Convincing A Cosplayer To Pick Up Your Comic

While I was trying to figure out how to contact a cosplayer; be it through digital means (social media, their website, email, etc), or in person (at conventions, contests, or other events) I also decided to write an article about convincing a cosplayer to pick up your comic.

What do I mean by that? Well, it’s one thing to get a hold of a cosplayer, it’s another to convince them to spend the time it takes them to study your comic, it’s character’s design, come up with a design plan for a cosplay outfit, purchase the materials, make said cosplay, and wear it in places that can help benefit your comic (i.e. promote your work).

If your comic or character isn’t very well known, this can be difficult. It’s going to be up to you to offer something to the cosplayer you’re contacting to get them to pick up the project you’re proposing.

This article will cover some of the ways that a comic creator can sway a cosplayer mind to pick up their comic.

If you’ve gotten to this point I would presume that you have at least a few cosplayers in mind to contact. You have either a single character or a list of them that you like them to cosplay for you.

Now is the time to decide how you’re willing to encourage the cosplayer in question to pick up your comic.

A quick note before we begin this list. I am presenting a series of examples that you can use to convince a cosplayer to pick up your comic.

I believe that the best way to do so is to use a combination of these options. Sometimes using a single option may be enough, but I strongly recommend that you consider, and set aside a budget, to offer more than one option when trying to convince a cosplayer to work with you.

If you are not willing or able to exchange money for the cosplayer’s services then you can possibly entice them with the promise of an exciting new story. Remember, typically cosplayers are very big fans of comics and other visual media. They may be very happy to receive comics for free and an opportunity to work directly with a creator or publisher.

This method can be the least costly if you offer them digital copies of your comic. Alternatively, asking the cosplayer if they would be interested in receiving free hard-copy versions of your comic for samples for their cosplay design work instead of digital ones is a great way of getting a response from the cosplayer. You can even use it as a trading chip in your negotiations for their work.

Sometimes messages with requests from others asking for their services can end up flooding yours out. Offering them something real that they can hold in their hands can help encourage them to work with you.

Regardless of whether or not you decide to go with any other method I present in this article, I recommend that you tack on this benefit as well. If the cosplayer in question is not already a fan of your work they will need copies of your comic as reference materials for your their cosplay design work. Sketches can work too, but I believe it costs nothing to provide a digital copy of a comic you can easily distribute.

Sometimes you can even offer the cosplayer you’re trying to work with advertising opportunities. Whether by adding banner ads or just talking about them to others (i.e. your followers, your peers, your fans at conventions, etc).

Another fun and interesting way that you can promote a cosplayer is to create variant covers of your comic that display not an illustration, but an image of the cosplayer wearing the cosplay of one of your comic’s characters. You can also insert similar images inside your comic like old school whole page ads!

You can both work out what you want the other to say when talking about them. You will both want to control the message being promoted about each other.

Just remember, even this sort of agreement can be considered a business transaction. I would recommend mentioning that you have agreed to talk about each other in exchange for getting them to cosplay one of your characters. Just be sure to say how much you love their other work as well. You wouldn’t want to work with a cosplayer just because you want to promote your comic. You should genuinely love their previous work as well.

This sort of offer can be quite enticing the hobby and part-time cosplayers. By offering to pay for their material costs you are helping them get started on a new project almost right away!

If you’re offering to pay for material costs but still want to help the cosplayer make some money in return I would recommend helping them find ways that they can still make a little profit from their work.

Though it might only fit on a person with specific measurements you can still help the cosplayer make a profit on the cosplay outfit after they have designed, worn and used to help promote your comic.

If either you or the cosplayer has an e-commerce store you can agree (before the project starts) whether or not the cosplayer wants to sell the final design. If you both agree to it you can both decide who’s store features the cosplay design. At which point you can negotiate whether or not either of you can offer coupon codes to promote the sale of the cosplay outfit.

I would encourage offering the larger portion of the sale (if not the entire profit) to the cosplayer. This will help you better convince the cosplayer to pick up your comic.

If you would like them to attend a specific event (i.e a convention, a book signing, etc) dressed up as one of your characters, you can influence their decision by offering to cover their travel expenses. You can pay for their means of travel (i.e. plane, train, gas, etc), their extra luggage (especially if their flying), their housing (i.e. hotel, motel, Holiday Inn!!!... I’m not sorry...), food, and more.

Even if the convention you’re asking them to attend is within driving distance for them, offering to cover for a nearby hotel can help them not have to deal with traffic which can help with not getting to the convention or book signing late.

One alternative that can be more on the costly side is to offer the cosplayer a sales guarantee. This can mean a few different things depending on the type of deal you or the cosplayer are willing to go into.

A sales guarantee means that you are offering a cut of your profits in sales. This can be both as a percentage, a fixed figure, or both.

When offering a percentage of sales the figure depends on what you want to offer. By offering a cosplayer a percentage of sales you are then promising them a cut of the profits from a specific event (i.e. convention, book signing, etc), or a percentage of sales from their own influential marketing of your comic. The latter requires some online campaign design and management.

A fixed figure sales guarantee means that, regardless of how much money the cosplayer actually makes for you. You will definitely pay them a certain amount of money for their time and work done. As an example, let’s say that you offered a cosplayer to pay them $2,000 for attending a convention dressed as your character for half a day. Even if you don’t make $2,000 during that convention in terms of profit from sales you will have to pay the rest out of pocket.

Offering a cosplayer a sales guarantee for both a fixed figure and a percentage of sales can help you in convincing a cosplayer to pick up your comic. One thing to consider when offering both, you can negotiate for a lower fixed figure. This can help to lower the initial cost of your agreement. You may still end up paying them more than you would if you had just given them a larger fixed figure, but you can account for that cost when you’re pricing your goods when hiring them.

A growing number of cosplayers are turning to video to promote their passion of cosplaying into a viable career or to increase their following.

You can offer to sponsor one or a few of their videos to make sure that they cosplay one or more of your characters.

The price for this sort of thing depends greatly on the individual cosplaying YouTuber (while we're talking about YouTubers, check out mine! Subscribe while you're at it!) or video producer.

One alternative to convincing a cosplayer to pick up your comic is to reduce the amount of work you’re asking for.

One thing that cosplayer can do for a comic creator is to design and produce parts or accessories of a creator’s comic characters.

At this point, you can negotiate for them to make multiple units (within reason please) that you can use to sell or distribute by whichever means you like.

This can be a good thing to consider using when coming up with rewards for a project (i.e. Kickstarter) or ongoing (i.e. Patreon) crowdfunding tools.

Now, this option is obviously not for everyone. This is probably more of an option for a publisher or a very successful indie comic creator.

Having your own in-house cosplayer to help you create merchandise, how-to videos, attend conventions alongside comic creators could be an invaluable asset to anyone.

The ability to manage and direct the messages and content delivered to fans of cosplay and the comics being promoted can be of great help if done well. It also offers a cosplayer the opportunity to make a living from their passion which is definitely an upside!

Probably one of the most effective means of getting your comic picked up by a cosplayer (by your intention or not) is by creating an amazing and memorable character. One that resonates with their readers.

You can do this by either making their character design intricate or bland. By making their character have an old school, new school, or just a weird look.

Although, probably the best way to get your comic picked up by a cosplayer is to just make your character someone that really mirrors your readers in some way shape or form.

If you create a character that you feel resembles the type of characters a certain cosplayer typically works with, it can go a long way to convincing them to pick your comic up.

Well, that about wraps things up! I wanted to talk about cosplayers and cosplaying in the comic industry for a while now and I'm happy with how it ended up! I’m hoping to discuss further the relationship that I cosplaying, cosplayers, comic creators and comic publishers have and could have more in the future. Maybe I’ll talk more about it on an episode of my upcoming YouTube series.

I’m quite glad that I got to do write about what types of cosplayers there were, talk about how best to contact them with professional intent, and now discuss how comic creators can consider convincing to work together and even paying a cosplayer for their time and effort.

I hope that by writing these articles I’ve helped not only comic creators explore a new avenue for promoting their own work. But also helped some new or experienced cosplayers make a name for themselves in their industry.

Tell me, did you learn anything new by reading these last three articles on cosplaying? Are you now planning on contacting a cosplayer to help promote your comic? What strategies are you planning on using to contact and convincing the cosplayers?

Let me know in the comment section below!