For the past few months, my site has averaged maybe, oh, 75-125 visitors or so a day. Then for a 24-hour period beginning on May 10th at 9am CST, 48,342 people came to my site. That’s more unique visitors than my site had gotten in the past three years combined. Here’s what happened:

I released a couple new e-comics two weeks ago (yup, gotta get a plug in for them somewhere) so I’ve been looking for ways to promote them. I’d heard of Reddit, a social linking website, and had visited it a couple of times. I’ve always had a vaguely positive opinion of it, but never made it a part of my regular internet surfing routine and wasn’t intimately familiar with the ins and outs of the site.

But I figured I’d give them a shot, and submitted the first installment of the Kameoka Diaries to their comics section. I figured I’d get, oh, 100 visitors and maybe four or five comments.

So yeah. I got a few more than that.

The whole thing has been a real learning experience. Here are three things I took away from it:

1) Reddit commenters are much more kind & encouraging than I thought they would be.
When I saw how popular my submission was getting and saw that it was getting dozens (and then hundreds) of comments, I wasn’t really looking forward to reading them. Maybe I’m just a pessimist at heart, or maybe I’ve just read one too many articles about what a cesspool the internet is, but I figured I’d have to wade through a sea of comments telling me how much I sucked.

But much to my surprise and delight, the vast majority of the comments were really friendly and positive. I don’t know if Reddit’s comment sections are heavily moderated or if Redditors are just naturally sweet people, but it renewed my faith in humanity a bit and made me want to keep making these stupid little comics. You can take a look at the comment section (and my replies) here.

2) All that traffic helped e-comic sales, but not by much.
I once heard something to the effect that when you offer a free webcomic, you’re lucky if 1% of your readership buys something from you. Now, I’m paraphrasing so I might be getting the exact details wrong, but either way, it’s a just a sliver of the whole.

So when I saw all the people that visited my website, I wasn’t expecting any miracles. But still, I couldn’t help but run the numbers: if just half a percent of the visitors bought something, that’d mean hundreds of sales… it was hard not to get just a little excited.

But alas, the 48,342 people that visited my site resulted in an additional 23 e-comics sales compared to the previous day. So about 0.048% of the extra visitors made a purchase.

Hey, don’t get me wrong; an extra 23 books sold is better than a kick in the seat of the pants. And I’ll admit: out of all the hundreds of sites I personally visit, only very rarely do I buy anything from them. So it totally makes sense, it’s just a bit sobering to see the hard numbers.

3) There are super-important aspects of website administration that I’m completely clueless about.
When I saw that my submission was starting to get a bunch of hits, I panicked a bit. I was afraid I’d hit my monthly bandwidth limit and my site would go offline. So I hopped over to my web host’s website to see what my bandwidth limit was, and how close I was to it.

Apparently, “bandwidth limit” is an archaic concept, because my rinky-dink, $5-a-month account has unlimited bandwidth. Great, I thought, nothing to worry about. So I went to bed, and then to work the next day.

When I got home, I had an e-mail from my web host. They said my “CPU usage” was beyond what was allowed. I’m allowed “4.5% CPU average” per day, but had used 64.5%! They said if it didn’t come down to the acceptable average in the next 12 hours, they would block my account.

Long story short: the next day the average CPU usage was at 29.6%; a significant drop, but still way above 4.5%. They suspended my account, but put it back up again right away when I requested them to do so (the site was probably only down for like five minutes). The day after that, the CPU usage was at 2.7%, well within the acceptable range.

What I find fascinating about the whole thing is that there’s this critical limit that they’ll shut you down for exceeding, and I didn’t even know it existed. And this is after running a website for almost five years! I guess I’ve just never had enough simultaneous visitors for it to affect me.

Even now I don’t really know what “CPU usage” means in regards to website hosting. Like, yeah, I get that I can only have 4.5% a day, but 4.5% of what?

And if you decide to raise your CPU limit, it’s really expensive. Adding just one percent costs an extra four dollars a month, which would almost double my hosting bill. And bear in mind that on that one day I was SIXTY percent over my CPU limit! Yeesh!

I’ve done a bit of research since then, and have taken steps to try to optimize my site’s CPU usage. I’ve also read that simple, static html pages use almost no computing power, whereas WordPress blogs (i.e. this blog) tend to be CPU hogs. So I figure next time I submit to Reddit, I’ll make a special static html page for my submission and link to that, rather than linking directly to the WordPress blog. We’ll see if that helps.

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Reddit seems really awesome and I totally plan on submitting there again, and also try to get more involved in the community in general. Some of the people from the Reddit comics section recommended I also post about my comics on Reddit’s Japan section. The Japan section has like a tenth the subscribers as the comics section, so that would probably be a good place to test my static html page idea and see if that keeps my CPU usage within the acceptable range. I’m preparing those pages now and will probably put them up later this week, and submit them to Reddit Japan then.

Anyone have any other suggestions for lowering CPU usage levels? I’m all ears!

A week ago I announced the e-comics I created for the iPhone/iPad, available exclusively on the iBookstore for 99-cents each:
The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One [ Direct iBookstore Link ]
Young Men of a Certain Mind [ Direct iBookstore Link ]

But I still haven’t really discussed the features of these puppies, or gotten into why I think they’re worth 99 of your hard-earned cents. So I thought I’d make my little sales pitch here. Here’s five reasons I think my e-comics are worth your consideration:

1) They Have Exclusive Content.
The Kameoka Diaries e-comic contains a chapter I never put online, and it’s the funniest of the bunch IMHO:

Above: actual, unaltered panel from the exclusive chapter. I swear it makes sense in context.

And the Young Men of a Certain Mind e-comic has never been put online, so that’s entirely new.

2) They’re in HD.
The resolution of the images in the e-comics is twice that of their online counterparts. They’re incredibly crisp, taking advantage of the iPhone 4 and the new iPad’s Retina Displays (though they also work great on pre-Retina Displays too). The difference is striking. Here’s a couple enlarged comparison shots of the the online version vs. the e-comic one:

An appropriately narcissistic example.

The devious, creepy foreigner from the Japanese textbook looks all the more devious/creepy!

3) They Work Great on the iPhone.
Most e-comics don’t work well on smartphones. They were originally designed for large printed pages, so when you try to read them on the smaller iPhone screen, you spend half your time pinching and zooming to read to the microscopic text, and the other half scanning around the “page” to find the next panel.
I designed The Kameoka Diaries from the ground up to play nice with iPhones. The panels are optimized for that screen size. The text is legible without pinching and zooming. You don’t need to scan around the “page” to find the next panel. Each panel is its own page, so you just flip from panel to panel to panel, like turning the pages of a book. It’s a joy to read, rather than a chore.

This’ll sound arrogant, but honestly: no other digital comic (that I’m aware of) works as well on the iPhone as mine do. But don’t take my word for it; you can download a free sample through the iBookstore and decide for yourself: [ Direct iBookstore Link ]

(Side note: They also work great on iPads, in both portrait or landscape mode, adapting to the larger screen size by showing 4-8 panels at once.)

4) They’re Cheap.
I’ve always felt a bit sheepish about the price of my print graphic novel Tonoharu ($20 per book). That’s a significant chunk of change, especially with the economy being what it is, and with all the cheap/free entertainment alternatives out there. But my hands are sort of tied; with the way print book production/distribution works, I can’t really sell them cheaper than that.
Which is one of the reasons the e-comic format excites me. For the first time, I can sell my work at prices that really feel like bargains. I mean, 99-cents! That’s literally cheaper than dirt!

5) You’ll Help Support the Artist / Fund Future Installments.
Okay, obviously I didn’t go into comics for the money (I’d be way ahead financially if I had devoted the time I spent on comics to a minimum wage job).
But at the same time, I’m not indifferent to financial concerns. So I’ll admit: if these e-comics totally flop, I probably won’t keep making them.
If I can manage to sell just, say, a few hundred copies, I’ll consider that an encouraging enough sign to keep at it. I think that’s a realistic sales target, but I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion by any means. So if you like The Kameoka Diaries and would like to see more installments of it, throwing a buck or two in my direction will go a long way to helping ensure that that happens.

******

Okay! So that’s my pitch. If you have an iPhone/iPad and are willing to give my e-comics a shot, you can get them for 99-cents each (or get a free sample) here:
The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One [ Direct iBookstore Link ]
Young Men of a Certain Mind [ Direct iBookstore Link ]

And if you have any friends you think might like my work, please let them know about it. Thanks!

Right now as I type these words, The Kameoka Diaries [ Direct iBookstore Link ] is the second bestselling comic in the iBookstore, and Young Men of a Certain Mind [ Direct iBookstore Link ] is in the top ten! For one brief, glorious moment, one of my books is outselling all those Walking Dead graphic novels that seem to have a stranglehold on the Top Ten. Yippie!

The reason for the bump is because Mark Frauenfelder was kind enough to mention my books over on the ever-wonderful Boing Boing website. Coincidentally, the Boing Boing post went up on my birthday, and I couldn’t have asked for a better present!

Yup, couldn’t have asked for a better present… except perhaps for this, a performance recorded for my birthday by two dear friends here in Kameoka:

The performers are none other than Kim Chi and Lonnie from this comic:
http://larsmartinson.com/kameoka-diaries-2/

So my sincere thanks to Mark, Kim Chi and Lonnie for making my birthday so great!

BIG NEWS! My first two e-comics are available RIGHT NOW for download on the iBookstore for the iPhone and iPad for only 99-cents each!

The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One [ Direct iBookstore Link ]
The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One is a humorous (?) account of my experiences living and working in Central Japan, told over eight chapters. It includes an exclusive chapter not available anywhere else!

Young Men of a Certain Mind [ Direct iBookstore Link ]
Young Men of a Certain Mind is a slice of life comic about an unemployed graphic designer who takes a job as a night bellman to make ends meet. Drawn in 2003, it is a spiritual predecessor to my graphic novel Tonoharu. (Young Men of a Certain Mind is also available as a print comic here.)

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To get them, click on the links above.

Alternately, download the free iBooks app on your iPhone/iPad, open it and tap the “Store” button in the upper left-hand corner. Then search for “Lars Martinson” and that should lead you to them.

I’m really proud of these, so please do check them out (you can download a free sample if you want to get a sense of what they’re like).

And if you like them, please rate them on the iBookstore, and tell your friends. Thanks!!

The two comics are The Kameoka Diaries: Volume One and Young Men of a Certain Mind (tentative covers shown above).

At first, I’m going to release them for iphone/ipad, through the iBooks bookstore. I’ve been tweaking the underlying code for a couple weeks, and I’m delighted to say that I’ve finally got them working great on both screen sizes. On iPhones/iPod touches, you see a panel at a time:

And on iPads, you see four panels or eight panels, depending on how you hold the device:

Like I say it works really great on either device (on both Retina and non-Retina displays), and makes for the most pleasant way to read the books electronically. I’m planning on selling them for 99-cents each.

As for a release date, it all depends on when (if?) Apple approves my seller application, and then when (if?) it approves the books after that. I’m hoping to have them up sometime in April. But again, this has more to do with Apple than me. Stay tuned!

***3/31/2012 UPDATE***
Apple has approved my initial seller application! Now I just need to make fill out paperwork/sign contracts with Apple, make final tweaks to the ebook files, and then upload the files, and then wait for their approval on the books themselves. Again, I don’t know exactly when the books will be up on iBooks, but shouldn’t be more than a matter of weeks (probably)!

***4/6/2012 UPDATE***
Okay, I’ve uploaded the book files to Apple and am now waiting for approval. Assuming they get approved, they’ll probably be available on the iBookstore in 1-4 weeks. I will, of course, keep you posted!

***4/28/2012 UPDATE***
Just thought I’d update to say… nothing new to update! It’s now been three weeks since I submitted it, and the status remains that it’s still being reviewed. Many people on Apple forums report that it took about a month for their books to get approved, so maybe it’ll be up next week. No guarantee though, of course. Well, I check the status everyday, so I’ll let you know when it changes!

For those that missed them:

Part One: Self-Introduction
Part Two: Friends
Part Three: Midwestern Conflict
Part Four: The Cold
Part Five: Food & Drink
Part Six: Karaoke

And here’s Part Seven:

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For now at least, the 8th installment is available exclusively in The Kameoka Diaries e-comic, available through the iBookstore (click the banner below for more details). Sorry, I know that’s kind of obnoxious, especially for people who don’t have iPhones/iPads…

In any event, I’ll be posting more e-comics online in the coming weeks; as always, you can follow me on twitter or subscribe to me on Facebook as I’ll announce any new comics there. Bye!

For those that missed them:

Part One: Self-Introduction
Part Two: Friends
Part Three: Midwestern Conflict
Part Four: The Cold
Part Five: Food & Drink

And here’s Part Six:

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Here’s the Douji Morita song referred to in this comic, in case you really wanna get the party started at your next karaoke outing:

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Read Part Seven>>>

As always, you can follow me on twitter or subscribe to me on Facebook as I’ll announce any new comics there. Toodles!

For those that missed them:

Part One: Self-Introduction
Part Two: Friends
Part Three: Midwestern Conflict
Part Four: The Cold

And here’s Part Five:





































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Part Six>>>

(As always, you can follow me on twitter or subscribe to me on Facebook as I’ll announce any new comics there.)

For those that missed them:

Part One: Self-Introduction
Part Two: Friends
Part Three: Midwestern Conflict

And here’s Part Four:

Go on to Part Five>>>

(Feel free to follow me on twitter or subscribe to me on Facebook;  any new comics will be announced there.)

For those that missed them:

Part One: Self-Introduction
Part Two: Friends

And here’s Part Three:

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Continue on the Part Four

(If you haven’t seen it yet, part one can be found here.)

Anyway, without further ado, here’s the second installment:

Continue on to Part Three

Part Two is now up! Read it here.