#... should I be doing like. kickstarters and preorders for this stuff? I have no idea how books work

[aphyray]

Something's coming... 👀

The Hunter's Elegy. Deadname ghosts and name necromancy in a dystopian future. A private detective novel full of cover-ups, cults, and penance. #acab

Starring discredited cold case documentary maker Reese Keyes and his justifiably egotistical new boss, private investigator Hunt Cheroneau, who's having him record their every arrogant word while the two of them solve a case that cuts far far deeper than either of them are prepared for.

-

The extremely visceral cover art there is by the very talented @morggo. Go check out their work! It's sick as hell!

[hobby-board-gaming-101]

Other online resources for board gaming

This blog is intended to help introduce people to the hobby of board gaming. Once you’ve gotten into it, there are tons more communities and groups on the internet dedicated to board games in all sorts of different ways. This post is a compendium of and reference to those communities and groups. It is very long; please don’t read through the whole post and click on every single link in one sitting.

I’ve only put sites I know and have used here, and this post is very much not comprehensive; if you have stuff to add, please let me know. Also, if you want to know more detail about any of this, let me know your questions and I’ll make a dedicated post.

Also, this article by Casual Game Revolution has some very good tips about how not to be overwhelmed by all the board game content online. It’s focused on BoardGameGeek, but I think it’s more generally relevant.

This post is kind of a mess because it was quite tiring to write. Maybe I’ll come back to it at some point and edit and revise it, but hopefully it will serve its purpose well enough for now.

Online communities:

BoardGameGeek (BGG): The online board gaming community. It has everything: user rating of games; forums for various games, designers, and other topics; information on games, designers, and publishers; an eBay-like Market; and collections of links to every other type of online board game resource in existence. RPGGeek and VideoGameGeek also exist.

r/boardgames: Another large community with no purpose more specific than being about board games. Also has ranking lists, a Bazaar for buying and selling, and a wiki. People post questions about games; their own ideas, theories, and suggestions; links to board game news; and whatever else they want. There are also subreddits for specific popular board games, such as Kingdom Death: Monster and Gloomhaven, as well as for gaming-related topics such as miniature painting.

Game reviews:

There are tons of board game reviewers, just as there are tons of book reviewers or movie reviewers. They all have different styles and tastes, so it’s valuable to find a couple you consistently agree with and enjoy. Video reviews are the most common.

If you just search online for either board game reviewers or reviews of a specific game, you will find them; BoardGameGeek can be used for finding reviews as well. However, I’ll mention a few well-known reviewers here.

Shut Up and Sit Down: My favorite reviewer. Has full-length video reviews, as well as articles and podcasts which often discuss multiple games in shorter form each. They also have playthrough videos. Use a lot of comedy in their work. Also has their videos on YouTube.

The Dice Tower: A very popular review site. I personally don’t agree with them frequently, although I know a lot of people find their ideas spot-on. This means I don’t know too much about them, but I do know they have a wide variety of content: podcasts, reviews, ranking lists, etc. Also on YouTube.

Rahdo: Has videos of him playing through games alongside his reviews, in an attempt to convey what a game feels like to play. His taste influences his thoughts about games strongly: “I play boardgames almost exclusively 2p with my wife, Jen. We generally prefer games that are heavy but not too aggressive.” If you play with more people or prefer different types of games, that can limit the helpfulness of his videos. His videos can also be just listened to without watching, as the visuals aren’t too important.

Definitions of terms:

There are lots of terms that board gamers use to describe elements of games. There are many places you can learn what these things mean besides just picking them up as you go. Here are some. You can also find these just by searching for them.

Genres of games, or a more extensive list, or in very short form

Terms in general (including genres), or another list, or one with pictures, or in case you’re looking for a really obscure term, or in video form, or the sequel to that last one

A Reddit post not at all aimed at newcomers to the hobby but which shows fascinating history of genres of games

Crowdfunding:

Crowdfunding basically refers to a method of producing a product where people preorder it based on a prototype, and then these funds are used to produce exactly the quantity preordered. It is very popular for board games.

Kickstarter (KS): by far the most popular crowdfunding site for board games. The “games” section of the Kickstarter website also includes video games, tabletop RPGs, and accessories like dice; if you want you can filter for just board games.

Indiegogo: Rarely talked about in board gaming communities compared to Kickstarter, and I’m not exactly sure why. It’s a very large site, although only a small proportion of it is board games.

Tumblr:

I haven’t found much about board games on Tumblr, but I’ll link the few blogs I have found anyway. I haven’t read them, so this isn’t a recommendation or anything, I just thought since I’m on Tumblr I should have a section about the website.

Board Game Design: Inactive with nine posts.

Illuminating Games: Photos along with miscellaneous thoughts on games.

How (Not?) to Make a Board Game: Shares art, news, and other content on board games.

There’s also a fair amount of board game photography on Tumblr.

Other things online:

Lists of gateway games

Gateway games are just games that are good for introducing someone to board gaming. They tend to not take too long to teach or play. There’s a misconception among some that gateway games aren’t fun; this is not true. While some well-known ones are certainly dull, others are some of my favorite games.

Like the other things I’ve written about, you can find lists of gateway games just by searching online. I haven’t combed through them to find ones I particularly like, so I won’t give a list here.

Shopping for games: see my post on the topic, or just this article linked in it.

Podcasts and game walkthroughs: often produced by the same groups as reviews. I rarely use these myself, so I don’t know much about them.

Board game photography: Self explanatory. It exists; it can be pretty; look it up if you want. :)

Casual Game Revolution: Read more about this in my intro to board games post, or on their website in shorter or longer form.

Other board game blogs: These exist, with a large variety of different focuses. Again, I don’t read any, so find through Google or BoardGameGeek if you’re interested.

[papermonkeyism]

Could you do a kickstarter or something like that to have it printed? So you get payment for the sold copies before you actually have to print them. I'm not sure how finnish law works around that though; I know you mentioned asking for money isn't allowed, but this is for an actual product? Just a suggestion, since I'd love to have a physical copy of the english version :D

Donation collecting is illegal in Finland, which basically cuts out a lot of crowdfunding options (also Kickstarter specifically requires you to have an address in the USA, and my arse is in Finland). You HAVE TO give something in exchange of the money, so every single bit of money I get would have to be rewarded somehow, and I’m not well versed enough in the bureucracy to know how the law treats preorders. My brain just isn’t compatible with legal text…

In theory it would be possible for someone else outside of Finland to basically hire me, like make the kickstarter and then pay me with the money, but I don’t have foreign friends I actually trust with that much money.

I’ve been thinking of possibly putting up a patreon or something, but having been living on benefits alone means I either need to make less than 300€/month so I wouldn’t lose any of my benefits, or over 1000€/month after taxes so I wouldn’t even need benefits, and I have no idea how that between works (also what even are taxes, even the Finnish people who live on Patreon don’t know, ‘cause the tax office looks at them all individually and nobody knows how they’ll go, but, like, the safest would be to know how much you’ll earn through patreon before you even try and I’m not really a fortune teller).

Right now I have a fresh new dayjob that should give me more money than the benefits, and I’m looking forwards to maybe being able to save something up, but we’ll see. It’s only a bit over two months, so I don’t expect anything drastic.

Current plan has been to do the dinosaur art booklet, print it with next December’s tax returns, and see if the profits from that are enough for a Wurr print, or a good start for a print run savings.

(Though I don’t even know how to sell the dinosaur booklet. I’ve made most of Wurr’s sales through convention artist alleying, but I’ve been having a couple years of dry spell when I haven’t been accepted to the artist alleys I’ve applied for. Since the book will have Englist translations in it, I could sell it internationally, but I don’t know how. I guess I need some kind of a webstore? I don’t know? How do people sell their stuff online I don’t even know. I guess I could put the PDF-files in Gumroad or some similar place where you can pay to download them, but how physical booklets? URGH!)

(Can somebody do the braining for me, I just want to draw.)

[inky-thoughts]

How to Organize a Zine 101 #3

Hello~

I already talked about figuring out your zine and the zine’s schedule as well as what you should bring with you to successfully manage a zine.

I think the next step should be building up

Web Presence

I already talked a wee lil bit about it in Part 1 but I think I should elaborate a bit more on it as it’s basically the backbone of almost every fanzine nowadays.

A small disclaimer: Please take everything with a certain grain of salt as I am not a professional when it comes to social media managment. These are just some pointers I consider useful/helpful as they worked for me or other zines I had a brief overview of.

Where to post?

First of all, think about what platforms you want to use, and get familiar with them if you aren’t already. Learn “the way” of it to know which rules/guidelines to follow, because not every platform is the same in tonality or which kind of content spreads fastest.

The most common platforms that I’ve found to work with zines pretty well are Twitter and Tumblr. As both are available as apps for practically almost every phone, it’s also easy to check and keep updated with when you’re on your way.

Tumblr is quite interesting because it’s bascially like a website (and yes, you should keep in mind that the mobile version doesn’t support tumblr sites) and you can conveniently store all info to your zine, answer questions in public, and reblog post e.g. previews of zine entries. It’s easy to spread information quickly if you use the correct tags and post them in the best time frames for your audience.

Twitter is kind of like a news ticker, or gets used by many like this. It’s easier to engage with people and “spread the word” by tagging people who might be interested in the zine.

Also, think about where you as a manager have the bigger following so you can forward e.g. tweets or posts or make your own announcements about the zine to your following and potential customers.

What to post?

Obvious things are announcements like schedules, FAQ, details on the zine, application progress, previews, contributor lists, links to online shops, etc. This is kind of basic together with updates like if important e-mails to the contributors went out etc.

However, this isn’t everything at all. What I found great in other zines (which we completely ignored for our zine and I think that’s a very sad thing actually) was having specific dates (in fandoms stuff like characters’ birthdays, anniversaries etc.) or more general things like widespread holidays, or “event dates” (? - like world women’s day, labour day, you get the twist) that somehow correlate to your zine. For example, one zine I participated in was about the girls of a certain fandom, so they chose the Day of the Girl to start previews to kickstart the preorder phase - and I really loved that! It brings everything in another perspective because it’s not just a zine for a few little nerds to enjoy, but it conveys a much more pronounced message that way. Including those kind of dates, whether it’s just a small post like “Happy New Year” with a small update on the zine progress, or a special sale because it’s xy character’s birthday and it happens to also fall perfectly into your schedule, it just makes your zine feel more honest and considerate of their passion for the zine’s content. It isn’t mendatory, but it definitely has a more lasting impression.

Also, you might want to think about what medium you want to choose - photos/pictures generally get more attention as it is highly visual (plus it’s easier to find on a twitter accound for example) and can be a nice addition to your text. This is where you definitely should think about some kind of corporate design for your zine that is eye-catching enough to get attention from a lot of people and still matches tone and intention of the zine. Gifs may give a post a bit more animated, funny, or simply emotional expression, so having a few sets of gifs/images (perhaps from the source material if it’s a fan zine) handy isn’t such a bad idea. It’s something we didn’t have and I basically have only regret about it.

How?

You also might think about the tonality of how you appear on the zine’s social media. Generally, fandoms are a rather friendly and casual place to be, so you can slip a small joke or something like that into your posts, however, you shouldn’t go all “LOLZ dat boi xDDDDDD” because you still want people to take you seriously and (if it’s a for-buy zine) pay real money for your zine. Keep a certain level of professionalism but don’t have a complete stick up your butt is all I’m saying as you don’t want to alienate people because of one thing or the other.

If you’re modding the zine with several mods (which I highly recommend!), also add signatures at the end of each post (we did it with -Mod [our name]) so it’s easier to clear up misunderstandings etc. as people know who they’re talking to and maybe one mod just didn’t read the memo or something. With tweets it’s just wasting precious characters but on tumblr you aren’t limited at all.

Also remember tagging: It feels like a science itself, and partly it is. First, tag what it’s about. You need to reach the fans, so if it’s about a certain ship or characters, tag those. Tag the fandom, and, very important, tag that it’s a zine. having those covered at first makes you pop up in e.g. tumblr search more as tumblr had changed that only the first 5 tags will be where you’ll appear. Some blogs which collect zine posts have a specific tag they’re tracking, so including some of these comes in quite handy. The rest is mainly to maintain a system on your blog, which everyone needs to figure out themselves. Tagging on twitter is kind of different as you have a limit, I would always go with ships/content first, then perhaps fandom, and zine only if you’ve got some characters to kill. Also please don’t use completely unrelated tags only because they’re currently trending - this is just plain annoying and it’s more likely that people will ignore you instead of gaining some interest in your project.

When?

Do your research on what times are the best to post your content to get your target audience, especially as shipping can be very expensive so you want to have national interest in first place. Every social media has their own specific timeframes where content goes viral the fastest. There is no 100% correct formular, but some tendencies at least, so you can help your luck out a little bit.

Grooming Your Media

To most social media, the key to success is consistency, so you definitely shouldn’t sleep on this. Luckily, social media are (except for most forums but then again your phone usually also has a web browser) usually available as app version, meaning you’re quick to responst or check in. - That’s what you usually think but truth be told, apps also don’t always work perfectly, and especially the tumblr app is known to be rather wonky. I also (this is a personal preference, though) find it easier to compose posts and pick the right pictures on my computer, so if you’re the same way as I, I would advise you to calculate half an hour up to maybe 3 per day/every two days to check in on all your zine’s accounts. It depends a bit on how active the current phase is and how many questions/inquiries people are sending your way.

Tumblr luckily has the queue option, and it definitely saves you a lot of time when you need to bring up an important post regularly. Through the queue, the blog also stays more active, thus has likely more traffic or is simply more noticible as it stays fresh in mind.

Twitter, however, doesn’t have this function (or I’m definitely not aware of it), and, truth be told, also isn’t concipated for this kind of thing. There aren’t really many updates you can post during certain phases of the zine, but there might help the above mentioned dates you might want to keep in mind. Tweeting about the occassion and connecting it with your zine might raise interest and more traffic on your account. And yes, then there are the really busy phases where you simply can’t keep up with social media as the zine demands all your attention. However, sometimes people just want to know how busy you are, so tweet it! A sentence or two are probably enough, and then you’re basically good to go for the day. Just remember to retweet your tweet during your breaks.

And, again, checking on your media should be a regular thing because waiting for an answer for 1-2 days is a different thing than a month or so later (this accidentally happened to us because we didn’t get a notification), so don’t just check “does the system signal me that there are new messages” but actually go into all possible messaging systems directly to check because sometimes tech is a bit wonky. (Also check the message requests!!!)

To maintain a certain level of activity can be a pretty tough job and by now I’m actually inclined to believe that one of the mods should be responsible solely for the social media management while the others work on the actual zine. However, I can’t say I’ve had experience with handling stuff like this that way. It definitely would have gotten a lot of pressure off my shoulders (I mean there’s a reason why companies have a special department handling all this stuff.)

Also, when I say “post regularly,” you can determine what is regular. This can be 24/7, every other day, or once a week, maybe also every two weeks but I suppose no less than that or people might forget you even exist. It’s just important to keep that schedule up so people can build a habit of expecting and getting to see a new post at a certain time.

It feels a bit hypocritic for me to talk about this topic because I think I’m not doing a very great job at it myseld simply because I easily neglect stuff like this, but again this small series is about learning from our/my mistakes so you don’t have to make them with your zines.

Thank you for reading, I hope I’ll find the time to write the next installment soon!

<< last | next >>

Masterpost

[ziggyschutz]

So, 2017 was… a year.

It’s not quite over, but I thought I’d do a roundup of my year from a writing sense, as well as mention the stuff I’ve already got lined up for 2018.

Eggshells was published in Behind The Mask, by Meerkat Press. This made me officially a published author, which is pretty dang cool. The story stars Pen, who is an invulnerable superhero who gets a concussion, and it follows her for a year as she learns what recovery can look like. 

Pen (and her brother Davie) will show up again in a novel tentatively titled Mightier Than, which is an idea of a first draft right now.

With help from some amazing people, we launched Crossing Wires, a post-apocalyptic audio drama that tells the stories of survivors that don’t usually get to survive the end of the world, in this often very white/straight/able bodied genre. We currently have three episodes, available on iTunes and Google Play and wherever you listen to podcasts!

I spoke on my first panel as a writer at Rose City Comicon, in Portland, talking about fanfiction and how it’s changing the publishing industry. I also made some amazing friends there (thanks Taylor for inviting me to that panel in the first place).

I then attended Read With Pride Northwest in Seattle, and the Write With Pride event the day before. This marked my first time doing a reading in public (!!!), I was on another panel (this one about writing queer stories that are specfic as well), and was also just an amazing experience in general. Getting to chat with authors for two full days was fantastic, and it was also incredibly validating. I’m a fan, I’ll be back next year for sure.

And then I went to Podcon, where I wasn’t a guest or anything but I did talk about Crossing Wires and I learned a lot about podcasts and also just fell in love with the audio drama community and how welcoming and excited for each other they are.

My piece It Befits Her, a short story about a knight and her squire donning armour in a church at the end of the world, appears in the zine about ladies, lady-aligned folk, and swords called Forged, which is on preorder until December 31, and is gonna finish up 2017 for me. Not a bad way to go out.

Now, for 2018 - 

Dogear’d, my nonfiction podcast where I talk to people about lines and passages from books that changed their lives, will be launching in probably late January. If you have a line or scene from a book you’d want to talk about with me for five or so minutes, you should definitely reach out and let me know!

Not quite my writing, but I am also directing and editing The Posterchildren Audiobook, which will be a full-cast audiobook of @quipquipquip‘s amazing book, The Posterchildren: Origins. If you like queer superheroes, you should absolutely check this book out, and the audiobook too, when it is released, chapter by chapter, in early 2018.

I am also going to be a mentor at a local youth writing retreat in Victoria in February! Which is so exciting.

By Candlelight, a short story following a girl and her own ghost waiting for her funeral, will appear in Into The Mystic, Volume 3, by Ninestar Press. It’s a collection of paranormal sapphic stories, and should be coming out sometime in March.

Also in March is Emerald City Comicon, which I will be at. I am in Say It On The Page, a panel about representation in writing. Last year, I went to panels at ECCC and made it my goal to be in a panel at ECCC 2018, and it actually happened! Pretty excited about that.

And also in March I will be flying to Tennessee to attend Writing Cross-Culturally, a three-day, four-night writing workshop, which I had to apply to get into and I did and I’m beyond excited for this, it’s going to be… just incredible.

My pitch for a short thriller featuring a hydrophobic girl and a reckless journalist and a series of strange drownings was picked for Malaise, a collection of horror stories written by marginalized authors that is being put out by @jessaminepress. The kickstarter for that should be going up in early summer.

And of course, we will be finishing Crossing Wires’s first season, and beginning the second season! 

I’m done with 2017, honestly. It wasn’t a bad year for me on paper (or at least my writing, although I think I did do better mentally and physically in terms of health compared to 2016, which ISN’T HARD TO DO as 2016 was not good for me at all), but it was a rough year, it was a year that weighs on the soul. Everything that was happening made putting myself out there, made being creative and hopeful, so much harder.

Bring on 2018, is what I say. Bring it on, and we can all do our best to make it better.

[sequentialcanada]

Hey, so it’s been a while since I put one of these together, what YOU been doing lately?

by Max aka Salgood Sam

In case you hadn’t noticed we’ve had some new blood on board with Brendan Montgomery, joining the site and pretty much single-handedly reviving the idea of a Sequential Magazine.  In case you weren’t aware, he got his start making some comics while in university and started the Can Comics Wiki a few years ago.

If you haven’t already, you should go here, and get a copy. It’s free to download, donations optional and I know he’s looking for contributors, advertisers and sponsors! Vol 2 is going to be focused on TCAF.

In other news:

-Item: Kelly Tindall talks to the True North Country Comics podcast ahead of the release of the Show Me History series in March. PlayerFM//Apple.

-Item:  Karl Kerschl’s The Abominable Charles Christopher web comic returns with a THOOM!

-Item: Shane Heron and Christopher Yao talked to Aaron Broverman on Speech Bubble podcast last week, about the Cauldron Magazine Kickstarter!

*FYI Sequential magazine is a sponsor of Speech Bubble.

Here’s a look at the work in Cauldron pulled from the drive page. The top pic for this post is also from the book.

-Item:  Sunday MAR 31 Dirty Water Comics is launching their new book, Christie Pits, detailing Toronto’s historic Christie Pits Riots. With white nationalists in the news again an all the more relevent story today. Preorder the book here! They did a local radio interview recently, on 680CJOB, listen to them here.

-Item:  Tomorrow, February the 23rd, in Toronto you can check out Jews and Comics : People of the Comic Book. A panel discussion with Gerald Hartman, Steven Bergson and Jordan B. Gorfinkel, they will have their books available for sale.

-Item: Years ago Sherwin showed me the mostly finished first pass on a book he was working on, the setting was, well, what if Alice never stopped falling?

Not sure if that’s what he said to me but how I thought of it after he showed me the book and told me a bit about it. I’m not sure why he put it aside for a while, but finally it’s on its way!

Plummet by Sherwin Tjia is coming this fall from Conundrum Press, i’m excited, you should be too!

-Item: Hey you know I post stuff on Patreon a lot, here’s a few recent things:

Drawing Demo’s from my art class, on caricature and perspective respectively, studies from a field trip to Ballet Divertimento de Montréal. A critique of one of my students work with draw over notes on line weight use. And the covers and a map for my finally completed comic with Mark Sable, Dracula Son of the Dragon. And, this video! And this video! All, since new year. It’s been busy!

Cover art from Dracula son of the dragon

-Item: An interview with Darcy Van Poelgeest about his new upcoming Image book with Ian Bertram, ‘Little Bird’.

-Item: New indie publisher called Sandstone Comics is launching out of P.E.I.

They have their first Kickstarter here and reputedly will also be attending the first IEX convention in Charlottetown. They were on the local CBS, here’s the audio from that interview.

-Item: Comics have been pretty warmly embraced by many libraries, but headline exaggerations notwithstanding, here’s a CBC report about the Canada Comics Open Library’s quest for a permanent home for it’s 600-title collection! The project is really cool, I look forwarding to visiting it in the future and donating all my books.

-Item: Rob Walton’s Ragmop is in need of a Publisher, he’s posted chapter one in its entirety to give people a taste, check it out! 

-Item: “‘Work for a Million,’ pioneering lesbian pulp fiction, gets graphic novel makeover“, QVoiceNews spotlights the very cool looking new graphic novel from Hope Nicholson’s Bedside Press. Adapted by veteran writer Amanda Deibert (“Wonder Woman ‘77”) and artist Selena Goulding (“Susanna Moodie”), based on the 1986 novel by the same name by Eve Zaremba featuring her groundbreaking private investigator character Helen Keremos.

-Item: Calgary writer Ryan Ferrier will join Vic Malhotra for a four-issue mini-series comic based on the Netflix series Narcos.

-Item: A Hamilton Spectator report on a lecture given by Steve Orlando and Jim Zub about the multidimensional nature of writing graphic narratives and making a living in the comic book industry.

-Item: PW talked to Faith Erin Hicks about her first young adult prose novel Comics Will Break Your Heart.

-Item:  Chapter 5 of Conceptual Heist on LINE WEBTOON! Comic looks great as always, sadly after some successes their latest KS drive does not look like it’s going so great.  Rough time of year to try fundraising. If you think you can help swoop in fast!

-Item: New comics art by George Todorovski!

And that’s all for now! If you’ve got comics news, send it to us, or post it to the Sequential Group on FB here!

C-List! Back from the dead, Hey, so it's been a while since I put one of these together, what YOU been doing lately?