Independent Publishing With CJ Standal

I, as a recent business marketing student, can say that my research in independent publishing has led me to conclude that…

“Independent publishing is the process in which a book (in this case a comic) enters the market and into the hands of a reader.”

A lame, but clear description. Which now leads me to admit to the fact that I have never independently published a book (comic or not), but I do happen to have had the pleasure of interviewing someone who has. His name is CJ Standal (follow his Twitter), writer and co-creator of Rebirth of the Gangster (support the Kickstarter). Juan Romera is the illustrator and co-creator.

I regret to say that I have not yet had the pleasure of interviewing Juan Romera, but I assure you his name is on my list. Rebirth of the Gangster is the brain child of CJ Standal, and it was CJ Standal’s decision to release his work as an independent publisher.

Quick answer? They don’t. Well most of them don’t.

Independently published authors are usually the average Joe fan of comics who take on the already arduous task of scripting as well as hiring and paying an artist to complete a comic book. All in the hope of getting accepted by the top dogs in the comic book publishing industry: Marvel, DC, Image, or Dark Horse.

In reality, after all the hard work it takes to make a comic book, you usually end up with a pile of rejection letters. In CJ Standal’s case, that pile was 28 publishers high.

After some grieving, and possibly going through something similar to the 5 stages of grief. CJ came to accept that he wasn’t going to get published by someone else but that he still wanted to put his comic out into the real world. He would take on the responsibilities of a publisher.

So the more complicated answer is rejection. A lot of rejection, but an even greater desire to share your work with the world is definitely the most likely drive that someone can have to become an independent publisher.

• You are in control of everything. The direction of the story, the look of the comic, editing. So the story goes your way.
• You own the profit and decide where it goes. Usually, you get a larger margin than if you worked for a publishing company.
• More rewarding. You know everything you succeeded in doing was because you did it.

• Not so much fun; a lot of the responsibilities of an independent publisher are not fun to do. You don’t just get to do what you are good at.
• You lose on a lot of time you could be working on the next issue.
• Publicity is not easy or cheap to come by.
• Marketing is not something people are all good at.

CJ Standal explained it to me during our interview.

To be an independent publisher… “you have to throw yourself into it.” Accept what you have to do and do it all.

Being an independent publisher is doing more for your comic than you ever could as a writer or illustrator. It means doing everything in your ability to get your work out into the world and in the hands of those who can enjoy it. It’s not easy and what you learn many times comes from failures. It will suck, for a lack of a better term; but you will have done it all.

There is a benefit to being an independent publisher that is dismissed a lot of the time. If you start making sales, complete enough issues and manage to do a good enough job, you will be able to prove your worth to some big publisher out there.

In CJ Standal’s experience, he managed to get Creator’s Edge, one of the 28 publishers that rejected him, to tell him that once he completed Rebirth of the Gangster that they would consider publishing his work as a completed graphic novel. At the end of the day, getting published by someone else ended up being his real back up plan. Heed his experience. It is a good example of what can happen to just about anyone that puts in the work.