If you have been paying attention, you'll know that I've been thinking about and making changes to the Marko Man series. From the characters and the stories to the format, nothing has been free from the winds of change in terms of my flagship series.
Recently, I had talked bout whether I wanted to take the series to a publishing house, or whether I wanted to just write the stories independently, and I even wondered if I should go down the line of making it a comic or a webcomic. And I did some research. And I did some reading. And I did some digging.
And I came to the conclusion that Marko Man is against odds. Period.
So, I've decided that Marko Man will remain an independent production. I still haven't decided if I want to do the 50+ independent novels or if I want to work on the webcomic. I could possibly even go with the digital comic road... which may be better for Marko Man... I don't know yet... still more research would have to be done. But as far as going down the road that insists on being "mainstream," if you will... I don't see it working.
Mainstream comics? Pretty much suicide. Top selling comics barely scratch 100,000 sales. Green Latern's sales are up probably because of the upcoming movie. Marvel and DC will never hire an unpublished comic writer. Other comic publishers are simply not on Marvel or DC's level; those two practically monopolize the comic book industry.
Mainstream novels? Suicide as well. Apparently, only about 50 superhero novels have been published over the last 10 years. Publishers also have issues coping with an unpublished author wanting to make an ongoing series (aka me). I could try and change Marko Man into a sci-fi story or a fantasy story, but... no. Just no. Overall, in order to try and get into a novel, Marko's gonna lose. Period.
And at that point, I'd rather have full blown control over everything if only 1000 or so people are going to read my material. Characters. Stories. Publishing rights. If it was something that I created for a one time event, then sure, not having complete control over it so long as I'm getting the royalties and the credit for doing what I did would be cool. But when it comes to Marko Man... the series that I have been working on since I was 10 years old... I can't deal with losing any part of it to some legal bullshit.
This doesn't mean that I'm not trying to be an officially published author. I have a number of non-Marko Man story ideas that could actually become novels with the right amount of work and the right amount of luck. Said story ideas will not be shown to the public at this time, as the public as a habit of stealing ideas without consent.
But yeah, Marko Man will remain independent. Whether it's going to be a novel series or a comic series (or maybe even a combination of the two...) might be revealed this winter. I can definitely tell you that I am in fact working on my *not very good* art skills and thinking about how the comic would be formatted... definitely something I'm actively looking into, if you can't tell.
Additionally, with all the research I've been doing, I definitely feel like this is a much better way for Marko Man to go. I still definitely have many a trick to learn, but I believe that with my versatility and intelligence, some way or another, I can scramble up some kind of following for Marko Man. And from there... the sky's the limit.
So yeah. Marko Man remains independent. And mine. Other undisclosed story ideas will become novels. The end... for now. :-D
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