Readers
The Fabler is your Product on Demand solution. Here you sell your comics directly to your customers and retailers. Simply upload your print ready comic to our site, wait for approval, then tell all your fans, where they can get a copy! We take care of the rest.
Why The Fabler?
Two reasons. 1. We love comics and want to see indie and small press thrive, and 2. because we simplify the business for you so you can concentrate on making more great comics!
What Do We Do For You?
- We Host
- We Can Publish
- We Manufacture
- We Distribute
Our Process.
For standard product formats, all orders are put on a 14 day production cycle. This helps us keep us organized and sets an expectation on when your fans and retailers can expect their orders! So between the 1st and the 14th of each month orders are taken in, on the 15th the orders from the first cycle are manufactured and shipped. Between the 15th and the 28th - 31st a new order cycle starts again. Rinse and Repeat.
For custom products the process isn't quite as simple, but we're working on it.
Who Owns What?
You the creators always own the IP. If you publish under your own ISBN/ISSN label than you also own the product. Submitting comics and selling them through thefabler.com is a non-exclusive deal. If at any time you wish to take your product off the site simply send us an email to cm@thefabler.com with your request.
How Do You Make Money?
Basically you make money from each unit that is ordered, manufactured, and shipped. It's quite simple, you make a royalty % of gross sales from each product that is ever shipped. And in case you were skeptical, we'll even pay you before our company or our partners get paid!
Collectively, starting from the first issue ever printed you get a royalty percentage for every comic that sells through The Fabler. Here's the break down:
- Units 1-149you get 10% of Gross Sales
- Units 150-299 you get 20% of Gross Sales
- Units 300-500 you get 30% of Gross Sales
- Units 501+ you get 40% of Gross Sales. Always.
All low run orders will be digitally printed. Low runs include any orders within the 14 day cycle of less than 500 units. If at any time your comic makes 500 or more units in a production run, you will get an additional 2.5% royalty of Gross Sales.
When do you get paid?
Your checks start rolling in 30 days after the last order cycle. Cutting checks can be expensive. Because of this this we require a minimum of $100 accrued to make a payout. If your total orders over one or multiple cycles do not reach the required minimum payout, we will hold your royalties in escrow until the minimum has been met and send your check out on that pay period.
What is this ISBN/ISSN Thing?
ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number, and ISSN stands for International Standard Serial Number. It's a way of identifying who to contact regarding a published book or periodical. Most retail stores will only stock products from a registered publisher that users ISBN/ISSN procedures as a way of ensuring the quality and content within the product.
When submitting your market ready comics to thefabler.com we offer a couple of ISBN/ISSN options FREE of charge.
1. We can register you as a publisher where we would be the point of contact and you would have your own unique Publisher Identification prefix. You can change this information at any time. This option is currently only available to Canadian publishers.
2. You can apply for us to become the publisher for your comic products.
The Basic Deal
- We will actively market and produce your comic product for you
- We will own the comic product, and have license for 1 year of the date of approval to manufacture and distribute your products for the purpose of sale
You Loose Nothing
- You maintain ownership of your IP and the stories captured within the comic product.
- You still get paid as normal with every comic sale
If you are a new publisher and would like more information regarding ISBN/ISSN the following official websites in North America have everything you need:
Canada
Library and Archives Canada
United States
Bowker U.S. ISBN Agency
International
International ISBN Agency