Business model just starting, business model just wrapped up. Let’s get digging.

• Know what I love? Kickstarter post-mortems. I can’t get enough of people sharing how a campaign went, and especially talking about how finances measured up (or out, or whatever ever direction finances are measured in). The latest one comes courtesy of David Morgan-Mar (PhD, LEGO®©™^etc, arbiter of image quality standards and part-time Mr Bean impersonator), who spent a longer than average (and more expensive than usual) time last year putting together the first print collection of his comics.

  Since Morgan-Mar works in LEGO-brand construction sets and minifigs, he had to consult with lawyers to figure out if printing a book made up of photos of LEGO things he built would possibly raise the ire of the Danish brickmongers before he even got to the usual book parts of making a book. Conclusion: maybe, but if they did sue him, he’d be able to mount a credible defense (whatever that might cost).

  Not quite as reassuring as Heck no, they’d never be able to touch you!, but good enough to get started! And, in fact, if not for the more than three thousand Aussie fun bucks, he would have lost only AU$260.21 on the endeavour. With the legal fees — well, ouch. But one thing not included in the breakdown is how many books over the Kickstarter rewards were printed, and thus may make a dent in the debits column as they sell in future.

  But the good news is, he notes in the post-mortem that he intends to print more books, and considerable costs are one-offs, making what would otherwise be a pricey hobby a less pricey — or even slightly remunerative — hobby instead. And in case you missed out on the Kickstart and wanted to help Morgan-Mar reduce the loss he took to provide you, his loyal readers, with what you always said you wanted, the book’s available at TopatoCo¹.

• I’ve mentioned Douglas Wilson on this page previously; he’s a cartoonist and animator from Manchester, England, UK, and work’s pretty damn good. He’s looking to shift a character — Jack Astro — that’s he’s been working into animated shorts for about five years into a longform story, and the first part of that went live yesterday. Take ‘er away, Doug:
  

  Jack Astro is a test pilot for the experimental Singularity Drive program. After sending a duplicate version of Jack and his ship to multiple galaxies in the universe – the drive scattered across space. He must reassemble the lost pieces before the drive re-activates to send him home. Doug is currently writing and drawing a 130 page comic which will update twice a month in 5 page vertical scrolling chunks of story on his website BandOfOne.co.uk.

  Patreon backers will receive PDF downloads of each issue of the comic as he completes them so they can read the story in larger chunks (first issue is 33 pages) instead of waiting for the story to unfold on the website.

  More precisely, Patreons at the $1 level get access to that first block of story, and if you aren’t on Patreon you can also obtain it via Gumroad for £1.50 (along with the Jack Astro shorts & earlier works as pay-what-you-want). Wilson kindly sent along a copy of issue 1 for me to peruse, and I enjoyed it — it’s well worth an entry-level Patreon pledge or cost of a cup of coffee (not even the fancy coffee, just the regular kind).

Spam of the day:

Magnificent things from you, guy

Spelled my name wrong.

_______________
¹ Just sayin’. Also, if Morgan-Mar received 100% of the cost of the books (which won’t be the case — TopatoCo’s providing warehousing and handling services, and gets paid for them), a mere eight books would erase the non-legal loss (which is reasonable, as the legal costs will apply to future books). If you wanted to bring him all the way up to zero loss (which also means making nothing on considerable personal effort), it’ll take just about exactly 100 books (AU$3560.21 lost, US$27 or AU$35.57 per book at today’s exchange rate).