UPDATE: The Illustrated Section is officially going to launch on Monday January 24, 2011. Mark your calendars!
I am happy to announce an upcoming website I’m making called The Illustrated Section.
The Illustrated Section is going to be an online store for digital books featuring art and illustration. That includes comics, picture books, sketchbooks, and illustration tips and tutorials. It will feature works by many different artists, and will be open for submissions by all independent creators.
Why The Illustrated Section?
Remember this blog post I wrote awhile back about digital comics? I have been a big supporter of the digital age and what it could mean for artists. However, I’ve been frustrated by a number of things:
A confusing number of formats.
Difficulty in creating those formats.
Lack of content.
Lack of audience.
Difficult or confusing submission requirements by ebook stores.
Limited options for creating/selling/reading illustrated books.
Since there is no great, overarching solution yet, I have experimented with selling my digital comics on my own website, and I’ve seen several of my artist friends doing the same. It has worked well, but not as well as it could be. With the digital comics only popping up here and there by random artists in many different places, they can be difficult to find. That means less exposure and less sales and more difficulty for buyers to get used to the new format.
And that is why I’m creating The Illustrated Section. I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a central store where all these cool artists could post their books so buyers could easily browse through them and people like me could fill their iPads with awesome stuff?”
And then my next thought was, “Hey, I can build that.”
The Details:
The Illustrated Section will be an online store. You can purchase and download books instantly.
All the books will be PDF format. That means you will be able to read them on your computer, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Nook, or just about any other electronic device. PDFs are compatible with a large number of devices, apps, and software. They are also easy to make if you’re a creator.
All the books are by independent artists. It will not be tied to a publisher or act as a publisher. It will simply be a marketplace.
The site will take submissions. If you have digital content or have been thinking about experimenting with digital content, now’s a good time to think about selling it in The Illustrated Section. There will be more details on the website once it is up.
It will reside at theillustratedsection.com. Bookmark it! For now, you can keep up-to-date via the News page.
When will it launch?
Soon. I am in the process of gathering content as I write this. As soon as I have enough goodies to launch the site, I will make it live to the public. I am hoping this will be sometime this month.
If you’re a creator and have questions about the site or submitting work, you can contact me at theillustratedsection@gmail.com.
And comic/art/story fans, be prepared. We’ve got some talented artists and writers already lined up with great content for site launch.
Stay tuned!
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I’m very interested in this Dani, and when I saw your previous post about what you might be hinting at I got all giddy inside.
I personally believe publishers are on there way out. The future is self publishing, but as you said, it’s hard for one artist or author to make it in the sea of internet content. The recent merger of 37 manga publishers creating a one-stop shop for their content was revolutionary. I saw this as only a matter of time before those of us who want to self publish banded together to make our community shop where people will be exposed to all kinds of content from multiple sources.
I’m currently working on a 48 page Graphic Novel because this isn’t the first time I’ve been aware of people joining forces to sell their content. I want to have something on the table to take part of this experiment when the chance arrives.
Other blogs I follow feel the same way. When people work together the chance of success is greatly improved. I look forward to the future of self publishing and it really starts with the creators.
We need to stand together and pool our resources to do something remarkable and I believe this is the first step in doing that.
Looks highly interesting, Dani!
I love your illustrations. And thanks for sharing so much information with everyone. I am looking forward to “The Illustrated Section”.
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