Happy Memorial Day! (for the locals anyway)
I have the day off so hopefully I’ll be able to get a little work done on reMIND this week. Due to recent events, I’ve decided it’s time to change up a few things.
First, a small change. When you click on the page image below you will be taken directly to the graphic novel to view the pages instead of having it scale to fit your screen. This was causing problems with clarity of the pages.
Second, I love writing articles about what I’ve learned on Thursdays, however I’ve noticed writing the articles takes the place of the time I have to work on reMIND. These last few weeks have been especially draining because my whole family has been sick and I literally haven’t gotten any headway on reMIND the whole time. So instead of stressing out about keeping my articles on schedule, they will come out when they get done. If I’d have written an article last week, I wouldn’t have had the time to make all the revisions on those pages. The funniest thing about all this; shortly after I decided my articles were taking precedence over my comic, I read this short article by Seth called The Distraction, the Tail and the Dog. It pretty much describes exactly what’s happening here. The reMINDblog articles were wagging the reMINDblog graphic novel and it should be the other way around. (That makes sense if you read the linked article.)
Just to make it clear, Mondays will always have new pages but the rest of the week will be random stuff. I hope this doesn’t upset anyone who springs to life hearing their 5:30 A.M. alarm that enables their 5:42 A.M. shower for exactly 6 minutes leaving precisely 2 minutes to make their Almond Mocha Chi Tea Latte as they relax for the next 10 minutes to enjoy the morning paper that is EXACTLY ON SCHEDULE.
I originally made my Thursday article schedule because I read that Google’s search engines really favored blogs that worked on a timely manner. I have to admit, Google searches bring in a good 20 to 50 unique visitors a day but most of them are empty clicks. Still, a few people have become regulars because of Google but it’s a super small fraction. Who knows maybe this new method will bring a surge in Google traffic.
I still have the coloring tutorials in the works and I’ll get them out soon enough so worry not. I might end up releasing it all as a PDF booklet instead. We will see.
reMIND is on the front page of a google search now.
Speaking of Google. I just typed “remind” into Google and my blog is on the front page of searches now. That’s pretty cool considering the word is so vague and has nothing to do with comics in general. Before I use to have to type in “remind graphic novel” for it to show up on the first page. Anything to make it easier for people to find it is good news.
DeviantArt
You might have noticed the buttons have changed and moved on the site. I just learned that the top right side of a webpage is the most clicked and viewed area. Apparently this is where you want your most critical information that you want people to see. So, I moved all my important buttons there to test this. I know for a fact that before I created that big RSS subscribe button and placed it there, I didn’t get a single subscriber. The day I put it there I had 18 new ones. That was also the day that CartoonBrew featured my blog but I still get new subscribers every day and I blame it on the buttons superior location.
I also added a DeviantArt button in case you want to see more than just reMIND stuff. I would also suggest joining DeviantArt if you want to promote your web comic because it’s massive. I was never really into the idea before as a professional artist. I use to look down on it because it seemed so… well, unprofessional and hard to navigate a simple portfolio. Lately, I understand that it’s not just a portfolio for upcoming artists but a massive community that really is passionate about supporting each other and building each other up. When you get featured on DA which is called a “Daily Deviant” you instantly get hundreds of followers and hundreds of comments from people who really love your work, not just empty small talk. If you want to build a fan base for your web comic, I strongly recommend looking into DeviantArt as another conduit.
Thanks again for all your wonderful comments and feedback on this graphic novel. Remember, the best gift you could ever give to show your appreciation is word-of-mouth advertising. To make it really easy, you can copy and paste this next sentence into Twitter or Facebook.
Check out @Jason_Brubaker and his graphic novel at http://reMINDblog.com/
and please remember to VOTE for reMIND at TopWebComics.com.
See you soon!
I was wondering how you were managing to write all those article on top of working on the comic and life in general :)
Yeah, me too. I carry around a notebook and jot down ideas for posts when I'm on break or waiting for something at work. I also write a bit on the weekends. I still love writing articles and it's a fairly new thing for me so I'm planning on typing up more soon. Just maybe not this week. haha
happy memorial day to you as well. And note books are such a valuable resource- I have many just sitting around the house. Plus keep writing those articles jason- it inspires me to do the same.
trav
Well, I'm glad to hear you say this. I'm gonna keep it up.
Although the articles are secondary to the comic, it really helps me refine what I'm doing and learn more from teaching others. I was inspired to do it from Nate's Project Waldo blog, by the way.
got any tips for how to navigate deviant art…especially as an aspiring creator trying to build fans and network with other collaborators? I've known about it forever, but It was always kinda daunting and tough to navigate.
Writing takes forever. I'm glad you realized that. But don't discount the power of your articles. I found your blog because Design Observer (really a big deal) posted your Comic Sans article. You probably got thousands of views from that one post alone.
True about the articles. I'm not quitting. I'm just prioritizing. I have something cool lined up for next week.
As far as DA goes, just get in there and start posting stuff on a weekly basis. It might be a slow start but the goal is to build a nice portfolio that someone suggests to one of the admins (or moderators) and they are the ones who pick who gets featured. If you can get featured it's instant fans.
In fact let me quote a great comment about it from earlier. It's better than I could ever explain. I'll be back….
Okay, this was originally part of a comment here: http://www.remindblog.com/2010/02/01/remind-sprea… by Daniel Leiske. He's a great artist also working on a GN. Here's what he said about DA.
"Deviantart is a peculiar thing. I knew it for a long time but I registered only few month ago. It’s hard to make heads and tales out of it. I’m still in the process of figuring out what exactly is happening there but one thing is for sure: it’s H U G E. Just go to the homepage and you’ll see dozens of artworks which were added to the gallery only in the last few seconds (!). Deviantart basically is a huge online gallery where people put illustrations, comics and photos to their personal pages. There are literally thousands of images added every hour. You’ve got the jackpot if you achieve an admin to award you with a “Daily Deviation” (DD in short). That means that your artwork will be featured for a full day on the front page and the exposure you’ll gain from that is insane. It happened to me that when I started my gallery page there, I was awarded a DD and there were 13000 hits to my gallery page. And I’m not talking about hollow stumbleupon-clicks that only screw up your web statistics but 13000 individuals of which over 500 even left comments on the page. However, the conversion rate to my own homepage was only 10%, meaning that around 1500 people visited my homepage after they had seen the Deviantart page. I’m talking about the traffic of 24 hours here. So, even if most of the exposure stays on deviantart, it’s a great way to gain exposure. A few things are important:
-The content should be good and you should put a lot of stuff into the gallery. Your artwork appears on the front page, directly when it is submitted. People will click and visit your gallery. A minute later, the front page is full of new submittted images and you are invisible again. So you should fill your gallery bit by bit to maximize your exposure on the front page.
-Add some personal stuff to your page like a journal entry. Your work can be awarded with a DD only if it is recommended to an admin by a user. People will connect more to your artwork when they see the personal dimension. DDs are normally given to very elaborate artwork with a high level of skill or to very emotional artwork. Comic pages are good material because they carry text AND art and are interesting to look at.
As described, when you get a DD, it’s jackpot. 24 hours exposure on the frontpage. People will run into you. If you get a DD frequently, you are officially an internet celebrity. :) "
wow thanks Jason. I knew that Deviant Art was huge and had a life of its own…i mean its been around for so long…its out survived Friendster!!!! That was a cool little guide.
One last thing…what about the forums? is that a good place to find collaborators? I think you touched upon it in another article.
Yeah forums are probably the best place to find people geared to a specific niche. I did write an article about helpful forums a while back here: http://www.remindblog.com/2010/01/28/artist-illus…
Not saying is cake to find the right fit. I mean, you have to really get into it I think. I haven't done much forum trolling lately because this site has kinda become a forum in it's own way. But for starting out, I highly recommend forums. If anything, it helps kill the shy internet side of you and trains you to just put stuff out there and make comments, get critiques and learn what you are doing right and wrong.