👑 Royalty 👑 (Patreon)

Hey, can I tell you something cool? 

I've been working with traditional publishers in some capacity for the last 16 years. It's fun! You give them comics and they put them in a book and then they have a system set up to get those books distributed into comic shops and book stores and other people can find them. Sometimes they pay you some money upfront (not always) and then there's the promise that if the book generates enough profit, you'll get a royalty payment later on. 

Matt and I worked out a mutually advantageous deal with Oni Press' adult imprint line Limerence Press for publishing the Oh Joy Sex Toy collections and now the Drawn to Sex series. It's partially self-publishing and partially traditional publishing, which gets confusing to explain but bear with me. 

--COMMENCE INSIDER-BASEBALL TALK ABOUT PUBLISHING--

The vast majority of comics publishers cannot pay a livable advance for creator-owned books, the best I ever got for 16 months worth of full time work was enough money to pay for one month's worth of rent and groceries, and this was with one of the Big Three publishers, not an indie press. THE PUBLISHERS AREN'T TRYING TO SCREW THEIR CREATORS! This is literally all they can afford to pay on a project that probably won't earn them any profit. This is why a lot (most?) of full time artists have a partner with a stable job, so the artist can afford to work full time hours while making a less than minimum wage income.

So anyway, Oni Press.
We give them the files for a finished book and there is no upfront payment from them to us. Because they print dozens of books a year, they have negotiated much better rates at the printer than Matt and I ever managed at the exact same company, as one-book-a-year clients. 

We hold the Kickstarter to raise the funds to pay for the costs of producing a book (not counting our own labor), including to Oni for our share of the book's print run. We pre-sell the book directly to our Kickstarter backers and then we have stock leftover to sell at conventions. Any money we make above our costs through the Kickstarter is our "advance". These direct sales? This is where we make livable money. 

Oni takes their share of the print run and gets them into the distribution channels that have been essentially locked off from Matt and me, since we're a rinky-dinky two-person operation trying to push boner comics. Oni gets our books into book stores, libraries, comic shops, sex shops... You know, wherever you can buy books. The idea is that once they make back their own costs from producing these books, the profit of each sale will be split 50/50 and someday we'll get a royalty check for our share.

--END INSIDER-BASEBALL TALK ABOUT PUBLISHING--

In the 16 years since I've worked with traditional publishers, I have been published in roughly a dozen books and I have received one (1) royalty check, which was for the very first book that ever featured my work (Flight: Volume One). I think it was... about two weeks' worth of groceries? And that was over a decade ago. Today it'd just be worth one week's worth of groceries 😬

Oni has co-published four Oh Joy Sex Toy collections with us over the last few years, which has worked out great. We make our own money selling directly to our readers and they get a "free" book that will only cost them the printing bill and they can sell through book stores. If they ever generate a royalty, that would be super cool but Matt and I aren't holding our breath. (Oh! And the coloring book! They did that one entirely on their own and we did get a small advance for it. Haha, I forgot about that one. It also has not generated a royalty yet.)

We co-published Drawn to Sex: The Basics through Kickstarter and Oni Press in November 2018, not even a full year ago. Same deal as before: no advance and we idly hope for a royalty someday from book shop sales, while we generate our own income through selling it directly to our readers.

Remember how I said I'd only ever gotten one royalty check in the last 16 years? 

Oni just sent us a royalty payment for Drawn to Sex. 

The book that is not even a full year old has sold enough on their end through their distro network that they made back their costs and generated enough of a profit to pay us our 50% 😵

WHAT!!!!!!!

We haven't even done that yet with the other OJST books they co-published?????

And it wasn't even, like, a peanuts check! It was enough to pay for two full months of our mortgage 😵😵😵

I'm absolutely fucking stunned. 

I know this is a bit of a brag but honestly the main reason I'm sharing this is because I'm so amazed and I really wanted to tell somebody who would (probably) care about it???? THIS HAS (almost) NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE (except for that one time in 2005ish and it was just for two weeks' worth of groceries)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I dunno. It feels really good. I feel proud. 

I'm proud of our little book. 

We poured over five years of work into making the comics in it, a year of sweat and blood turning it into a book, and... and I'm just so proud of it. We made a good book. And enough people have bought it through traditional shops that it's generated a royalty that will pay for two months worth of living in our house!!!!!!! 

Haha, ah. 

Ah, dang.

Thank you so much to the folks who picked up a copy of Drawn to Sex through Kickstarter or another venue. Seriously. Thank you so much. ...If you haven't gotten one yet, hey, I've got a list of websites and physical locations where you can find a copy, either an actual book or a digital copy, whichever you prefer. It is also available through many libraries and if it's not in yours, you can request they pick one up for you!

In related news, we're only three comics away from finishing the content for the next Drawn to Sex book-- Subject: Health. If you've wanted a book collecting the various ways your genitals can explode, then this is the tome for you.