What do you consider a “professional” cartoonist? Many people define a professional as someone who earns money for their work. But is that all there is?
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Between the COVID pandemic and a costly bottleneck in the Suez Canel that had ripple effects throughout the globe, disruptions in supply chains are wreaking havoc on retail business. And the holidays are just around the corner. Is that good news for independent artists?
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This is a time when creativity seems to be at an all-time high everywhere you look. From carved pumpkins to costumes to haunted houses to the really scary stuff like, well…
One of the glaring drawbacks to using Instagram for social-media outreach is the inability to post a hyperlink in a post. It makes generating any kind of valuable engagement on the site nearly impossible. For this reason, the one link you’re allowed in your profile has to do some heavy lifting. That’s why Linktree was developed. It uses one link to produce a table of links that the user could use to navigate to one of several options. But Linktree, itself, has some problems.
Linktree inserts its own branding in the free version. Additionally, there are no analytics available for the traffic that moves through Linktree. (These issues are addressed for users of the Pro version of the software, which is $6/month.) Even more troubling, some Linktree users have reported that their Linktree URL got their Instagram pages marked as spam.
But the biggest reason against using Linktree is this: It’s so darned easy to do this yourself! This is especially true if your website is responsive. That means it delivers a specially formatted page to people based on their device. Desktop users get one version, and people who are using smartphones to access your site get a small-screen version. (And if your site isn’t responsive by now, you’re way behind the curve. Get busy.)
You can build your own Linktree-style page — with links to all of your different projects and social media on your own site. And you can even add some elements that aren’t available to any Linktree users. For example, what’s stopping you from adding a comic intro at the bottom of the list? Or a personal profile of you as a comics creator? Or a coupon good for a discount at your online store? And, of course, you can handle any branding issues (your logo, for example) without the $6/month surcharge.
As a cherry on top, all of the traffic generated to this page will be trackable by your site’s analytic software — giving you more insight into how users are interacting with it.
Linktree is a deceptively easy solution to a common problem. It’s greatest strength is in its simplicity. Luckily, that makes it a tailor-made DIY project.
Today’s show is brought to you by Wacom — makers of the powerful, professional, portable Wacom One! After Brad shared his debilitating bout with Writer’s Block in episode 191, he shares how he overcame it, and started creating again. Also, the guys discuss what the shipping crisis could mean for small business this holiday season.
Questions asked and topics covered…
The Butso Method will change the way you think about writing.
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Successful social media relies on engagement. The more a post is engaged, the more widely it gets distributed. There are many forms of engagement.
Email outreach is hot again — and many independent creators are leaping to it as a way to escape social media. But in so doing, many of us are running afoul of long-standing FTC regulations which could hamper our ability to reach those readers over the long term. So let’s talk best practices.
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During yesterday’s Patreon Connect conference, which focused on creators of adult content, two new regulations were announced. These are both a result of a new rule being applied by Mastercard in regards to 18+ content. Patreon also announced a cryptocurrency feature that they may implement in the future. Let’s talk about what these new rules mean — and why the cryptocurrency announcement may not have been a coincidence.
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It’s one of the most-often-heard complaints in webcomics today: How do I get my comic seen in a market that’s oversaturated with comics?
You’re… not gonna like the answer.
It’s a false premise.
The webcomics market isn’t oversaturated. Are there more webcomics in 2020 than there were in 2001? Unquestionably. But on the other end of that equation, webcartoonists working in the early 2000s didn’t have social media. So although there were fewer competitors, it was incredibly difficult to direct people to one’s site. Moreover, the vast majority of the potential readers didn’t even understand the concept of reading a comic on the Web.
Enter social media and viral promotion. Now, exposing new readers to a comic is vastly more efficient (and effective) than it was in those early days. And, predictably, there are also exponentially more people publishing comics on the Web than ever before.
So, the market is oversaturated, right?
Wrong.
Because we’re forgetting to factor in the most important variable of all: Quality.
It is undeniable that there are more comics, but — let’s face it — most of them are pretty horrible. In fact, I’d argue that the ratio of good comics to low-quality ones is about the same as it was in those early days before social media.
However, since the main conduit for consuming web content is social media, the system itself eliminates most of the low-quality content.
When a low-quality comic is published on social media, the outcome is fairly consistent: Nothing happens. The creator might get a couple of favorites — perhaps from other webcartoonists expecting a quid pro quo relationship. Very few people are going to share it or comment on it. Overall, the net effect is that the post’s engagement will be negligible. And posts with little-or-no engagement get filtered out rather quickly by social-media algorithms.
If a webcomic is posted on social media and nobody sees it, is it even there? I’m going to argue that it’s not. And since the vast majority of content consumption on the Web happens through social media, these low-quality comics are certainly not having a significant affect on the saturation of the webcomics market.
On the other hand, posting a good comic — along with making adequate use of social-media best practices — will get engagement. Even if you’re starting from an audience of zero, eventually someone is going to see your comic. And if it’s a high-quality comic — a comic that connects with its audience — they’re going to engage the post. And as that happens, more and more people will be exposed to your (good) work. And their engagement will help you to steadily build a larger and larger readership for your work.
Those other low-quality comics are a non-issue. In a social-media sense, they’re not even there. And if they’re not there, they can’t saturate the market.
In short, you’re going to be better served by spending less time worrying about the saturation of the webcomics market and more time improving your skills (and your understanding of social media). In the end the former is nothing more than a weak excuse for failing to do the latter.
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