Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum on Becoming Full-Time Web Cartoonists: ‘I’m a Great Self-Promoter’

Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum write Unshelved, the library comic strip. Their book nerd humor cartoons have become a successful cottage industry. Their daily comic strip is made available for free to their loyal fans. That is subsidized by selling their own quirky shirts (“Read Irresponsibly” is one), ad space and their self-published books of their cartoons. What started as a Web site with 40 readers is now 40,000, and it’s an enormous success in its niche.

This past March, Barnes quit his day job at Microsoft to write and draw full time. But the old business model of being a syndicated newspaper cartoonist no longer exists. Barnes discusses the benefits of self-publishing, self-promotion and giving away content for free.

Also on Mediabistro

How to Become a Video Producer: Career Tips from Adweek’s John Tejada

How to Transition From Editorial to a Social Media Career

How did you become a full-time cartoonist?
Everybody has to create their own business model these days. Create something with a particular relevance to a specific audience. We appeal to book nerds and librarians. I can go to a convention with those people — BEA, American Library Association conferences, Comic Con. If you were to start Peanuts today, it’s hard to find those people, I don’t know — people with kids. But when people find our stuff, they know who it appeals to, and they’ll forward it to them. Before we send it out we think, “Will this be funny to anybody?” It’s character humor, and that’s what appeals to the core of our audience. Your core audience shares your humor and your interest. Maybe only one in 10,000 share our humor, but that’s good enough to support us.

How do you appeal to book nerds? What subjects are appealing to ‘them’ (I’m implying I’m not one)?

Censorship, National Novel Writing Month, local Authors, graphic novels; we tackle it all, and we do it with character-driven humor that makes the strips funnier the more of them you read. We strive to be addictive.

How were you able to finally quit the j-o-b?
There are four things that we need: Book sales, merchandise, speaking engagements and ad sales. We need all four to be full-time. Everybody has to be a merchandiser, Web designer, artist, writer, publicist and ad agency for their content. And not everybody is good at all those jobs. The cartoonist really has to be all those things. I always wanted to have a comic strip, and I thought I would use the old syndication model. Now I keep finding myself folding shirts and selling ads. It’s all fun. It’s just not what I imagined I’d be doing. I sleep well at night because I’m exhausted.

What about those who aren’t exactly (ahem) ‘Renaissance people’?
There are many successful, bright and capable cartoonists out there. Then there are talented cartoonists who can write up a storm — there is not right now a good business model for them. The great thing about the Internet is that it’s easier than ever to find people that want to hear your voice.

Do you have competitors? If so, who are they?

For advertising sales, I suppose we compete with Library Journal and the like. Shelf Awareness might be a competitor if they weren’t a partner. Above all, what we’re trying to do well is to create a top-notch comic strip with a big, loyal audience, then make money in as many ways as possible. I don’t view us as competing against other cartoonists for audience, though I do feel competitive on a creative level.

How do you integrate advertising into your site?

We do everything we can to make the ad a part of our content. We embed a relatively small banner within a word balloon “spoken” by a different character ever week, and each we introduce that week’s sponsor in the blog.

Our advertisers are companies trying to reach library workers and book nerds — mostly publishers (e.g. Macmillan, Random House, Harper Collins, Harlequin), but also service providers (W.T.Cox – sells magazines subscriptions to libraries). We tend to hand-pick sponsors we think are a good fit for our audience, and turn away ones that wouldn’t be.

But you’re a self-publisher — a successful one? What are the benefits of that?
We just sold over 25,000 books. The thing is I know where all my fans are. I have all their email addresses. I know they subscribe to the RSS feed. So when I want to sell a book, all I have to do is tell them that I have a book for sale. I’m not the greatest cartoonist — but I am a great self-promoter.

You guys do cartoon book reviews. Last I checked — 52 a year. Are there any other comic strips that review books?
Unshelved book club is unique. It just felt out of place not to be talking about books.

Do you ever give bad reviews?
We don’t review every book we read, if you can believe that. We only feature books that we are promoting. There are so many good books out there, why would we want to spend time on something that isn’t good?

What else do you read?

I read about a dozen comic strips regularly, watch some TV or movies on Hulu.com, and listen to a lot of music while I draw.

If I wanted to be a cartoonist, what would you recommend I read?

Three books: Making Comics by Scott McCloud; Drawing Words and Writing Pictures by Jessica Abel, Matt Madden; and How to Make Webcomics by Scott Kurtz, Kris Straub, Dave Kellett, and Brad Guigar. The latter also do a great podcast called Webcomics Weekly.

I have to ask this: Where do you see your business in a year?

By the end of the year I want (and expect) Unshelved to be capable of supporting both Gene and me. I don’t know if he would quit his day job, but I’d like him to have the option.

And in five years?

In five years, we’ll have expanded our audience quite a bit and taken on a couple of other creative projects. The good news is that my day looks much the same whether we have 45,000 readers or 450,000. I’ll just charge more for ads, and maybe we’ll leverage the Unshelved brand a little more widely.

What would be the top — the pinnacle for you professionally?

An “I-can’t-live-without-this-comic-strip” review from a creator I really admire, cartoonist or otherwise (some possibilities: Scott Adams, Bill Amend, Garry Trudeau, Joss Whedon).

Final question: Can I be you?
Sorry. I’m taken.

Five tips for becoming a full-time cartoonist:
1. Be distinct. Make high-quality comics with a distinct voice.
2. Be reliable. Post comics on the Internet on a regular schedule.
3. Go viral. Distribute as virally as possible (email delivery, RSS feed, “send to a friend”).
4. Be relevant. Your cartoons should have broad appeal, but particular relevance to a specific group.
5. Get support. Give your readers lots of ways to support you.

Tina Dupuy is co-editor of FishbowlLA.