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| Mark Gonyea and his StoryPosters at ROTAcon 2012. |
The old catch-22 of mainstream publishing: To get published, you need an agent. To get an agent, you need to be published.
Traditionally a writer or artist couldn't get an agent until he sold a work to an editor.
Cartoonist/graphic designer Mark Gonyea didn't follow that sequence. He skipped the editor and went directly to an agent. Using the reference book "The Writers Market" he contacted three agents with a project he had completed, a children's book about design. All three liked the proposal but only one offered to represent Mark, seeing how his book fit a niche that no one else was filling.*
The agent sold his project, "A Book About Design: Complicated Doesn't Make It Good," to a publisher and soon other titles followed.
Mark returned to his hometown Saturday to participate in ROTAcon, a celebration of imaginative works from comics to SF/Fantasy novels to superhero toys. I spoke with him during the slow spells while he manned his merch table at the ROTA Gallery in downtown Plattsburgh.
I had met him briefly years ago when he and his brother self-published a small black-and-white comic book. He's been busy since then. After a gig as a graphic designer for Vermont Teddy Bear Company, he's now self-employed, living in Hinesberg, Vermont where he works out of his home studio.
Besides paper media Mark has also found success with digital, selling short comic book stories through iBooks for 99 cents a pop online. Each comic is dialogue-less, the lack of word balloons giving it universal appeal to readers around the world. He also sells each comic as a large wall poster, the story told in square panels on one sheet suitable for framing.
99 cents, he says, seems to be the magic number for selling works online. A price point that reminds older comic book readers such as myself of the days when comic books were cheap entertainment, not $5.00 works of Art.
Besides his online sales and book advances Mark also keeps busy as a freelance graphic designer. His own story ends up in a good place all because he skipped a panel.
You can learn more about Mark and his works at:
http://www.markgonyea.com/
http://www.amazon.com/Mark-Gonyea/e/B001JRTFYK
* [ Edited sentence for clarity re: agents 12/8/12 at 7:40 PM .]
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