Spy6teen

I’ve been working kind of quietly in the background on some new digital distribution platforms for Spy6teen, in fact, we’ll be debuting a new partner shortly– I had hoped we’d be ready by this blog, but hey– only so many hours in the day!

We’re pretty close to being everywhere I want us to be– there’s only a handful of digital distributors that I still need to contact– and along the way, I’ve picked up an unintended skill set that I thought I’d share with you today– and yes, we’ll talk about the most exciting thing you could ever imagine: Contract Agreements!!!

DISCLAIMER: I am not a legal professional– if I give you some advice in here, take it with a grain of salt– if you ever find yourself staring down a 13 page contract, have a real lawyer look at it!

Ok, that said– the first thing to look at is how the contract is defined– as in, WHO are you. Thus far, I’ve discovered two flavors that you’ll commonly come into contact with: DISTRIBUTOR and PUBLISHER.

Now, we’re gonna focus on the Distributor Agreement– but with a quick caveat: if you’re like us (we make/own Spy6teen) then you are a PUBLISHER– if you ever come across a contract where someone wants to sell your property, make sure you know the difference. If you’re approached by a publisher, it’s a whole other ball game.

Distributors are just that: If you make the best tennis balls in the world, eventually you’ll be approached by a store that wants to sell your tennis balls. By entering into a Distribution agreement with them, they will stock your Tennis Balls in their store, but you’re still responsible for the manufacturing and creation of them.

PERCENTAGE

In exchange for being in “Tom’s Tennis Ball Store” (Tom, how are you ever going to make money with an awful store name like that!) Tom is going to ask for a cut of your profits. And that’s perfectly fine, because no one is stopping by your garage for tennis balls– they’re all going to Tom’s store!  Because you’re in Tom’s store, you’ve moved product you otherwise wouldn’t have.

From what I’ve seen amongst the Digital Comic Distributors– that percentage of sales varies. It fluctuates between 30 and 50%– roughly. Anything above 50%, I’d scrutinize very closely– This isn’t to say it isn’t worth it, but you probably should ask yourself: WHY is it worth it?

NOTE: we have been approached by one startup that’s promising No-cut– your profit is 100% yours– I’m not sure how that’ll pan out, but it’s going to be interesting to see once they launch– we’ll keep ya in the loop!

EXCLUSIVITY

This is a big one for me– thus far, I’ve only been approached by one distributor with an Exclusive Clause– I liked everything about the company, except the fact that we couldn’t be anywhere BUT on their app–
I asked if we could red line (change) the contract to reflect a non-exclusive agreement, but they declined.
(Not in an awful way, I get it: They want exclusive content that only THEY have– A closed wall system that ensures better sales for them)

Mike Jasper and I have talked about this a bit– and I know it’s one of the big points that my Geekweek boss, Jeff Katz, harps on a lot as well: In today’s market, the last thing you want is to be exclusive to anything.

There are a LOT of different places to get a LOT of different media these days– and the fact is, your end user/reader is going to go where they feel comfortable buying and consuming. You AREN’T going to get a Barnes and Nobel fan to go to Borders to buy your book. (Unless that fan is named “mom”)

Both fans are readers, but they have their preferred locations to get their books– the analogy carries through to the digital world– some folks like to get their comics on Graphic.ly, some of them off Comixology, and some through The Illustrated Section–
If you went exclusive, personally, I feel that you’d be missing out on a potential audience– I’ll put it to you this way: A reader can be Exclusive to a Distributor– but Publisher never should be.

Going back to our Tennis Balls– if Tom’s Tennis Ball Shop is the leading east coast distributor of Tennis balls– and his brother Troy has his shop on the west coast, why wouldn’t I want to be in both stores?

I gotta get into the Tennis ball business…Apparently it’s booming!

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

IP is a fancy way of saying: “Your Comic”– and all the stuff in it: Your characters, your world, your story.
I have yet to see a distributor ask for any IP– as well they shouldn’t, that’s more of a publishers game. Depending on the deal, a publisher will likely ask for some of your IP– there’s a much longer conversation on the pros and cons i/r/t letting go of some of your IP (and there is an upswing)– but that really isn’t the focus here.

Distributors shouldn’t be asking for your IP– but you might see it pop up in an agreement. Typically, it’s actually in reverse: Where they’re telling YOU that YOU aren’t allowed to go spilling the beans on their operation and cool app programming. So, in the cases I’ve seen, it’s more about a Distributor protecting themselves, as opposed to trying to sneak your IP away from you.

Still, I feel that it should be something to keep an eye out for– again, not that I’ve yet seen it, but just in case an unscrupulous distributor comes down the pike a few years from now.

YOU INC.
I do tend to think big– so, as we were starting up the distribution/print/digital sales stuff for our first issue– and I’m staring down these contracts that read: “Wherein you, publisher:______________” and I’m supposed to write down something that sounds all legally– I started to wonder: am I supposed to be a business?

I talked to a few friends of mine– one of whom actually did go through the rather time consuming and costly (relatively) process of becoming an LLC, who recommended against it.
I also spoke with a very good friend who works as a financial planner, who said it’s basically worthless, unless your product is turning 50k a year.

So– there you go. Make up a name for your company– go get a website, and when it comes to agreements, just learn a little phrase: “Doing Business As”– When you’re faced with paperwork, it’ll be:
Your Name D/B/A Your Company Name.

SIDESTORY: TITMOUSE

Funny story– I get to hang out at Titmouse Studios (Metalocalypse, Megas XLR) from time to time– mostly just eating candy, drinking beer and soda, and shootin’ the breeze with the gang there.
At some point, I asked Titmouse’s owner, Chris Prynoski– who might be the coolest, most awesome guy in the world, how Titmouse got started– he laughed, because it’s kinda funny:
Chris got his start working as an animator on Beavis and Butt-Head, The Head, and Daria– before going freelance.
One of the freelance gigs he picked up was to do a animated spot in the movie: Freddy got Fingered– Being a big “Hollywood” movie (with a budget and all) they paid him pretty nicely– but when Chris showed up to pick up his check, they asked him who to make it out to…
“Uhhh, me?”
“No. What company?”
“I don’t have a company. I’m just a dude.”
“We can’t make a check to just a dude! We need a company!”

Luckily, Chris remembered that he had LLC’ed an internet tee-shirt company years back– one that he claimed he “probably made $5 off of”– that company was named Titmouse.

So, I’m not saying NEVER LLC or Incorporate–but, y’know– don’t let that stop you from making comics or cool stuff– it’ll work itself out in the end.

BEST NATION!

As I mentioned on the page this week, we received our first donation! A very big thanks to our reader Chris!
I asked Chris if there was anything he’d like me to shout out on the blog– and he linked me to his site, but didn’t think it would problably tie in– and maybe it doesn’t– but that doesn’t stop it from being cool! Turns out, Chris is a model train enthusasist and is building a station– it’s pretty awesome! Take a look:

(click to enbiggen!)

(click to enbiggen!)

Although I may not know a whole lot about model trains, I know world building when I see it– and that’s a great world he’s building!

If you’re a train fan, or know someone that is– swing on over to Chris’ site to see his in-progress work! Very cool stuff, Chris– and once again, thank you so much for your donation to Spy6teen!

If you’d like to drop a coin in the bucket, just hit the button on our sidebar that reads: “College Fund!” — you’ll be helping Cally get into her first choice post-highschool education!

WRAPPIN’ UP!

Well, hopefully you found the little business/agreement write up helpful– sorry if it was a bit dry!
I’ll be putting together a little “Store” icon/button for this section, but at least you don’t have to put up with yet another copypasta of our “pimpin’ it!” plugs!

EDIT: Here it is!

I updated our TWC vote incentive with the layouts of this week’s page– I thought it’d be a cool look at the “bones” of page 17– hit the Vote button to take a peek!

And lastly, a quick shoutout to Team 16! Scheduling and production have been a bit hectic over the last few weeks– nothing major or anything, it happens. To get us back on track, I suggested that perhaps we take a week off to get ourselves back on top– but the team unanimously decided to crank through for the close of issue 2!

The thought was, we’re so close that no one wanted to ramp down for a week when the story is heating up the way it is– So, a big hand to DJ, Lisa, Brant, and DJ! The best and hardest working comic book team I’ve ever met!

NEXT WEEK: CHECKIN’ IN ON CALLY!