Contents
“Graphic Novel” is a format, not a genre. Graphic novels can be fiction, non-fiction, history, fantasy, or anything in-between. Graphic novels are similar to comic books because they use sequential art to tell a story. Unlike comic books, graphic novels are generally stand-alone stories with more complex plots.
The Bottom Line. Everybody’s creative journey is going to look differently, and the process of creating a graphic novel from idea to finished product varies. Especially because graphic novels are collaborative, it might take anywhere from one to three years.
The graphic novelist earns a percentage of the cover price for each book sold. Publisihers such as Fantagraphics or Top Shelf Productions might pay 8 percent of the cover price for the first 5,000 books sold and 10 percent of the cover price for units sold above 5,000.
Anthologies often employ a different writer for each story. GRAPHIC NOVEL Original graphic novels (OGNs) are generally perfect-bound and of at least 64 story pages in length. Some writers and publishers define a graphic novel as anything beyond standard comic length.
Graphic novels are book-length comics. Sometimes they tell a single, continous narrative from first page to last; sometimes they are collections of shorter stories or individual comic strips. Comics are sequential visual art, usually with text, that are often told in a series of rectangular panels.
13 Classic Graphic Novels
Maus by Art Spiegelman (which won the Pulitzer Prize) Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Ghost World by Daniel Clowes. Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes.
Generally speaking you should calculate the cost of your comic book/graphic novel at NO LESS than $200 to $300 per story page (pencils, inks, colors, and letters).
While ZipRecruiter is seeing annual salaries as high as $137,000 and as low as $16,000, the majority of Graphic Novel Artist salaries currently range between $30,000 (25th percentile) to $59,000 (75th percentile) with top earners (90th percentile) making $83,000 annually across the United States.
Making comics is a labor-intensive job, especially for the artist. If you haven’t sat down and committed yourself to a regular schedule of either drawing, writing, coloring, and/ or lettering, then you need to.
Total comics and graphic novel sales to consumers in the U.S. and Canada were approximately $1.28 billion in 2020, a 6% increase over sales in 2019. The increase was due to strong sales of graphic novels online and in mass merchants and strong digital sales, which overcame big declines in comic and book store sales.
The largest graphic novel is Romeo and Juliet: The War (Limited Collector’s Edition), measuring 63.18 cm (24.875 in) by 83.82 cm (33 in) by 5 cm (2 in) and published by 1821 Comics in Los Angeles, USA, on June 6, 2012.
Early Reader Chapter Book: 6 to 17 pages. Chapter Books for grades 3-5: 21 to 42 pages. Middle Grade Novel: 83 to 165 pages. YA Novel: 207 to 330 pages.
Fans will be pleased to hear that Harry Potter is moving into the comic book world. Albeit not a complete series, but it is a step in the right direction for such a thing.
A graphic novel uses images—often in a comic strip style—to tell a story. With pictures or illustrations and a lot less text, graphic novels help kids practice reading. They also can help kids build positive associations with books.
Dog Man is a comedic graphic novel series by American cartoonist Dav Pilkey, published by Scholastic Corporation that focuses on a part-dog, part-man police officer/hero. The book series includes ten books, the first released in 2016 and the latest in 2021.
The Captain Underpants series is a graphic novel. A graphic novel is a chapter book that is written in comic book format.
WFH/PAGE | MAINSTREAM | INDIE |
---|---|---|
Covers | $600-700 | $200-500 |
Line art | $200-300 | $100-250 |
Color art | $120-150 | $35-100 |
Letters | $20-25 | $10-20 |
Range: $200 – $1,000.
Many factors can impact these prices and you may find an editor who says they can do all of it for less or that it will take more. For a 22-page comic book the range here is $4,070 at the low end and $7,740 at the high end.
If you’re putting out a print comic on your own, without bulk printing prices, it porbably costs around $0.74 per copy to print with a 5000 print run. Not quite twice the cost as a bundled printing price, but close. If you sold out, you’d make around $4,000.
While ZipRecruiter is seeing annual salaries as high as $136,500 and as low as $21,000, the majority of Graphic Novel Illustrator salaries currently range between $36,000 (25th percentile) to $62,500 (75th percentile) with top earners (90th percentile) making $93,000 annually across the United States.