If you aren’t creating value for your audience, what are you doing with your life?

I have a question for you. It’s going to take a minute of thinking, so make sure you are in a quiet space…or don’t. I mean you can do whatever you want. You’re an adult. 

You ready? 

How did you find your favorite online resource, your most trusted author, and your favorite artist? 

It’s really important you answer this question first, because the rest of this entire article is predicated on the fact that your audience works like you. 

Most people don’t think about how they act online while planning their content strategy, but you and your friends are the best indicator about how your ideal client works. 

You MUST provide incredible value to those people who will want to buy your content.

I’m not a genie, but I’ve been doing this long enough to guess the process of how you found your favorite creator. 

1. Somebody you know posted something on social media that you thought was cool. Maybe it was an image, an article, or a book excerpt. 
2. You clicked on that link. It took you to a website where you consumed the content and loved it. But one piece of content isn’t enough to make them your favorite. It might’ve been a fluke. 
3. You searched them online and found tons of other content they produced. All of it was riveting. So riveting that you wanted to own something created by them. 
4. You decided to buy something from them. You started with something small and reasonable. You weren’t going to blow the bank on something you might not go nuts over. 
5. You found that piece of content you bought amazing, and bought all of their work. Maybe you even commissioned they to do a piece of content specifically for you. 
6. You followed them online, signed up for their mailing list, and eagerly anticipated their next piece of content. Whenever they had something new, you bought it immediately, because every piece of content they posted was pure gold. 

I know for a fact that some of you reading this are calling shenanigans. So let’s get it over with so we can move on. 

I know you found Chaucer at 13 in your local library, and he’s been dead centuries before social media became a thing.  

Congratulations. You beat me. Feel better now? 

Good, because I’m sure you still found that book through word of mouth, looked up free content, went and absorbed everything you could for free, then decided to buy the book at some point, right? 

I’ll bet you have a copy of Canterbury Tales somewhere in your house. So while the starting point isn’t the same, you still went through this process: 

1 — Hearing about something being good from a trusted friend of advisor. 

2 — Seeking out free content on the creator. 

3 — Falling in love with that content and seeking out more. 

4 — Deciding to buy a copy of that work, and loving it. 

5 — Buying their entire collection, and maybe even two copies, or six copies of it. 

This it the buyer psychology almost every human being on the planet is going to employ before buying from YOU, because how the human brain is wired. 

We are going to find things our friends like, try it out, and then only buy from somebody we trust, because sometimes our friends are idiots who lead us down the wrong path, like when Johnny made you bleach your hair to be one of the “cool kids” and you ended up with pink hair. Stupid Johnny. 

This piece of buyer psychology is the key to finding an audience. 

You MUST provide incredible value to those people who you want to buy your content. When I say incredible value, what I mean is content that will allow your intended audience to know, like, and trust you. Most importantly, to fall in love with what you do and eagerly anticipate the next thing. 

Most people think throwing content on their site is enough, but it takes significant planning to make sure you are targeting the right people, with the right message, to entice them to fall madly in love with what you do and voraciously consume your content. 

So get out there and start providing value. The onus is on you. 

Russell Nohelty is a writer, publisher, and consultant who helps creative professional develop content plans to target their ideal customer and build their perfect audience (fancy that). You can find him and his podcast @ www.thebusinessofart.us, or at his publishing company www.wannabepress.com, where he creates dope content for rebels who question everything. 

If I Hear One More Person Say Night Owls are More Creative I’m Going to Punch Them in the Mouth…

One of the trending stories recently on Elite Daily is that Night Owls are more creative than early birds, even though early birds are more productive. This is the kind of story that’s like herpes. It keeps going away, and coming back no matter how much you pray it away.

I’m usually pretty okay with these sensational stories whenever they get bandied about. After all, we’re in the age of sensational headlines.

Why do you think I wrote I was going to punch somebody in the mouth in the open? I mean, it’s all marketing.

But I’ve been hearing this story for years and it needs to die. I heard it while I was getting up before school and wrote blog posts. I heard it while I was awake in the dead of night writing movie scripts before work. I hear it now after finishing my fifth novel while getting up at 4am most mornings.

And it drives me up a wall. I know they are not talking about the outliers and that could be where I fall, but I am highly creative AND highly productive.

What’s worse? This sort of story is not only sensational, but it puts those two things at odds with each other.

“If you are creative you don’t have to be productive, right? I mean the internet told me so. I can just stay up late waiting for my muse to strike, and so what if I don’t get anything done tomorrow.”

Wrong.

Creativity doesn’t just strike, and being a night owl isn’t an excuse to not get anything done all day, just like being an early bird doesn’t give you an excuse to be a rigid task master.

On the other side, it gives people an excuse for why they don’t follow their creativity. “Well, I get up early so there’s no way I can write my novel.”

It’s just the right kind of study that gives everybody the perfect excuse not to do a thing.

And the thing is, the study might be right…but it doesn’t matter. Because in order to be successful you need to be both highly creative and highly productive.

You need to sit down at 9am and write. You can’t wait for the muse to strike. At the same time, you have to be able to creatively fit round pegs into square holes all day in order to be productive.

It’s just like when people say I’m creative because I’m left handed. Well maybe that’s true, but I still choke that creativity out of me like it’s a bottle of toothpaste, get it down on a page, force myself to rewrite it, and get it published.

Even though night owls have have a proclivity to creativity, that means nothing. I’ve met plenty of people with a proclivity for greatness that end up washing floors because they have no plan.

Creativity doesn’t just strike, and being a night owl isn’t an excuse to not get anything done all day, just like being an early bird doesn’t give you an excuse to be a rigid task master.

Now please can I stop hearing about this stupid study before I punch somebody in the mouth?

Russell Nohelty is a publisher, writer, and consultant. He owns the indie publisher Wannabe Press (www.wannabepress.com), where he puts out rebellious content for sharp minds. He also has a podcast called The Business of Art (www.thebusinessofart.us) where he shows creatives how to run businesses better.

You don't need talent to hustle

I like to think that over the years I’ve developed my talent to the point that it’s extremely marketable. I hear that not just from my clients, but also when we do a book launch and I see just how many people are excited to consume our content. On top of that we have a podcast that is gathering steam, a mailing list that is exploding right now, and I’ve been asked to speak at more events this year than I have in my entire life combined, and it’s only March.

Somebody even recently called me the “King of Kickstarter”, even though I’ve never had a Kickstarter raise more than $10,000, because they know that I’m living, and living comfortably from my audience built through crowdfunding. At the end of the day, what matters isn’t the gross revenue, it’s the profit after remaining once all the rewards ship.

That was one of the best feelings of my career, because people know me as the guy…and it’s in the exact niche I want to be known. I spent months upon months imparting knowledge about crowdfunding, and how to make your project a success. Now, from sheer grit and determination, people know me as an expert, all because I hustled more than anybody else to carve out a name for myself.

That being said, it wasn’t always this way.

For years, decades even, I was just some guy who had a dream of being a writer and speaker. I was banging on doors. I was showing my stuff to people. I was talking about what I wanted to do, but I had nothing to show for it as far as “talent”.

I don’t even think I have a lot of raw talent. I’m not the best project manager. I’m not the best writer. I’m not the best editor. I’m really not the best entrepreneur overall.

What I always had though, was hustle. And since I hustled more than anybody else, I learned the rest. I learned to write by writing all the time. I learned to edit and manage projects because I took on tons of projects. I was always asking people to if I could help and they let me just because I hung around.

I never stopped. If there was a convention, I was there. If there was a meetup, I was there. If somebody was speaking, I was there. And just by being there, in the presence of my friends who were greater than me, it started to make me great. Something rubbed off, over the course of a decade.

But that never would have happened without hustle, without the dogged determination to be in the right place even if it wasn’t my time, and to never give up.

Here’s the thing.

Most people are going to quit. People more talented than you. People with better connections than you. People with more money than you. They are all going to give up for one reason or another. And if you can just outlast them because you want it more, doors are going to open to you. Doors you never would have expected.

And people will know you as they guy (or girl) who wants it more than anybody. They’ll respect that, because you got where you are on sheer force of will. I’ve never worked for DC, or Marvel. I’ve never written for Disney. I didn’t have a big audience from some movie I wrote for Lionsgate to help boost my credibility.

Every shred of that I have is from sheer determination to do it better, cheaper, faster, and with more heart than anybody else.

It does pay off.

Trust me it pays off. It might take a decade, but it pays off. I always took the path of most resistance. Instead of staying in popular novels, and working from popular public domain characters, I chose to make my own characters. Instead of finding a bunch of other writers to publish, I built an audience from my own stuff.

Whenever an easier path presented itself, I almost always stayed away from it and went for the harder way. Now doors have opened up I didn’t even know existed.

And I get more people coming up and complimenting me on the hustle of just still being here, and respecting the fact that I built a cash flow positive business in one of the absolute hardest places to build one, spec fiction comics and novels, than I do about the books…though plenty of people tell me how much they like those too.

And do you know how much that hustle cost me?

Zero.

It costs no money to hustle. It costs your time, which is valuable, but it costs you nothing to hustle. And when you get some respect, you still have that hustle. It doesn’t go away. You can use it forever.

They say that you need two of three things to get by: Extreme talent, the ability to hit deadlines, or being likeable. Only two of those three and you can be successful. You can’t help talent, but you can be likeable and hit deadlines. Then, if you work on the talent you can have all three.

If you throw in hustling more than the next guy, you can supercharge your career into the stratosphere.

If you are just starting out, remember that. Remember there are things you cannot control, but there are things you can. Affability, punctuality, and hustle are just a couple of things you can develop now this minute that will pay off in the long run.

Hustle isn’t a short term time horizon payoff. It’s something that will pay off years from now, but if you have it you’ll be successful because people can’t stop you. Because talent can’t stop you. Because you will succeed on force of will.

And eventually the talent will follow. Eventually it will all come into place, but if you have hustle it’s a great start. If you just show up for long enough you’ll earn respect…and earned respect from your peers is a wonderful feeling.

Russell Nohelty is a writer, publisher, and consultant. He trains people how to build an audience that you can monetize, and leads by example with his company Wannabe Press. He also has a membership site called Kickstarter University, which is the premiere crowdfunding membership site on the internet.

Live Episode 3: San Fernando Valley Comic Con with Daniel De Sosa, Lenny Romero, Steve Waldinger, Erika Lipkes, and Allen Carter

This past weekend we were at San Fernando Valley Comic Con, and I wanted to do another live edition specifically about small cons. When people think of going to cons, they always think of big cons like San Diego or New York, but we build a lot of our business through smaller cons. These are cons that happen at local rec centers, community centers, or comic shops even.

The reason I love them personally is because they cost is so much less and thus the pressure is off. I don’t have to worry about outlaying $500+ for a table. The table fees are usually well under $100 for a table. Many of them are under $20, and if you do store signing you will probably find tables for free.

And that means you can do what you are there to do, which is build an audience, and talk to fans. Because there are not thousands of people walking through the hall you can have real conversations with your audience, and they build that know, like, trust with you much quicker. Do you get as many people, no. But it’s not always about quantity. It can be about quality too.

Additionally, you don’t have to fight with hundreds of other vendors doing the exact same things as you. At these smaller cons you are usually one of a couple, if not the only person there doing what you do. So people what want your kind of work are more likely to buy from you.

There are also less celebrities and other big name people at these cons, so you don’t have to fight with them for your customer’s precious money. Speaking of money, it’s also much cheaper (if not free) to attend these cons meaning the people there have more money to spend on the vendors.

Small cons are a great way to build your chops and your brand. If you fail at these small cons, there is much less worry than failing at a big one. And you need to fail a lot before you can get good. So the more cons your do on a small level, the better.

First we talked to Daniel De Sosa, who I actually met at San Fernando Valley Comic Con in November. He’s a great guy who’s been conning forever. Super talented too. You can find him at backwardsburd.com and by searching for desosaink on facebook and Instagram.

Then we talked to Lenny Romero, and awesome artist at only his fifth con, so it was great to see how these small cons were helping him. You can find him on instagram @lenzations.

Third, we talked to Steve Waldinger. Steve didn’t have much of his own merch at the table, but he was sharing with the Lady Beaver. They were just getting started too at cons, and this was only their second show. They did Long Beach Comic Expo in February, so it was great to see them compare. There is so much less pressure at these small shows when you don’t have much product too. You can find him on twitter and Instagram @stevewaldinger.

Fourth, we talked to Erika Lipkes, the Lady Beaver herself. She does zines and paintings, stickers and other awesome art. I love seeing zine people at cons because you don’t see them often at bigger cons. Again, the costs are just so high there’s very little chance of making money, especially with the amount of time it takes to make these things by hand from scratch. However, she did Long Beach Comic Expo too, so it was nice to see her compare the two. I loved that one of her students came to see the show too! That’s what you can do when the show costs very little to attend. You can find her online at ladybeaver.com.

Finally we talked to Allen Carter. I see Allen at tons of shows all over the place. Almost every time there is a con he’s be there. He even tells me about lots of cons. So it was great to hear him talk about his books, trades, zines, and other work. You can find him online at the carter comics or the figure of speech mongoose where he does a Mongoose Monday challenge every single week. Check it out.

And that’s it. I really appreciate everybody taking a couple minutes to talk to me. Small cons are so important. The people are nice and gracious, and it’s nice to have sometimes 10 minute conversations with a single fan.

If I Hear One More Person Say Night Owls are More Creative I’m Going to Punch Them in the Mouth…

One of the trending stories recently on Elite Daily is that Night Owls are more creative than early birds, even though early birds are more productive. This is the kind of story that’s like herpes. It keeps going away, and coming back no matter how much you pray it away.

I’m usually pretty okay with these sensational stories whenever they get bandied about. After all, we’re in the age of sensational headlines.

Why do you think I wrote I was going to punch somebody in the mouth in the open? I mean, it’s all marketing.

But I’ve been hearing this story for years and it needs to die. I heard it while I was getting up before school and wrote blog posts. I heard it while I was awake in the dead of night writing movie scripts before work. I hear it now after finishing my fifth novel while getting up at 4am most mornings.

And it drives me up a wall. I know they are not talking about the outliers and that could be where I fall, but I am highly creative AND highly productive.

What’s worse? This sort of story is not only sensational, but it puts those two things at odds with each other.

“If you are creative you don’t have to be productive, right? I mean the internet told me so. I can just stay up late waiting for my muse to strike, and so what if I don’t get anything done tomorrow.”

Wrong.

Creativity doesn’t just strike, and being a night owl isn’t an excuse to not get anything done all day, just like being an early bird doesn’t give you an excuse to be a rigid task master.

On the other side, it gives people an excuse for why they don’t follow their creativity. “Well, I get up early so there’s no way I can write my novel.”

It’s just the right kind of study that gives everybody the perfect excuse not to do a thing.

And the thing is, the study might be right…but it doesn’t matter. Because in order to be successful you need to be both highly creative and highly productive.

You need to sit down at 9am and write. You can’t wait for the muse to strike. At the same time, you have to be able to creatively fit round pegs into square holes all day in order to be productive.

It’s just like when people say I’m creative because I’m left handed. Well maybe that’s true, but I still choke that creativity out of me like it’s a bottle of toothpaste, get it down on a page, force myself to rewrite it, and get it published.

Even though night owls have have a proclivity to creativity, that means nothing. I’ve met plenty of people with a proclivity for greatness that end up washing floors because the have no plan.

Creativity doesn’t just strike, and being a night owl isn’t an excuse to not get anything done all day, just like being an early bird doesn’t give you an excuse to be a rigid task master.

Now please can I stop hearing about this stupid study before I punch somebody in the mouth?

Russell Nohelty is a publisher, writer, and consultant. He owns the indie publisher Wannabe Press (www.wannabepress.com), where he puts out rebellious content for sharp minds. He also has a podcast called The Business of Art (www.thebusinessofart.us) where he shows creatives how to run businesses better. 

Hard Lesson 1: Should You Abandon Your Project: Five Reasons Why I Didn't

So I’ve been working on a project for a long time now, over a year. It’s been a year of developing characters, story, plot, and actually writing an 80,000 word novel. It hasn’t been my only project, but there have been several hundred brain hours devoted to this project.

And the thing is…I’ve never really loved it. I mean I loved it in inception and concept, but it hasn’t been something that I fell in love with like some of my other projects. I’ve always thought about abandoning the project in full and moving on, but the further I got along the more I didn’t want to abandon the project. The more investment I had and the more I need it to work.

The problem, though, has been that the further I got on with the project, the more I disliked it. So my desire to monetarily finish the book was diametrically opposed to my desire to finish the book.

I should mention that nearly everything that I do comes with certain amount of hatred in the actually writing phase. I have always hated almost everything I’ve written until it got a lot further along. However, the hatred for this project has been stronger than most.

And I thought it would be interesting in this episode to talk about the reasons I didn’t abandon the project, which might inform whether you should abandon yours.

1.       This is a very different format than I’m used to, and I’m trying to train myself to write some more commercial books.

So the first reason I didn’t abandon the project is because I knew it was my most commercial project in the novel space. Katrina is very commercial in many ways, but this is even more commercial. Since it was commercial, and not an intimate character study, it was a very different thing for me to right, and I really wanted to get through it to see whether I hated it because it was a bad book, or because I just don’t normally write things like this.

So this one is really a business reason. I want to get more readers to read my more intimate books, and I have to pull them in with a more commercial book. Actors and other creatives do this all the time. They will do a studio movie, then go and make a random art house movie nobody watches.

I’m all about modeling what works, and if this is a functional model I need to make sure I’m writing a commercial work in order to fuel my other work.

2.       I saw a viable place for it in the marketplace, where I could put my own spin on some common tropes, and I thought that could be fun.

Another business reason. I found there were some common tropes being used in popular genre sci-fi, specifically YA, that I wanted to play with and enjoy. I generally like reading things like The Hunger Games and Harry Potter and Ender’s Game, and I thought it might be fun to play in that space and put my own take on it.

This goes back to point one, as well, where I was looking at trends in the marketplace and seeing what I could do that would also be successful. I’m not saying this book will be successful, but I wanted to try this new thing. If I didn’t like it, there was no need to write more…but I had to finish one.

3.       I want to test out a new delivery format for my books.

On Amazon I’ve been seeing a lot of books that are a series, but really they are just one book broken down into four 20,000 word sections, and then bound as a full book for print. Since that’s EXACTLY how comics work, and pretty much my exact business model for Wannabe Press, I wanted to see if I could write something that was really good, was broken up into 20,000 word segments for Amazon, and then bound in a print edition for the whole book.

Again, this is a business call. This wasn’t anything to do with content. And that’s really why I went about finishing this book. If it had just been creative, I would have probably abandoned it 20,000 words in. However, this book is doing several things for me on the business side, and because of that at every step I wanted to see if it was going to succeed as a proof of concept.

4.       After a time I passed the point of no return

When you are on a flight, there is a thing called the point of no return. That is the moment where fuel-wise you must continue to your final destination. This is the same thing that happens in creation. I had sunk so many hundreds of hours into this book over the course of a year that my sunk operational costs were more to abandon the book then they would be to continue. I value my time at a specific hourly rate, and I knew that if I didn’t finish I would be out a specific amount of dollars, and if I kept going I would be out a smaller amount. So I kept going. This is the same reason many projects come into being, because the cost to finish them outweighs the cost of abandoning them.

5.       If I finish the book, it can make money for me forever.

If I abandon the book, it would sit on my computer making no return on my investment. However, if I finish the book it can make money for me in perpetuity. This book is supposed to be the intro to the rest of my library. A tiny cost to get people buying my work and enjoying it, so they buy more. And the thing about books is, you make money off the back catalog. The more robust it is, the more ability for me to monetize it. So not only does this book (or 5 books really) generate income for me itself, it also helps get people to buy more of my work over time.

So those are some strictly business reasons why I didn’t abandon this project. I could have. I probably should have, early on, but now that I’m in it there is no business reason why I should abandon it…especially now that I’m 2-3k words from finishing the first draft. If you are interested in the artistic reasons why to abandon your project, it’s simple:

                It doesn’t feel right.

I’ve abandoned dozens of projects because they don’t feel right, I got bored, or I lost the passion. Those are all super valid reasons as well, but I wanted to bring business reasons into the light today.

I hope it helps. If it does please subscribe on itunes, rate and review us, and keep listening! Thanks so much.

Russell 

Why Metric Are Rock Stars, and How it Applies to Your Business

This past weekend I went to four events: a wedding, a speaking engagement at a writer’s conference, a comic-con where I was selling books, and a Metric concert.

I have a very unpopular opinion on live music. I hate it. If I never went to a live show again it would be too soon. The floors are sticking, you stand for hours, and the artists never sound very good.

I never understood why anybody would want to go to a live show. Until last night. When I saw Metric take the stage in the House of Blues and the people flip out, I got it.

It’s about connection. It’s about meeting somebody in person who you’ve only heard on the radio, and inhabiting the same space as them for even a little bit.

When they went into their encore, which I also hate, the lead singer spoke to the audience about how they have been touring since 2002.

2002!

That’s 14 years of touring to promote albums, build an audience, get booked into bigger venues, and get their music into the pop zeitgeist (they had my favorite song in Scott Pilgrim).

It hit me like a ton of bricks. They did exactly what I tell everybody to do: get out to live events because it’s the best way to build their brand.

Look, do radio edits sound better? For sure. They sound perfect. In the same way your podcast, blog, and emails sound perfect.

But that’s not what live events are about. I’ve messed up at live event more times that I can remember.

And yet, people forgive.

Because being at the live events and making that connection eye to eye is 100x more important than perfection.

Knowing you and not just your work is going to account for more sales than anything.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sold a book just on sheer personality alone, and then that person liked the book and bought more.

So be like Metric. Get out there and tour, meet your customer, and build a connection with them. It will make all the difference in your business.

Miniseason 1 - Ep 11 - Launching a Kickstarter: Wrap-up

It's over! The My Father Didn't Kill Himself campaign is over and I'm back to do a wrap-up of the things I learned throughout the campaign. If you listen to all 11 episodes you'll already know most of this, but some people just like the wrap up, so I'm going to try to oblige them, while giving new information. 

First, we ended up raising $3431 from 155 backer with an average back of just over $22.00. This is way down from our previous campaigns, where we raised $30+ per backer on average. That is mostly attributable to the fact that 88 people (56%) chose the digial only rewards, which dragged down the total backing of each backer. However, this was to be expected because novels are not a visual medium. While there are many people that like the touch and feel of books, it's not a necessity like it is with comics. I believe that comics must be felt in your hands. Even though there is research to support print books over ebooks, the ebook market is enormous. So I'm not surprised at the lower amount raised. With Ichabod, we raised almost $2000 more from almost the same amount of backers. 

The most important thing is that this is the most fun I've had running a Kickstarter campaign...ever. There was no pressure. It was all fun. I was doing humiliating videos, and posting things to vine and youtube. It was a blast, unlike all my other campaigns which were more ulcers than anything. 

-          People still donated even though we hit our goal. I’m not sure if that’s because we wanted 1,000,000% funded or because people just wanted to see this project succeed. Perhaps we’ve gotten to the place where people are preordering my work because they want it and not because of the goal, though I think the goal is still important.

-          Facebook and Twitter ads didn’t work this time. Nothing really worked this time except for social and mailing list. 

-          With this third campaign, we finally felt like a publishing company, utilizing our mailing list, auto responder sequences, retargeting ads, and more. It felt finally like we had a community.

-          We did no stretch goals this time, and didn’t see any adverse reaction. I think stretch goals are only good if you are adding content to the book.

-          I can’t stress enough how important it is to get a distribution chain in place and stress test it before a campaign.

-          I don’t recommend doing a $1 campaign as your first campaign, because you actually do need lots of money to start up, whereas with MFDKH we already sunk all the cost in before the Kickstarter launched. I would never do a $1 campaign until you have a few under your belt.

-          Because we knew the book was coming out anyway, we didn’t have to push people. We could get them on the mailing list and knew that eventually they could buy the book on our website and on Kindle.

I will say that Kickstarter is a visual medium, so the novels didn't seem to stand out as much, even though we did a lot of visuals inside the campaign. People seem to use Kickstarter for comics, children's books, and other visual mediums more effectively than for straight novels. 

Also, book sites didn't care or even know about Kickstarter. While comic book sites are very welcoming to the idea, in the publishing space it's not common. 

Additionally, while almost all creators in the comic space are gearing up for a Kickstarter, nobody in publishing is doing the same. They are all gearing up for an amazon launch. 

I mention the comixlaunch episode a couple of times in this podcast. Here is the link to the episode I reference about $1 campaigns. 

-          We’re going to go more into doing extra episodes on Fridays about business. Email us with what you want to see @ russell@wannabepress.com.

A

Episode 9: Every Day is a Fist Fight with Erik Lervold

Today we talked to Erik Lervold, who is one of my favorite creators and happens to also create the Red Calaveras, which can be found on Wannabe Press. This dude is the real deal though. Honestly. He has the business stuff down. He has the art stuff down. He is the whole package and I loved talking to him about the business of his art and how he makes stuff while getting paid.

You can find his book on Wannabe Press, at www.theredcalaveras.com, and at www.monkeymanlabs.com

Why Live Events are Great for Your Career

Look, I love online.

I’m an online presence nut.

I know that the best way to keep in touch with your audience on the regular is through blogging, podcasting, Instagram, and Twitter. You don’t have to convince me of that.

But there is nothing like being at a show and talking to people in person. Statistically, it takes eight touches with a person online or over the phone before they buy from you.

In person you can cut that down to one sometime, and their desire to get more information from you is exponentially higher when you meet them. I can get 10x more email subscribers in a two day event than I do in a month.

So why live shows? 

It’s the easiest and quickest way to get immediate validation that you are a legit company.

Why?

Because you paid for a booth. You sat down, had wares to show, and just by doing that you are immediately a professional in the eyes of most attendees and, equally important, vendors.

Your biggest ally in this world are the other people doing what you do. They are going to be your biggest fans, and the only people who trying understand what you do. They will shout you out. They will buy your stuff. They will be there for you.

The fans are fantastic and I love them to death, but being legit in the eyes of other vendors is so crucial, and you can only truly do that if you’re behind that booth.

Why don’t people like live shows? 

Where I generally hear this come from are people that go to one show a year and think that is enough.

Newsflash: it’s never enough to go to just one.

Why?

Because people’s minds are fleeting. They need to see you over and over again. They need to keep passing your booth, and if they like your stuff one time, they will eventually buy it.

Additionally, I hear it a lot from people who have no follow-up sequence. So they go to a show, get no emails, build no audience, and go home with nothing, having just blown a few hundred bucks on a booth.

So audience building at shows is important? 

It’s mission critical. It’s more important than selling at shows. If you are not collecting emails, en masse, at a show, then you are wasting a huge opportunity.

Even at a small show we want to collect 50–100 sign-ups…because most of our audience growth is at live shows.

We collect dozens of signatures at shows, then we set up an auto responder sequence to build trust, and a weekly newsletter. We provide value and personality throughout the year through social media, and then at the next show, we have a deeper connection.

You can say what you want about online, there is nothing like shaking somebody’s hand. I can’t tell you how much we’ve sold to people that found us online, liked what we had to say, and bought our products at a show.

Or…

Found us at a show, signed up for our mailing list, listen to our podcast, and come back at the next show and buy products then.

There is no single way to do this. You can’t be a live show guy with no online presence. But you also can’t be all online with no in person. People need to see you. They need to hear you. They need to know you are flesh and blood.

But shows are expensive! 

I don’t care. Business is expensive. Audience growth is expensive. The ROI is massive though, especially when you hit certain benchmarks.

 You don’t have to go to a big show first. You can find a trade show, or a fair, or a local show at your favorite shop. Start there, and grow to the big shows.

But you are only hurting yourself by not getting out there.

It’s also great to test branding. 

Live shows are the best way to test branding, pitches, and marketing strategies in a compact setting.

In a two day show you speak to hundreds of people, and they will tell you exactly what works, what doesn’t work, what they respond to, and where you should focus your attention.

Every time I release a product I spend months going to shows with it, testing pitches, and trying different marketing materials before I settle on something that works.

When I find something that works, I know it’s because it’s been through thousands of tests with customers to hone the messaging.

Long story short: Get out to shows. Don’t wait. Do it now.

Ranterlude 4: I'm Having Success, Why Am I So Depressed?

Today I talk about something that's taboo even for me, and I don't think anything is taboo. I talk about the massive depression I've been feeling recently, even in the face of overwhelming success. 

It's something that entrepreneurs face all the time, and nobody talks about because we're just supposed to talk about the good time. I don't roll like that. I love talking about the bad times, and the weird times, and exactly what I'm feeling right now. That's what these little episodes are all about. 

Because I think that's what helps people. I think that's where real value is, in being straight forward. So yeah, I've been feeling massively depressed recently. A couple of rungs above I can't get out of bed. It only in talking about it that I get out of my own head. I've never been depressed before, not really. I've been thoroughly bummed out a lot in my life, but this is different somehow. 

I trey to understand in on this episode. Why it's happening. Why now that I'm finally having success am I in such a bad head space. 

So I hope this help, even if it's just one of you. 

Mini Season 1 -Ep 10 - Launching a Kickstarter: Five Days Left

Five days left until the Kickstarter is over, and we're working toward wrapping up the season. That means after this there's only a wrap-up show left next Friday! Oh no! 

Also Yay, because this Kickstarter has taken a lot out of me, especially in the last few days. There's one thing I know for sure, and it's that the audience we built over the last year has been instrumental in making this book a reality. 

And if you want to make your project a success you need to start building an audience now! 

Episode 8: Playing Music and Drinking Scotch with John Dover

Today we talked to John Dover, who a fantastic professional trumpet player and writer. We talked to him about his origins in music, in working sales to build his business chops, and in expanding his brand into writing. You can check his out at 

www.johnnyscotchjustice.com.

 Enjoy the show.

If you’re not building your community, you’re wasting your time.

If you’re not building your community, you’re wasting your time.

I’m not here to discount content creation.

Heck, I am a content creator.

That’s the thing I do.

Strip is all down. Take away Wannabe Press, Kickstarter University, Free Kickstarter Course, and everything else, then ask me what I do, and I will say that I create content.

I’ve been creating content for over a decade. And for most of that time I was creating that content for an audience of about 5 people.

Creating content is ESSENTIAL.

The only reason I’m anywhere now is because I have an incredible amount of content. Stellar content. The kind of content most people would kill for, and I can churn it out at incredible volumes.

However, it was only in the last couple of years, when I developed the confidence to talk about by work, and believe it had value, that my career took off.

It was only after I found a community of like minded people that pushed me to be better, and liked my work, and wanted to see more of it, that I became successful.

Which is why I’m telling you this: Build your community now. Build it from day 1. Let it shape what kind of stories you tell and have your stories shape your community.

Don’t wait until you have 10 years of content and hope that your audience will like it all. That’s a recipe for disaster.

I’m very lucky. Even though I write across all genres I somehow have a voice that speaks to the rebellious spirit in us all, and that crosses everything I do.

But most people aren’t that lucky. Most people need a genre. All people need to find people that share their vision.

If you wait until you’ve created tons of content to find those people, you might be creating content that they don’t want, or content that multiple audiences want, and that fractures you. You don’t want to be fractured. You want to focus all your energy on one huge community.

Look, part of building a community is coming up with incredible content constantly. That’s part and parcel. But the community is the thing that’s going to your career.

The good news is that your community want you to find it. Trust me. The right community wants you. They don’t care if you suck now, as long as you’re willing to grow. Heck, the right community can boost your career forward, and when they see you succeeding they’ll root you on.

But you have to find them. Strip it all down. The only thing that matters, really, is serving your community. If you can do that, you’ll be successful. If you don’t have a community…then you’ll struggle.

And who wants to struggle.

Live Episode 2: Long Beach Comic Expo with Don Walker, Rob Worley, Kyle Roberts, Joenell Luma, William O'Neill, DJ Kirkbride, and Joelle Sellner

We did another live event! This time at Long Beach Comic Expo! We had a great time at the show, and I came back with the froggiest of throats. However, I muscled through to show you exactly why live events are so important, and I talked to a bunch of amazing creators.

Don Walker is the creator of Agent Wild and Reaper Corps, and he is the man when it comes to Kickstarter. You can find him on twitter @dork_empire_ink and at dorkempireink.com.

Kyle Roberts is a great artist. Art teacher by day, creator by night. This dude knows art! He is an artist on Kill Trent Science Sleuth with is a public domain character reimagined with new creators. It had two successful Kickstarter projects. He's also the creator of The Dark Hours, a horror western limited series. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram @kyleroberts_art.

Joenell Luma is an artist and had one of my favorite marketing gimmicks at the con. He wore an apron and welding mask the whole day. I loved it. Also, his art was fantastic which always helped. He created a cute little animal called the Unicoon, which loves to cosplay. You can find him on instagram @the_zen_lu and on twitter @unicoonsarereal.

William O'Neill is an official Star Wars artist, who came up with a brilliant idea to sell his art. He took pages from old Star Wars books and drew Characters in those pages, and then framed them. I've never seen anything like it. You can find him online at gentlemannerd.com and on twitter @gentlemannerd42. He also loves cosplaying as Riker from Star Trek: TNG.

DJ Kirkbride writesThe Bigger Bang for IDW and Amelia Cole for MonkeyBrain, along with co-edited Popgun, You can find him on twitter @djkirkbride or djkirkbride.com

Joelle Sellner has written tons of everything from animation to live action to comics. She's written on sorority Eva through LionsForge, Ben 10, Sonic Boom, The Avengers and more. You can find her on twitter @whereisjoelle and online @writtenbyjoelle.com   

Miniseason 1 - Ep 9 - Launching a Kickstarter: The Fatigue Sets In

This week, my friends, the fatigue set in. I usually run 30ish day campaigns, but this one was 40 days. I was told by multiple people to do the longest campaign possible, so I tried it. As one person, I do not recommend it. 

I mean we had to do it, because we'll be at LBCE this weekend, as well as at two conventions next weekend, The GLAWs digital conference and Pasadena Comic and Toy Show. We HAD to have the Kickstarter live for both of those. 

However, we have so much going on these days. We have the launch of Katrina Hates the Dead at LBCE, the launch of the Gherkin Boy paperback to plan for Wonder-con, along with Kickstarter University's continued launch (and official launch later this month). We also offically announced our new chidren's book I Can't Stop Tooting: A Love Story, coming to Kickstarter on April 5th. You can head to www.cantstoptooting.com to check it out. 

It's a lot to manage, and I'm only one person, but I know one thing. If I'm fatigued so is the audience. We're going to do one more final week push, push it hard at the live shows, and then we'll be done. I can't wait for the wrap up. 

What My Dogs Taught Me about Running a Business

I have two dogs. I love them both to death. There is an adorable, regal, aloof one named Nala and a small, yappy, attention whore named Cheyenne.

Here’s the thing. They both want my attention. They want it more than anything…except my wife’s attention. They really love my wife’s attention.

But Nala doesn’t ask for it. She’ll sometimes look doe-eyed and wonder why I’m not giving her attention. She’ll curl up and look wounded that I’m not paying attention to her, but she will never come up and ask for it.

My small dog on the other hand…there’s nothing she won’t do for attention. She will barrel into people. She will jump on your lap even if you’re not sitting down. She will jump on the back of your foot causing you to trip and fall. She’ll lick your face while you’re doing yoga.

There is really nothing she won’t do to get cuddly. She is aggressively cuddly, which is the only appropriate term for her. She is relentless with her snuggles.

I don’t think she likes cuddling more than Nala. I think she is just vehement that she’s going to get hers. She doesn’t care if Nala gets pets too, but she’s gonna get hers.

So what does this have to do with business? Nothing. I just wanted to show off my two adorable dogs.

Kidding…kind of.

What it tells me about business is that in order to get what you want, you need to announce yourself! You have to tell people you want their business, and get in front of them. You have to be relentless about it, otherwise somebody else will be.

While both my dogs love us equally, and while we love both our dogs equally, one sleeps next to my wife and naps with me while the other one lays twenty feet away pining for our attention.

And all because Nala doesn’t ask and Cheyenne does. So if you want something in business, you have to ask for it. You have to be aggressively cuddly about it.

Episode 7: Making a Living As an Artist While Working Remotely with Cat Ranson

Today we talked to Cat Ranson about living in New Zealand, in a small town, and still making a living as an artist. I think this is fascinating as somebody that living in Los Angeles and has access to much more opportunity on the surface. We talked to Cat a lot about that, but also about devaluing yourself as an artist, creating a brand, and kickstarter...my favorite topic.

You can check out Cat on facebook @ Cat Ranson or Deviant Art @ Sunktokeca. Also, don't forget to check out our Kickstarter for My Father Didn't Kill Himself. If you want more info about Kickstarter, head to www.kickstarteruniversity.com and check out our courses. Or if you want some cool comics, check out www.wannabepress.com

Ranterlude 3: Is Wannabe Press Profitable?

It's a question we get asked all the time. Are we profitable? And since we just finished our taxes this is a great time to tackle it.

Sometimes I think people ask too much, but I'm glad people are talking about it, so on the other hand I'm flattered. I mean it's a valid question. We are a small press. We put out a lot of books, so are we? Unfortunately, both for us and for whomever asked, it's not just a simple yes no question. There's a lot of ins, outs, and what have yous. So I tackle both the simple answer to the question, and the much more complex answer. On top of that, I flip it back to YOU and tell you how you can use everything I've learned to help you, and what it means for your career.

Mini Season 1 -Ep 8 - Launching a Kickstarter: Focusing on Things that Work

This week...honestly not much happened with the Kickstarter. We've been really trying to focus on what works and cut out what doesn't work. You'll be surprised what doesn't work for us, even though it worked well on the last two campaigns we ran. Additionally, we talk about how important it is to just have focus, because if you know what works you can drive all your attention to it.