Movie Editor Turns 19th Century Art Into Full-Time Job

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

Well, I hope you enjoyed yesterday's episode. If you have not had a chance to listen to it, be sure to go and do that. That was episode 709, "A Stay-at-Home Mom Delivers Fresh Side Income." I really like that story of a woman in Tennessee, actually a woman from Canada who relocates to Tennessee who starts an online farmer's market. That business is now bringing in thousands of dollars a month and also contributes to a $0 food bill for her family since it provides all the food. Fun little extra benefit. And I also challenged our listeners, if you don't have a

lot of time, if you don't have a lot of extra money, well, there's still probably something that you can do. That's why I'm telling you a different story every day of someone who creates personal freedom for themselves in the form of a side hustle. Today's story is about someone who goes full time, eventually at least, self-publishing comic books. Now, the movie editor that you'll hear about today started creating webcomics way back in 2003. Little did he know that this labor of love would eventually turn into a $10,000 per event side hustle. And then, as I said,

a full-time occupation. Along the way, he learns lessons in marketing, print on demand, attracting fans through free content, and understanding what those fans really want. Last but not least, he was also careful to slowly phase out his day job, opting for a freelance position for nine months one year, then six months the next, and then three months the year after. It is perhaps a good reminder to plan your exit strategy at least whenever possible, and also at least whenever you want to. Because I'm aware that a lot of our listeners are perfectly happy with their job, they just want to create some extra money, extra security, or a different creative project on the side. I respect all those things. Whatever your goal is,

I want to make sure this community is supportive for you. Side Hustle School is completely free. Here's a quick thank you to our sponsor that makes that happen, and then I'll tell you all about this story. For movie trailer editor David Malki, whose name is legally spelled with an unpronounced exclamation point at the end, creating comics was a fun way to keep himself entertained between projects. David loved pulling 19th century illustrations from books in the public library or his own rare collection and recontextualizing them with modern day references. He'd scan the

images into his computer, upload them to Adobe Photoshop, and add funny passages. He mostly saw this artwork as a labor of love. He'd upload the final comic to his website, Wondermark, and share them with whoever cared to read. He did this mostly by taking part in discussions in webcomic forums and on message boards. This all started way back in 2003, long before Facebook groups and Twitter threads. Over time, David and his comics began to build

a following. People would comment on his work and share it with their friends. The more he created, the better he got, and the more people reacted to what he was making. As the audience grew, so did his desire to turn Wondermark into a business. He'd seen a few other creators making a comfortable living from their comic creations and wanted to be able to do the same. So, to see

if Wondermark had the chops to survive, David devised a test. He created a handful of print books to sell to his colleagues at the advertising agency he worked at. He printed 60 copies for $8 each and then sold them for $15 each. He figured if he could pitch his colleagues on it, he just might have a legit business on his hands. And, much to his delight, almost all his colleagues were supportive. The only outlier was one grumpy producer who just didn't get it.

This small initial success gave David the confidence to look at selling products on a wider scale. But he wanted to be sure, so he continued with more tests. One of them involved booking a stall at an upcoming comic convention. He placed another print run of books, and this time also included some smaller pieces of merchandise to sell while he was there as well. He wasn't expecting much, but to his surprise he managed to earn $600. There were some people in that community who had

already read his stuff online, and he was able to attract a few new people who otherwise would have never heard of Wondermark. The convention was a success both financially and for brand awareness, not to mention David's confidence. Over the next few years, he carried on in a similar fashion. He created comics during his evenings and weekends and attended events and conventions whenever he was able. There were few and far between, so luckily it didn't interfere with his day job.

Every new convention meant he would try a new product. He'd create small runs of stickers and t-shirts or other items, he would see if they would sell, and then order more of the products that sold the most or the quickest. Working part-time, in just a few years David was earning enough to quit his job and focus on Wondermark full-time. He says this growth was dependent on how much free content he was sharing online. Only a small percentage of readers wants to buy merchandise, so it's important to grow your audience enough that that small percentage of buyers increases over time. David consistently posts comics every Tuesday and Friday, which usually leads

to a bump in readership. Most of the time he says it's just about turning up. David also keeps his fans in the loop about where he is and what he'll be doing next, which has gotten a lot easier in recent years thanks to networks like Twitter and Instagram. By sharing what events he'll be attending, people can come along and say hi or pick up some merchandise in person. He tries to average an event every six to eight weeks and the average convention can bring in $10,000 or more.

To choose his merchandise, David relies a lot on gut instinct. From the beginning, he figured if people liked his comics, they would share common ground with him. They might find similar products and ideas interesting, but he is still always sure to test new items before printing them in large quantities. The landscape of the webcomics industry has changed a lot over the past few years. David is now able to make money online between events thanks to e-commerce and Patreon, where he currently receives $869 a month from 212 supporters or patrons. He also

runs three e-commerce stores, which are all connected to Wondermark. The backbone of these stores is print-on-demand, where t-shirts and mugs and other items are printed and fulfilled by third-party companies with David's designs on them. As to what's next, David isn't quite sure. He's always testing and trying new ideas to see what will work, but he's also open to the possibility of using the skills he's learned to go back to traditional employment and help other companies out. Either way, he wants to keep being creative and connecting with people.

So I love this quote about how most of the time it's just about turning up. And I really do think that is true. I really think like over time, if you have a small number of people who are interested in something, whether it's a webcomic or anything else, and you keep making it, and you keep over time improving the quality of your work and reaching new people slowly but surely. It's not usually an overnight success. It's not usually like a viral moment. It's just

posting consistently, like he said. I think his dates were Tuesdays and Fridays, and he never misses a date. You know, every Tuesday and Friday there's a new webcomic, which naturally means that there are going to be a lot more people going to his site on those days. So most of the time, success is just about turning up, especially when you have something that works a little bit. Something works a little bit, you should get really excited because you can probably make it work a lot more. Also, just a couple of business notes, print-on-demand versus printing items himself.

It seems like David does a blend of both of those. For the in-person events, of course, he needs to maintain inventory. If you go to an event, you want to actually walk away with some merchandise. That creates challenges, but also opportunity. And with print-on-demand, of course, you can have all kinds of stuff available online, and people can choose from wherever they are, whatever they want. And here's a tip from him specifically about printing and

pricing. So he says when he prints books of his own, he doesn't put the price on them. This is a strategy he uses because it allows him to tweak the price of something depending on circumstances. For example, if he's at a convention and only has a few copies left of something, he can mark up the price to $20 instead of $15. Or conversely, if he's really trying to move it, he can drop the price down to $12 and put a big tag on it that has $20 crossed out so that they fly off the shelf. So again, depending on the circumstance, he can kind of ride the price up or

down, which I think is interesting and smart. And then lastly, I just wanted to mention the Patreon campaign. He's making just under $1,000 a month from that campaign, which is good, but obviously it's not amazing. I still think the campaign is really important because in his case and for a lot of online creators, especially people making this kind of art like web comics, that campaign is important because those people are his true fans, like those are his backers, and he can grow that over time. But I would say even if he doesn't grow it over time, it's still a really important campaign because it represents like, again, the true fans, the people who are really behind his ultimate success. And I have to confess, I had not heard

of Wondermark until we were researching this episode, but I've been checking it out. And I will look forward to seeing more of it. If you'd like to see it, too, of course, come and check out the show notes. Those are at sidehustleschool.com slash 7 10 7 1 0. Do come back again tomorrow and make sure you're subscribed. I try to consistently turn up because

I do believe, again, that is the only secret to success. Thank you so much for listening. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is side hustle school.