I've been thinking recently. Would offering a printed version of the comic at the BEGINNING of the webcomic's run make any sense?

The idea: Write and draw the entire story (or volume, if it's very long) and offer it for sale shortly after the webcomic goes live. This way, these early pages serve as preview pages, while at the same time everyone who wants the story for free needs to simply wait for the webcomic to conclude. So while the story is running, some people are hopefully buying it, which gives me extra cash that I could spent to advertise the comic (or comics rather, since I'm interested in creating narratives running for 60 to 600 pages, I'd rather promote myself as a creator than focus on a specific title). This could bring more readers to the title, some of which could perhaps pick up the book... and perhaps also previous books, hopefully leading to the point in couple of years where this "hobby" could self-finance itself.

Print-on-demand means no out-of-print or boxes-of-unsold-books-in-the-room problem, Ka-blam/Lulu both offering sale through their stores means no "shipping books from across the ocean" problem, and keeping it b&w cuts down time necessary to draw (from 1 page every 2 days to 2 pages a day) and lowers the final price of the book to a reasonable level (while still leaving room for couple of $'s profit per volume).

So basically I draw Title #1, put it online and as a book, draw Title #2 while the first one is still running and also offer it in both formats, after which go draw title #3... and so on, until I go through all the 50 or so story ideas that I have been slowly writing :D
...and hopefully in couple of years I'll be capable to live from that without worrying about bills or such.

So yeah, any thoughts on the original question? :)

Aurora Borealis
I've been thinking recently. Would offering a printed version of the comic at the BEGINNING of the webcomic's run make any sense?

Yup - to my mind, it makes a lot of sense. The main reason people don't do it, I suspect, is because they don't have the whole book written and drawn in advance. Judging by the Authors' Comments for most of the comics on DD, for example, most of us are working with little (if any) buffer and struggling to get the next page ready for its scheduled "live date". If you have a whole book's worth of material not released online yet, I'd say go for it!

Aurora Borealis
hopefully leading to the point in couple of years where this "hobby" could self-finance itself.

I suspect the emphasis there should be on the "hopefully", but that's no reason not to try!

I keep a bit of a buffer... but, yeah... i got enough pages done do have a buffer and started putting everything online. So I'm doing my books after the fact.

I guess it's more of a lack of patients than anything else. But the rigor have having to fulfill my 2 page a week commitment keeps me going more than if, say, I didn't have that obligation.

DAJB
If you have a whole book's worth of material not released online yet, I'd say go for it!

Not yet, but I should be able to finish the second book (being only 66 pages and in b&w) before Din Krakatau wraps up.

DAJB

Aurora Borealis
hopefully leading to the point in couple of years where this "hobby" could self-finance itself.

I suspect the emphasis there should be on the "hopefully", but that's no reason not to try!

Yeah, I view this as a "shouldn't hurt and might help" strategy. Just needed some opinions from outside, as sometimes I miss out on really obvious stuff.