Marketing

[Jeff Mumm]

I started listening to more webcomic podcasts, and was starting to feel strangled by the one-sidedness of it all. I think it's important for me to feel connected with the webcomic community, but I don't want to be hypnotized into thinking like the masses. What I like about Webcomics Weekly is that the hosts are all people who are actually making a living off of their websites and so when they discuss webcomics, they discuss it as a legitimate business model. Other podcasts unfortunately fall a lot of the time into that terrible trap; "making a career out of your comic is a pipe dream." I've started to react to that line of thinking as a challenge to keep me pushing even harder. You can't let that negativity soak in, you have to know that you will succeed in order to do so. I spent a lot of money going to a college for cartooning. That alone is enough to justify my stubbornness in this matter. I went to school to become a professional cartoonist, and I'm going to do it, damn it! But the other issue, even with Webcomics Weekly, is that if I only listen to what webcomics are doing, then I'm putting my thinking into a very small box. If webcomics is a business model, then I not only need to know about the webcomics community or the webcartoonist's tips and tricks, I also need to know about business in general.

Now, I'm lucky, in that my day job allows me to listen to podcasts for up to eight hours a day. That's a lot of time I can be filling my brain with information! Obviously I can't constantly be learning, there's a certain capacity for intake of information, but it's definitely an opportunity I have to listen to a lot of stuff...a lot of a variety of stuff.

So today I started listening to some marketing podcasts for internet business in general. "Some" being "two." They both immediately started opening up my mind to new possibilities. The first is completely free, and the second is an elaborate way to get you to buy into their membership program. I'll stick with the free one for now and feel my way out.

I do find it very important to keep my mind limber in this way. When I don't hear other people's opinions on comics or business, my thinking gets stale and my interest wanes. I think one key to success is to always be engaged and to fight stagnation.

[C. Glen Williams]

Good call on the "pipe dream" argument. It's odd to me, but lately there's also been a backlash online against creative artists actually being paid for their work. It was at its most obvious during the WGA strike, when YouTube was flooded with amateur videos raking writers over the coals for wanting to actually be paid. The argument I heard most often was, "Look at me! I'm not getting paid for posting to YouTube! I do it because I love it. You're doing what you love, so why do you want to be paid?"

For my part, I would argue that writing five minutes for YouTube whenever one feels like it is a vastly different creature from having to craft 26-55 minutes of entertainment capable of beating the competition every week so that you can continue to feed and support your family. People like the WGA, people like you and your cartoonist's college, and people like me with my 7 years of expensive acting training (and two degrees) have worked hard to get to a point where we're competitive for paying creative jobs. To suddenly be told that we'll never make it, can't possibly make it, and shouldn't even want to make it is kind of ridiculous.

[Jeff Mumm]

Oh, yeah! Sorry aboot that! I'll update the post.

[Perry Belmon]

Hi Jeff, um, do ya think you could share a link to the free podcast for those of use that are to green for their own good? Thanks. :)