Build A Community

One of the things you need when you're starting to promote things is that you have to have people to whom you can promote things. I don't care if it's something as simple as your friends on Facebook, you need to have people that you can tell that you're doing something. I don't care how complicated or how simple it is; you need to spread the word and you can't spread the word if it's just you. If the only people person you can be sure to get in contact with is basically just you and you alone, then there's no real sense in promoting anything because obviously nobody else is really going to pay attention to you. 

However, by building a community, you create a support crew, you create people that will occasionally have your back and if you're having problems you can actually access advice. But more importantly, when you start doing promotion you've got people to whom you can promote whatever it is. You can go on to their Facebook pages and say, "What's up, here's what I'm doing." You can go into your LinkedIn and go, H"ey, this is going to help you check me out."

The key is that you've got to have some sort of community in order to spread the news to. And you've got to take the steps in order to build that community up. You've got to put a little bit of effort into it; this isn't something that you're going to start and go on to something else, and you have to constantly maintain it. You've got to figure out ways to say, "Hey, I'm alive!" You've got to check in with other people and you have to occasionally say "happy birthday" or "congratulations on a new job". 

The bottom line is that if you really are serious about promoting whatever you're trying to promote, then your first step should be to build a community that you can promote to, or you won't have one when you need them later on. 

Twitter is Your Friend

Sure, it's 280 characters, it may not seem like you can accomplish much, but that doesn't mean that it should be disregarded. Twitter allows you do a whole lot of things very quickly, making it a very efficient marketing tool.  

The most obvious thing that you can do is create a platform that basically says, "Hey, I'm here, I've done something really cool. Check it out!" and give a really quick reason why people need to check it out. If nothing else, this is a really great way to get you doing really quick elevator pitches; you've only got 280 characters you need to make it as quick as possible. This means that you need to get in, get out and do it as much damage as you possibly can. 

Just remember the five basics: 1) tell people who you are, 2) what you are, 3) why they should be checking you out, 4) what they're checking out, and 5) how to get there. If you can do all that, and you do this in 280 characters or less, you're golden. This means you're basically gonna be able to get into that really great Twitter feed, and have somebody actually check you out. 

Keep in mind that you're gonna have to follow other people and track what those people are doing. It sounds a little onerous and it can get annoying. But even if you spend, say 10-15 minutes a day on just checking things out really quick, you should be good to go. This is just basic courtesy: If you want people to look at what you're doing it helps to look at what others are doing.

Twitter allows you to post stuff up, let people know what you're doing, and keep up on what industry professionals are doing as well. Thanks to this, Twitter should be a major assist with any kind of social media campaign you're doing. And keep in mind that you should be doing this as a supplement; you should obviously try to figure out what your favorite social media choice is, and use that. But definitely make sure you do Twitter as well. It's easy to use, it's easy to maintain, and it can have an impact. 

Use it right, and Twitter can definitely be your friend.

Comics and the Convenience Store Model

So every day I head to my local convenience store and grab a soda. It costs me between $.96 and $1.41 depending on how they charge it (it's supposed to be $1.41, but I sometimes get lucky). Six sodas gets a free one. Combined with the burgers, etc., I grab there, I'm spending maybe $30-$60 a month there. 

Here's the fun question: Between electricity, salary for its employees, and restocking costs, is my $60 really helping? 

Obviously not. It requires a lot of people coming in, spending a couple of bucks each time, and all of that money adding up over time. That is, the store doesn't need a few people spending thousands of dollars, but rather a lot of people spending a few dollars on a consistent basis. As long as it can ensure that it has that money coming in, the store can not only survive but possibly thrive. 

You need to see your comic in the same way. You don't need to sell massive amounts of merchandise to everyone; you just need to make sure that you're something. There are three basic ways to get people into the shop:

1) Make sure that people know about your shop. The Circle K has a huge sign; it's hard to miss and it's got a decent location. Also, they change the signage to keep up interest. You need to make sure that you post about you shop, any new products, any specials, basically any news or just that the shop is still around. Try to post about it at least once a week no matter what just to let people know it's still around. 

2) Have variety of goods. Your average convenience store has a variety of goods, it may not have a wide variety of gods, but it does have a variety: You can find a variety of snacks, sodas (cans, 2-liters, fountain), beer, household goods, and even hot foods in the aisles. Your comic store should follow suite: You should not only have your books, but some sort of merch, be it t-shirts, key chains, toys, whatever. The more things that you have for sale, the more options people have, and therefore the more likely they are to find something to purchase. And if they find something to purchase, they'll purchase.

3) Be convenient. the Circle K is just a few minutes away, and is well situated near a neighborhood, a school, and, excluding a taco shop, is the only place for hot food within several blocks. Your comic shop needs to be easy to find; you need a top-level domain, and you need to be everywhere. This means that you need to have several versions of your comic, if possible, available on different POD sites, as well as Amazon. The key here is that you need to be as easy to find as a neighborhood convenience store, and the easier the better.

So....when it comes down to it, you need to find a way to drive potential buyers to your shop and if you can do so consistently then you have a better chance of dependable sales. Make sure that the shop is well advertised, has plenty of options, and is easy to find. Do that, and your store has a better chance of being successful.

Why Cookies Are Not Money

There's a meme where a plate of cookies sits before three guys. The rich guys takes all but three, leaving the other two to fight over the other three. The idea is to show how the rich make everyone else fight over the remainder while taking most of it for themselves. 

It doesn't work that way, folks, and it's important we as businessmen to understand why.

The problem here is that the plate of cookies represents money as a limited resource. While that's certainly the case for the cookies, that's not so much the case with money; that is, when a cookie is eaten it's gone, it ain't coming back. With money, on the other hand, you can take it out of the system but you can bring it back. Sure, you can destroy money, but that's not something you see done everyday; people try to not burn money. 

The catch is that money is more of a liquid resource; that is, it's constantly changing shape and constantly being recycled through the process. It's important that you understand that: Just because it disappears from your ledger doesn't mean that the money is gone; it's merely gone somewhere else. However, it's important to understand that money is never truly eliminated; it's just shifted around. 

And that's something you absolutely need to understand to as a businessman, and why people say to "keep it local". If a kid does his chores and you give the kid a cookie, that cookie is history; you will never see it again. But if you give him a five, he's going to buy a comic book. The shop owner gets a coffee with that. The coffee house buys some cream. That dairy farmer used it to help buy some feed. That original $5 became $20, and its journey is just beginning. 

Note the difference: The cookie could only be used once, while the five-dollar bill can keep being used. 

Keep that in mind as we revisit the original plate of cookies, but replace the cookies with $100 bills. Sure, the rich man is going to get most of them, but most of them won't stay in his possession for long. He may put several of them into the bank, but he's going to spend money improving his home (money that goes to local contractors). He's going to spend money on food (which goes to grocery stores and restaurants). He's going to spend some on clothes (which goes to local shops).

Remember that money he put in the bank? The bank gives him interest on it, but it also goes to financing homes, local businesses, and even whatever charities the bank supports. 

[This is where the myth of "trick-down economics" comes from, or the idea that the rich support those below them as their money filters down to everyone else. Keep in mind that what we're discussing applies to everyone, just to different degree; as such, money circulates around, not down. Everyone contributes to the economy, unless they keep their money in a mattress.]

So why do you need to keep this in mind? Because that's how the comics business works. The money you put into a crowdsourcing campaign allows the person to buy more comicking supplies and pay his crew. That money, in turn, is used to keep printing businesses, internet service providers, and merch sites going, which makes the comics industry possible. This also means that those people are buying comics, which helps us all. 

There are a lot more cogs to the machine, and I'm obviously keeping it comic-centric (those people are also paying bills, getting food, grabbing sundry items), but the point is that the original couple of bucks is being used by a lot more people, and those few bucks quickly become a lot of bucks if you track where they go. 

Once the cookies are used, they're gone. The plate is useful to see how much money different people get, but it breaks down really quick if you use it as a model of the economy as a whole. As money is something that continues to circulate as it's used, bolstering the economy the more it's used. So spend your money to get more cookies; they're delicious and you're helping the economy. 

Or let the money earn interest in your bank account. Either way works.

You Are You

You are you.  

Yeah, I know that sounds silly. But the thing is that everybody has their own unique perspective on things. Everybody does something different than everybody else. Everybody is who they are. And that applies just as much as it does to me as it does to you. You are different than everyone else is and that's not necessarily a bad thing.

People don't want to fundamentally change you to make you something different than what you actually are. It's fine to teach you how to do something; you are adding on to your skill set but not necessarily changing your perspective. But if the only way they can teach you how to do something is to change you into them, well, that's sort of missing the point. That's not teaching a skill; that's teaching a religion and that should be avoided. If someone insists that you can only learn from them by turning you into them, then you need to seriously debate letting them teach you.

We need as much uniqueness in the world as we can possibly yet. We need people with different perspectives, different skill sets, different perspectives. And if everybody was the same, if everybody, even a subset of people were exactly the same, this would be a problem because we need as many perspectives as needed. Different perspectives within a group means that the group also has different approaches to a situation, and that gives the group options when it comes to dealing with problems.

That's a good thing.

We lack sometimes that unique voice that we need to survive as a group. If we're heading towards danger, that unique voice and can pull us back from the edge just by saying, "Hey, look out!" We need people that are who they are, not who they think people think they should be. Sure, there's going to be exceptions to that. (If you're a serial killer, you need some serious help, at the very least.) But if you're not doing something that's harming somebody else, then you need to be yourself. 

(If you are harming yourself and/or other, then it's time to change what you're doing.)

But as long as you're not harming yourself, as long as you're actually expanding yourself, as long as you are becoming more you, then you should basically be doing whatever you feel necessary for you to accomplish whatever it is you want to accomplish. So, go out there, have some fun, screw what other people think, do what you need to do. 

And remember that you are not them. 

You are you

You Aren't Alone

No matter how lonely you may feel there's always going to be somebody there if you look hard enough. This is the important part of joining community; you have that support when you need it. This isn't just in terms of if you have a question you want to ask somebody (yeah, that's awesome!) but also knowing that you have someone out there that will have your back or you or can just simply talk to you. This can sometimes make a world of difference.  

You need to realize that you're not all by yourself. You may think you're a solo act, that you may have lived your life in total isolation. We're artists; it's not that hard to feel like you're totally alone even in a crowd. For a lot of us, that made us easy to bully and we carry those psychological scars; this also means that we tend to be loners. 

However, you need to realize that it's not that hard to actually just open up and ask for a little bit of help. You can always go on to an artist group and at the very least live vicariously through people around you; it may feel a little shallow but it's still realizing that, hey, there are other people like you, there are people that share your interests, there are people that share your goals. 

They are your people and if you have a problem odds are good that someone else within that group has had the same or similar problem. If you need someone to talk to odds are good that you can find someone to get some advice from.

And if you want a really scary thought: This means that you can potentially be the person that others depend on as well. That means that you can throw a lifesaver at someone else who needs it. And you know how big of a difference that having a lifesaver can make in a person's life. 

Weird that feeling like a victim can help save another victim, right? That sympathy can be powerful when it's used to effect as it turns you from victim to hero, and gives you the strength to help someone else. But that's part of belonging to a group: Sometimes you join because you need the support and then you end up being the support. Just recognizing a new person to the group can be a tremendous thing to some people. 

And keep in mind that it plays both ways. There are a lot of little things that we can do that can make a difference in not only our lives, but also the lives of the others. And sometimes it's worth doing those little things just to stay sane; if you see someone who needs help, at least ask. It's important to realize that you're not doing things all by yourself. Sure, you may in your own world when you create, but that world is still linked to others; no matter how deep you go into your own world don't forget that you can surface next to someone else's if you need to.

When you join an online community, it's a two-way street: Just as you joined the community so you weren't alone, so did others; even if you are just are lurker and never interact, you still gain from being part of a community.

You need to realize that you can have the full supportive community just by asking. Realize that you are never alone and it makes a tremendous difference in your life. Help is just a few clicks away and it is better to have asked than not. If you are still hesitant, ask a moderator; they can at least direct to someone who can help. 

The bottom line is that you are not as alone as you think you are. Remember that always. 

You are not alone.

Learn New Things

One of the cool things about being a writer is that you're always learning really neat stuff. That expansion of your knowledge base is part of being a writer; it seems that you are always researching something for something. Those little bits of trivia help to add a little bit depth to the character and story.  Of course, it gets weird when you update that info, but that's the price of being a writer. But delving into new spheres is something all writers should be doing; sometimes looking into a subject matter you would never try will give you some great story ideas, but at the very least you'll have some great background information for a group or a character.

Every artist should be looking into new things. Painters should look up new techniques or try to make their own paint. An inker should try replicating some 1800s drawings or something medieval just to see what happens. If you're normally doing straight machinery trying something Kirbyesque. 

And this applies  to any kind of artist; you need to be looking for something new to try just to mess around with. I mean, you should always be trying to figure out exactly what it's going to take to get you to the next level. You can't do that if you're not doing anything to expand your knowledge; sometimes you need to play in a different sandbox than the one that you're used to. You can't really hit that next level if you're always checking boxes the same way; you need something to propel you to the next level.

When you start looking at a lot of artists, especially the really influential ones, you notice they go through periods when they tried new stuff just to see what happened. Picasso is the obvious king here where he had his blue period, his cubist period, his realistic period, and so on and so forth. You've got writers who tried plays, poems, even prose, just to see what they could do. If you want to advance in your craft, then you need to learn new things if you want to level up. 

So learn new things and have some fun with it. Even if you don't do so well, at least you tried, and that's the only way to get better.