By Janna Morishima
I wanted to write an article for Comics Beat about comics/graphic novel marketing. Why? Because I am teaching a masterclass on June 20th on how to launch your comic/graphic novel. What could be better than getting exposure for it on a media site with wide reach to my exact target audience?
Right there in the first paragraph, I’ve given away one of the biggest lessons in the class: one of the best ways to promote your upcoming book is to get permission to reach readers through someone they already pay attention to.
But usually, the best way to get someone like that to agree to help you is to make it a win-win. Instead doing you a huge favor with questionable return to them, you figure out a way to help them, too.
When it comes to media sites like Comics Beat, one of their challenges is getting thoughtful, high-quality, human-generated content that their audience might connect with.
If you’re a comics creator, what you do is create things, right? So it’s a no-brainer for you to create something valuable for them!
In my case, I suggested to Heidi MacDonald that I write an article for Comics Beat about book marketing for comics and graphic novel creators.
“Sure, sounds great!” she said.
Easy-peasy, right?
Well… not quite. There are two things that actually made this shameless self-promotion work.
The first thing: build the relationship long before you need it
I have to back up and state one extremely important fact: Heidi has known me for a very, very long time. We’ve been on panels together. We’ve had lunch together. We’ve met up at the same parties, conventions, and comics shindigs for years.
Tom Hart from SAW, Heidi MacDonald from Comics Beat, and Janna Morishima from Kids Comics Unite at MoCCA 2023.
So when I pitch Heidi on me writing an article, she knows exactly who I am, trusts that I know my stuff, and has faith that I’ll deliver something good. That’s why I got an immediate “yes.”
If I were somebody she’d never heard of, emailing her out of the blue, I might have gotten a very different response.
This is another key lesson about marketing: you can’t toil away on your comics masterpiece for years, deliver it to the publisher, emerge from your studio, then email a bigwig you admire and say, “Hey, I just created this awesome book that’s coming out soon, would you please talk about it?”
Or, even worse, “would you please take this ChatGPT-written press release and push it out to your readers?”
If they’ve never met you or heard about you before, their most likely response would be to roll their eyes and delete your email.
On the other hand, if you’ve chatted with them at a con before, left thoughtful comments on their YouTube channel, shared their work on your Substack, or introduced yourself in a genuinely human way long before you needed anything, I can almost guarantee they won’t delete your email. They’ll read it and give it some thought. They’ll quite possibly reply to ask for more information, or make a suggestion on how you could collaborate.
This is the part some creators underestimate: effective self-promotion rests on strong relationships. Strong relationships TAKE TIME. You can’t expect loads of people with platforms to jump at the chance to spotlight your work if they don’t already know you.
“Being good at marketing” is, in many ways, just being good at being human. Helping other people out, giving public props to them, introducing like-minded friends to each other… in other words, being a generous, conscientious citizen of the comics community.
What if, while you were toiling away on your comics masterpiece, you set aside a couple hours each week to contribute to the community? Maybe you host a local creator meetup. Maybe you make a habit of sharing other people’s good news. Maybe you start recommending books you love in your newsletter.
Then, when it’s time for you to ask for a favor, people think, “Oh, I know that creator. They’re super cool.”
But besides building relationships way in advance of your book’s release date, there is one other highly effective thing you can do when asking influencers to feature your work.
The second thing: make it drop-dead easy
Building relationships in advance is most of the battle. But there’s one other highly effective thing you can do when you finally ask someone to feature your work: remove every ounce of effort from their side.
Here’s what I mean: think through what you want to propose — an interview? a guest post? a panel idea? a resource that would help their audience? — and then make it as plug-and-play as possible.
Check their platform in advance and make sure you format anything you send according to their style. Give them the link to your media kit with a ready-formatted bio and headshot. Compile a list of interview questions for them. Provide a full write-up. Create social media promo images they can share.
And proofread everything carefully before you send it!
[EDITOR’S NOTE FROM HEIDI: This second part is so important! Janna sent me a Google doc ready to pop right into WordPress. I didn’t have to scramble for images, or fix the format or any of one thousand other things that will make it so much easier for me to push it down my to do list because it is going to take some time. And I have a very long to do list.]
The real takeaway
I started this article with my own self-serving desire: I wanted to spread the word about my upcoming masterclass on book marketing for graphic novelists.
But I didn’t approach a stranger and ask them to share my stuff. I approached someone I already know, asked if I could provide something that I knew would help their audience, and made it as easy as possible for them to say yes.
That’s the takeaway. Getting featured by other people with the right audience — especially if their audience is bigger than yours — is one of the most powerful things you can do to spread the word about your book. But relationships need to be built long before you ask.
And when you finally do ask, the best pitch is not “please promote me.” It’s “here is something valuable for your audience, in a format that will be easy for you to use.”
“Marketing” and “promotion” are words that elicit a fair amount of negative feelings from many creators. I totally understand because they imply a sort of “please pay attention to me!” energy.
If I could, I would banish both words and reframe the whole thing:
Spreading the word happens through people and communities. People and communities respond best when you show up consistently and generously, offer something of value, and make the collaboration fun.
Being a good human, it turns out, is surprisingly great for marketing.
Want to dive deeper? Please join me at 1 pm ET on June 20th for the How to Launch Your Graphic Novel free online masterclass. I’ll walk you through the exact framework I use to help creators find readers for their book. Click here to RSVP.
Janna Morishima is a literary agent specializing in graphic novels and visual storytelling. She started her career at Scholastic, where she was a co-founder of the Graphix imprint. Later, she was the director of the Kids Group for Diamond Book Distributors, and launched and ran the NYC Department of Education’s NYC Reads 365 literacy initiative. She is also the founder of Kids Comics Unite, an online community for kids and YA graphic novel professionals.
