April 2008


I received a surprising number of responses to my rather whiny artist’s statement about not making any money off my website, too many to reproduce in whole. I have compiled edited highlights. Many of your suggestions were intelligent and practical and you will see them implemented in the weeks and months to come, just as soon as I have completed the Herculean labor of getting off my ass.

 

Hey Tim,

I like your comics so much! Keep up the great work, etc..
BTW, what's with the crazy day of the dead, Mexican with a sombrero looking
dude in the latest comic? I'm from Brazil so it just sort of stood out.
Cheers,
Andre

Andre Cunha,

It does look pretty Mexican, I know. But I do research my visuals and I swear that figure turned up in a google image search for Sao Paulo or Rio. Now, looking again, of course I can't find it, plus I get distracted by all the asses. You guys are the ass capitol of the planet, man. How can you stand it?

Tim Kreider

You must be a Brazilian at heart then because you draw the best cartoon asses
I've ever seen.
Cheers,
Andre

Andre,

Check out this week's cartoon [30 April 2008].

Eu sou um brasileiro!,
Tim


7 April 2008

Hi Mr. Krieder -

I discovered your site sometime last fall, and have since slogged through your entire accumulated archives… Thanks for sharing your talent with the rest of us.

In this week's cartoon and Artist Statement I saw your angst about your lack of income, and I thought of a couple of things in response to your attitude toward making money off of your website. I don't understand why you'd feel a need to be apologetic about the prospect of doing so. More specifically:

" that is not the sort of thing we do around here..."

Why the fuck not???? If people are enjoying what you do and finding value in it (as evidenced by the fact that they keep coming back for more), why not make them to contribute to (or, as it sounds in your case, simply establish) your bottom line, especially if it enables you to keep on cranking out the 'toons? Why feel guilty about that in the least? Holy shit, bro, rake in as much as you can! If you eventually find yourself drowning in a sea of disposable income, you can assuage your guilt in the manner of Bill Gates, by starting scholarships for young artists, or buying clean underwear for your friend Boyd, or something like that. That's capitalism, and it's nothing to be ashamed of: you do something valuable for people, and people pay you so that you can keep on doing it.

Once you get over your sense of guilt at making money doing something you enjoy, we can tackle your second remark:

" advertisers are not exactly clamoring for access to the audience..."

I'm no expert on the best way to "monetize" your site, but as far as hosting ads goes, probably the easiest thing to try is Google's Adsense program:

http://www.google.com/adsense

They don't give a rip who hosts their ads, how much/little traffic you have, or (for the most part) what kind of site content you have; anyone - including starving artists like you, and bored engineers like me - can sign up. When someone visits your site, their software checks your site for keywords, and puts up "relevant" advertisements. How much money you make depends on how many folks see the ads, and how many actually click on them. Don't know what your site traffic is like, but consider my own sad little enterprise:

http://home.comcast.net/~prestondrake/index.htm

The real moneymaker there for me is the sale of motorcycle tire-changing tools (which, obviously, involves considerable physical labor), but last summer I figured I might as well have these folks stare at some ads when they stop by. Since that time, my per-day average is about 113 visitors, 1 click, and fifty cents. Google mailed me my first check for $100 last month. Woohoo!