#pitch advice

[davidmariottecomics]

Ask Me (Almost) Anything 2023, Pt. 1

Hello!

This week, I'm answering a bunch of questions about comics from you, the reader! There will also be some non-comics-y questions that'll pop up too, just for fun. I actually got so many questions, this is going to get spread out over 2 weeks to cover them all! As a reminder, I didn't have a lot of rules, but I did ask that people keep in mind there are some things I can't answer due to confidentiality (or just plain don't know!) and that I'm not fielding requests for work. Without further ado, let's get into it! 

@BillijoFreeze asks: "Hi David! Will you be attending New York Comic Con?" I actually don't know! I'm planning on being at a few more shows through the year but the only one I can say is 100% set at this point is San Diego Comic-Con. 

Because this might be interesting, I attend cons 3 ways myself. There are conventions that I attend as promotion for my own work--like I tabled as myself at the Arizona Comic Book Arts Festival earlier this year. Those shows are all things that I set up/am sometimes asked to do/set up with Becca (my fiance & sometimes creative partner). There are shows I attend as Becca's booth babe or otherwise just an attendee, like WaifuExpo earlier this year, where I'm not really there for my business, I'm there to act as Becca's support or, occasionally, primarily attend as a fan. Then there are the shows I attend on behalf of/in conjunction to my IDW work. Those shows, often I'm getting my badge and potentially my travel covered by IDW. Because of that, my attendance is dependent on their needs and when they let me know they need me there. If IDW sends me to NYCC, I'll happily go, but right now, I can't speak to if that's happening this year. 

Billijo had a couple other questions, so let's knock those out, too! 

"Will you be doing portfolio reviews in upcoming months?"

I'm sure I will be, but I don't know how publicly accessible they'll be. Something I've certainly learned the past few years is just how difficult it is for me personally to do portfolio reviews digitally. A big part of that for me is that I find the most valuable parts of a portfolio review tend to come out of conversation, which unless you're in person or on a video call with someone, is slowed down by the act of actually reviewing the portfolio and the time between responses. Like, the real time conversation of "here's why X doesn't work" and then an artist is like "but I was thinking Y and that's why I did it" and then I can say "okay, well doing Z is going to be better for you in the long-run" is I think a lot handier than writing out corrections and slowly building the back-and-forth of conversation around notes and then things get buried in my inbox and new things end up taking priority because that's the periodicals business--there's always something new (all of which is to say, I do know I still owe a few people responses and I will get back to you very soon. I appreciate your patience). 

Here on my website, I've actually changed the policy to be that you're fine to send a portfolio along, but I just can't guarantee a review of it (though I will always link to Steve Lieber's sight-unseen portfolio review because it is a lot of the sort of general notes I would give).

With that all said, I do think it's worth mentioning that I have often found artists outside of portfolio reviews and do contact people without them. Portfolio reviews are great for getting professional feedback and strengthening your skills, but you can get jobs without them. 

And finally, "Is there a limit to how many artists you can hire for a comic?"

Functionally, yes. There is a limit. However, to answer the question I think you're asking, no, there isn't. It is very dependent on the project. Let's say I'm working on something very short, like our Godzilla Rivals one-shots or a Sonic mini-series. Generally speaking, I have a pretty set limit on the number of people I can hire for those. I have X number of covers, plus an interior art team, and that's all the openings I have. Sometimes those numbers do go up, like things are running behind and I need to bring in an extra person to help out on an issue. Sometimes those numbers go down, like an artist is hired to do a cover for each issue so by hiring them for multiple projects, I can't hire someone else on that particular book. And also, sometimes, there are projects where I have even less creative control--some Original titles, for example, might have the creators bringing in the majority of the talent and I might only be able to bring in/suggest one or two people. 

But when it comes to an ongoing project--say Godzilla or Sonic comics generally--I'm often looking for artists for future projects. I may not have any availability at the moment, but I can add to the pool of talent available. The only limit I have there is actually being able to provide those folks with a job (and, to some extent, making sure people I bring in have the opportunity to continue working).

Another batch of questions, this time from @ziggyfin: "How do you like your steak? How do you like your eggs? How do you take your coffee?"

I prefer my steak medium to medium rare, but when I'm cooking a nice steak, I usually end up making it closer to medium-well because that's how Becca prefers theirs.

I don't eat eggs by themselves in any form. I'll happily cook with eggs as an ingredient when I'm baking or as a binding agent when I'm making like katsu or fried chicken or whatever. 

I'm very basic with my coffee tastes. I like it with half-and-half and regular sugar. I tend to drink medium roasts and prefer to grind my beans every morning. And I only drink it hot. 

@PeterClines asks: "Possibly silly question--how do artists and writers tend to get paired up on new projects? Do folks usually come to you as a pre-existing team, do you keep writers and artists hip-pocketed and connect them, or is it a mix of the two?"

Not a silly question at all! Whether we're talking licensed or original projects, it does tend to be a mix of the two. And sometimes even on a single book it can be a mix of the two. When Canto by David Booher and Drew Zucker came into IDW, the team pitched it together and when we started working on it, they had also brought Vittorio Astone and Deron Bennett in for colors and letters. It came with the creative team and made that part of my life really easy. But on something like, say, Paul Allor and Adam Bryce Thomas's Samurai Jack: Lost Worlds, that was totally me being like "I like these two guys and I think they'd make a good book together" and I was right! Or most issues of Sonic, we look at our schedule, our artist pool, and figure out who can hop on those issues while the writers for each issue are set up further ahead of time. 

But, like I said, it can also be a mix of the two on a single book. When Sonic: Scrapnik Island was getting pitched, Nathalie Fourdraine did some early concept art as part of the pitch and so when that became a reality, we had Daniel Barnes locked in as writer, Nathalie locked in for designs and coloring, and then editorial brought Jack Lawrence in for the lineart. 

When we're talking about acquiring a comic project, often having a creative team in place is a good thing. Anything that makes the pitch closer to the reality of what the book will be is helpful for reviewing the project. Sometimes it's not so locked in, but say a writer will come in with a short list of artists that are in the stylistic wheelhouse they're thinking of, and that's helpful too. And, less frequently than a writer coming in without an artist, occasionally you'll get an artist who comes in looking for a co-writer/scripter.

I'll also say that sometimes a book comes in with a creative team, but shifts over the course of the acquisition. Again, not a super common thing, but sometimes it'll be a situation where for whatever reason, someone has to step away but gives their blessing for the project to continue. I have a project I can't say too much about where the writer pitched it with concept art that they commissioned from a pal who started out as sort of a question mark of attachment and pretty quickly was like "I like you, this seems fun, I can't commit to this longterm" and so we figured that out. 

@DigammaFWau asks: "Hi David! Cross referencing your credits on other books at the time, when Sonic started development in mid-late 2017 and you and Joe Hughes got attached to it, were you initially assistant editor, and ended getting promoted partway through production of the earliest issues?"

Ahh, the complicated world of comic editorial credits. The short version is pretty much. I came into IDW in 2016 as an editorial assistant and pretty quickly over the next few years ascended to assistant editor, associate editor, and now editor. So when Sonic started development at IDW, yes, I had not yet been promoted to editor as my job title. However, sometimes credits are not strictly tied to the title so much as the work put into a title. And pretty much from the get, Joe and I were doing equal amounts of work on Sonic and co-editing the book. And the exact nature of what that looks like can change too. While I would say we were co-editing the book from the launch, the division of duties that went into it was very different than how it is co-editing the book now with Riley Farmer. 

The other big push here--as well as when I took over Transformers--is my role really shifted when Joe left (and when Carlos left TF). My title may've been associate editor, but in function, I was the editor on those books and the credits reflected that. I am a big proponent of credits reflecting the work, rather than the title. 

@TheIllustriousQ asks: "When putting on your socks do you start with your left foot or your right?"

I don't usually notice/think about it, but in testing this morning, shoes & socks lead with the right, pants lead with the left. 

@lizislife2 asks: "How do you choose artists for Sonic comics? When can you submit a portfolio for IDW Sonic?"

To answer the first part, I start out by looking at my artist pool. These are the approved artists that (semi-)regularly work on Sonic. A lot of that initial determination is based on availability--the more regularly I'm working with someone, the more I know their schedule in the first place, so it's easy to be like "oh, Adam Bryce Thomas can't draw X cover because he's only midway through Y issue." Then if there are any other factors, those are considered, and if everything's good, the person's hired for the project. 

If we're talking finding new artists, that happens a bunch of different ways. Nathalie Fourdraine posted some good Sonic art on Twitter and both Joe Hughes and I had someone send us her stuff (simultaneously) and we were like "yeah, she needs to draw Sonic for us" and she's been doing it ever since. Gigi Dutreix first came in on Evan Stanley's recommendation. I think Reggie Graham (who asked about steak and eggs and coffee) is someone I found on Twitter and we DMed and the rest is history. And someone like Jack Lawrence, well, Jack was a new-to-Sonic artist, but he and I had worked together on TF for a while and I thought he'd be a good fit (and, again, happy to have been proven right time and again). There're folks who either I reach out to or who reach out to me who I've worked with on other projects who express interest in Sonic and sometimes that works out too. 

Here's where we enter the "things I can't talk too much about" category: There are specific requirements that I do need to get people approved to draw Sonic. I do have a set of guidelines that I use in my reviewing of portfolios (and generally when I'm looking at artists that I'm interested in) and if someone's approaching/meeting those criteria, I may reach out. 

I do not have set periods for portfolio submissions. As mentioned above, I'm also not really doing digital portfolio reviews at the moment. Know that I am both often looking for artists and also  when I actually have the ability to try to on-board more people, am the one reaching out to people I'm finding and interested in. You can also send a portfolio to letters@idwpublishing.com and direct it to my attention and if you're a good fit and I am able to try to on-board more people, I may reach out. 

@CraterLabs asks: "How does one get into comic editing? I see people talk about comic drawing (showing editors portfolios) and comic writing (getting lucky), but I never see people talk about starting editing. Also do editors look for new projects, or is that someone else in a comic company?" 

I find that there are two ways into editing, and it really depends on if you're freelance or if you're working at a company--though they do kinda overlap, especially as there are editors who move between the two. 

I got into comic editing the old fashioned way--I applied for a job that I was unqualified for, happened to apply to a place that already had goodwill toward me and had a position I was qualified for opening up, did an interview, and got hired. There is a longer story there, but that's the short version. And a big part of what got me in the door, in all actuality, was the fact that I came from journalism school where I had been doing editorial at the school newspaper and in my classes. And that often is what companies are looking for, someone who either has an editorial background from a different type of publishing/creative field or someone who has been in the trenches of comics in other regards: former store owners, writers, artists, etc. 

If you're doing freelance editing of any sort, a lot of it, like most comics jobs, is reputation based. Start out small with projects with your friends and peers, build your portfolio and relationships simultaneously, and as your reputation grows, hopefully so does your work. I know folks who've left companies and do some freelance editing and a lot of what they do is based on the relationships they established being in-house. But, yeah, if you're not coming in with an editorial background, the best way really is to do any other part of comics and start independently, as rough as that often can be, and work at it until you start to grow. 

Generally, yes, it is the responsibility of editors to find new projects and new talent at a comic company. Some companies will have additional people who act as support in those roles--be it doing some talent relations or business affairs or management who bring in new projects/new licenses and give them to editors (e.g. someone above my pay grade brought Sonic to IDW, but I have been editorially involved since day 1). Similar to what I was saying earlier, a big part of finding new projects is building reputation and relationships. Many projects come to me from creators and agents I've either worked with in the past or who know my work and think I'd be a good fit for what they have in mind. Or I'll be reaching out to a creator that I like and asking if they have a pitch for an Original project or a specific licensed project. 

Also, and I know you weren't being flip, so much as trying to communicate quickly, but I think understanding the ways in which editors at a company bring in new projects and talent beyond portfolio reviews and luck is beneficial to you as an editor too. The best editors are not necessarily a jack-of-all-trades, but understanding of the processes of each step of creating comics to better serve the people they work with.  

@Huwer14 asks: "What would be the best advice you could give to a writer looking to pitch for your books?"

One of the biggest complications of being a writer and wanting to work on a specific series is you can't really talk about what you'd do with the series, right? Editors and other writers can't read unsolicited ideas/pitches, so if you have a great idea for The Flash or whatever, you can't just float it out into the world and hope to get picked up. 

So what you can do instead is establish that you're interested in a book and that you're a good fit for the tone of it, right? Like I knew Gale Galligan was a big Sonic fan and from having read Gale's other work, I knew that they were good at writing the sort of stories I like to read and that work with Sonic as a property. Same with like James Kochalka or Daniel Barnes. So, make stuff that you like to make and stay on my radar and it'll help me figure out if you'd be a good fit. 

But the actual best advice I can give sounds really simple: read the book. There are a thousand complications to this, of course, and yes there are writers who are hired who are not fully caught up, but knowing what the book is like now goes a long way to making everyone's life easier. I'll speak to this more in the next question too, but, yeah, read the book. 

@SuaveGorilla asks: "What are red flags you notice in scripts or pitches that tell you the writer’s vision might not be aligned with what you can publish or that they might be challenging?"

Okay, so, this builds really well from the last question. That said, I'm going to talk about this very generally because it is sensitive and does border on some of the stuff that is more confidential/particular to each license. 

1. To me, there's only one outright red flag and that's sending an unsolicited pitch. This one I don't mind saying. If you send me something and I didn't ask for it, I can't read it. That is standard policy with editors across comic companies. At least ask if you can send it in first and once you get the okay, do so, but if you aren't following protocol in that way, it's a red flag for future projects and it kills that pitch there and then. 

2. I'd say this is a yellow flag--something to be discussed, but not always a dealbreaker. I can tell when someone is not staying current to a series. To use an exaggerated example: an editor gets a pitch for a modern day Batman story and Dick Grayson is still Robin. And, like, yeah, you can tell a Batman story with Dick Grayson as Robin, but it's a lot harder to have that line up with Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo's Nightwing run if they're supposed to be happening at the same time. 

3. A closely related yellow flag is not following the rules provided. When you're working on any sort of pre-existing property, there are some rules attached. Again, to use an exaggerated example, if someone has been asked to pitch the next arc of the main Batman book and it comes back and Batman never puts on the costume and both his parents are alive and he loves guns and it's to "make Batman cool again", that's not really in the spirit of Batman. Like... maybe there's a version where that's his worst nightmare or it's an alternate reality, but it's not great to get a pitch that is trying to break the rules. 

The specifics between a book and even the way a creator and editor work together can be very different. And rules can shift with editors and licensors and creators over time. As a final Batman example, there have probably been times when Batman couldn't pilot a robot or be a dinosaur because Batman was supposed to be a more "grounded" character. Notably, in recent years, both those things have happened. Policies can change and things that might not fly now may down the line. 

@CBDev95 asks: "What is a good way to reach more people outside of social media in regards to marketing your comic?"

That is a great question! The short answer, I suppose, is that social media is just one form of communication and ultimately all marketing is communications, right? I know folks who when they have a new comic releasing call or email comic shops and say "hey, you're the person who can order this/stock this/sell this. Do you have a couple of minutes to talk about it and I can tell you why it's cool and why your customers are going to like it?" And sometimes, that little touch is the sway that they need to place the order and gives them the tools to sell to their customers. 

I'm also a big proponent of events (huge asterisk: if that's something you're comfortable with/able to do. I understand it is a privilege in many ways to be able to travel and feel secure in your health, personal safety, and finances). Doing outreach at your local/semi-local comic shop, book shop, zine shop, little art market, library event, convention, etc is a good way to expand locally and sometimes bring in attention from people who aren't local. And, depending on what you're doing and who with, sometimes they're doing conventional marketing. You get on a flyer or maybe you're super lucky and they run a TV or radio ad or whatever. Similarly, occasionally that can beget a "local does good" story where you end up in the paper or on TV or on a podcast because you're the person in your area who made this thing. 

Something that is social media adjacent that I know happens but I only sometimes looped in on is creator review chains. Basically, a group of creator friends who get advanced PDFs and get to say good things about it and help build hype--online, offline, maybe they give you a blurb that helps get the book into a new hand.   

If all else fails, just drop a couple copies off at like... a bus stop or laundromat. Somewhere people might need something to read for a few minutes and might pick it up and become a fan. 

And also: "How does IDW scout for talent, especially when it comes to the various IP they hold? Any set criteria?" 

I think it's important to understand that even within a company, the way different editors (and talent folks) scout and find talent can be wildly different. I find a lot of people on social and through creator connections. I like person X's work on Twitter and reach out or creator Y says "hey, my buddy creator Z would be an awesome fit for this, can I put them in touch with you?" I also do the traditional thing of walking around artist's alley and the small press area and talking to folks and getting a feel for what they're doing. And I also sometimes reach out to people creating other stuff that I enjoy--people working in animation or podcasts or traditional publishing or whatever. 

But by the same token, I know editors who are inactive on social media, if they have it at all. I know editors who are much more active than I am in talking to managers and agents who bring them talent. And editors who primarily do it the old fashioned way and do in person portfolio reviews, con walk throughs, recommendations, and bringing the authors and journalists they like. I personally think that the right way is a combination of them all, but everyone has their own style, their own comfort, their own tastes and scouting is going to be unique, which is part of what makes books unique. 

That all said, and again, kind of continuing what I've said above, yeah, each IP is going to have different guidelines. And, frankly, sometimes different editors/talent relations folks will have different understandings of those guidelines or tastes within them. A good way to start to get an idea, if you're not talking to an editor about the criteria of a certain book, is to read the books they are putting out in that IP. Because at the end of the day, those are books that the licensor allowed to be released, which is a good sign that they and the editor probably liked it. 

@brainstorm_dr asks: "So once you’ve got a job writing, what’s the production pipeline like? Writer -> editor -> revision -> artist? Or are we talking an endless loop of potential back-and-forth?"

Endless loop! Endless loop! No, I'm... kind of joking. Like so many of the things I've talked about so far, it can really vary project to project, and even sometimes issue to issue. My ideal would be, yeah, writer sends over a script, editor does a single pass for clean-up and whatever notes, writer sends the revision back, it's perfect, it's off to the artist, the artist does great and makes things super easy for the colorist and letterer and the book happens. But the more people are involved, the less straightforward things are--often for the better, but y'know, not uncomplicating things. 

I'm going to talk Transformers because your name's Dr. Brainstorm. At certain points, a Transformers script would go through 3 editors at IDW on the first or second pass. Assuming revisions were all good and locked on the rd. 2 script, that would be reviewed by the nice folks at Hasbro. Their team would come back with any notes, the writer may have to do a rd 3 (or very occasionally, more) draft. If deadlines demanded it, sometimes the rd. 3 script would be coming in after art had started. Sometimes things would be set pretty early, but then the art would come in and a writer might end up doing more significant rewrites at the lettering stage (though, the hope was always not that). With various other books, you may have even larger editorial teams looking at it, you may have translators involved or copy editors or co-writers or someone else along the food chain who has to review the script and may make notes, and notes that may seem like they're going back and forth a lot. 

That is all assuming two things: 1. we're just not going to get into the weeds of artist/colorist/letterer/production artist back-and-forth and revisions and 2. you're writing full script style. You may've heard of Marvel or descriptive script style, where the script is looser and more focused on the action/emotion of each page, and then the final dialogue is added after the art is drawn. That whole process gets additionally wonky! 

The good news is eventually the comic has to go to print, so at some point the back-and-forth must stop. And, sometimes, it really does only take one or two rounds of back and forth to get everything set. 

@DesertLorenzo asks: "How have you been lately? Both doing and feeling (within what you feel comfortable sharing)." Most people are polite enough that they don't tell me that I look tired. Or, alternatively, are so used to the bags under my eyes, I appear as normal to them. But tired I am.

Some of it is normal tiring stuff. Tiansheng being a cat, does not really understand the concept of time and recently has been particularly active (and naughty) between the hours of midnight and 7 a.m., which happens to be when I am trying to sleep. Money's been a bit tight recently. Not "we don't have groceries" or "we can't afford bills" or anything, but tight. I got a lot of hot takes on things and thinking about them tires me out. 

A lot of it is what I would describe as unusual and despicable. From the anti-trans legislation that is sweeping the nation and contributing to a trans genocide to all the book bannings to library funding removals that are instead going to police to enact fascism to the challenges to the attempts to abortions by negating mifepristone use to the fucking bullshit that is the RESTRICT Act to all the people who are being killed so frequently by guns and a refusal to do the most basic care in not spreading a deadly disease. 

It is fucking hard out here. It is hard to even try to live a life that is normal. It is hard to feel like there's so much more I should be doing and to know that in a weird intersection of my own privilege and disadvantageous circumstances, there is only so much I can do. I am frequently sad and mad and scared and most of all uncertain. And it's not to say I don't have good days and good times too, just that the negatives are constant and at some point, I can only celebrate one step forward for two steps back so much.  

I am not doing well. I don't see how I can have a brain and a heart and be doing well. But I am doing the best I can and that is all I can ask of myself or anyone else right now. Sorry to go out on the downer, but that's how I feel.

Next time: RILEY QUESTIONS! And the rest of the questions not from my co-editor on Sonic/good friend Riley. If you weren't in this batch, sorry, I did try to do these relatively in the order they came in! 

What I enjoyed this week: Blank Check (Podcast), Honkai Impact (Video game), Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (Anime), Mass Effect (Video game), Teen Titans Go (Cartoon), Craig of the Creek (Cartoon), Devil House by John Darnielle (Book), Chainsaw Man (Manga), a very good call of what I hope will mean good things to come, and there have been so many good art shares for Portfolio Day and stuff. It's nice to see artists and creators banning together to promote each others work in the face of a platform that is increasingly against them.  New Releases this week (4/12/2023): Quiet week from me! Enjoy another comic!

New Releases next week (4/19/2023): Sonic the Hedgehog #59 (Editor)

Announcements:

FREE COMIC BOOK DAY! I'm going to be at Geoffrey's Comics (see the Pic of the Week for the address) for Free Comic Book Day this year. As always, it's the first Saturday in May (the 6th). I'll be there with Becca and a number of our friends including Nick Marino, Rosie Knight, Mark Martinez, and more! It'll be a cool little event and I hope you can come out and see us. 

Also, relative to the very first question, looks like I'll be playing booth babe for Becca again soon too. More on that after they have shared. 

At time of posting, you can still come and hang out for Becca's Twitch stream tonight. It's at 7 PST. They're playing Genshin. It should be fun. 

If you're at all interested in that silly little comic redraw thing I mentioned last week, the scripts are available here still. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, more info on last week's post! 

I was hoping to have something announced this week, but not just yet. I am looking into building something that'll allow for a little direct support for me, provide some extra content beyond the blog, and maybe even start to fund some cool new little comics projects, but that's all TBD. There are a few services that I've decided against, but I've yet to find the right platform for it. And if nothing ever comes to fruition... well, it's a nice idea.  

Pic of the Week: FCBD info and a cute (?) picture of Nadja! 

[quadrant-advice]

dear-abbey-how-to-confess-to-my-pitch-crush?

{That depends on a lot of things, anon... But one of the best pitch confessions is just being direct and a jerk, tried and true!}

{If your beloathed is a violet, for example, try insulting their tackier interests! If they're a jade, maybe insult their fashion choices, etc, etc. Best to be as rude as possible as much as possible! The best pitch confession is one made from deep in your spade, after all.}

{Make sure your confession is tailored to all their weaknesses and how you want to better them, and then just go for it! If you're worried about rejection, you can send it over text.}

[thewriteblrlibrary]

A Step-by-Step Marketing Guide so we can spite traditional publishers (and make people cry).

~ This is a guide specific for fiction/writeblr. All of this is for free and there is little social media posting/ads involved (unless you want to venture into that). ~

Within the writeblr spheres, there's this underlying hope that our stories will find their audience. Perhaps we'll have a fandom full of fanart and video essays, or maybe we'll be an instant classic and sit on collectors' beloved bookshelves. Our stories could sit within the deepest corners of someone's heart and maybe they never tell a soul about what's so special to them. Maybe our stories become those 'underrated masterpieces'.

Or we just want to see people ugly cry over our writing.

Whatever your hope may be, marketing is an important path to venture on (especially because traditional publishers are rejecting diverse books in favor of ones that are already famous + the whole sub-par machine thing they seem obsessed with.)

And thus, my childhood marketing obsession will hopefully be of use to you. This is all for free (unless you want to spend money) and you don't need to figure out social media platforms (unless you want to, and this guide works if you decide to take that route too.)

Step One: Characters

Marketing spheres will define these fictious people as 'avatars' or 'the target audience'. You could also call them characters. Because that's what they are: fictional people.

For this step, you shall create characters that would love your story.

And here's some great news: You've already done this.

Perhaps you wrote your story to comfort a prior version of yourself. Perhaps each character in your story holds an aspect of your personality. Perhaps you were ridiculously self-indulgent and made the story you would've loved to read. These are all possible characters you can reuse for marketing.

Write down 2-4 quick archetypes for these characters. You'll chose an aspect of your story (characters, themes, or the younger-self that you wrote it for) and write a thumbnail sketch. (Main issue, fears, wants, personality traits if they relate to the main issue.)

I'll do it for my story (the Land of the Fallen Fairies) down below:

Anuli-like (my MC): Overthinking and aloof. Wants a happy ending but thinks their current personality/character isn't good enough for one. The present stales in comparison to the past/the childhood they lost. The 'gifted theater kids'. Kamari-like (side character): Postpones happiness in favor of creating a perfect schedule/getting accomplishments. Heavy masking. Creative but doesn't create anymore. Promises themself they'll enjoy themselves later, when they've earned it. Workaholics. My younger self: Wanting a fantasy escapism to embody the traits they wish they had in real life. Dissatisfied and worried about reality. Perfectionists. Self-indulgent: People who love plants and forests and fantasy worlds far away from reality/humanity.

Great! Now it's time to find these characters.

Step Two: Setting.

(Let's assume you're using the internet for your marketing. But a similar method works for real life too.)

Where do the characters live?

In order to figure that out, we need to discover the characters' interests, what they watch to solve their problems, and who they find #relatable.

(You can do this for each character or for all the characters at once.)

For example:

Anuli-like -

interests: Stories. Analysis videos. Fantasy escapism. Things that remind them of their childhood. (so nature, warmth, comfort, play, imagination and the times they would actually enjoy learning.)

Places to look: Nature quotes, ambience videos, children's shows and fairytales (comfort shows). Fandom culture - fanfic video essays, fan art.

Solving problems (the problem being wanting a 'happy ending' but feeling that their personality/lifestyle/characteristics aren't right for one): Mindfulness things. Self-healing. Quotes and meditations and candles galore. Slow living. Nature vlogs. Self care. All that 'live in the moment' culture.

Places to look: Slow living. Nature vlogs. The 'softer self-help' (spirituality stuff. Magic/ overnight answers). Witchcraft. 'aesthetic nature' places. Guided meditations.

#relatable: Burnt out gifted kids. People who think so much that their life passes them by. Storytellers and creative who create to make sense of the world. People who like dark, gory things in spite of who they want to be. People who don't like reality.

Places to look: Those 'learn better and remember everything' places. (The 'burnt-out gifted kid' recovery places.) Stop overthinking spots. Those quotes on Pinterest from poetic people who think too much /aff. Storyteller places. Dark academia. Classical music. One off quotes/ poetry.

Okie dokie. Once you have this, find channels, social media accounts, blogs, songs, books, etc. that fit with the categories you wrote down. (They should appeal to the characters) You can search up some of the terms you listed into searches and see who pops up. Bonus points if you find people that overlap with multiple sections.

I know I didn't include booktube or booktok in here. You can if you want too. But those can be a bit... 'consume these 500 books'. You also want to find other places where people who would like you story live, even if they don't follow booktube or booktok.

Congrats! Now you know where your characters live!

Step Three: the scary part

Take everyone you found on your search for the settings and write them down a list. Make sure you get an email/contact info. (they usually list them somewhere under 'for business inquires') Also feel free to watch their content and get to know what attributes these settings have.

And now... we talk to them. about our stories. You can do it. I believe in you.

This called 'pitching your product' in marketing spheres. But you can be informal about it.

I know it can be difficult to talk about your work, so here's a tone to have:

'I made this thing I like and I think you'll like it too'.

What you'll do is send an email (or dm) that goes like this (inspired by Creative Hive on youtube):

Hi [name],

[Genuine compliment]

[Quick sentence or two about your story. Include the themes and who it appeals to. If you have a logline/sentence summary, include that. But I find that the underlying themes and 'who's it's for' is more engaging.

For my story, I might say something like.

I've written a story you might enjoy, since you like [interest]. It's called the Land of the Fallen Fairies. It's a nature-themed commentary on the pursuit of happiness and fixing yourself to deserve that happiness, told by an overthinking, unreliable, houseplant narrator. It was supposed to comfort me when I got frustrated with myself and my happiness chasing, and I hope it can comfort others too.

(That's probably a bit long and I can trim it down a bit.)

You can phrase it like a gift if you want too.]

[Call to action.

'If you like it, I'd appreciate a mention on your [platform].

I know this part may be difficult to mention (imposter syndrome is not fun.) But I promise that if they do like it, they'll be happy to mention it.]

If they don't respond within... four-ish days? (A week at most). then you can include a follow up. For this you can include a template with info about your story. This way it's easy for them to talk about your story.

The template:

title

genre

blurb

Author

where to find the book

Bonus points if you have an additional, physical thing to send them.

Congrats! Now do this pitching process a few times until you've covered most of your bases. (Pitch to as many people as you can. It will get more comfortable as you do it. Play your favorite song and don't let yourself think too hard about it.)

----------

The benefits of this process are that you find people that are already interested in the themes and vibes of your story (in comparison to to ads, which get shoved in everyone's faces.). Someone your audience already trusts will talk about it, which means you don't need to do all this trial and error to find your audience and make content for them.

It's basically a bunch of people talking about something they like!

AND you diversify your audience across niches, but with an underlying theme/interests. Booktok/booktube must appeal to everyone, so it's a hit or miss for recommendations. (Unless there is someone that specifically does one genre/type of story.)

From here you can do fun little things to build up hype and make the book launch feel like this fun event. (I love it when that happens so here's my thoughts about trying to create an event with your story... although that may require another post entirely.)

preorder goals

charity goals

Arg's and puzzles

fund with side plushies and trinkets

Book blog tour

book boxes

as many memes as you can make

rewards (like bookmarks or posters or smth) that people can get for supporting

Talk about the process of creating your story. I know this one channel called 'Dead Sound' that creates 'making of' videos for his short films and they are some of the best videos on youtube.

Okay dear storyteller! Now go forth and share your story with the world!

Additional resources:

Creative Hive <-- a youtube channel that goes through the pitching process.

This video is also very good <-- Haven't watched the rest of the channel but I assume it's also good.

One of the best marketing channels on the internet (the videos are actually entertianing to watch.

Seth Goldin <-- I read his book and took the parts I liked and modified for storytelling marketing.

Dead Sound <-- propaganda to watch the short film series he has (he did the whole 2-d 3-d style wayyyy before spiderverse did... and he's one person making these. One person. It's amazing.

Glitch <--- If someone can figure out how The Amazing Digital Circus was marketed then I will pay you money. It seems to be a lot of memes and funny things.

[honey-writes]

Maybe someone needs to hear this today, but writing is supposed to be fun. Ultimately, that should be the goal. To have fun. To enjoy yourself; enjoy the process of making something new out of nothing; enjoy tying together your plot lines and scenes and everything that goes into crafting a story. At the end of the day, your number one goal should be to have fun. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with copious self indulgence if that’s what makes you the most happy. And if you’re not having fun writing right now, it’s okay to take a break! If you’re feeling burnout, there’s nothing wrong with taking a step back to breathe. Remember: art should be an enjoyable process. Yes there is work, and yes there are times where it’s strenuous, but it should be fun, too. Write for yourself. Write for YOU. (Or: don’t write right now if you can’t/don’t want to! That doesn’t make you any less of an artist.) The rest will come later. Just have fun! ♡

[novlr]

Lots of people have told me I should self publish, but I think I still want to try to go through traditionally publishing my book first. I've got a finished manuscript, so how do I go about querying agents to find the best fit?

Pitching your manuscript to literary agents is a length process that requires lots of dedication, and a great deal of research. To get the most out of your querying, you definitely need to go in prepared.

We've put together this walk through for how to pitch your novel to literary agents, including some helpful do's and don'ts at the link below!

[ratatatastic]

"chucky did one with the cardinals not too long ago did you reach out to him any advice?" "i didnt... yeah just going for it we'll see what happens 😃!" (proceeds to be consumed by the spirit that haunts loan depot and airmails the ball)

"Have you thrown a first pitch before? And just your nervous level for tonight?" "I have never thrown a first pitch... a little bit of nerves! You always wanna throw a strike but I think I'll be alright!" "Did you play baseball growing up at all?" "Just a little bit, just when I was younger. And then started to kind-of get into hockey a little bit more and—so just when I was, you know, up until I was 7 or 8, I think?"

Fox Sports 940 | 9.6.24

wonderful form this man did not want to get chirped for not reaching the plate he put his whole arm into that 😭😭😭😭

philedelphia phillies @ miami marlins | 9.6.24 (x)(x)(x)

also just to note that erods wearing a 10th ani florida marlins hat as he dons the black alts which goes so hard man knows BALL

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

The way I get into horror is drawing something I'm really scared of. (Like the fear of spiders or clowns) I feel like if you turn your fear into art it doesn't seem so scary anymore....and since have the fear of the one ocean half of my drawings are based around water it helps somewhat to get into the horror mindset. (To me anyway!)

i would Love to do that, however my fear of spiders is like. they scare me to the point of tears <3 i Cannot look at them much less draw them <3

[subsequentibis]

i don't find being a dad an overly compelling or coherent part of tommo's character but i DO like that he gets to apply Stolen Dad Valor to situations now

[wyervan]

hiiii just wanna start off by saying I love your art style and general vibes ✨️ I'm a stay-at-home partner always in search of fun things to do, and I've recently gotten back into art after not engaging with it since I was a kid (largely because your sun n moon fixation rubbed off on me 😭). I've never tried digital art and it looks cool! Do you have any advice for a beginner like me?

Oh it makes me so happy when people say I inspired them to start creating again 😭 The DCA and the fandom brought me out of my own years-long artistic funk last spring. Clown power, yeehonk 🤠 🤡

I’m planning a significantly longer post in response to an ask I got ages ago all how I learned to draw the way I do, so lookout for that.

But in the meantime, here’s a couple things I can think of off the top of my head:

Specific tools don’t matter much. I currently use Procreate and would recommend it if you have an IPad. It’s an extremely simple but effective program.

On desktop, I use Clip Studio Pro, but Krita is another program I’ve used and liked AND it’s completely free.

I do also have loads of experience with Photoshop and other Adobe products but can’t recommend them at the price, not to mention they’re not super beginner friendly.

Hardware-wise, I almost exclusively use my IPad to draw because it’s so portable. I also have a Huion Kamvas pen tablet monitor that hooks up to my desktop. But I started doing digital art with a dinky lil Wacom tablet that was less than $100. There’s definitely a bit of a disconnect at first, not looking at where you’re drawing but rather on a screen, but you get used to it.

Bottom line is to use whatever tools are convenient and comfortable for you! I even know of a great artist that exclusively draws with their mouse. I realized I hated sitting at a desk and that stopped me from practicing digitally. I got an IPad and now it’s much easier for me to work comfortably on what I love.

Point two I’d like to make is take advantage of the capabilities of working digitally. This means using the godsent undo button to your heart’s content. Download fun brushes to play with and add texture. Use perspective grids. Turn on line stabilization so your strokes are extra smooth. Like what you’ve sketched so far but want to try something different? Duplicate the layer and work from there so you can go back to the old version if you change your mind. Radically change the colors or values with adjustment layers. Use clipping masks. Abuse the liquify tool.

A lot of this might sound like gobbledygook to a digital art beginner but just googling any of this terminology will get you loads of tutorials and information for your specific setup. Also I’m happy to go into details about specific digital art techniques I’ve picked up with over a decade and a half of experience.

Finally, and most importantly—make what you want to see in the world AND what feels good to make. This ofc is not exclusive to digital art, but I always want to stress this to new artists. I realized after I got into the DCA fandom that I had been letting shame, fear, and perfectionism keep me from creating the content I was really interested in making. But then man, idk. Frickin’ robot clowns amirite ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it’s like there was a secret agent sent into my brain and he uploaded a DCA virus into my mainframe or smth idk hacker style. tktktktkt. they’re in.

Anyway. Hope this helps! Feel free to send another message if u have more questions :3

[lunar-years]

what are your headcanons about tartt sr’s abuse? did it start when jamie was a teenager? was he always physically violent with jamie and maybe georgie too?

the s3 the finale is so disrespectful to georgie now that i think about it

Hi! This ones not super easy to answer because i think the show leaves the specifics largely up for interruption. My own thoughts on it are all over the map (and often change). I can basically see a lot of different avenues to getting to what we see play out in Man City, and I've seen a lot of differing thoughts on this topic; to be honest I find myself nodding along to most all of them even though all of them could definitely not coexist in the same universe, lol. So this is far from set in stone in my mind but here are my (once again quite long oops) general thoughts on how it might have gone (obviously TW for discussion of abuse below the cut):

the abuse canonically did start when Jamie was a teenager, because we know the Amsterdam trip happened when he was 14; whether the abuse also took the form of physical violence at that age I'm less certain, but I lean towards the bulk of that coming later. At this stage James was still in his "Stand Up Father" routine

I think the early relationship when James Tartt Sr. first came back into Jamie's life would've been a lot of false promises and the "Fun Dad" shtick Jamie describes when talking about Amsterdam. We also know James tried to get Georgie back at least once, and the way I interpreted the tone in which that was said was that the trip was neither the first nor the last time that happened. I kind of headcanon that James was in and out of rehab during that time, swearing to do better, making the same mistakes, rinse and repeat

Jamie's thoughts on James were a jumble of juxtapositions. James could always sweet-talk getting them an extra scoop of ice cream for free at the shop, he took Jamie to City matches and showed up all the time with cool or expensive gifts his mum could never afford - official kits and the like. He taught Jamie "life skills" like picking locks and petty crime tricks that, to a 12 year old were fucking cool! On the other hand he was also taking Jamie to pubs and making him try beer when he was like, 12 or 13. He made Jamie hang out with him and his friends - who were crude and brash and kind of scary. He arranged for Jamie to lose his virginity in Amsterdam because it was "past time for him to grow up and be a man."

All of those latter things made Jamie at best uncomfortable, but they were always balanced by the fun stuff. The good stuff. The problem was he never knew which version of his dad he was going to get on any given day, so he could never prepare for it.

I think the physical violence started off "small" - shaking his shoulder aggressively, keeping an ironclad grip on the back of Jamie's neck, etc. When he hit Jamie the first time he showed up the next day with a grand apology. He always used "getting too drunk" as his excuse and said "it won't happen again" and Jamie always believed him until the next time, because it really didn't happen that often, and anyway the bruises were never anything he couldn't keep hidden from Mummy and the teachers at school.

there were maybe one or two "Bad Times" when James "lost control" (in his own later words) and got Very Violent with Jamie whilst he was still a teenager. These are the times when Jamie learned how to hide substantial injuries and bruises from his team, his coaches, etc. and stared at his Roy Kent hoping by some miracle for the man to come out of it and save him.

I also think this is an instance where a young Jamie might have ~fought back~ and/or purposely said things to provoke his father, only to then have the resulting beat-down framed as a "punishment" by James, which scared him shitless (because canon Jamie does not seem afraid of most anything, but he is definitely terrified of his dad and that came from somewhere) and effectively prevented him fighting back in future. These occasions very much stand out as formative in his memory because the violence was so not constant at that time; the biggest thing to me is that James was incredibly inconsistent and that was part of his manipulation. Jamie started wondering if he was somehow at fault for the abuse, if it was his failure to be good that caused his dad to hurt him.

"say goodnight son..." when he goes to kill Beard with a lead pipe sure says a lot. I think that level of beating on Jamie and physically abusing him really began when Jamie was an adult playing for Man City. Both before he comes to Richmond and after he is sent back to Manchester in s1. He "restrained" himself during the season, to keep Jamie fit enough to play. But the off season has been a historically bad time for Jamie.

this is the timeframe where I think Jamie has a very tense relationship with his mother and isn't really talking to her about anything, let alone James. The distance between them started when he was teenager keeping secrets, worsened when she began things with Simon, and are by this point at an all time low, and he's fallen back on his father, spending more time with him than ever. He's essentially isolated himself from any support system and this is when things are really very Bad.

As for Georgie -

yes, i do imagine she also suffered from James abuse, though I don't think the abuse would have looked exactly the same for her as for Jamie

I think the bulk of it was emotional/verbal abuse. I can very much see James yammering on about he'd "never hit a woman." meanwhile he's spewing constant vitriol about her, calling her a bad mother, calling her slurs, and of course beating on their kid. But (in his warped brain) slapping Jamie around isn't the same as slapping Georgie around, because Jamie should be "able to take it" and "be a man." Just all kinds of ickiness exuding from that man.

"your father is never, ever going to change" is definitely the consensus (to me) of a woman who has been deeply manipulated by James in past and let down herself by his false promises. i would not be surprised if she HAD gotten back together with James once when Jamie was a teenager and he was on a longer sobriety stint from rehab.

I do think Georgie knew on some level that Jamie was being abused but I also really believe she did not realize the full extent. Jamie kept secrets from her (Amsterdam included). Georgie sensed there were secrets, but didn't poke into them, in part because of her own james-related trauma and in part for paralyzing fear of what she'd find if she looked deeper. It was easier to believe Jamie was still telling her only truths. So she comforted him the best ways she knew how, and she did her best to limit the time Jamie spent with James, but Jamie adamantly always wanted to see his dad, and she had to work so often and couldn't always be around to monitor him, and what was she to do, in the end?

Jamie does tell Georgie all of it after they repair their relationship circa/post s2/s3, and the resulting bond is stronger than ever.

[quadrant-query]

Have a terrible Cali's Cusp, everyone.

For your pleasure I've put together a heavily curated pitch playlist. Hopefully, it'll help you get in the right mood today.

Don't do anything stupid. Or anything I wouldn't do.

[lindensea]

Just learned that my mom got my dad's hospital bills and kinda wanna burn down the country now

[quadrant-advice]

[ QUIRK MASKING ]Dear Abbaey, I [ 10, violet ] have a CRUSHING pitch thing for this weeb [ 10?, olive ], and he said he hates me back. We has some spars and it was GOOD! Usually I don't do pitch but they really made me feel like I just HAD to one-up them... And things were going great UNTIL HE SAID HE MIGHT BE KIND OF RED AND / OR PALE FOR ME?! We aren't official, but I don't know how to feel about this... What should I do? Should I try a red date and see how it goes? Or just tell them I want it to stay casual pitch? Am I in too deep? Please help!

-Foggy Feelings

{Foggy, I really feel for you here. It can be surprising when you suddenly have a pitch flipping softer for you! But, olives are very creative and romantic by nature, so this is something that can happen when they date violets, especially the hopeless romantic kind.}

{The best advice I can give you is to just relax a little. The exact labels don't matter nearly that much! You should focus more on what you like about the relationship, and how it feels, rather than what you call it or what people think it should work like. It's more important to focus on YOUR feelings, Froggy, and if your olive semi-spade is catching a redder feeling, it might be because there's something there! Olives are very intuitive with how they feel, and violets can be very hot and cold when it comes to honesty.}

{Ask yourself, Froggy: ARE you in too deep, or are you just afraid of finding out something new and potentially different? You have nothing to lose with giving him a chance!}

{Take a breath. This isn't the end of the world, Froggy, just a chance t start something new.}

[query-quadrant]

{ letsssss be honesssst with ourssselvesss. you offer an infinitely funnier and more valuable sssservicce than that other guy lol. }

{ i mean hisss lasssst few posssts have been sssoo....... lol. }

ok see this is half thumbs up half thumbs down so i guess its solidly thumb neutral i dont know if im cool with making fun of those other posts i mean actually i think im definitely not but the first half is so true

how about instead we stop talking about the other shit and make a list of shit im better at than him this is all shit youre allowed to make fun of him for ok take notes

1: im funnier than him 2: i give better advice 3: im not hiding my blood and quirk over a fucking grumblr blog so im definitely way chiller and normaler than him who even does that no one cares 4: i have more totally real degrees than him 5: think if you gave that guy a scorching adhesive pistol hed glue his hand to his crotch in under five minutes  6: im hotter 7: i could definitely beat him in a fight he seems like hed start crying the second anyone hit him back 

[isfjmel-phleg]

POV: You are attending the annual convention of the National College Honor Society. There are a lot of people presenting their academic work. You are reading your program, trying to figure out which presentations you would like to go to, when you see this one:

“Nobody Wants It, Nobody Cares For It”: Reclaiming Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden as a Narrative of Healing from Childhood Emotional Neglect Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden is popularly interpreted as about healing from grief, but a closer look at the text reveals a tale of healing from childhood emotional neglect as the protagonists restore a garden whose abandonment mirrors their own and receive support from friends and positive parental figures.

[looniecartooni]

Okay- for over a decade now, I've thought about publishing a comic book series or graphic novel, but have never found the time, energy, or resources to get one off the ground. I've also been really nervous about exposing my writing despite coming up with multiple storylines in my life. I am planning to start a Kickstarter or something for at least one of them. I know I've pitched creative projects or theories before and haven't gone through with them, but I want to at least see what of things I have developed or began development on interests' people before I start anything.

So... I am going to start a poll. Maybe I'll make one free short comic before I dedicate myself to something that requires funding.

Descriptions below:

These Hands- A first person perspective from former Diamond Cutter infiltrator and later cause of their demise- Mimic the Octopus. See from when he first joined the Diamond Cutters and follow into his fall from grace. Will his plights be sympathetic or shall he be forever scorned by himself and his actions?

A full storyboard draft has already been created for a one-shot story. If chosen, it may take between a couple weeks to over a month to release (depending on my college schedule)

Henchmen for Hire- A cowardly magician with the power of luck on her side (and her Eldrich terrain shifter best friend) are stuck in their jobs as Henches for Hire for random Elites and criminals of their world, escapading on dangerous quests through ancient caves to find mysterious power sources and ancient treasures. While life is fairly comfortable (despite them having to live in a cave themselves because how can you live in a nice place when you're stuck in such a shady business?), the past is catching up to them, and one of them has a knife. Can these two ever live without the fear of being alone and helpless when nothing but danger plagues their lives?

This series is one of the ones I am currently working on and its still very early in development. It may take a couple months, maybe even a year to complete. There are maybe 3 stories and 5 or 6 plot points planned out. But I'm having a lot of fun with it and do hope to make something off it some day.

Experimental Living- A mad geneticist and engineer finally returns home from his stay in prison and is ready to wreak havoc on the world with his new genetic experiments. However, things do not go as planned and in order to keep his cover as a "reformed" villain, he must raise them as if they were his children, which the 10-year-old and 6-year-old are more than happy with. With help from his Henchmen, constant harassment from his mystic and militant father, and suspecting eyes of heroes and citizens, will this evil villain turned single dad ever succeed in his violent plans to save the world?

I storyboarded almost the entire series and a sequel series for this for almost a full year. There are still many parts that need to be tweaked or rewritten as there are gaps and maybe some problematic elements, but this could be something that could get started sometime in the Summer. I want to be able to fund it, but I don't have the elements to do so at the moment and I'm afraid the premise is a bit too close to the idea of a Starline, Surge, and Kit AU. Though it is more loosely inspired by them with a lot more to it than that, I don't know if I might run into some copyright issues if I go through with it, no matter how loosely the characters or premise are to their inspirations.

Journey of Eclipse- The Light had fended off the Darkness for hundreds of years, constantly sealing it in a cave to protect the world from his curse. Now, a child born from the Light and conceived by the Darkness must tread on a perilous journey to save his mother from the curse that now finally firmed its grasp on her. But this story is not so black and white, and the circumstances that lead to the birth of such a child may have a much more deep-rooted tale than what has been told.

I had this idea back in High School and recently revisited it. I would imagine that it would be a rather short series or graphic novel, but may need a few months to fully get a good narrative out of it. There is a clear beginning, middle, and end, but much more needs to be fleshed out and reconfigured to tell a well thought out tale.

Angel Story- A long time ago, super soldiers known as "angels" were created to protect villages from strange dark entities referred to as "demons" or "shadows". With the dark entities seemingly vanished, the angels and their children were now declared to be the protectors against criminals and symbols of order. However, new chaos arises as these angels are seemingly vanishing, or getting corrupted by a similar energy to that of the shadows which should be impossible. Now a new crew of angels must try and stop these new monsters and the energies that are driving them.

Only one plotline of this supposed to be short series has been fully developed, but it's fun to work on and reread the storyboards for. It may take a few months give or take to fully start, but I feel it will be a fun read when worked out to its full potential.

I have quite literally cabinets full of stories that I have created since freshman year of high school and have on and off worked on quite a few. There are some others that I am currently working/reworking on such as a superhero trying to find out what happened to her superhero dad while being raised by her evil uncle. Feel free to ask for more information on any of these projects or any other projects. I've been too scared to bring them up or publish any creative projects because of being overwhelmed with school and fear of possible backlash. But I'd be happy to share anything people might want to ask about- I want to know if I could actually do this or if this is one of those dreams I've got to just put on the back burner.

I'll still create just random fan stuff for BBU and things like that. I did try to start a videogame/visual novel last year, but that never truly got really developed or much attention. I might work on other different kinds of projects in the future when I have the time, money, and energy (or stop making excuses). But for now- let me know what you guys think (very kindly) and if you'd ever wat to see an independent project created by me. If not- that's fine too, just please be nice if you think this isn't a good idea.

If no one chooses anything- that's fine too. I'd probably still do something eventually or try my shot again with other pitches. I welcome any advise for creating, publishing, self-publishing, legally making money or legally getting money to make something, ect. I'll be posting on other social medias as well. Let me know your thoughts (nicely and constructively). Thank you.