CSotD: Links in the chain
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Rina Piccolo has posted an excellent two-part blog entry about creating a sales kit for a syndicated comic, in her case, "Tina's Groove." (Part One and Part Two)
This is something that comes up after the strip has been accepted at the syndicate and after the cartoonist has been through the development process, which is when you produce strips for criticism and adjustment and modification. There are many slips twixt cup and lips in that phase, but the goal, obviously, is a strip the cartoonist is happy with and that sells well in the market.
But, as anyone knows who has ever sold things to businesses, or attempted to solicit corporate support for anything, there's a gulf between "what ought to sell" and "what sells." Every link on the chain needs to line up, and lots of things have to go right, one after another, for the good outcome to happen.
The tool Rina discusses — the sales kit — is critical, because it's the only chance the artist has to weigh in. Once the kit has been completed, her part of the game is over and all she can do is sit and wonder what is going on out there.
The first people who have to be sold are the sales reps. After that, it's in their hands: Lunch at the big papers, phone calls to the small fry, schmoozing all around.
Whatever the specific approach, the Prime Directive in sales is "Get To The Decision Maker."
This is true at any level: I spent a few very long months selling the Kirby Classic in my young adulthood, and I learned to quickly figure out who I had to sell it to: Husband or wife? The one smiling and nodding and agreeing wasn't necessarily the one who would make the decision.
And there was absolutely no point in pitching the Classic to June when Ward wasn't there. The idea that anyone would pop for a $675 vacuum cleaner without talking to the other spouse is unlikely now, and that was an even bigger chunk of change 40 years ago.
Similarly, leaving information with the receptionist, an assistant or even the wrong editor is pointless. Consider the early scene in "Wall Street" where Charlie Sheen realizes he'll never get anywhere going through channels and simply barges past the receptionist into Gekko's inner office and makes his pitch.
Hollywood exaggeration? Sure, the part where it works doesn't reflect probability.
But given the odds of success doing it the other way, what the hell. Bottom line is, you've got to get to the decision maker.
If the vacuum cleaner salesman demonstrates the Kirby to June during the day, here's the conversation when Ward comes home that night:
June: Oh, Ward, I saw the nicest vacuum cleaner today! Can we get it?
Ward: What's it cost?
June: $675.
Ward: For a vacuum cleaner? I can get one at Sears for $200.
June: I suppose you're right.
The big difference is that you don't even get that much discussion when you leave your material with an underling. It goes more like this:
Exec: Good morning. (picks up stack of mail and other crap, including your pitch, goes into office, shuts door.)
At that point, you'd better have a damn good sales kit, because that poor puppy is on its own in there.
Even having an advocate within the building is not a failsafe.
I've told the story before, but, back when I was the go-to comics guy at one paper — but not the decision maker — I got a call from a KFS rep, followed by a sales kit for "Retail."
Knowing it was coming, I took a look, and started going through the packet of sample strips.
To quote Rina, "It’s these samples more than anything else that will tell the client what he or she could expect from the comic."
My desk was in a large, open space shared with advertising, and in particular three energetic young women in their late 20s, the kind of fashionable, educated Gen-Xers newspapers needed to bring into the fold.
I showed one of them a sample Sunday strip in which Marla drops by the store on her day off to pick up her check, pauses to help a customer and then gets sucked into the machinery and winds up working off the clock.
She howled. "Oh, yes!" she cried, "Right away, I said, 'God, don't go in there!' I knew that would happen! Never go in on your day off!"
She grabbed the rest of the samples, began reading them and falling over with laughter. The other two quickly flocked to see what had her in such stitches and work in the office came to a sudden, complete, hilarious stop.
So I called the rep and asked for two more kits, which I ran over to the editor and the features editor and said, "This is a terrific strip! Think how many young people there are in that demographic who have worked at the mall? This is perfect!"
About two weeks later, I went back to the editor and said, "What did you think about that comic strip?" and he said it was up to the features editor.
So I went to his desk and he said, "What? Oh, yeah, I didn't …" and he began looking around vaguely at the piles of stuff on his cabinets.
The story goes on, but the ending is the same. June didn't get the new vacuum cleaner.
The easiest thing in the world to do is nothing, and, unless they are facing an actual hole in the page, editors are very good at doing nothing with comics.
Some syndicates know this. When "Citizen Dog" ended, the syndicate simply started sending us something else. There may have been a letter sent to the editor, but, if so, it went in the stack of stuff to be ignored.
That having been the era of scanning in hard copy, I happened to notice the "new feature" as I walked through pre-press or we'd have started it with no notice. (We bought something else, thanks.)
And when "Mother Goose" changed shops, the old syndicate sent us a notice that the strip was "ending" and suggested some replacements. I emailed Mike Peters with a WTF? and he got back to me, we contacted King and things went on. But how many papers didn't catch the swap?
The ability of editors to ignore comics is why we have, not simply "zombie strips," but, since the death of Charles Schulz, reruns.
When Schulz had his stroke, I alerted the editor that it looked like we might need to fill a hole, and, when it was announced he wasn't coming back, we started looking at replacements. But 95% of papers didn't follow industry gossip and didn't know what was going on until they were offered the reruns, which gave them a chance to do nothing.
Right up their alley!
These are hard times in the industry. It's a helluva thing when, if you run into a newspaper person you haven't seen in awhile, "Are you still working?" is not a rude question. But it's not.
And the more newsrooms are forced to "do more with less," the less they are going to pay attention to something that arrives on schedule and can just be plopped into a template and sent to the presses, whether it's funny or not funny, whether it's innovative or same-old-same-old, and whether it's first-run, re-run or never-ever-shoulda-run.
Which either makes promotion futile, if you're inclined to fight nothing with nothing, or even more critical, if you want to be the one who pushes past the receptionist and makes the sale.
Stay thirsty, my friends.
(I think I was selling the Kirby when this haircut was stylish)
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