Want to increase the readership and / or maximize the money you make off your webcomic for FREE with just a little hard work? Heck, who doesn't! I will share with you (in several parts) the methods (this blog is one of them - but more on that topic in another part of this series) I have used to promote my webcomic, BLOOP. Some people look down their nose at some of these methods and call them 'pimping'. These people are ________ (fill in the blank with your favorite disparagement). There is absolutely nothing illegal, immoral or wrong about legitimately promoting your webcomic! The bottom line is you can have the best webcomic in the world but it won't matter if nobody sees it. And getting people to see your webcomic is presumably why you posted it on the web in the first place. So anyway on to the good stuff . . .

NOTE: This blog presumes you have a webcomic site already functioning somewhere on the web with interesting content (No amount of promotion will help a crappy webcomic!) There are numerous articles and blogs on how to create content / set up your webcomic. Just do a Google search to bring them up.

The First Step is to simply set up 'Friend' sites for your webcomic. Seems obvious! Maybe you even already have a MySpace site. But why stop there? There are numerous good FREE friend sites out there, that with just a little investment of time and imagination, will work as FREE promotional agents for your webcomic. You can also form good friendships with people to kick around cartoon ideas with, collaborate on projects with or get just feedback from. Here are the major friend sites, in no particular order (if you know a good friend site not listed here - just e-mail me at blooptoon@aol.com and I'll update):

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com

Friendster: http://www.friendster.com

Squidoo: http://www.squidoo.com

Windows Live Spaces / MSN Spaces: http://spaces.live.com

Tag World: http://tagworld.com

Frappr: http://frappr.com

There are other friend sites out there but these are the major ones. Setting up an account is easy and doesn't require too much computer savvy. For examples of what you can do at these friend sites to promote your webcomic, click on the link(s) below to see what I have done:

http://www.friendster.com/blooptoon

http://myspace.com/blooptoon

http://blooptoon.spaces.live.com

http://tagworld.com/blooptoon

http://www.squidoo.com/blooptoon (Squidoo is my personal favorite due to its extreme versatility!)

www.frappr.com/blooptoon

HOT TIP: You may have noticed all of my url's have 'blooptoon' in them. This is done on purpose. You will soon begin to amass a large quantity of usernames and passwords. I recommend getting a small notebook where you can write entries for the website url's, your user name(s) and password(s). I also recommend using the same user name and password at ALL sites for the sake of simplicity and consistency. So what are you waiting for? Get to work and set up a friend site or three to promote your webcomic!

Congratulations! You have completed the First Step in this series of FREE promotion methods for your webcomic site. In the next part of this series, I will discuss the ever important and mysterious BLOG! Good Luck in promoting YOUR webcomic!

Check out BLOOP at: http://www.webcomicsnation.com/blooptoon

Check out BLOOP's Blog at: http://www.blogcharm.com/bloop