ComixStreet Special Comment: The Webcomics.com Wall
The webcomics community received a New Year’s shocker this Monday when Webcomics.com, an exceptional website and probably the premier online resource for webcomics creators, announced that it was now a members-only service for paid subscribers. This article will examine this decision and its fallout, explain why I believe this was an unwise move, and justify (seemingly contradictory, I know) why I just plunked down my $30 to become a member.
Webcomics.com was, in my mind, the absolute best place to find quality advice on how to make webcomics. The guys behind it, the Half-Pixel crew, wrote the book
on webcomics. Literally. While all four members of Half-Pixel have contributed to the site, the heavy lifting on Webcomics.com is done by Editor-in-Chief Brad Guigar. The site has featured almost daily updates from Brad, or by other webcomicers who freely submit articles that are chosen by Brad to be featured on the site. The Webcomics.com forum is also a vibrant place for the exchange of ideas, one of the better places for webcomics creators to commiserate on the web. Personally, I’ve found great value in a number of Brad’s special features, including monthly T0-Do lists, art tutorials, and killer usability analysis of submitted webcomics sites with actionable feedback on how to improve them. (I would have hyper-linked the features I just mentioned. But I can’t. ’Cause they’re now behind the paywall. But I’ll get to that shortly.)
Before I continue, a word about Brad Guigar. He is one of the good guys. I’ve only met him once, but in the short conversation I had with him, he was just as I expected- engaging, encouraging and ebullient. (I had an alliteration thing going, sue me.) To top it off, he’s got the best laugh in all of comics…if you’re a Webcomics Weekly listener, you know what I’m talking about. In addition to being probably the single most helpful person to know or listen to when it comes to self-publishing comics on the web, the guy is a HELL of a cartoonist. Evil, Inc. is incredible, and his other strips are quite good as well. It’s hard to believe he also holds down another full-time gig, but yup, he does. So while I’ll be leveling some criticism at his decision, I’m in not criticizing the man. He’s still A-okay in my book.
The reason formally given for the decision to begin charging a $30-per-year subscription fee for Webcomics.com by Brad was that a fee was necessary “to help support what the site has become — and allow it to achieve its full potential.” In exchange for the fee, Brad promised all the same great features readers have become accustomed to, along with monthly contributions from PVP’s Scott Kurtz and Penny Arcade’s Robert Khoo, some new tools and features, the lure of more personalized guidance for subscribers’ comics, and a few other bells and whistles. Defending the decision to charge a subscription fee, as opposed to running ads and selling merchandise (in other words, using the webcomics business model Half-Pixel teaches in their book), Brad called Webcomics.com a “niche site” without much value to advertisers. He also said that a subscription fee will weed out folks not that serious about webcomics and create a stronger community.
In the comment storm that followed this announcement, it was also suggested by Brad and Scott that had this move not been made, Webcomics.com would have shut down. In short, the site needed to start generating income in order to justify the hours and time commitment Brad was putting into it. Afterall, Brad has a family to feed and his time (just like the rest of us) is money…or at least it should be. At the end of the day, this was a business decision. While I’ll go on to argue this was a short-sighted business decision, that’s not the primary reason I’m opposed to it. The main reason this was a wrong decision is this:
Brad and Half-Pixel let their tribe down.
Now, I use the word “tribe” deliberately. In his latest book, Tribes, Seth Godin- pretty much the sharpest marketing mind on the planet- describes a tribe as a group of people connected to each other, an idea, and a leader. As I was reading the book about how crucial leadership and community is today, I couldn’t help but think of the tribe that Brad and co. had built at Webcomics.com, a tribe organized around the passion for creating great webcomics and building businesses around them. Tribes is a book full of advice for anyone looking to lead a tribe, and I remarked at how many of the rules Godin laid out that Brad and Half-Pixel followed while building theirs (whether they realized it or not.)
Until, of course, this decision to erect a pay wall and change Webcomics.com.
Here are a few pithy rules I took from Godin’s book, and my analysis on why the change to a subscription model violates those tenets.
- “Ideas that spread, win, and movements that grow, thrive.” Webcomics.com was still growing. Like most blogs, it was optimized to spread naturally and organically because it featured good content. Tweetable content. Content worth blogging about. Content worth linking to. Hell, I linked to a Webcomics.com resource in my last ComixStree Recap article, and now that link is no longer good. (Hate that.) A pay wall is going to significantly limit the growth of the community.
- “Realize that money is not the point of a movement.” Now, Godin by no means is against monetizing good ideas. But leaders are always better served putting their community and tribe above the bottom line. That’s how they remain leaders and keep their tribe’s trust. As it stands, the sudden subscription wall came across as a jarring move to cash-in on the community.
- “As a leader, transparency is your only option.” In the more than 250 comments on Brad’s announcement as of this writing, there was a palpable sense of shock at the decision. To many site regulars, this seemed like a sudden decision, made behind closed doors, and one that was sprung on them on a Monday. (And not just any Monday. The first Monday of the year after a long weekend and the end of the holiday season. That’s like a Monday on steroids. ) I’d argue many readers never felt that Webcomics.com was simply Brad’s site. Frequent article contributers or contributers to the forum I’m sure felt a sense of ownership or at least partnership in the community that was created there. It’s analogous to a longtime patron of a neighborhood bar suddenly being charged a cover to get in. At least that’s what it feels like. This would have been alleviated had Brad been more transparent. While some members of Half-Pixel argued that the community’s reaction would have been the same whether he told us before or after, I don’t think they’re giving the group enough credit. Had Brad made a post that expressed his concern that the demands of Webcomics.com were becoming too much and there needed to be changes, the community may have brainstormed some solutions Brad could have adopted. At the very least, they would have likely been more comfortable with the change in terms, and not felt like the rug was swept out from beneath them.
- “Authenticity is key to leadership.” Now, don’t get me wrong. I think Brad’s about as real as it gets, and Scott Kurtz is never one to not let his true feelings be known about something. But the biggest point of contention in the comments was that erecting a paid subscription service clearly contradicted the advice they’d been giving for years! I get that there’s a difference between the content on Webcomics.com and the webcomics that the Half-Pixel crew make, and Brad and Scott made an argument that that difference is enough to make a subscription-based service make sense. I just don’t buy that. In Brad’s own words from How to Make Webcomics:
“Online readers have shown again and again that they’re not willing to pay for content online…You enter a Catch-22 when you try to cash in on your readership by charging them a subscription fee…You’ll have a slow attrition of readers who stop paying – for all the reasons people normally stop a subscription. Where do your new readers come from to take the place of those leaving? More to the point, how will you ever grow readership?…Trust us: As much as we’d love them to, subscription walls don’t work.”
Now, I will point out that in that section Brad mentions the Wall Street Journal Online as an exception to this rule, and that it is a business tool and a tax write off. And that is how he is positioning the new Webcomics.com. But it’s a hard pill to swallow for most of us. While there are differences, online content is online content. And it seems inauthentic, out of character, and disheartening that a vet like Brad Guigar can’t monetize Webcomics.com with the techniques he espouses and instead adopts those he and his crew have actively railed against. What’s the young webcomicer who would KILL to have the community and traffic stats of a Webcomics.com supposed to think?
I believe it’s the violations of these tenets of leading a tribe that contributed to the roughly 3 to 1 negative to positive reaction in the comments thread. (Okay, some of that was just people belly aching because the free gravy train is over. But still.) The fact is, by making this move, Brad is changing his tribe.
Webcomics.com used to be the best spot on the web for people with an interest in making webcomics to learn how to do it. Whether you’re a seasoned vet looking to trade advanced techniques, or a guy who read his first webcomic and thought maybe he’d like to make one himself some day, Webcomics.com was the best place to go. Brad and Half-Pixel have decided they no longer want that tribe, and have decided to make it a place where only serious, business-minded creators need apply. Their small niche community just got a lot smaller.
Now, it’s well within their rights to do so. I get it that Brad and Scott are tired of answering the same questions over and over again. They’re tired of teaching “Introduction to…” and want to do a “Master’s course.” I get that. I really do. (But guys, that’s not a good enough reason not to do more episodes of Webcomics Weekly. Your listeners want more of the podcast because they like your personalities and the entertaining conversation that naturally occurs when you four get together, it’s not just the advice you give. You understand that, don’t you?) Still, I think it was a bad business move to make the change they did, when other alternatives were available, and I think they dismissed the value and longterm potential of the site they built as it was. I can tell you this…there is definitely room for another webcomics community site to capitalize on this decision.
What could or should Webcomics.com have done instead?
- Get Brad some help. The guy was clearly overwhelmed, and I imagine had a hard time justifying the hours he was putting into Webcomics.com. But I know he could have found one or two other capable administrators to pitch in and help him. All he had to do was ask.
- Annual donation drive. This could have worked and been a big, successful annual event. Probably even something people would look forward to. The $30 subscribers are plunking down now is not in anticipation for the information to come, but more a reflection of the value the site has been to them in the past. Were the Half-Pixel crew to be authentic about the need to support the site, and creative about it’s execution, a donation drive could have been huge. Imagine Scott doing his best Jerry Lewis in a U-Stream or Talkshoe run telethon. Special give aways, auctions, and incentives for both individual donors and collective cash milestones reached. A portion of proceeds going to a charity of some sort, because you guys are good like that. Not only would such an event be successful, it would continue to raise all of your profiles and grow the community, something a pay wall will not do.
- A Free-mium service model. Keep the site free, but offer a number of paid services. I’m POSITIVE Brad could have monetized the webcomic site usability consulting service he did as a feature a few months back. (Knock off $5 in the cost if they allow you to run it as content on the site.) I’m sure there are other consulting services, print and digital books, t-shirts, merchandise, etc. that the crew could offer successfully that would have allowed the site to continue to run as it had. You’ve told us it’s not how big the community is, but how passionate they are. And we webcomic creators are quite the passionate bunch.
- Launch a spin-off. Instead of changing the existing site, Brad could have offered a new, paid service to address the serious, business minded “Master’s class” for webcomicers that Webcomics.com is being repositioned toward. If this is the tribe Brad wants to focus his efforts on, why not do that too, without shutting the door on a good portion of his existing tribe? Again, by pulling in others to help administer Webcomics.com, Brad could have switched gears to focus on this new experiment. Webcomics.com would have continued to grow and thrive, and would in turn be a feeder system to the premium “master’s class.”
These are some alternatives I thought of. And had Brad brought this up with his community, I’m sure more good ones could have been generated, and he could have tapped into the strength of the community he’s brought together. I believe one or a combination of these alternatives would have been a better decision than the one he chose.
All that said…I just subscribed to the new Webcomics.com.
Hypocritical? No, not at all.
A year’s worth of Brad Guigar’s blog posts and advice are worth $30 to ME.
Comics and webcomics are my thing. It needs to be my business to pick the brains and minds of the top thinkers and doers in this space. Whether I think it was a smart move or not, the discussions going on behind the Webcomics.com wall are ones I’d like access to.
If I’m wrong, and the move is a whopping success, then I’ll be glad to be a part of it. If it’s an abject failure, then I’d like to see that from the inside as well. I’m sure there are lessoned to be learned, regardless. Likely, the move will fall somewhere in between, but as long as Brad is there, I know I’m going to find value in it.
Regardless of what you or I think of the decision, Mr. Guigar is a man of incredible drive, initiative, and insight. I respect that tremendously.
And yup, I’ll pay for it.
Filed Under: ComixStreet
Tyler, this is a fantastic Special Report. I tried to be as fair as possible in my own post (http://www.csf-graphics.blogspot.com) but mine was a lazy pop-up caught 20 feet before the warning tracks while your post here was out of the park. I think the ball’s STILL flying.
But I wanted to commend you on some of the suggestions for alternatives you made. Man, had ANY of those suggestions been made, I not only would have plunked down my $30 (or maybe even more) right away, but I would have gladly put on my cheerleading outfit and done the Half Pixel version of “Mickey” for them as well.
“Half Pixel, you’re so fine… you’re so fine you blow my mind! Hey Half Pixel…” – Know. It doesn’t quite have the same beat but you get the picture, I’m sure.
Personally, I’m still going to have a wait-and-see attitude about this. If I start to hear from other creators like yourself who are getting value for the subscription then that will completely change my mind.
I know THAT sounds contradictory as well but to me, it’s like a Mary Poppins kind of thing. This medicine is very hard to swallow but if I had a spoon full of sugar to go along with it, that would have made all the difference in the world to me.
-Chris
Tyler, very thorough piece. I’m checking out Tribes as I write this. I understand their decision (and really I guess it’s Brad’s decision) and I will, once I pay for other things that are more immediate, buy a subscription, but I think having a choice of a smaller amount each month would be better than one $30 chunk. First, what if I can’t afford it all at once (for me that’s right now) but I’d love to continue to read the articles/take part in the discussions. And second, what if the site has a lag in content (like it has in the past) and suddenly I feel like I’ve put the money down for the entire year but I’m stuck waiting for the goods. To Brad’s credit, the site has really uped the content and it seems a lot more lively than in the past. Oh, well, we’ll see.
This pretty closely sums up some of the bigger concerns I’ve had about the move – the lack of forewarning, the apparent disregard for the broader established community in favour of a smaller, more “elite” subsection of that community, and the apparent double-standards in now advocating the subscription model after condemning it for a long time. The overall sentiment I’ve picked up from articles, forum posts and Twitter comments has been that everyone understands and sympathises with Brad’s desire to get compensated for his time and effort, but the implementation has been handled very poorly.
Additionally, some of Brad’s comments seem kind of disingenuous to me – marketing spin at best, deliberately misleading at worst:
The distinction drawn between webcomics (”entertainment”) and articles about making webcomics (”serious business”) feels more like an attempt to justify the sudden u-turn in attitude towards the subscription model. Both are forms of online content, both rely on building an enthusiastic and passionate community if they’re to thrive such that the content creator can start to monetise them. Throwing up a pay-wall around either kind of content throws a bucket of icy water over the community’s enthusiasm – especially if, as in this case, it comes as a total surprise.
I also found the “if you can’t scrape together $30 for a subscription then you’re obviously not serious about making webcomics” stuff, with the implied goal of keeping out the amateur riff-raff, to be pretty odious. Particularly given that I’d suspect that the greater proportion of Webcomics.com’s readership was exactly the kind of beginner webcomic creator new to the scene that they’re now seeking to exclude.
Overall, I think you’ve hit the nail on the head when you say that Halfpixel have let down their tribe. With books, podcasts and articles they’ve spent the last two years building up an enthusiastic tribe of followers, with themselves in the middle as the voices of experience – but have undone that hard work and alienated the vast majority of their tribe over the span of a few days.
I don’t really think that’s the kind of example I want to follow.
You make a lot of excellent points in reference to the Tribes book. I think I might have to read that some time.
To me, this move seems like a very blatant cash-in on the webcomics.com product. I agree that the Half Pixel guys should have had more transparency with their community before instituting this paywall model. However, there seem to be enough creators out there willing to shell out the money to keep this thing afloat, so I doubt HP will see too many negative effects. Moving to a paywall, especially so quickly, was a very risky decision, but it’ll probably pay off because they’re the Half Pixel guys and they’re capitalizing on their name and influence. Had this been done by someone equally as knowledgeable but half as famous, their site would have tanked, guaranteed.
I’ve been weighing whether or not I want to pay for this subscription as well to get advice from these guys, but I feel my answer is no. I already know to MAKE a webcomic and run a webcomics site. I’ve been doing so for years now. My problem is in marketing my product, but I don’t have faith that advice from the Half Pixel crew on marketing my product will work for me beyond very general pointers (pointers I could probably get from books like “Tribes”). These guys make gag-a-day comic strips. I make an action serial. For me, to get advice from Half Pixel on how to market my comic is like asking Disney advice on how to market condoms.
That said, I wish the Half Pixel crew the best of luck on their venture. Their products are obviously successful and I hope they continue that trend. I just wanted to voice the opinion of someone who isn’t doing a gag-a-day strip and might need advice eleswhere.
Never mind eh? Lets all go to Webcomic Planet! http://webcomicplanet.com/
*applause*
I think this is the most well-rounded piece I’ve seen about the subject. It’s either “Grr, fft, webcomics.com sucks!” or “I will follow Half Pixel to the ends of the Earth; I only wish I could pay them $100!”
I unfortunately fall into the former camp due to my previous frustration with the patented Half Pixel egotism. But that’s another matter… or is it?
The overall bottom-line is, you’re right, they didn’t give their “Tribe” enough credit. I personally think #3 (I call it “the hybrid option”) would have been the best. Give out regular tidbits for free, even still allow the forum, but the “serious” stuff goes 100% behind the pay-wall. The RSS-style article teaser method they’re using now, frankly doesn’t cut it to foster any real interest.
There was actually no reason to use the band-aid rip off technique that Brad says was the *only* option. Transparency with his audience would have been much better. I know a number of people who were genuinely intrigued by what the changeover would mean for the site and its services, but were put off by the abruptness of the change itself.
No matter how much Guigar, Kurtz, and others try to argue it away, it sent a very bad, and rather condescending message. Fortunately for them, enough people didn’t notice.
Here’s the main problem: Brad Guigar is a control freak. I don’t entirely mean that as an insult, but he clearly has problems with delegation and trust, and this has made for some frustrating habits on his part.
First up, I know deep down he means well, but that doesn’t make up for the way he treats those he sees as “beneath” him, which is basically anyone who hasn’t done comics as long as him and/or makes less than him while doing it.
He likes to help out the community, he likes to give people advice, he really is a good guy when it comes down to it. I truly believe he does all this with the best intentions. And for that, I honestly do respect him.
But… he has a gigantic ego.
He doesn’t see any of this as a two-way street. He’s “made it”. He knows everything. So, conversing with the fellow webcomickers visiting his site to come up with a good solution was out of the question, because he doesn’t see any of them a “fellow”, they’re merely underlings at worst, apprentices at best. Basically, people he’s allowed to kick around if the situation warrants it (or even not sometimes).
This is why option #1 wouldn’t happen. Brad doesn’t want the help. He talks big about how much time he spends moderating the forums, a key point even to the new pay-wall, yet, any other medium-to-large forum you go to has MORE THAN ONE moderator.
Why not take on someone else? Simply put, he doesn’t trust that anyone else is capable. And it’s not just moderating for trolls or dousing flamewars, it’s making sure people stay strictly on topic and to counteract anything he deems as “bad advice”.
Thing is, sometimes that “bad advice” is actually a matter of opinion, not fact, but he rarely distinguishs a difference. And has made a bad HABIT of initiating debates with anyone that tries to disagree, and then goes into passive-aggressive “this isn’t the place for this conversation” mode when they try make their case. I’d show examples, but alas, they’re behind the pay-wall now.
I recall one of the most recent was the Zingerding post. Anyone that tried to say that Brad was off-base with some of his “facts” was basically insulted by himself and his loyalists.
Ironically, Brad made several of the EXACT mistakes with the webcomics.com changeover that the Zingerding founders were lambasted for, and HE’S taking in actual, direct money.
This is also why #4 wouldn’t happen either. If he’s off to the side taking care of the premium content, someone needs to maintain the free stuff. So he can easily justify charging for his time, because, after all, if Brad Guigar doesn’t give the advice and keep things in check, then, by god, no one else possibly could.
And that’s why this new model is potentially dangerous for the community. Only those behind the pay-wall will know what’s going on. And anyone with a “dissenting” opinion runs the risk of being booted since there will be fewer members to support that person. That is, the folks that would do it actually know (or think they know), nearly as much (or even more) as Guigar himself, and thus, won’t pay him $30 to learn things they already know, or potentially know better.
Which leaves those left behind the wall learning a virtually unilateral viewpoint. Which, for something as ultimately arbitrary as comics, and ever changing as an internet business, is just dangerous. And the only balance will be Scott Kurtz? Um, does “no thank you” sum up my feelings on that? Reading through the comments on the announcement thread is VERY convincing that Kurtz is going to be a professional about this.
I realize Mr. Khoo will be involved as well, which is a major point in favor of “webcomics.com: paid edition” considering what he’s done for Penny Arcade, but it sounds like it will only be once a month, like Kurtz, and I doubt that will help balance out the Guigar influence.
And you might say, “But Brad has so much experience.” Yes, he does, but the point is he’s not the only one. In fact, he still has a day job last I heard, so he’s not even as big a success as, say, Kurtz.
Even with Big Guigar watching, webcomics.com still managed to be a melting pot of resourceful information. Now, it’s going to be even more of the Brad Guigar show than it already was.
I’m glad people like you, Tyler, will be on the inside. I wish I could too, but, 1) I don’t have $30 I can spend right now, and 2) even if I did, I wouldn’t spend it on the “privilege” of learning about comics 90% from a single viewpoint.
This comment got longer than I wanted, so I apologize for this, just had a lot of points to make.
And I know this looks like I hate Guigar or something, and I really don’t. I’m just frustrated my his increased ego-stroking habits since How to Make Webcomics came out and the subsequent pedestal others have put him on as a result.
He deserves our respect, yes. But our undying devotion? No.
A bunch of us creators are getting together to make a free alternative to webcomics.com
http://www.webcomicscommunity.com
We are fairly set and open for business (in as much as everything is free or paid for by me) so please check us out. We want to gather as much of the community to our generous bosom as we can.
LOL
The more of us that come together, the better the site will be.
Hey everybody, thanks for coming by, reading what I have to say and commenting. I agree with a lot of sentiments shared above. As with most things I do, my interest is not to stir up the pot or tear anyone down, but rather examine the situation and pull what lessons are to be learned from what’s taken place here.
Good luck Rob with the new site. I’m sure I’ll be by to check it out sooner or later.
Readers: Brad Guigar, in his “State of the Site Address” at Webcomics.com, has responded to critics of the changes to the site. Read his full comments here: http://www.webcomics.com/public-journal/2010/1/28/state-of-the-site-address.html
While I was hardly the only person to discuss this move and challenge its execution, Brad has responded directly to several of my critiques, quoting the above piece directly.
I stand by everything I wrote in trying to explain both the reaction to the move and the potential pitfalls. At the same time, I respect Brad’s point of view, and wish him well in his endeavor.