

The other thing I learned from that was to promote! Now I gotta give Sam props! He is a promotional whore! Even back then there were a few forums he got kicked off for over promoting! But I take full responsibility for not promoting Russ correctly back then and hurting a project that I hold near and dear to my heart. So now that I'm releasing issue 1 (again), I've decided it's time to learn from my past mistakes! As unpredictable as life is my friends, I'm sure there are mistakes still left for me to make, but my hope is that they aren't as bad as the ones I've made in the past or as costly.

This brings me to the month of February. That basically means that there are three months left before Russ5377 #1 is released. In this time, it is our plan here at MAS to make sure people know, come May 2010, Russ is back! We started hitting stores in NYC and leaving bookmarks for you guys to pick up with "5/10" printed on them to remind you of the release date! Also, It's taken a while but finally, I am proud to announce the release of the "5377-T". This is the official T-Shirt of the Russ5377 title. Big thanks to Skygraphx for the print job, man the T looks great! Check out the MAS Media Store and get some today! Don't wait, those shirts go fast! And... we are definitely planning other T-shirt designs so stay tuned for that! Man, the next three months will be a blast and as soon as new developments unfold, you know where to come to get the latest!

Now kids, I just wanna end this blog by saying thank you guys for the support! We are all working hard to make our dreams become reality and when I say "we", I'm not just talking about my brothers here at MAS, but also my peers all over who have a project they hold near and dear to their very souls and won't quit till they make it to the big time... wherever that may be! Stay strong fellas and lets all support each other!

Whew! Deep! hahaha! I'm out!

Medinamus!