Working on print-exclusive bonus content, and I'd like to hear people's thoughts!

...especially since all the print comics I've bought myself are currently boxed up, heh.

If you've bought print volumes by other creators, what extras do they have? What are your favorites? Anything you don't care for?

Have you ever been tipped over to purchasing a book as a result of the bonus content, or is it just a nice extra in something you were going to buy anyway?

If you've made your own print volumes, what extras did you put in? Are there any you would change, in hindsight? (Not counting the eternal "I would redraw them so they look better.") Do you have any sense for which ones your readers liked best?

The kind of bonus content I like definitely depends on the creator's strengths. If they're doing a comedy, I want to see more jokes. If they have a very elaborate art style, I love seeing process sketches. If they've got unique creatures or world, seeing more of a nature-documentary view of the details is lots of fun. But like... nobody wants to see Jim Davis' breakdown of the psychology of the cat in the back of a Garfield book, you know? Play to your strengths!

Since my stuff's got elements of world building and humor, I've done separate "world guide" books that are very tongue-in-cheek versions of my worldbuilding notes.




I've always wanted to do more short bonus stories, but they're super-challenging to write beyond my Q&A one shots:



I can't say any extra has really tipped me over from not purchasing to purchasing a book, but in the context of say, a Kickstarter, I do think they have value in being a different way to talk about your work that's not just "BUY MY BOOK BUY MY BOOK BUY MY BOOK!"

Ooh, "play to your strengths" is good advice. Seems obvious in hindsight, but I'm the kind of completist who would read Jim Davis' cat psychology essay if that was in a book I bought....

I've mostly been filling out the BICP volumes with answers to reader worldbuilding questions, so I know they were in demand from at least one person. And with bonus art -- it's not actually clear how in-demand that is, but it makes the pages look prettier than if they were just wall-o-text worldbuilding.

As a reader, I have mixed feelings about outright bonus chapters/stories as print exclusives. When we're talking about more scenes from canon (as opposed to AUs, which are fine), I kinda resent getting an almost-complete picture for free and then having to pay if I want the last piece. On the other hand, if I really like the comic, it makes the book so much more tempting that I understand why artists do it

One suggestion given to me (at some point way back in the past) was to give original pages if you've redone a portion of the tale.

For example I'm in the process (like five years now) of redoing the first chapter of my long form Gemutations: Plague. The intent has always been to redo JUST the first chapter. So when I do get that finished (hopefully this summer), and I go to create the gumroad story arc, I am going to add the original pages (probably as thumbnails) to the package to let readers see the difference between the original (GLECH) and the redone. :P

Something else I've done (Mostly with my novels) is to include things like timelines, maps, character insights (Stuff that is hinted at but not necessarily explored in story) - world building things like races (for me it was vampires, warlocks, revenants, dhampirs etc... and how each is different from the typical mythos).

Cover variants would be another good one (IE if you redo a cover specifically for the print version, include the original cover in the extras.)

Variant covers are good! There doesn't seem to be as much opportunity for them in webcomics, but most of my traditional-print trade paperbacks collect all the variations from special-edition printings.

I'm redoing the chapter covers for BICP, so the print volumes have a page of original-cover thumbnails. No space for non-redrawn individual pages, since they're getting redone so I *don't* have to print the originals...those comparisons make good Tumblr bonus content, though.

Worldbuilding extras are also valuable. (It definitely filled up Tolkien's pagecount...)

That's the kind of information I always look at on people's websites, and you want it to be accessible to a reader who's carrying the book around someplace without internet access.

I already do info pages as Sunday strips for Leif & Thorn, but I'll have to work on creative ways to make sure the basic info appears in each book. Reprinting the same map in every volume is a fantasy standard; reprinting the same set of Q&A strips, maybe not so much.

I'm currently in the process of putting together bonus content for the first volume of Soul's Journey as well, it's far more nerve wrecking than just redoing and putting pages together haha

I consulted every 1st volume of webcomic print runs I've collected over the past few years. Next to noticing that I need more shelf space, I found that many include either worldbuilding basics (maps and factions explained are pretty common, esp. in fantasy), bonus art or a concise origin story of the project supplemented by early sketches and concept art. I've also seen thumbnails and process walkthroughs included in some, as well as a deeper look on the real-world mythology a given comic concept is based on.

Also, cast pictures seem to be pretty common.

Speaking of bonus art, some creators held contests to have the winner's art included in books - though, one such example ended up with roughly a fourth of the book just being bonus content, so don't overdo it haha

Most of the comics I read, being fantasy, tend to go the worldbuilding notes/map/cast pages route. That's what I ended up putting into my own printed books, too, and it seems to have gone over well!

The most detailed worldbuilding notes I made were for Volume 2-- I did a 4-page expository short comic, courtesy of my wordiest character. It was pretty fun to work on, but a fair amount of work, so I didn't really make equivalents for the other volumes.

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Must've taken a while, wow. Thanks for sharing the results!



That...does sound like a little much, yeah.

On the other extreme, I remember when some artist had one extra page to fill, so they had a contest and the top 4 winners were all printed - each getting a quarter of the page. My kneejerk reaction is that that's *under*doing it...but then, maybe the art didn't turn out all that detailed, and would've suffered in a full-page printing.



Ooh, fancy panel layout.

Did the character choice affect it at all? I mean, was it in-character from his POV, maybe including biases and knowledge gaps? Or was it reliable objective data and he just got to be the mouthpiece?



Definitely agreed!

Character choice absolutely did affect how it was laid out; I chose Astrid specifically because he loves to talk and explain things, and fancies himself to be knowledgeable about the specific subjects I wanted to shed light on here. It's mostly pretty objective; the parts that are the largest knowledge gaps/biases (mostly the 'long ago' stuff) are shared by basically everyone, so I consider them to also be a part of the worldbuilding; this is the commonly-held set of beliefs people have in this fictional universe; or at any rate what those who make a point of studying things believe, which filters out to the rest.