Danger(s) to the existence of Sandra and Woo
I estimate that around 90% of our readers have come here for the first time by clicking on one of our ads on other webcomic websites delivered by Project Wonderful. Today, Project Wonderful introduced geo targeting which makes it possible to let your ads appear only in certain regions: USA, Canada, Europe and the rest of the world. This does not sound like much at first. But the way it is implemented, especially the lack of an option to advertise “worldwide”, is a COMPLETE DISASTER really bad for Sandra and Woo. The two core principles of my clever advertising strategy may very well no longer work properly in the future. I guess that I will have to pay twice as much as significantly more than before to get the same amount of new readers. And all of them will be in the United States, which is also very unsatisfying. So far I have spent
$2875
(net) for Sandra and Woo. During the last months my own advertising revenues from the ads on our website were large enough so that I could not only pay the Project Wonderful bill, but also parts of Powree’s salary. But I seriously doubt this will still be possible in the future after this change. As a college student the whole thing really, really hurts me. It is also very frustrating for me that other webcomic creators are able to earn several hundred or even thousand dollars per month while I’m constantly losing money.
Since there has been no particular interest in our merchandising or book, I’m now directly asking you for donations so that I can continue to pay the bills for Sandra and Woo. It is not yet a question of life and death if I shouldn’t be able to get some money that way, but if just one of our main ad agencies would drop Sandra and Woo it WILL BE.
So please consider to:
(Raised $646.93 so far, thank you very much!)
UPDATE: I have received a rather promising e-mail by the staff of Project Wonderful. The whole thing might not turn out as bad as it seemed after the first look at all the changes. However, while I probalby won’t have to spend twice as much for advertising in future like I guessed at first, it will certainly be more than in the past. The fact also remains that I have spent a large amount of money for Sandra and Woo and there are only so many financial setbacks like this one I’ll be able to cope with.
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I attempted to donate, but it went to a german version of Paypal, which didn’t accept my login information.
Frostryder says: I attempted to donate, but it went to a german version of Paypal, which didn’t accept my login information.
That’s strange. The “Chip in” link leads me to http://www.paypal.com/de/cgi-bin/…, a subfolder of PayPal’s .com domain so there should be no problems with cookies. There’s also no reason why it should lead to /de/ for any visitor not from Germany. I’ll have to look into that if another person has the same problem.
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the /de/ is already in the URL, so it probably bypasses any geolocation paypal might attempt…
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Hey, will donate ASAP but also’ll do my best to publicize you guys too
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I found this comic from an ad on illwillpress.com
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I love your comic and I also attempted to donate, but it went to a german version of Paypal and it didn’t accept my login information.
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Yup, accessing from the U.S., being redirected to German /-:
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I am unemployed and cannot contribute to my disgust! I am in the United States, how can I help other than by contributing? If I click on the ads each day, does that bring in money to you? Dankeshoen, Ich wunchen sie viel gluck. Hoffentlich meine Deutsch ist gut, Ich habe so viel vergessen! Ich wohne im Deutschland von 1967 bis 1970. Aufweidersehen, Larry
Padefigure says: I love your comic and I also attempted to donate, but it went to a german version of Paypal and it didn’t accept my login information.
Crap. I have replaced the widget with a standard PayPal button which hopefully works.
Larry Peay says: I am unemployed and cannot contribute to my disgust! I am in the United States, how can I help other than by contributing?
You can help us by spreading the word. Getting more readers is the most important thing for every webcomic creator. This can be a simple link in a forum you frequently visit or your Facebook page (for example) as well as a detailed review of the strip. Of course you can not only help Sandra and Woo this way but also any other webcomic you enjoy. While money might not be an issue that big for them, many are struggling even harder regarding their small readership base.
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I’d like to help out by advertising in one of the forums I frequent. Do you have any kind of a small banner I could insert into my forum signature to link back to you with?
Lunaroki says: I’d like to help out by advertising in one of the forums I frequent. Do you have any kind of a small banner I could insert into my forum signature to link back to you with?
You can find several banners on our Links page if you scroll down.
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Doing my part. Chin up!
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Hi Novil,
and thanks for the cool strip. One thing to consider regarding ads:
I for my part subscribed to your RSS feed. This way, I am notified for every new strip. BUT: I can see the whole strip in my feed reader. This is a great thing for me, because it is really convenient. However, when I read it with my feed reader, I see no ads whatsoever.
So here’s my idea (and I hate myself for putting it forward, because I hate to be forced to open a page in my browser instead of being able to simply read it in the feed reader): Maybe you should limit the RSS feed to only the cartoon’s caption? Just check out for instance how it’s done at Kevin & Kell. This way, your readers would have to visit the real page, thus generating views for the ads.
So long!
Ben
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I don’t have a way to donate but I can certainly help advertise by linking to the website on websites I visit often.
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I know it is not much, but I am already advertising this comic on my blog.
However, I did not know I could buy a book with the strips!
You know what I am going to buy next, don’t you?
You have my support!
Ben says: […] So here’s my idea (and I hate myself for putting it forward, because I hate to be forced to open a page in my browser instead of being able to simply read it in the feed reader): Maybe you should limit the RSS feed to only the cartoon’s caption? […]
Actually the click-through rate has not decreased significantly after upgrading to full-size images in the RSS feed. (For a long time the strips were only 360 pixel wide and generally unreadable.)
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All the better… I’m new, so I didn’t know. BTW: I read the strip in my browser too…
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Do you think that if I put some fan art in my DA account would help to “spread the word”?
I would like to help somehow… dollar is too high around here for me to danate any…
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I’ve got your banner linked into my sig on Magistream now. Hope this’ll bring you in some more new readers! ^_^
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You know, your best traffic is going to come from the sites of other webcomic similar to yours. Most webcomic artists are amiable, and you can probably get advertisements in some good places if you look.
My two cents. The other $19.98 will be coming over paypal.
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Unfortunately, I’m completely broke. HOWEVER, I HAVE made a Facebook group!! COME AND JOIN!!! Simply search “Sandra and Woo” on Facebook!
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Third attempt, after waiting a couple hours for the first two to show up.
Put your banner in my Magistream sig, so hopefully you’ll be getting some new readers that way.
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I’ll advertise it on my Menewsha page and my deviantART journal for free if you like… in fact, I’ll do it on facebook too ^^
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I’ve donated. It would be shameful to let a comic of this quality go under because of lack of support.
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Money for you – keep your work on and don’t forget to pay Powree for her beautyful work, too
Since I have my own homepage (but there’s still work in progress), I easily can add a banner to your site.
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I subscribe by e-mail to this and other webcomics, as well as two of the syndicates’ sites. At least two of the webcomics include ads in the e-mail feeds, as does one of the syndicate sites (the other syndicate still offers a Paid account option; not that I mind the ads, but free accounts can’t access anything over two weeks old).
The one caveat is that my mail reader has a separate “scam” detector from the “spam” detector, and it seems to consistently flag the two webcomics’ dispatches as “scams”… and doesn’t seem to learn, or to remember if I move the message to a different folder. (Then again, it does the same for a number of mailing lists that I’m on, which I’ve whitelisted for my mail server’s spam filters.)
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Just saw this.
I immediately disabeld my adblocker…
(Now the site takes double the time to load, but whatever ^^’)
And I’ ll tell more of my friends about this webcomic.
@Novil
Is there a way to donate without using paypal?
I hate such systems
or shortly and in german: (since I’m too lazy to translate that…)
Ich überweise dir auch gerne etwas direkt auf’s Konto ^^’
Paypal und ähnliches kann ich nicht leiden XD’
(Ich sage nur: Datensammelwahn…)
Someone says: I immediately disabeld my adblocker…
[…]
Is there a way to donate without using paypal?
1) I have given you my bank account information. Check your e-mail.
2) Donators, book or merch buyers are allowed to turn on their adblocker of course.
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Whew. Good thing I bought those “Freedom! Justice! Cookies!” buttons a couple months ago. Gave one to my sister for Christmas. She thought it was pretty cool.
Whenever I get around to making a links page on my website (Thursday maybe), S&W will be there. Not that I get much traffic, but every little bit helps I suppose.
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Novil says:
1) I have given you my bank account information. Check your e-mail.
2) Donators, book or merch buyers are allowed to turn on their adblocker of course.
1) thx. I just paid my bank a visit and mailed you back ^^
2) I will leave it off anyway
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@Novil: While I have donated, I turned off my adblocker temporarily… you have the same obnoxious “teeth” adverts as Erfworld, they’re really horrific and unlikeable! Seriously, look into finding adverts that are user-tolerable and people might actually click on. It’ll help you and this comic in the long term!
BobisOnlyBob says: @Novil: While I have donated, I turned off my adblocker temporarily… you have the same obnoxious “teeth” adverts as Erfworld, they’re really horrific and unlikeable! Seriously, look into finding adverts that are user-tolerable and people might actually click on. It’ll help you and this comic in the long term!
Actually I have turned off “Cosmetic surgery”, “Health supplements” and other particularly dubious categories like that in every single ad service provider I use. I can’t do much if single ads slip through the filter. All the management panels of those sites are usually a pain to navigate and very slow making it unfeasible to hunt after specific ads.
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Unfortunately, I’m in a similar boat to you when it comes to the whole money thing, as I am unemployed as well. However, I will put a banner link to you on my comic pages. I’d hate to see this comic die.
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I’m waiting for some decent $$ from a commissioner, expect a large cut of that. It would be sad to see you guys disappear.
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Oh, dang. This problem needs remedying. If I can, I’ll donate.
Either way, I’ll keep an eye out for your books in stores (Unless they aren’t there).
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Facebook.
You NEED a Facebook page. Social networking is your friend.
All this presupposes that you don’t have one – I haven’t seen one, and I’d put it on the front page if I were you. You might want to talk to R.C. Monroe of “Out There” – he’s talked about it in his news posts. http://www.outtherecomic.com
Alex K says: You NEED a Facebook page. Social networking is your friend.
I have a personal Facebook page. Because I wanted to have a look at some other profile pages and you need to register for that. There’s already way too much personal information about me on the web.
There’s already a Sandra and Woo page on Facebook. I have nothing to do with that. And I don’t like that it looks like an official page.
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You want to know my personal opinion about facebook?
Take a book and jam it in your face.
face->book ?_?
It’s just one of these platforms which exist for nothing but collecting personal data.
And yes, I hate this
@Novil
Did you ask them to stop the page?
I mean, you’re owning the comic after all…
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phooey, dollar’s getting stronger again >_>
anyway, small donation from the other side of the Atlantic ^_^