How to make sure you can read ARCHAIC

You might not be able to get a paper copy unless you preorder it by November 4.

Hello, friends!

The word is out: my first full-length comic book, ARCHAIC, will be released on December 4th! If you like comics and you like my writing, this book is for you: Although it’s not set in the Old World, it’s very much an urban fantasy. The story is about a sentient island that serves as a game preserve for the gods and monsters of dead cultures—and the single mom who’s abruptly put in charge of it. If that sounds intriguing, please consider checking out Issue 1.

But wait! Buying a comic isn’t like buying a novel! Well, okay, buying a digital comic for an ereader is a lot like buying any other ebook: it will turn up on sites like Amazon a few weeks before the release date, you can preorder it or wait until pub day, and then it appears on your device.

However, getting a physical copy of a comic is very different, because the comics industry works on preorders. Which means…

You may not be able to get a paper copy of ARCHAIC unless you preorder it.

The companies that print the paper comic don’t sell them directly to consumers, or even to big online retailers like Amazon. They only sell them to bricks-and-mortar comic book stores, who in turn sell them to you.

But there’s a catch: stores don’t carry every single new comic book. Instead, when a new comic is coming out, each store decides if they’re going to carry it, and how many copies they think they can sell. Then they give that number to the printer in advance, before a certain cutoff date (in this case, November 4). If the comic in question is from a smaller publisher, like AHOY, the store may not order any copies at all — unless they know of a specific customer who wants the book. That’s where you come in.

There are two ways of preordering a paper comic book to make sure you’ll get to read it. Both of these would have to happen no later than November 11th, the cutoff for ordering the book.

1. Order online from a really big store.

There are some bigger comics stores that will ship online orders right to you. Midtown Comics and Things From Another World are two options I know about, but you can shop around online and compare prices and shipping times. I know we’ve all gotten spoiled on fast free shipping, but you will probably have to pay a small shipping fee from these places, because they’re not huge corporate overlords; they’re fundamentally small businesses.

2. Order from YOUR local comic book store.

If you’re allergic to shipping costs and/or you really like your local comic book store, you can ask them to carry the book for you. (This is a completely normal ask for them; don’t worry.) If you don’t know of a comic book store nearby, you can use this locator to find one. Some stores allow you to do a preorder online and then pick it up in store on pub day, or you just call the store and ask them to preorder the first issue of Archaic.

By the way, there’s another thing that’s similar between traditional publishing and comic book publisher: preorder numbers matter. If you like my writing and want me to tell more stories of any kind, preorders are a great way to show your support.

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One Last Thing…

If you're interested in behind the scenes content, Old World short stories, book deleted scenes, and/or extra Frankie posts, it’s all available over on my Patreon page. I recently reorganized five years' worth of Patreon content into cool collections, making it easier for you to go straight to the content that interests you. Check out a how-to video here.