Tutorials/Advertising
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Advertising and You - How it works
Ok, so you have a comic. You're doing alright for yourself, have a nice group of regular readers and are quite happy with the world. One of your readers sends you an email saying "If I pay you a spot of cash, can you advertise *some site* on your comic?"
You think to yourself "Hey - that's a great idea!" and you promptly set about selling space on your comic site. After all, you spend a lot of time working on the comic, it's only fair that you get a little cash to compensate you for your time - right?
Sorry, but no - that's not how it works.
Comic Genesis provides you with free hosting and bandwidth, with very little asked from you in return. One of the things that you are asked is to follow the Terms of Service and more specifically, the Acceptable Use Policy. At this time, there is no definitive statement in either specifically regarding advertising, but this page seeks to clarify things for the Cartoonist.
From the TOS:
Agreement -- COMIC GENESIS agrees to give the submitting CARTOONIST free webhosting and promotion. CARTOONIST agrees to place COMIC GENESIS' ad banners and promotional materials on CARTOONIST'S website in apropriate and proper locations. CARTOONIST also agrees to follow COMIC GENESIS' Acceptable Use Policy.
So the main thing that is being stipulated is that if you have a Comic Genesis account, you should have the Comic Genesis adverts on your page, specifically, the ads provided by using the ***advertisement*** keentag.
Advertisements Provided by CG
Before January 2008, Comic Genesis' (and all of Keenspot) ad provider was Burstnet (main site at burstmedia.com). Burstnet ads were run on most Comic Genesis hosted comics (the only exception is comics who were rated NC-17, or had gathered objections from the advertisers). As part of their AUP that Keenspot (and by extention Comic Genesis) must follow, they require that the site hosting the advertisements not have competing ads displayed on the same page.
Specifically, Google Ads are not allowed, and by extension, other ads (including AdBrite) are not allowed either.
From January 2008 and beyond, Keenspot changed how ads were served. A more stable open-source system was chosen instead of Keenspot's in-house code. This allowed Burstnet, Google, and Keenspot internal ads to be rotated on all sites. Keenspot may add more ad networks such as Project Wonderful to the rotation.
What forms of advertising are allowed
The simple thing to keep in mind is that Comic Genesis provides hosting and bandwidth. This is what is provided to you by Comic Genesis and is "paid" for by running ads provided by Comic Genesis. So in order to make money from your site, all you need to do is do it in a way that does not use Comic Genesis' hosting space or bandwidth.
Types of money-making schemes that are generally allowed:
- Stores (selling Merchandise)
- CafePress, Lulu, SpreadShirt
- Other on-line stores of that type (store is hosted elsewhere)
- Non-paid links to other webcomics
Types of Money-making schemes that may be allowed, but you need to jump through a few hoops in order to get it and are generally assessed on a case-by-case basis:
- Adspace for which *you* control what shows up (as an example, "pay me 20$ and I'll link to your comic on my front page for a month!"). However, for this to be tolerated, you have to leave the mandatory ads in place and contact Keenspot to establish the terms of your profit-sharing. Profit-sharing is mandatory. Source
Project Wonderful
This is a fairly new type of advertisement system and is still being assessed as to how much it impacts on Comic Genesis. As of October 2007, having Project Wonderful ads on your site is tolerated, but this may be changed at a later time.
Keenspot may add Project Wonderful to it's ad rotation, since the 2008 ad system changes. --STrw
Profit Sharing
Having said all that - if your comic is big enough to make more than a few dollars a week from advertising, there is a way that you can have the Keenspot system ad removed from your site and have whatever advertising you feel like instead.
The exact procedure on how to do this is not heavily documented, but the simple way to start this would be to send STrRedWolf a private message with "Setting up Profit Sharing" in the subject line. If you have questions about it (instead of actually seeking to set it up) then it would be better to post your question in the Help Forum instead.
And of course the obvious: get approval from Keenspot before you set up the new adverts. STrRedWolf will get you in touch with the people necessary to pull it off.
A word from STrRedWolf: Please don't email me about this first -- I rarely get a chance to check the CG Email. PM me for a good address to email, so I can forward it to Keenspot. --STrw
And just to make it clear: Profit Sharing means just that - sharing the profits. So if you make a lot of money from the ads, you pay more to Comic genesis (or more specifically, to Keenspot Entertainment). If you make less money, you pay less. If you make less money than the normal Burstnet ads, then obviously they should be the ones being delivered instead.
Simplest way to remove advertising
The best way to have an ad-free site or to make money from your comic is to get paid hosting from a dedicated Web Hosting provider. Who this is will vary depending on which country you live in and how it will work best for you.
You can get some very generous hosting packages for only a few dollars, often with domain included, so have a look around and see what offers are available. Make sure that you read all the fine print and that you find one that gives you what you need. Also keep in mind that you will either need to set up the code to deliver your comics or you'll have to write the code out by hand.
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