SOLDIERS Update
The first issue of SOLDIERS is complete and the response these past weeks from the comic community has been awesome! You guys ROCK!
Zero has been read by over 10,000 unique visitors, it’s being followed by 2,600 people on RSS, our bounce rate is about 37%, our dwell time is high, and we’re over 70,000 page views. Considering SOLDIERS updates are inside a flash gallery and we average 20 pages a gallery, that equates to about 770,000 actual page views (SOLDIERS episodes have been read over 35,000 times). Not too shabby… We climbed from rank 3,500 or so to the low 200’s on TopWebComics – quite a feat, considering how difficult that voting structure is – and we’re in the top 100 over on ComicRank.com. All in all, we are very happy with the results.
SOLDIERS Zero was a test platform, and we learned a lot of very valuable lessons. We came up with a new way to handle the presentation that gives the same effect but allows for a lot more page views as well as hyperlinks. We found a superior archive system that is already in place on the site. We are changing the navigation from episode to episode. And we made a lot of structural changes in the site’s code that make operating it a heck of a lot easier than when we first started. A huge shout out goes to our webmistress, Laura, for all of her hard work and innovation.
In addition to site mechanics, we also learned a great deal about the digital market. Part of our test was to decide how to use the web to sell digital comics. We made SOLDIERS so it would be organic to a wide range of digital devices. We’re already on iTunes, we’re soon to be on Kindle, and other platforms are in the works – I’ll keep you appraised as they become available. Our intent was to see if we could put our comic up as a webcomic and transform that into sales. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out the way we wanted. A number of instances arose where, once they discovered it could be read on the web for free, would be app purchasers diverted to the free option. We were in competition with ourselves.
We structured the SOLDIERS site to give our readers as smooth and elegant a reading experience as we could. I realize it isn’t like most webcomics – we planned it that way. As readers got used to the format, the response really climbed. The experience was so good that most felt no need to read it any other way. Which is awesome – except that the free version doesn’t generate any revenue.
We have the option of making the web version not as easy to read, or make the episodes much shorter, but have decided against that. If we do something, it has to be good – we won’t intentionally give our readers a poor experience. So, we’re going the pay route. I realize some of you may not like this decision, and for that I apologize. But SOLDIERS is very expensive to produce and in order to continue making it, we need to be able to make money at it.
We will start regular production of SOLDIERS right away, and new issues will be out early 2010. We will offer a substantial preview of each issue and will then prompt for purchase. We will have SOLDIERS available through iTunes, Kindle, and a pdf download site still TBD. We are working hard on other platforms. Our publisher, Underwater Samurai, is very intent on providing digital content through every channel that is appropriate. No matter how you view digital, we want you to be able to read SOLDIERS.
In the meantime, we will be beefing up the site with a lot more extra content. Character bios, pod casts, development material, and other stuff – including a lot more “Interview with a Vet”. We loved doing that and you loved reading it. Also, the Store is getting a major overhaul – better presentation and more products. And, we’re finally getting around to putting the Advice articles up!
We’ll have new stuff going up every week until the next issue is ready, so swing by every now and then and check on us.
