Comic strips

Ruben Bolling: Inner Hive “largest single source of revenue”

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Alan Gardner May 31, 2012 1 minute 0 comments

Tom the Dancing Bug creator Ruben Bolling has posted results of his new INNER HIVE project. The INNER HIVE is a subscription model that gives subscribers a weekly private email that includes advance comics, contests, give-aways. It costs $9.99 for six months.

As Ruben describes it:

In fact, the INNER HIVE has gone so well, I’m looking into ways of building on it. Yes, it’s become the strip’s largest single revenue source, but syndicated comic strips have always relied on hundreds or thousands of clients for sustainability. So while it was intended to, and has, become only a great supplementary way to keep the comic strip viable, its success has been inspiring enough to make me wonder if it could be developed into a primary source of financial support.

Of course he doesn’t qualify “largest source of revenue”, meaning that it doesn’t surpass the income from syndication as a whole, but if I’m interpreting that correctly, the INNER HIVE generates revenue greater than his largest newspaper client or other revenue channels such as books. Still here is a good example of a cartoonist finding alternative monetizing channels for the same art. He also says its success has other cartoonists looking at implementing the model.

Congrats Ruben on your success.