are graphic novels profitable

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Rogue Demon

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Here is my situation, I am a screen writer/director who is also a businessman. I want my scripts to be produced into movies. I am thinking of adapting my script into a graphic novel and hopefully use the revenues to finance my films. Is the graphic novel business profitable or should I just look into other avenues to raise money to finance my films?
 

snafu1056

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Oh god no. Most people can't even use graphic novel profits to fund a week's worth of paying bills and eating. I recommend literally anything else.

I mean there's always a slim chance you'll stumble onto something big, but you can't count on that.
 

Treehouseman

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Robert Rodriguez famously gave himself up to be a medical lab rat for several weeks.

He got $7K for it and made his first movie.
 

Bicyclefish

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It's not a problem of making a film on a low budget, in my opinion. It's a problem of making a profit at all off a graphic novel. Could it be done? Sure. Anything is possible. But you'd have better chances exploring other options if your real dream is film.

Robert Rodriguez famously gave himself up to be a medical lab rat for several weeks.
He got $7K for it and made his first movie.
I thought he only raised about $3,000 of the $7,000 through medical testing with the rest funded by Carlos Gallardo, and several hundred thousand clean up post production work was done before being distributed by Columbia Pictures. (forum discussion)
 
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RedWombat

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Of all the possible ways you could make money to fund a film, a graphic novel is not THE worst, but it's significantly below "selling blood."

I would pick nearly anything else. It's not a good field to get into for the money.
 

Thuro

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Yeah. Its more of a passion thing than anything else (unless your name happens to be Mark Miller).
 

LosScandalous

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It is tough to make money on an indie graphic novel, however it's probably a great way to establish your movie universe. Short stories can also help generate interest in your movie projects as well. But it's an uphill battle to finance a film off of graphic novel sales.
 

kdaniel171

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I don't really think that graphic novels will bring you a big profit.
You should better look for something else(like short stories-preview to your script) to raise money to finance your movies.
 

TessB

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The fastest way to have $50,000 after publishing a graphic novel is to start production with $100,000. You'd get better results flushing the contents of your wallet down the bog.

(I say this as someone involved on the organizational / production end for some self-publishing artists who have already started with reasonably successful webcomics. Even with the built-in audience, it's a rough go.)
 

Bartholomew

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Here is my situation, I am a screen writer/director who is also a businessman. I want my scripts to be produced into movies. I am thinking of adapting my script into a graphic novel and hopefully use the revenues to finance my films. Is the graphic novel business profitable or should I just look into other avenues to raise money to finance my films?

You're getting a lot of "no" but not a lot of "why" so I'll fill those blanks in.

If you aren't an artist with a vast array of talents, and you want your graphic novel to look good, then you're going to need to hire:

A writer (You at least need someone to turn it from a screenplay into a comic script.)
A pencil artist
An inker
A colorist
A letterer
A designer (for the cover and getting the pages ready for printing.)

They all rightfully want paid. None of them have any way of selling your graphic novel.

Some of those people might be the same person. That's fine. But it's still the work of at least six people, so if you know how to do all of these things yourself, you're going to be putting a LOT of hours into your product -- arguably more than writing a novel, with far less likelihood of being able to sell it to anyone.

If you want to make a graphic novel, make it because you love it, not because you want money.
 

heanev

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It's highly unlikely. I follow several indie comic creators and very few are able to live on that income alone. They usually have a day job to help support themselves so it is unlikely that you'll make enough to finance your films. Most people do it for the love of the craft and story.

Unless you can illustrate the comic yourself to save money, Bartholomew is correct you'll have to pay all those people or one talented artist (who can do all those things) for their time and work.
 

zblock

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Yeah. I haven't cracked the code of making much money. Has anyone on these forums had measures of financial success? We could measure that up and it'd be interesting. Somebody get a poll going! :)

A comic or graphic novel, if done right is super inspirational and would be great to accompany a pitch to investors OR just use as reference to your creative team working on the film as guide for wardrobe, setting, mood, tone and set design. But yeah.... there's not a starving market looking for fresh comics...

Good luck. While you're at it, support a fellow creator? - I just published Volume 3 of my graphic novel on Amazon yesterday and need some reviews before it goes up on the Kindle Select program. $2.99 gets you the volume (it's the cheapest Amazon let's me sell for due to file size) and if you pm me, I'll email the digital versions of V1 and V2 for free. That goes for anyone else as well.

www.shakethelakecomic.com
 
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