Thanks for this! This seems like a nice guide for anyone curious to start selling PDFs or making zines in general!
I didn't know you could use Google Docs to make PDFs, interesting! That's really good to know! For anyone curious, you can also use stuff like InDesign and Photoshop for PDF making, and I believe Clip Studio as well?
Here's a few more particulars about selling PDFs (for anyone interested and checking these comments.)
-Amazon isn't a great place to try and sell *any* kind of fan work and they are also hostile towards NSFW work. I would sell with them with caution. (Also, I believe Amazon doesn't accept PDFs? It's some other format?)
-If you mark your work as "NSFW" on Gumroad (which you have to) it automatically does not show up in any of their search results unless someone turns off safe search manually. (Itchio does a similar thing but let's you have more tags and options so imo Itchio is just better-- but use both platforms regardless!)
-Google Books is an easy to use place for long form comic PDFs and they are actually friendly towards NSFW! (Talking from personal experience.) But, some of the back end can be difficult to use.
-When selling a PDF, I think it's good to publicly include a page count. This will help folks decide if they wanna buy something, since a 5 page zine for $5 can often feel like "not a good price" to a good amount of customers. 😰
-When in doubt, look how other people are setting up their zine/PDF/comic pages on places like Gumroad, Itchio, etc, and try to examine what information they have and see if something similar might work for you. Don't copy anyone word for word, just examine!
-As a last, BIG note, if you're making a long form webcomic, PLEASE consider putting up PDFs of your chapters on places like Itchio, Gumroad, Amazon, Google Books, etc! Even if your comic is available for free, hosting and archiving it on these places can only help your readership grow because of the search function and recommendation features included on these sites. Think of them almost like Tapas or Webtoons, but for PDFs. The more places people are going to *actually read stuff* the better it is to have your content there, and can be more reliable than certain types of social media.
Anyways, thanks a ton for sharing this project! Good luck!
Thanks for this! I'm a long-time fan of your work and I'm looking to improve my own, material like this makes it feels like a community and inspires me to create alike!
This is a rad resource to put out for folk, thanks! I legit like, forgot zines can be things besides TTRPGs until stumbling on this-- and have some ideas already!
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Thank you, very appreciated
Thank you for sharing!
This is so pretty and useful, thanks for sharing!
Many thanks for making this guide for the rest of us!
Thanks for this! This seems like a nice guide for anyone curious to start selling PDFs or making zines in general!
I didn't know you could use Google Docs to make PDFs, interesting! That's really good to know!
For anyone curious, you can also use stuff like InDesign and Photoshop for PDF making, and I believe Clip Studio as well?
Here's a few more particulars about selling PDFs (for anyone interested and checking these comments.)
-Amazon isn't a great place to try and sell *any* kind of fan work and they are also hostile towards NSFW work. I would sell with them with caution. (Also, I believe Amazon doesn't accept PDFs? It's some other format?)
-If you mark your work as "NSFW" on Gumroad (which you have to) it automatically does not show up in any of their search results unless someone turns off safe search manually. (Itchio does a similar thing but let's you have more tags and options so imo Itchio is just better-- but use both platforms regardless!)
-Google Books is an easy to use place for long form comic PDFs and they are actually friendly towards NSFW! (Talking from personal experience.) But, some of the back end can be difficult to use.
-When selling a PDF, I think it's good to publicly include a page count. This will help folks decide if they wanna buy something, since a 5 page zine for $5 can often feel like "not a good price" to a good amount of customers. 😰
-When in doubt, look how other people are setting up their zine/PDF/comic pages on places like Gumroad, Itchio, etc, and try to examine what information they have and see if something similar might work for you. Don't copy anyone word for word, just examine!
-As a last, BIG note, if you're making a long form webcomic, PLEASE consider putting up PDFs of your chapters on places like Itchio, Gumroad, Amazon, Google Books, etc! Even if your comic is available for free, hosting and archiving it on these places can only help your readership grow because of the search function and recommendation features included on these sites. Think of them almost like Tapas or Webtoons, but for PDFs. The more places people are going to *actually read stuff* the better it is to have your content there, and can be more reliable than certain types of social media.
Anyways, thanks a ton for sharing this project! Good luck!
I found this on Twitter. Really appreciate the time you put into making this!
Thanks for this! I'm a long-time fan of your work and I'm looking to improve my own, material like this makes it feels like a community and inspires me to create alike!
This is a rad resource to put out for folk, thanks! I legit like, forgot zines can be things besides TTRPGs until stumbling on this-- and have some ideas already!