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I still remember it like it was yesterday, the production of my very first physical copy comic books from my Zach Cooner comic www.zachcooner.com for Anime Iowa 2018. Not counting my Senior Project physical copy of "HOWL" (Which was for school), this milestone, if nothing else, made me feel somewhat accomplished that I actually managed to make it this far for the very first time with a project.
The plan was for me and my friends to booth at the convention, network, make a little cash along the way, and increase the readership for the comic. Least that was the plan... Here's a cautionary tale for would-be creators out there:
I believe it was after this convention I realized that the ZC comic should be tailored towards the mature mainstream crowd rather than for kinky furries. That's not a shot at either demographic (cause I'm apart of both ;) ) but I realized there was such an interest in the story that I should be focusing on its strongest aspects. In otherwords, I didn't want to add content that would off-put those who legitamately wanted a good story in the unique world that I had created- especially after all the work I had put into it.
Originally ZC was advertised to be a 18+ furry comic with no filter, but the architecture of the story betrayed this. I thought I could reach some type of middle-ground like an HBO show where there's sexual content AND a good story, but, truthfully, the way the story was created (and keep in mind, I didn't plan the original script at all, I just let the story write itself, a technique I will no longer do due to scalability issues) made it so that there was no content that was being advertised as 18+ furry, and the way it was advertised missed the market the story would of been optimally structured for lol
The end result was a lose-lose situation and a lower quality product than what should of been created (in terms of the comic itself). While the comic is still a general 18+ story tailored for the general public, it wasn't initially advertised like-so. Furthermore, when I went to advertise the comic on Furaffinity, the link linked back to my gallery which had fetish content on it (something that definitely spurred my decision to seperate my kinky content on to another account). I was shooting myself in the foot both as a creator and in marketing.
Lastly, I created these books for Anime Iowa...an anime convention. People who go to these conventions go because they appreciate and celebrate popular anime and anime culture (with some crossover into gaming). They didn't spend hours on cosplay and pay and upwards of 70 bucks to see new and up and coming artists with unknown original content, they came to celebrate the content they already knew. In short, this was NOT the place to peddle original unknown content.
The results were unsurprising and by Sunday I understood my mistake. I think I sold 1 book to a supportive friend from my job who was at the convention, 1 to a fellow Iowa furry, and sold 1 Fan Art of Sly Cooper at a reduced price. Other than that, I was mainly giving away free flyers and business cards of the Zach Cooner comic (Got a bunch of compliments on it at least), but, once again I reiterate, the comic site was advertised for 18+ furries XD
I think I was pretty bummed through the Fall 2018/Winter 2019 that the comic wasn't getting the traction that I wanted it to and I sort of withdrew into stress and depression. I was hundreds in the hole but, hindsight 2020 (no pun intended), I have no one to blame but myself for piss poor planning. The comic itself isn't bad (I give it a C+) but it was marketed so poorly that it had no chance to optimally market towards a target demographic. It's a case of a product being advertised as one thing but then being completely different from what it was advertised as- it was an identity crisis.
In conclusion, my warning for up and coming creators or a reminder of a fundamental for established creators:
Appropriately plan out who your target demographic is and structure your product accordingly early on.
Don't treat it like an afterthought under the pretense of 'experimenting' like I did, it will cost you money and, even worse, time.
I have no doubt in my mind that if I structured ZC's story initially for the general public and marketed it accordingly, the end result would of been a better product and a bigger readership. I wouldn't of wasted money on events the product wasn't for, nor would I have spent money on materials that never sold.
It was a hard but necessary lesson to learn.
Hope you all enjoyed my little tale of being a comic creator 2017-2019, hopefully I can at least stop one would be creative from going down the same road I did. ;)
Also, ZC vol 2 coming 2021!
Posted using PostyBirb
The plan was for me and my friends to booth at the convention, network, make a little cash along the way, and increase the readership for the comic. Least that was the plan... Here's a cautionary tale for would-be creators out there:
I believe it was after this convention I realized that the ZC comic should be tailored towards the mature mainstream crowd rather than for kinky furries. That's not a shot at either demographic (cause I'm apart of both ;) ) but I realized there was such an interest in the story that I should be focusing on its strongest aspects. In otherwords, I didn't want to add content that would off-put those who legitamately wanted a good story in the unique world that I had created- especially after all the work I had put into it.
Originally ZC was advertised to be a 18+ furry comic with no filter, but the architecture of the story betrayed this. I thought I could reach some type of middle-ground like an HBO show where there's sexual content AND a good story, but, truthfully, the way the story was created (and keep in mind, I didn't plan the original script at all, I just let the story write itself, a technique I will no longer do due to scalability issues) made it so that there was no content that was being advertised as 18+ furry, and the way it was advertised missed the market the story would of been optimally structured for lol
The end result was a lose-lose situation and a lower quality product than what should of been created (in terms of the comic itself). While the comic is still a general 18+ story tailored for the general public, it wasn't initially advertised like-so. Furthermore, when I went to advertise the comic on Furaffinity, the link linked back to my gallery which had fetish content on it (something that definitely spurred my decision to seperate my kinky content on to another account). I was shooting myself in the foot both as a creator and in marketing.
Lastly, I created these books for Anime Iowa...an anime convention. People who go to these conventions go because they appreciate and celebrate popular anime and anime culture (with some crossover into gaming). They didn't spend hours on cosplay and pay and upwards of 70 bucks to see new and up and coming artists with unknown original content, they came to celebrate the content they already knew. In short, this was NOT the place to peddle original unknown content.
The results were unsurprising and by Sunday I understood my mistake. I think I sold 1 book to a supportive friend from my job who was at the convention, 1 to a fellow Iowa furry, and sold 1 Fan Art of Sly Cooper at a reduced price. Other than that, I was mainly giving away free flyers and business cards of the Zach Cooner comic (Got a bunch of compliments on it at least), but, once again I reiterate, the comic site was advertised for 18+ furries XD
I think I was pretty bummed through the Fall 2018/Winter 2019 that the comic wasn't getting the traction that I wanted it to and I sort of withdrew into stress and depression. I was hundreds in the hole but, hindsight 2020 (no pun intended), I have no one to blame but myself for piss poor planning. The comic itself isn't bad (I give it a C+) but it was marketed so poorly that it had no chance to optimally market towards a target demographic. It's a case of a product being advertised as one thing but then being completely different from what it was advertised as- it was an identity crisis.
In conclusion, my warning for up and coming creators or a reminder of a fundamental for established creators:
Appropriately plan out who your target demographic is and structure your product accordingly early on.
Don't treat it like an afterthought under the pretense of 'experimenting' like I did, it will cost you money and, even worse, time.
I have no doubt in my mind that if I structured ZC's story initially for the general public and marketed it accordingly, the end result would of been a better product and a bigger readership. I wouldn't of wasted money on events the product wasn't for, nor would I have spent money on materials that never sold.
It was a hard but necessary lesson to learn.
Hope you all enjoyed my little tale of being a comic creator 2017-2019, hopefully I can at least stop one would be creative from going down the same road I did. ;)
Also, ZC vol 2 coming 2021!
Posted using PostyBirb
Category Artwork (Digital) / Comics
Species Raccoon
Size 1600 x 1007px
File Size 949.6 kB
Listed in Folders
Oh the comic itself wasn't impacted negatively per say, so much as I know I can do so much better now.
The Visual Novel will still keep a lot of the comic elements, but I just need the characters to be able to speak without panel constraints. I'm looking into the possibility of webtoons currently so we'll see how that goes.
The Visual Novel will still keep a lot of the comic elements, but I just need the characters to be able to speak without panel constraints. I'm looking into the possibility of webtoons currently so we'll see how that goes.
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