#& supporting indie creators is the best!!

[floydtheflorist]

FINALLY AN INDIE ANIMATION THAT ACTUALLY SEEMS TO BE MADE WITH CARE BY REAL HUMAN BEINGS WHO ACTUALLY WANT TO MAKE SOMETHING GENUINE THAN A BIG STUDIO THAT PRETEND TO BE "INDIE" AND DRINKS OFF THE FANS' MONEY. THANK GOD

[imouthere]

Every day, tech bros, capitalists, and scam artists think they can fill our world with cheap garbage just to make a quick buck. Please continue to make your art, your craft, your works with love and care. Our world is worth more than this.

[riddlebanshee]

Does anyone have any spooky/horror puzzle game recommendations?? Preferably without jumpscares or combat!!!

[olessan]

An enormous (4k x 2k) stitched shot of my entire island in Usagi Shima as of last night!

[therealmackenson10]

If you haven't already, please check out my track, now streaming on Spotify.

“Mr. Mack- Strangers”

Days turning into nights, learning not to take anything for granted, don’t know when they’ll shut off my lights.

[rawr-monsters]

I mean, books are thankfully nowhere near as bad off as a lot of other things, but at the end of the day it's still important to pirate even indie creators' stuff if their publishers refuse to sell versions you can actually own and preserve.

Pirating for archival has different rules than pirating for media consumption. Archival is about ensuring the continued existence of a piece of work for the future.

People against piracy fail to realize that no, I can’t just ‘buy it.’ They stopped making DVDs and Blu-Rays. They’re barely offering digital copies for download. I am not spending money I could use for food or bills to pay for a subscription service just so I can always have access to a beloved piece of media. Especially not when the service will remove media on a whim without concern for how the loss of access to that piece will make its artistic conservation nigh impossible.

For example, I recently learned that Disney+ had an original film called Crater. It’s scifi, family friendly, and seems cool - I would love to buy it as a holiday gift for my little brother! But: it’s exclusive to D+ and THEY REMOVED IT LITERALLY MONTHS AFTER ITS RELEASE.

The ONLY way I can directly access this film is through piracy. The ONLY available ‘copies’ of this film are hosted on piracy websites. Disney will NEVER release it in theaters, or as something to buy, and it may NEVER return to the streaming service. It will be LOST because we aren’t allowed to purchase it for personal viewing. If I can’t pay to own it, I won’t pay for the privilege of losing it when corporate decides to put it in a vault.

So yes, I’m going to pirate and support piracy.

[thebibliosphere]

I both believe "poor people deserve art" and "artists deserve food", but it's hard to reconcile those beliefs. I blame capitalism. And I suppose it mostly matters who you're stealing from?

I don't mean to question you at all, I'm against people pirating your stories. I guess I was just wondering if you had more thoughts regarding the reconciliation the two beliefs I quoted above.

I think the reconciliation is working toward a future where things are better, and authors and artists don't have to beg people not to steal from them because they think every author is Stephen King, who wouldn't notice if you stole the pennies found under his couch when in reality most of us are hunting for spare change down the back of the couch because we are earning below minimum wage.

We need people to embrace the idea that art belongs to the working class, both in terms of consumption but also creation.

If you don't support the working-class creators, you'll only end up with rich fucks with no scope of the world beyond their own narrow view of privilege.

Indie creators are actually working very hard to change the way the industry works, and the publishing industry is shitting itself over it. They don't like the success some of us are having. It's why they keep upping prices while slashing corners on their own production (while never affecting the man at the top) to try and stay competitive within the rat race they've created.

They're not interested in the proliferation of art. They're not interested in making sure their authors can afford to live. They don't want more diversity. They don't want inclusion. They want profit at whatever the cost.

And while indie creators very much need to get paid because we live in a capitalistic society and everything is burning down around us, and a carton of eggs now costs more than what I earn per hour, our creativity is directly at odds with the type of profiteering big publishers want.

The money should go to the writers. Not the CEOs. The money should go to the workers in the print houses. Not the CEOs. No one needs the kind of wealth these people have. It's obscene. We need direct action against these conglomerates. We need unionization. We need a means to fight back so that we can make art and make it accessible.

So, how do we do that? I don't know. I'm just a very tired, disabled creator doing my best to keep my head above water. But I think getting people to realize that art and books are worth saving up for would be a good start.

That putting money in the pockets of creators is just as important as your own enjoyment of their art. Because if there aren't any artists, you've got nothing.

Getting them involved with their local libraries would also be a great start. Educating them on how the industry works is part of that. The number of people telling me they had no idea libraries paid authors is staggering. And that's intentional. It's a by-product of right-wing propaganda to make you think libraries are worthless and just sap taxpayers' money.

They're not.

If they were, the fash wouldn't be trying so hard to take them away.

Basically, we need working-class solidarity and for certain people on the left to rid themselves of the idea that just because something isn't borne of manual labor, it doesn't have worth. We need the artists and the dreamers as much as we need to bricklayers and the craftsmen. Otherwise, what's the fucking point of it all?

[lackadaisycats]

Hello Tracy, I've been a fan of Lackadaisy since the webcomic days and want to ask a quick question regarding Patreon. I'm also an indie creative myself and currently trying to raise funds for a show I'm working on. What are the best ways to market myself online, and what are some ways to obtain money for the production of merchandise that doesn't involve crowdfunding?

Any specific advice I could give about marketing oneself online at this point would be pretty outdated. I started making Lackadaisy years back, when the internet had a rather different geography and culture. DeviantArt was where all the art kids were. That is, of course, no longer the case.

My generalized advice, though, would be to start working on your project, start sharing it in some form, even if it's just concept art or experiments at this phase, and start building an audience. Nothing speaks to the quality and appeal of whatever it is you're making like the thing itself does. Pick your poisons, as far as social media goes, but probably don't focus solely on one. Platforms don't remain useful or pleasant places to be forever. Set up an avenue for viewers to support you (Patreon, Ko-fi, or something like it), but don't expect supporters to come flooding in all at once. The internet is awash with so many creators and shows and influencers and distractions, it's hard to make waves. Tenacity will be your ally, though. You are likely going to be pursuing your project on the side and possibly working at a loss for a while as you build. Keep things small scale, especially if you're working solo, or with a small team of people. Audience growth and support may eventually start allowing you to expand your ambitions. It's important to do the thing you're doing out of love for the art, for the project itself, for the experience of doing it, and not because you're expecting rounds of applause, accolades, and money to come rushing at you. There's no guarantee that last part will happen...so at least make sure you're having fun doing whatever you're doing.

----------------

About merchandise --

You can incur the upfront cost of producing, say, a small run of enamel pins. Sell them on your own shop storefront or offer them to supporters at certain tier levels and see how long it takes to earn back the production cost such that you start earning a little bit of profit. Get a feel for how well you can handle packaging and shipping things yourself. Test the waters before making any large merch orders, and don't order vast amounts of something that you don't have room to 'warehouse' in your own home.

You can go the print on demand route. It's got its drawbacks - like slim returns - but it allows you to offer an assortment of merch items without the huge risk of paying big manufacturing fees upfront. It can also do the fulfillment/shipping part for you. I did pretty okay selling prints this way for a time. (Research and be selective about what services you use here, though. Some have gotten markedly worse over the years.)

I know Patreon offers a subscription level for creators that includes some merch production and fulfillment. I haven't personally used it, though, so I'd ask around to see what other creators' experiences have been like with it.

One thing I would suggest relying more heavily on, especially at first, is digital/downloadable rewards, like PDF ebooks or digital sketchbooks - things like that. Shipping supplies and postage costs are ever-increasing and can easily end up putting you in the red. Also, if you have an international audience, it may be difficult to reach them with tangible merch items.

You might also check out some nearby conventions to see if they'd be a good fit for you and your project. Apply for artist alley space at one of them if that's appropriate, or investigate whether or not it'd be worth it to get a dealer table. You might even find someone willing to share dealer space with you for a trial-run.

At some point, when you have enough of an audience to warrant it, seek out a merch partner. Or, they might come scouting for you if they think you have something going that'd be soundly marketable.

[drchucktingle]

Where is the best place to preorder Bury Your Gays? What is of most benefit to you?

i know other types of media have given the trot of preorders a bad way, but for publishing books i cannot even begin to tell you buckaroos HOW IMPORTANT PREORDERS ARE WHEN SUPPORTING AUTHORS YOU CARE ABOUT. i mean HECK preorders are so important i even wrote three dang tinglers about it

basically preorders are what publishers use to determine how much financial backing they will give a book for advertising and book tours and all that, but that is only PART of this way. BOOK STORES also use a preorder equation to determine how much shelf space to give a book. your preorder does not just mean YOU get a book for yourself, but basically means you are making room for someone ELSE to get the book in a store by putting another copy on a shelf

that is why it is better to put in a preorder instead of just saying 'oh i will just remember to buy myself a copy on the day it comes out'

LASTLY preorders are how books get onto bestseller lists because all the orders leading up to your book release date COUNT AS FIRST WEEK SALES. something like new york times bestseller list is close to impossible trot without preorders

think of it like a handsome surfing bigfoot trying to ride a wave. it is one thing to actually ride on the wave, but what matters most is that initial moment when you GET UP THERE and actually have the strength to pull yourself up when the wave starts. PREORDERS are the climbing up part

NOW LETS GET DOWN TO YOUR SPECIFIC QUESTION

first of all ANY preorder is great. what matters most as far as bestseller lists is actually FORMAT. the best thing you can order for an author is not ebook or audiobook, it is HARDCOVER. personally i am an audiobook buckaroo myself so please understand you should order whatever format you want, but technically speaking the answer is HARDCOVER

next is WHERE do you order. this answer is pretty dang cool actually. the best place to order for the sake of author is your LOCAL INDIE BOOKSTORE. if you MUST order at a big timer website that is fine, but many bestseller lists are weighted towards indie bookstores

so to sum it up. the technical BEST WAY to support chuck with 'bury your gays' is to PREORDER a HARDCOVER from an INDIE BOOKSTORE.

thank you for your question but before you go trotting along i would like to add one more thing

all art is important. when we create things they serve as stepping stones for us to move along our journey as artists and creators on this timeline. i have so much love for every book i have made, from POUNDED IN THE BUTT BY MY OWN BUTT to CAMP DAMASCUS

but i have to say with deep sincerity in my way, BURY YOUR GAYS is something special. i absolutely believe that if you care about fandom, or creation, or love, or fanfiction, or supernatural, or the future of media, or asexual buckaroos, or gay buckaroos, or bi buckaroos or any queer buckaroos, you will love this book. i promise buckaroo

it is the best thing i have ever written, and i think it is going to bend this timeline in incredible ways. i would like you to trot with me into the future, since we have already trotted this far together. i cannot say this enough: this one is special, and the timelines we create from here are going to make the whole dang world look up in surprise and say 'where the heck did that come from?'

so if you are even CONSIDERING preordering, take a moment a do it.

if you are one of those buckaroos who says 'chuck tingle is my favorite author ive never read' then now is your moment

lets trot buckaroos. thank you for reading and thank you for constantly proving to me that love is real

preorder BURY YOUR GAYS here

[casual-eumetazoa]

controversial opinion maybe but if you're tired of mainstream media doing constant reboots, not centering the voices of marginalized people, and making their fiction based on a list of best performing hashtags... you should support indie artists

there are thousands upon thousands of books, games, audio dramas, graphic novels, and yes even movies/TV shows out there made by independent creators that make little to no money off of it. yes you will need to look for it, maybe even search for half an hour or more, and take risks on things that no one has ever heard of. but trust me, you're much more likely to find something that speaks to you this way rather than waiting for the huge corporations to start caring about good storytelling

[making-you-in-spore]

have you checked out / do you have any thoughts on any of the recent spore-like indie games? talking about stuff like The Sapling or Elysian Eclipse

i'm not really much of a gamer outside of a select few games i've been playing for years on end, but it's cool that people are trying to recapture the charm of spore. i support them fully, and i hope they make good games with their premise.

however, unless you're really truly dedicated to what spore is as a game, none of them are going to be spore 2. spore's creature creator is only one part of its genius - it is a community, creativity oriented game at its core, and an actual game second.

if the game you're making doesn't have the extensive creation power, procedural animations, randomly seeded creatures and creations, etc- it won't be spore 2. if you don't have the ability to implement your creations into someone else's game with something as simple as a png, it won't be spore 2.

if you don't have the goofy, bouncy, janky animations and personality of spore, it will not be spore 2.

spore may not have "lived up to its expectations" as people say. but it is an absolute marvel of video game engineering, especially for its time. nothing anyone has made has ever lived up to spore as we got it. i need to emphasize that all of the data for things you create is stored in png files in your documents folder.

these pngs alone store all the data for your creations. that's fucking brilliant, considering they're only a few kilobytes in size. my entire creature folder is less than 6mb in size.

spore is an infinitely huge game with some of the best file optimization practices i have ever seen, if not downright the best.

i don't think we'll ever get anything like this again in our lifetimes, and i both mourn and celebrate that. i sincerely hope that sporelikes take off and we eventually get one that almost captures the feeling of the original spore, but it won't be very likely in this lifetime.

i hope one day they prove me wrong, though.

[maxwellatoms]

Do you have any particular sense for how it is to be (or work towards being) an indie animator right now? I'm assuming that it's nigh-impossible to follow in the shoes of someone like you, or Rebecca Sugar, or Ian JQ, or... any of my idol-esque showrunners, frankly. But it seems like there's some interest to drum up about shows like The Amazing Digital Circus or Lackadaisy or Helluva Boss. What's your input on that front?

You nailed it.

I do think there will be some original animated show creators coming out of this next generation, but the chances of a studio supporting a young creator of an original idea seems much lower than it used to. CN is making some new shorts, so something interesting may come from there. Mostly, though, I think that the new stuff will come from people who just make something because they want to make something.

That's my current, sloppy plan anyway.

Things are going to get even weirder in the future, I think, as studios continue to push to replace or overwork their existing workers. LLMs are a bad investment all-around, but we may still end up fighting them for space on the internet. Studios would love to have complete dominance over the media space, so flooding the internet with AI trash is in their best interest.

So yeah. Make something. Make it now before things get harder.

[lastoneout]

Sorry I'm just so fucking sick of people online recognizing that ads and algorithms suck and it's best to find ways you can support creators directly, how every website is sanitizing the internet and fucking over anyone who wants to do anything different is awful and evil, and how if you get money from selling out(often against your will) to corporations said corperation might just randomly decide to nuke you and everything you've ever made off the face of the earth to save on taxes or w/e like what happened to Rooster Teeth and College Humor and The Escapist, but then throwing a fucking fit when the answer to that is "yeah well it costs money to make stuff because we don't live in a post scarcity utopia, so like maybe try, you know, financially supporting the creators you love if you want them to not get driven away by said enshittifcation of the internet or sold to and then deleted by rich corporations to make their shareholders more money".

I'm sorry, you can't have it both ways. Shit costs money, and your favorite creators asking you to support them so they don't have to stop making the stuff they AND we love(or sanitizing it and filling it with ads just to pay the bills, or begging for money from investors who will demand constant growth and retain insane control over what gets made and might decide to just delete everything to save a quick buck) doesn't make them monsters. Being broke sucks but like, christ. There's a difference between YouTube and Netflix price gouging and being greedy capitalists and your favorite indie creators asking for a little money so they can keep making stuff.

(And if you can understand why Dropout and Nebula are paid services and A03 has donation drives, then you can understand why Watcher is going the same route. We're trying to save the shows you love in the forms you love while challenging Google's damn near monopoly on online video sharing and continuing to not give corporations the power to delete massive chunks of media history.)

Just like fuck man, needing money to make things/keep your favorite websites up isn't inherently evil. Asking viewers for support is the GOOD ending for stuff like Watcher. I'd rather pay to watch than watch them sell out to W.B. or die off on YouTube.

[hinaypod]

A Letter To The Fans Of Independent Works:

I have a suggestion/recommendation for fans of indie things, like most audio dramas:

Stop liking posts. Share them instead.

Or do both. But the like does *not* matter in comparison to the retweet, reblog, reshare, repost.

As both an indie creator AND a huge fan and supporter of other indie works, I feel like so many people have forgotten that likes do pretty much nothing. They do nothing even on algorithmic sites these days, and certainly have NEVER done a thing on a place like Tumblr.

So likes, despite being a wonderful expression of appreciation for the creator, do nothing to spread the word about a work.

Indies more than anyone do not have the resources to spend money on marketing, and so organic advertising is all they have. Some of us are so lucky as to have the backing of a network who markets our work for us, or whose name brand gives us some more power, but ultimately we're all still indies, and the only real way any of us are given air time is by other people talking about us.

Or fans sharing our posts. Posting about us.

PLEASE POST ABOUT YOUR FAVOURITE INDIE WORKS AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE, BECAUSE IT'S ALL MOST OF US HAVE! We try to hype each other up, but that doesn't compare to just organic fan engagement, and fans sharing to people who have never heard of us.

The art of fan engagement as a whole has diminished over the last decade or two, from people not sharing posts to fan engagement happening in private on places like discord instead of in public where people can be convinced to join communities. This kills indies faster than any other creative work. Please please PLEASE do your best to SHARE about indies. This is how we survive.

[amexicanidiot]

Do you know what is Monkey Wrench?

iam talking of:

This is one of the best indie series that are in the internet right now

and a personal favorite,

a summary of the plot, would be:

so if you like:

great animation , good comedy, cool fights ,interesting characters, amazing worldbuilding,

then what are you doing here!! Go Watch It

is free, in youtube , go watch it , and share with your friends and maybe support the creators, NOW

(yeah this is all a buch of free advertising for a series i like, this suprisingly took me 3 days)

now if you excuse me iam going to watch TADC episode 4,

cya later :)

[blossomthepinkbunny]

Vivzepop will always be the biggest issue with her own show if she doesn't change. And i'm not saying that because I desperately want to shit on her but rather because it's so clear that her attitude is what made Hazbin Hotel be so dissapointing after the long wait. The pilot released four years ago and Viv had these characters for much longer than that. One could assume that with this much time on her hands she would have a concise plan for how a series of her story would play out (I can imagine that having an own show is a dream for lots of creative people out there). And I get that that plan might get screwed up by a shorter episode count then expected, but she should be the one who knows her story best and who should know what stuff could also be cut out. The first season of Hazbin Hotel is so incredibly overstuffed with characters and plot that it completely looses the main premise the show was originally pitched with (the idea of a hotel were sinners are redeemed. As it is now the hotel is really not important at all). People have talked endlessly about how Viv can't handle criticism and it really sucks because criticism is one of the best ways to improve your writing, drawings, music etc. Without criticism you won't refine the thing you're working on in a meaningful way. Of course it feels bad when you put something out there you wanted to share and then people critique it, but that's part of pretty much every creative journey, or atleast it should be and Vivzepop shouldn't get a pass from this just because she doesn't like it. And there are great shows, movies or books that are rarely or almost never criticised. But the artists behind these works probably went trough years of honing what they do by being criticised for the stuff they put out. And I don't want to say that Vivzepop didn't work hard to make Hazbin Hotel, but it is hard to claim that she improves in her craft, when everytime someone says they don't like her show she throws a hissy fit. She wants the same reactions that these other amazing pieces of media get without ever listening to criticism. Which she sees as a personal attack rather than a tool that could help her to achieve the same level of writing prowess the creators behind media like that have. She believes she is already on the same level as them, just because she basically shuts anyone out who disagrees with her. There's this clip at the end of a Drew Gooden Video which I think sums up the situation with Viv pretty good (the Video is called "Leaving the YouTube Bubble"). He is talking about Lily Singh and her talk show but I feel like a lot of the stuff he says about handling criticism applies to Vivzepop as well.

(you might have to turn up the audio).

Unprofessional behaviour like that might be excusable when the creator is pretty young or they are interacting with publicity for the first time really. But neither of that applies to Viv. And Hazbin Hotel isn't just an indie animation pilot on youtube anymore. It's now a fully realized show created with a pretty prominent studio on a major streaming network and it should be held to the same standards as other shows or movies alike (not saying indie animation or animation on youtube doesn't have a standard but with more budget and support, there's obviously going to be different expectations for the show now). There have been issues in Helluva Boss and the Hazbin Hotel pilot ever since their release which could've been handled with more time and the new show. But Vivzepop shows time and time again that she isn't willing to listen to people who criticise her, which could actually lead to her show getting better. I don't like Viv or her work a lot. I think she is incredibly unprofessional and she has done her fair share of questionable or problematic stuff, which often leads to issues in her shows. There have been some characters I like, some songs or scenes that were pretty well done, very cool animation and an actually interesting premise on paper in HH and HB. There are things that make me come back to these shows to watch the next episode. And i'm obviously passionate enough about these shows to make whole posts about what I think was done badly and what could be changed. But for the aspects of HH or HB I enjoy, there are soo many more problems I have with it. Problems that won't go away unless Viv stops seeing every criticism as a personal attack. Because if Vivzepop doesn't stop acting like her writing is some unreachable stuff that needs no changes I don't really see a point in assuming that these shows will ever get better.