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White Lightning Productions' LiveJournal:
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| Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 | 8:36 pm
[redneckgaijin]
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| 5:55 pm
[redneckgaijin]
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| | Saturday, July 4th, 2009 | 10:26 pm
[redneckgaijin]
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WLP Message Boards are Down
The database that powers the WLP Message Boards is down in some strange way that I can't figure out. I've put in a trouble ticket with my host's texaport. Until then... this'll be the discussion place for the web comics and stuff for a while. | | Friday, July 3rd, 2009 | 9:17 pm
[redneckgaijin]
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| | Thursday, July 2nd, 2009 | 11:48 am
[redneckgaijin]
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New Shirt... and Shirts Going Discontinued?
We've got a new shirt: "The Cake is a Pie." We're discontinuing and clearing out stock on two old shirts- "Shower" and "Violent E." And two other shirts are in danger of going the same way, if this month's sale doesn't help- "Grue" and "Kunoichi." For more details, go check http://www.wlpshirts.com/ ! (Yes, I could just direct-link to the WLP online store... but we've just put Project Wonderful ads on wlpshirts.com, and I really want to get some actual, y'know, TRAFFIC going there... ads for wlpshirts will go up later this month.) | | Monday, June 29th, 2009 | 11:23 am
[redneckgaijin]
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PitW on Amazon Update
I confess I was getting a bit depressed about the results of the past week's advertising efforts through Project Wonderful. Yes, PitW's traffic jumped quite a bit, but orders weren't coming in. The online report I can access on the back end of Amazon.com's website showed zero orders for either version of the PitW graphic novel, and during the campaign only two orders direct from WLP have been placed. Today, though, I checked the listings on Amazon.com for the books. Peter is the Wolf: the First Twenty-Five Hours (PG-13 version): Amazon.com sales rank #621,999 . Peter is the Wolf: Werewolves Gone Wild! (adult version): Amazon.com sales rank #459,400 . Pretty low sales ranks, to be honest... but there are items on my wish list with lower sales ranks. That means some people have, indeed, ordered through Amazon.com. I hope they keep coming, but right now I can't afford to spend more on ads. In fact, this week I'll be installing Project Wonderful ad space on the all-ages WLP pages, to correspond to the Juicy Ads I put on most of the adult side last week. Now I need to get to work updating Chichi-chan and Milkmaid... | | Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 | 9:20 am
[redneckgaijin]
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PitW Graphic Novels Now For Pre-Order
Well, WLP's comics line is going trade paperback, beginning with BOTH versions of Peter is the Wolf! Preorders are now open, books to become available at the end of September. You can pre-order either direct from WLP or on Amazon.com ! (Unfortunately, PREVIEWS declined to carry either version, so unless your local comic store does business with Haven Distribution's Enemi catalog, PitW won't be there. Nudge 'em about that, if you would.) For review blurbs of PitW and links to where you can order either or both versions: http://www.peteristhewolf.com/tpb.html | | Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 | 8:38 pm
[redneckgaijin]
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A question to the followers of this community...
WLP announces updates to our webcomics on our message boards, on the website. We're considering adding an RSS feed. Should it be only one RSS feed for all of WLP, though... or a RSS feed for each individual webcomic and for WLP's new merchandise and convention announcements? Also, should WLP announce the updates for each webcomic here, on this community? Please respond with your opinions. | | Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 | 9:03 pm
[redneckgaijin]
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| | Saturday, June 6th, 2009 | 2:02 am
[cockyfox]
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Furry T-shirt...FAIL!!
You filthy B-tards! I bought your "Don't ask don't tail" furry t-shirt recently. And despite the fact that I felt you heavily implied, in my fevered imagaination, that it would be a great chic magnet, it wasn't! I just wore the darned thing to Califur this weekend and whammo! Nothing, nada, zip, zilcho, nin, zero! Who knows maybe its not really your fault. After all when you consider the ration of girls to boys in furry fandom it would have to have been so powerful you could use it to MRI a blue whale. So maybe, while it may act as a chick magnet under more normal circumstances, like an anime convention, it may still be to weak to work at a furry con. I will say this however it did seem to attract a lot of positive comments in general. And on the sex magnet side it seemed to have a disproportionate appeal to males that were less than, how do I put this, entirely heterosexually motivated. Unfortunately that's not what I was not the kind of individuals I was looking attract exactly, since the CockyFox don't swing that way baby! I'd throw the shirt as a rag if only it didn't have those delightful fox ears and that beautiful red fox tail on it. *Sigh* So I guess I'll keep it....THIS TIME! But don't try to fool me again with any more of your slyly designed and slickly market furry t-shirt designs. Because I am on to you now, and will be guarding against your exploiting my severely weak sales resistance to all merchandise furry. Good day sirs! | | Friday, May 29th, 2009 | 7:13 am
[redneckgaijin]
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A-Kon- WLP Room Party
Tonight, beginning 7 PM, room 681 at the Sheraton- north tower. See myself and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) bar1scorpio, plus strange and funny video, free food (BYOBooze, though), a game for prizes ( Apples to Apples Melons to Melons)... See ya there! | | Monday, May 18th, 2009 | 12:00 pm
[redneckgaijin]
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PREVIEWS declines to carry Peter is the Wolf
WLP got an email from Diamond Comics today, saying that neither version of the Peter is the Wolf trade paperback would be carried by them. That means that very, very few comic shops will carry the book.
They explained that they made this decision because they believed neither version- the mature-readers or the adults-only- would sell enough to make their minimum order of $2500 wholesale. They also found the price-point a bit too high. (This couldn't be helped- we had to price the books for a small print run's high print costs.)
We'll go ahead with a September release, and we'll try to get the books listed on Amazon.com, but it really doesn't look good for our other story lines. PitW is our most popular comic, and if Diamond won't carry that... | | Sunday, May 17th, 2009 | 9:38 pm
[redneckgaijin]
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A-Kon 20 - Room Shares Needed...
Well, we've had a lot of our regulars and past roomshares say they won't be able to make A-Kon for one reason or another. Right now that means we have TONS of space in our suite at the hotel... and a burning desire to get the per-head cost down. Any WLP fans going to A-Kon and need a place to crash? Bear in mind you'll be at ground zero for our annual Friday room party and whatever other madness we come up with... (To make it clear; WLP's got a suite reserved. Even with a bunch of people, it'll be pretty spacious... and we're NOT going to cram it to the gills. We're aiming to get the cost down to under $150 per head for the whole weekend, Thursday night through Monday morning.) | | Thursday, April 16th, 2009 | 1:50 pm
[redneckgaijin]
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| | Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 | 10:43 pm
[redneckgaijin]
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Webcomic updates delayed...
Usually I don't announce stuff like this, but... I was at Nakakon last weekend, getting home Monday evening. I was too tired when I got home to update Chichi-chan, Milkmaid, and Chocolate Milkmaid. Today (and most of tomorrow too) I was too busy to do it. Those three webcomics will update at the same time as Peter is the Wolf, tomorrow evening. | | Monday, February 9th, 2009 | 1:48 pm
[redneckgaijin]
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CON REPORT: DELTA H CON 2008
Another catch-up post... this one about what was, bar none, WLP's worst convention of 2008. DELTA H CON May 15-17, 2008 University of Houston main campus, TX EXPENSES TABLES & BADGES - $300.00 FOOD (self) - $30 MERCHANDISE - $60 PARKING - $12 TOTAL - $402 plus gas MILEAGE - 373 miles SALES FRIDAY - $134.90 SATURDAY $196.36 SUNDAY - $28.50 TOTAL - $359.76 (a money loser even WITHOUT factoring gas in...) COMICS SOLD* Bootleg #4 - 2 Bootleg #10 - 1 Bootleg #14 - 2 Bootleg #15 - 2 Bootleg #16 - 1 Bootleg #17 - 1 Bootleg #18 - 2 Magnificent Milkmaid #1 dlx - 1 Magnificent Milkmaid #2 - 1 * Most of the comics were at half price, due to... well, see below. ARTWORK & BADGES SOLD Bad Boys badge - 1 NM Waltraute badge - 1 PITW Jean Werewolf badge - 1 PITW Jean human 11X17 print - 1 SHIRTS SOLD Anime Hero - 1 Anime Heroine - 1 Catgirls Against Bush - 2 Hen-Tie - 1 How to Glomp - 1 Shower - 2 Smiley Roger - 1 OK, so I dropped $300 for a 10 X 10 booth because, despite this being a first year convention (danger!) on a college campus ( warning!) run by a college club ( MAYDAY!) in Houston, TX ( GAME OVER, MAN!! GAME OVER!!!!!), I was hoping that the fact that it was an anime convention might change things. Wrong, wrong, wrong. In fact, let's count the WRONGs involved with this show: WRONG: Holding a convention in a building whose only elevator is the freight elevator... which can only be accessed by stairs or a 30 degree ramp. I damn near wasn't able to get my hand-truck up loading in, and I damn near lost two loads to gravity loading out. And handicapped fans? Not a chance. WRONG: No signage on anything whatever until midday Saturday- and no outdoor notice of the convention, period. Seems U of H has a strong no-signage policy. Not only no walk-ins, but most students didn't even know the event was going on. Not that that mattered, because... WRONG: College convention on graduation weekend. The dorms are empty, and the on-campus hotel is full up with rich parents come to see their children celebrate the conclusion of a rather expensive four to seven years. The potential walk-in audience is NIL. WRONG: Selling one dealer's room layout and switching to another with no prior notice. The dealer's room was to have been in the main auditorium with tabletop gaming. Instead it was shuffled to an empty classroom because of (guess what?) very low sales of booths. So- negligible foot traffic, even if people knew where to look for the dealer's room, which mostly they didn't. WRONG: Two video rooms showing the same shows. Granted, they weren't showing at the same time. One room was showing dubs, the other subtitled in the original Japanese, but the playlists had the same shows on each. Not that this mattered, since both rooms were empty for the vast majority of the show. WRONG: No guests. Well, guests were listed on the website, but they were pretty damn invisible. One artist's alley participant, who probably could have qualified as a guest on popularity, packed up and went home Friday afternoon for lack of attendance. And, finally: WRONG: Parking. Pay parking garage under full-up hotel across the street, very well hidden and difficult to get into and out of; free parking, several blocks walk. Attendance, as you might guess, was MISERABLE. They claim something like 400 attendees; if 100 attended beside staff and vendors, I'd be shocked. Most of those attendees were Saturday only, composed of two high-school anime clubs in storebought Naruto and Samurai Showdown outfits- MAYBE one actual homemade costume all weekend... ... not counting the ladies of Absurd, who finally registered on my consciousness this weekend. (Since I had nothing to use my consciousness on this weekend anyway...) I spent a good bit of time away from my booth (no reason to watch it) to talk with them and a few others, relieving the boredom, and commiserating about the suck-ass nature of the event. Micha, I think, had three different costumes over the course of the weekend. One final nugget of joy: while setting up at the start of the show, I discovered that one of the comic boxes had utterly failed to protect the contents; most of the comics had corner crinkles and creases where the load in the truck had shifted onto them. Most of that box had to be marked half-off for the weekend, and after the convention they went into a giveaway box, where one by one they've drifted out for various purposes. So, not only did this convention cost me a weekend (VERY boring) and some money, but some stock as well. This was the sixth disappointing convention in a row (IzumiCon 2007, OwlCon 2008 and ChimeraCon 2008 run in partnership with Instant Attitudes, AggieCon 2008, and CoastCon 2008 being the other five). Thankfully, the next convention more than made up for all of those, and began a summer that was quite financially satisfactory... good thing for WLP, too. Delta H is going to happen again in 2009... guess who won't be there? | 1:39 pm
[redneckgaijin]
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How's the economy affecting WLP?
For those wondering how we're doing, here's January mail order (and ONLY mail order) numbers from 2007, 2008 and 2009: January 2007: $563.45 January 2008: $509.33 January 2009: $246.49 Granted, we got a good bit of donations in January of this year, but that's still one hell of a hit. Here's hoping convention sales are a bit better. Speaking of conventions, Con Jour was not a disappointment... but only because not much was expected. It definitely fell below hopes, though. WLP's next con is Furry Fiesta in Dallas in two weeks; after that, NakaKon in Kansas City. Here's hoping those are better. | | Monday, January 19th, 2009 | 8:44 pm
[redneckgaijin]
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Diamond Screws Over Small Print... AGAIN.
As you may know, there is essentially one distributor for comics and graphic novels in the United States: Diamond Comics Distribution. They have exclusive distribution agreements in force with Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and several other, smaller comic publishers. No comic specialty store can operate without ordering from Diamond. No publisher can get into the direct market except through Diamond. No publisher can get into book stores except through Diamond. And Diamond has just announced that they're raising their minimum sales levels. Now they're not going to issue any purchase orders of less than $2500 their cost. (The previous floor was $1500.) That's $6,250 retail value worth of stuff. To give you some idea of how this affects WLP: the Diamond purchase order for the final issue of Bootleg was under $2300. To give you another idea: Diamond would need to buy 350 copies of the Peter is the Wolf gen-aud collection to pass the minimum, or 315 copies of the adult version. Doable? Maybe. But it'll be borderline. And Diamond might decide not to bother. Especially since Diamond has also discontinued its Adult Supplement Catalog. Instead they'll send a PDF to their retailers. Adult items will still be listed in PREVIEWS, but as they are now- a simple line item, no ad, no description, no image. For a Diamond-friendly take on things, the publisher of Slave Labor Graphics has posted his views on the subject. I don't disagree with too much, but there's one fundamental flaw in his viewpoint. You see, Diamond has spent the past fifteen years making very sure that retailers cannot get comics any other way- and that comic publishers can't get into stores any other way.So when Diamond tightens its minimums and listings, and discontinues a genre catalog completely, they're making the deliberate decision to push small publishers out of the market altogether. It's not just a "sad but necessary step to cut overhead." They've made quite certain there's no place else for these people to go... and then they've cut them off. So, where Mr. Vado has sympathy for Diamond, I have none to spare. This is by no means the first time Diamond has done this. Diamond has had a steady policy of squeezing out both small publishers and small retailers for the sake of lowering its own expenses. Diamond has focused entirely on having the biggest piece of the pie, ignoring the fact that every action they take makes the pie smaller. WLP will push forward on our efforts- delayed by many months now, due to various factors- to get Peter is the Wolf on the shelves. Other projects will be entirely dependent upon what happens with those. Diamond might well decide not to list either- in which case WLP will drop entirely out of the mass market, forced instead to distribute directly to retailers and sell books online in venues like Amazon.com . And Diamond acceptance of PITW is no guarantee of acceptance of any other graphic novel project- Not Ninja High School, The Magnificent Milkmaid, Nipple Magician or anything else. So it could well be that, before the end of the year, WLP will have to change our publishing model- again- to lean even harder on you, the fan, for support. Several months ago WLP posted links where people could donate to jump-start the graphic novel project of their choice. Donations there have been slow for PITW and nigh-dead on all the others. I'll post them here for those who are interested: Peter is the Wolf Vol. 1 Gen-AudPeter is the Wolf Vol. 1 AdultThe Magnificent Milkmaid Vol. 1 (Adult)Chocolate Milkmaid Vol. 1 (Adult)Chichi-chan Vol. 1 (Adult)Nipple Magician: Neue Walkure (Adult)Cream & Sugar (Adult)Maid Attack (Gen-Aud)This might be the only way WLP can print comics- by subsidy of the fans. WLP's not considering print-on-demand right now, because I believe it's a dead end; there needs to be a way for retailers to get the book for resale, an incentive for them to promote it. But if Diamond cuts us off, it's going to be extremely difficult to get anything into a store, onto a shelf, where someone who doesn't already know and love WLP can find it. So we're going to try to stay in the print comics biz... but can you help? | | Friday, January 2nd, 2009 | 10:56 am
[redneckgaijin]
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2008: WLP's Bottom Line Report
For our donors (KEEP DONATING!!), our financial report: SALES BREAKDOWN: January - $509.33 (all mail order) February - $1,107.46 ($273.45 mail order) March - $1,229.65 ($232.10 mail order) April - $1,664.40 ($568.40 mail order) May - $601.17 ($241.41 mail order) June - $5,457.81 ($369.52 mail order) July - $3,563.96 ($253.90 mail order) August - $2,442.93 ($97.05 mail order) September - $2,387.82 ($143.59 mail order) October - $2,190.85 ($612.55 mail order) November - $2,454.98 ($286.80 mail order) December - $2,619.16 ($232.10 mail order) TOTAL GROSS SALES - $26,229.52 (+$1,366.20 from 2007) 2008 WHOLESALE SALES: $5,489.83 2008 MAIL ORDER: $4,095.12 2008 CONVENTION SALES: $16,664.57 Obviously something has to be done to get the mail order sales up. DONATIONS: WLP - $1,244.50 (+$994.50 from 2007) Peter is the Wolf - $480.03 ($10 per page posted) (+$179.03 from 2007) Chocolate Milkmaid - $97.80 ($7 per page posted) (-$306 from 2007) Chichi-chan - $136.84 ($4.89 per page posted) (-$164.16 from 2007) The Magnificent Milkmaid - $156.51 ($3.48 per page posted) (-$109.49 from 2007) Equally obviously, donations to the webcomics have to be raised- DRASTICALLY. Now, for EXPENSES ( italics - partly or wholly non-deductible on taxes): MERCHANDISE, PRINTING - $10,011.62 ESTIMATED MILEAGE DEDUCTION (includes gas, insurance and repairs) (10,534 miles @ $0.51) - $5,372.50 CONVENTION BOOTH RENTAL - $4.086.23 PAID OUT TO OVERSTREET - $3,287.78ROYALTIES (paid in cash) - $1,728.50 (an additional $1,265.40 paid in merchandise - $2,993.90 total) HOTEL COSTS - $1,300.29 OFFICE & CONVENTION SUPPLIES - $1,078.35 INTERNET ACCESS & WEB HOSTING - $754.45 MEALS WHEN TRAVELING - $710.97SHIPPING COSTS - $588.78 CEL PHONE - $562.67 BANK, CREDIT CARD AND MERCHANT FEES - $528.30 PROMOTIONAL EVENTS - $300.00 PARKING - $144.00 FLYERS, BUSINESS CARDS, ETC. - $131.08 FEEDING OTHERS ON TRIPS - $128.98 In 2009 I'm going to track fuel and repair costs as well as mileage, so I can give a better profit-loss margin. In practical terms, WLP is about in the same position cash-wise this January as last January- a few hundred in the bank. We'll end up showing a small profit on our taxes due to a much larger inventory, though (more shirts, plus the music line). Unfortunately, we're heading into the slow season with the goal of building up about $10,000 for printing of three graphic novels by the end of July. Your support, as ever, is welcome, appreciated, and strongly sought. | | Saturday, December 27th, 2008 | 4:34 pm
[redneckgaijin]
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RESULTS - WLP Female Transformation Survey
And the main result is... I think more surveys are in order for 2009. There'll have to be some preparation for those, but first things first- how the 2007-08 survey came out. ( Both parts of the survey, plus results, behind the cut... )What have we learned? ( Analysis of the survey results... )Is there more information lurking in this? Of course there is. I did a bunch of breakdowns of data into subgroups, focusing on people who answered certain ways to certain questions. You can download the Excel spreadsheet with the breakdowns here for the full details. Here's the main points I found for myself: ( Subdivide groups, and what do I see? )Of course, there were many problems with this survey, and a new survey is in order. The next one will be prepared a bit more carefully, though. First off, samples of the various comics need to be in hand for survey takers. Second, a visual depiction of breast sizes, rather than the simple descriptions, should be used- I'll need to get a WLP artist to work on that, and on other illustrations. Finally- as much as I wanted to preserve privacy- statistical data like age, race, and actual current breast size do need to be collected. If y'all have questions, I'm not going to release the raw results, but I'm willing to do a bit of sorting to check specific categories, should I be asked. To those of you who participated- thanks VERY much, and keep me in mind for later when I try again! |
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