The primary reasons are; there were a couple speakers that asked us not to film them or at least not make it available if we did – which would leave some big holes. In addition, as it was put several times in the comments and e-mails directly to me, we feel it would be unfair to all of those who attended and paid the $350, paid for airfare, hotel, food, etc., and took vacation time to be there. We are going to do a “promo” video with clips & highlights that we will put up on the Tundra site at some point.

Bill also tells me that a future seminar is being considered.

Here are the notes in one handy list:

• Chad Carpenter and Bill Kellogg
• Amy Lago
• Mark Anderson
• Cam Millward
• Daryl Cagle
• Andrew Feinstein
• Keith Knight
• Howard Tayler
• My review of the Success in Seminar weekend

I don’t know if this was a financial success for the organizers, but from the perspective as an observer, I’d call this seminar a success for several reasons. First, when cartoonists get together we typically spend a lot of time talking about pens, anecdotes and/or gripe about the current state of affairs. The business side of cartooning is discussed, but in smaller groups in hallways, lobbies and bars. This is the first seminar that I’m aware of that was specifically about the business side of the art. For that reason alone, I hope this becomes a reoccurring event – especially for those coming up who have the most to gain from the experience of those much further down the road.

Another aspect of its success was the opportunity to listen to the success stories of other cartoonists. Inspiration is very powerful force to move a cartoonist (or anyone) from one plateau to the next. The reality is not everyone in that room is going to be successful – even though we all heard the same presentations. The smart ones will take the concepts discussed and apply them to other areas of their life. I found many of the topics discussed had direct application to this blog and inspired me to think differently about ways to improve and market it better.

Because the environment was geared toward business, I’m not the only one who used the opportunity to network and discuss partnerships or deals. I overheard a few conversation end with agreements to discuss proposals in greater detail after the conference. One of the things that was emphasized by Mark Anderson was the importance of casting a lot of lines in the water (figuratively speaking) because even though most won’t yield a fish – one of them will.

And lastly, I think the line up of presenters was top notch. Each came well prepared to discuss the things that they learned that made them successful. I wouldn’t have taken seven pages of notes if I didn’t think the information was relevant and useful.

So that’s my take. In the interest of full disclosure, I had some hand in the seminar. I gave it free advertising and write-ups to help drum up interest and in return attended as their guest. As I spoke with various participants, I believe the consensus with positive. If you attended and feel differently please feel free to leave your own review in the comments. I know as Bill and Chad weigh whether to do this again, they would welcome any feedback positive or negative.

And lastly, kudos to the Carpenters, Bill, Zack the Flunky and all who organized this, it was done very well.

A few of the concepts he talks about is the fact that most major online news sites don’t post comics – or at least use comics to sell the website much like newspapers used comics to sell papers in the early days of papers. There is now a separation of comics and journalism. He advocated his audience to read two essays by Kevin Kelly – “A 1000 True fans” and “Better than Free” – the former about how it is possible to generate a livable income off of a much smaller audience than one would expect and the second how to make money in an era of the “superconducting copy machine” – where everything can be copied, distributed at a cost of zero.

Perhaps the most important concept he spoke about was the notion of owning one’s audience. It is “easier to find content for your audience than find an audience for your content,” meaning it’s easier to market to an existing audience than try to sell a product to an audience that has to be created.

Keith advocated knowing your market and treating it like a business knowing the which markets your work plays to best and marketing to the segment. Like Chad, he highly recommended going to conventions – especially those in the desired markets where you’re the only cartoonist on the floor. Conventions are great places to network and make deals. Self publication of your cartoons are important to increase profits. He also maintains that each image your create should work for you, making you money repeatedly. The sound bite I wrote down that sums up his presentation is, “It’s about being the last cartoonist standing” – nod to the importance of perseverance.

Andrew and Justin signed with Creators Syndicate because he was exhausted trying to do both the marketing and the artwork of the strip. Since signing with Creators, it has freed up his time so he could focus on other things like their book and animation projects. Andrew suggests anyone going into comics to make sure they create iconic, consistent and relatable characters. He also talked about the 10,000 hour rule: the amount of hours one has to invest into any effort to be really proficient and skilled at it. The notion of wanting your comic on the refrigerator door is an antiquated idea. In today’s world, the equivalent is having your cartoons forwarded through email, posted on Facebook walls. A couple of other things Andrew advocated is that if you can help not be both the artist and the salesman, life will be easier. Selling a cartoon sounds better coming from a third party.

Daryl’s presentation centered on the editorial cartooning community and his work syndicating cartoonists and things he learned while running editorial cartoons on cagle.com. Regarding his website, he made two points of interest. First you’ll notice that he puts his name on everything. Doing so has raised his profile in other media. When a cartoon related news event happens, he’s well known and easily approachable for media interviews. On his website, he started grouping editorial cartoons by topic because he found people are more interested in topics than they were in specific artist’s work.

Looking into the future, he says that pay-per-use is going to be the future. Websites like politicalcartoons.com or Mark Anderson’s Andertoons.com are going to be important “stores” to capitalize on this trend and even went so far as to say it would be important to build multiple versions of a “store” with the same content that is promoted to different markets. He also urged that cartoonists look at their art as products and pay attention to product placement – much like brick and mortor stores.

Cam is highly supportive of self-syndicated cartoons, but if a self-syndicated artists wants to get into the game, they’ve got to work like a syndicate to fit into this complex system of getting comics to the readers. He advocates that each artist maintain their own FTP site where pagination service companies can easily pull down the latest cartoons. Files have to be named with a particular naming convention to work in with the automation software they use and he also advocates that artists work 30 days ahead and always be available by email or phone if there is an issue with a cartoon at the last moment. When a comic is missing or late, he can always call directly to the syndicate and get the cartoon sent right over, but with self-syndicates he has to track down the artist. Other suggestions include doing the coloring yourself if color consistency is important to the artist, otherwise with three different pagination services doing coloring, often the coloring is different from paper to paper depending on who which service they use.

Correction: Cam wasn’t the one who founded Canwest Editorial Services, he was one of the first employees hired by Alex Beer who started up Canwest Editorial Services Division. The pagination division was given to Cam to start up.

He talked about committing to goals that help cartoonist be consistent in the number of cartoons produced each month; committing to a set schedule and not missing deadlines. Under the DIY (Do it yourself) he advocated asking people who buy comics (magazine editors in his case) why they buy or not buy comics; checking out competition and automating as much of the process of cartooning as possible. One of the most important topics he touched on is finding one’s fit whether it’s online, greeting cards, webcomics or syndication. He also advocated finding partnerships with other business, publications that can help promote your work. Lastly he talked about embracing failure saying, “if you’re not failing, your not trying hard enough” meaning you’re not doing enough to promote your work.

As to things to think about when submitting, she mentioned that since there are more comic strips slots available there is greater opportunity for a strip to gain more clients. HOWEVER, if the cartoonist’s writing better lends to a panel, then they should pursue a panel because one would always want their best efforts being put forward. She also preached about simplifying the strip artwork – especially the backgrounds as papers keep shrinking the strip – even down to 4.5 inches wide in the case of one paper.

As to the pros and cons with going the self syndication, she acknowledged that if the cartoonist is self-determined and motivated to do a lot of the promotion, sales and distribution, then it doesn’t make sense to use a syndicate. Syndicates are great for having an editor and having someone to bounce ideas around with. They also provide legal services such as clearing trademarks before the launch of the feature. She strongly urged cartoonists to file their copyright with the copyright office to that allows the creator to pursue treble damages if their work has been infringed.