Today, friends, I want to talk about my goals in 2015 and what I want to accomplish in 2016.
One of my goals for 2015 was to get my books (Sunnyville Stories and Von Herling) into the New York City comics shop Forbidden Planet. I haven’t been able to do this in spite of my best efforts and aggressive marketing. Besides flyers and postcards, I did send them press kits on my work and included the good reviews I got. Forbidden Planet does carry some notable independent titles like Cerebus the Aardvark and Jason Brubaker’s reMIND. It baffles me why they won’t carry my own work; Sunnyville Stories is just as good as any other material out there these days. Nonetheless, there are many factors that are beyond my control. They may not have the space to carry everything out there; the staff may be picky about what they stock; you may have to know someone to get products carried…there isn’t much I’m able to do about that. It was like Captain Picard said to Data in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Peak Performance” – it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life. Nevertheless, I still want to keep trying.
Another goal of mine was to get my books into at least ten new libraries. As the year is drawing to a close and, in spite of an aggressive direct mail campaign, I was only able to get my book into five new libraries total. Those libraries were Carrington City Library (North Dakota), Westwood Library, Morrill Memorial Library (both Massachusetts), Ohio State University Library (Ohio) and Michigan State University Library (Michigan). That’s honestly not bad for a small press like me, but I had hoped to get at least ten of them to pick up my work.
So what will I do for 2016? I will still work on getting into the library market and promoting my work to Forbidden Planet, but these are secondary.
My first goal for 2016 is to sell more digital copies of my work and expand my selling as well. While I’ve made use of Amazon to sell my books in Kindle format and also expanded to DriveThru Comics too, I’m aiming to start selling on Comixology. In addition to individual copies of Sunnyville, I also want to make available my planned sequel to Von Herling. Due to lower cost, digital comics will be a big focus for me in 2016.
My second goal for 2016 was discussed earlier. It will be my aim to get at least five more interview or article about myself and my comics. I will keep everyone posted on my progress with that.
The coming year looks to be a promising one for me and for Sunnyville. Here’s to 2016 and may I see much success during that year!
