Hey folks! First things first, Indiginerds is currently crowdfunding. It has made goal but we really want to get it to the 35k stretch goal as soon as possible. When we hit that, Iron Circus will be able to donate copies to indigenous libraries and schools. It will help indigenous kids see themselves in stories and it gets the indigenous artists in the book a raise. November is National Native American Heritage Month, so it’s the perfect time to back something like Indiginerds.
November is pretty quiet otherwise. Alina will be a guest on Geekshow for a crowdfund end countdown on November 16th. And I’m going to do my usual streaming.
I’m still gonna be answering readers questions in comic form so, if you have one post it here!
Watching Wolf Guy last month turned out to be a bust because of technically difficulties. The full moon movie watch parties have been tending toward horror lately. So for a change of pace, next one will be a comedy. On November 27th at 5pm PST, please join me and some other fine folks while we watch Teen Wolf the movie (not the MTV tv show). Click if you want to join.
I’ll also be doing my usual streaming
As always I’ll be streaming art on Twitch. My schedule is currently the following:
- Tuesday 8pm-10pm PST
- Wednesday 6pm-10pm PST (changed the time)
- Thursday 6pm-9pm PST (during the Iron Circus Geekshow)
Stop by!
The big thing from last month is I started answering reader question. Here’s a look at it.
As long as it’s not a spoiler I’ll answer. So post any questions you got here
This month I’m gonna try to finish Blue Moon’s script. My work load from Seven Seas is kinda light, so gonna focus on getting that out the door so Meredith can start drawing it. That and get ahead on The City Between.
After Blue Moon is done, I’m gonna write the next City Between story. It’s called Glass Diamonds and will be about Rebecca and her next client. Shards of Reflection is about half way done, so I need to make sure Glass Diamonds is ready to go sooner rather than later. I’ve been fiddling with some concept art for it.
Once those two things are off my plate, I’ll finish up the art for my werewolf videogame and get back to You are the Chosen One.
While doing all that, I need to sit down and build a crowdfund for Murky Water. I’ve been putting it off because there was a paper shortage. So the cost of printing had shot up. I was hoping to wait it out and I think things have settled down. Obviously they are still higher than last time I printed a book because of inflation, but it’s as cheap as it’s gonna get.
I was also waiting a bit because I wanted to see how the crowdfunding landscape shakes out. About two years ago I wrote about Kickstarter saying they would try out block chain. At the time I said I wasn’t gonna use them and was looking into Indiegogo and Zoop. Since then, Crowdfundr and Backerkit got into the crowdfunding landscape and Kickstarter has walked back blockchain (sorta).
The problem almost all the non-kickstarter crowdfunds are having is no one browses their websites to find crowdfunds. It means all your crowdfunding success depends on the fanbase you already have and spreading the word on social media. But social media is currently falling apart. Part of my duties at Iron Circus is making the schedule for all the crowdfunds. So I’ve seen first had as social media referrals become smaller and smaller. Which makes crowdfunding harder than ever, especially if people aren’t browsing the site in general.
I was considering using Backerkit which is what Iron Circus has been using lately. But I won’t recommend them to the average creator. Backerkit gets around the no browsing problem by having a robust advertising service. Which seemed promising at first, but myself and several smaller comic artists quickly learned the Backerkit will only run those ads IF you’ve already hit goal. So all their promo help is designed around you already being super successful. Like after the first day, Backerkit turned off ads for Indiginerds and didn’t turn them back on until after it hit goal. So while they are good for Iron Circus, who’s projects usually fund in a day or two, they would be pretty useless for me. My projects usually fund in the last week if not that last few days.
Also, since I’ve built several backerkit pages for Iron Circus, I know that I find their back end UI obtuse. I lose a lot of time trying to find stuff when I build those pages. But if their ads had been more useful, I would have sucked it up.
As for Kickstarter’s end of things. I said the sorta walked back using the blockchain. Basically, the guy who pushed for it was forces to leave. I forget if he was outright fired or if he left on his own. But either way, after that Kickstarter said they were still open to maybe using blockchain in the future but wouldn’t put any resources into it until a benefit is proven. And since their blockchain plans were mostly all buzzword gibberish before, that means they won’t be using it anytime soon. I’m still annoyed they won’t swear it off, but that seems the best they are gonna do. So whole crowdfund landscape in my mind is:
But with social media falling apart and none of the crowdfunding sites having a lot of browsing going on, I’m like 90% I’m gonna have to go back to Kickstarter. It’s really frustrating.
I also got to figure out what to do about international shipping which is it’s own mess. The post office has been gutted so badly that international shipping has gotten wildly out of had. Like sending one of The City Between books to Europe now costs like $25. It’s ridiculous. So before this crowdfund happens, I need to figure out what I’m doing on that end.
Anyway, thanks everyone for your support as usual! Especially those who back my patreon. Shit is rough out there for indie artists right now.
