My own personal open rant

[newsmanfan]

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Self-promotion is ESSENTIAL. Always has been but today, with SUCH a glut of stuff in every possible medium out there, you do really have to push your work. (Says the writer who hasn't finished a marketable novel in years, heh.) But yes...learn social media, or get your new Comm Director to do it for you. Hit up any sites which you feel have some legitimate relation to what you do. I notice your webcomic was about a vampire girl...did you seek out vampire-specific sites or fansites, link to the ones you lied and ask their webmasters for a linkback? Did you keep a page or a profile open on those sites? Do so. You'll get more readers. Always think cross-pollination!

And if your friends aren't being honest with you about your work...they're not very good friends. Ask them to be brutal. And then take you for ice cream if it hurts.

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[D'Snowth]

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Self-promotion is ESSENTIAL. Always has been but today, with SUCH a glut of stuff in every possible medium out there, you do really have to push your work.

Yeah, I ain't very good at pushing, nor being aggressive either...

Past experiences have REALLY ruined me as far as self-promotion goes, I've gotten into so much trouble doing so in the past and such, I just don't want to have to put up with it again, nor do I really need to make anymore enemies in the process either.

 

[Xerus]

Thanks for the comment on my webcomics, Snowthy. And thank you for being a loyal reader too. I know what you're going through too. I wish my other MC fans would've read and commented on my works. And I sometimes feel like Squidward from Spongebob Squarepants or Brian from Family Guy, not having their creativity appreciated.
But I do get a few praises on Facebook though. I've even written a list of names of all the people who read and comment regularly. So far, only 18. I tried different ways to advertise myself. At first on Toonzone, but one guy insulted my artwork and badmouthed me about my age. I don't think he bothered to read the story at all. And some other people took his side too.
Last year, I had fliers made and tried to hand them out at a local comic con. Some people took interest and took my fliers. But only 2 people commented the next day. And just yesterday, my local library had a video game and sci-fi convention and they agreed to let me display my fliers there. Only one person took a flier and I haven't received any feedback yet today.
Right now, my producer friend, Heather Ferreira, has taken an extreme interest in Rebusquest and she's found a way to get the animation project for it off the ground. I sure hope it works this time. Anyway, I really dug Snowthy's Vampire Girl series and I was very happy with the ending and I'll keep on being a fan of Steve D'Monster and his friends. Here's to you, Snowthy!

 

[D'Snowth]

I tried different ways to advertise myself. At first on Toonzone, but one guy insulted my artwork and badmouthed me about my age. I don't think he bothered to read the story at all. And some other people took his side too.

Yeah, that's the problem with ToonZone, the entire community is like this, it's one of those forums out there (and there's plenty of them too) where it's like the community takes pride in putting certain people down for one reason or another; I can't even remember the last time I ever visited ToonZone, but I can pretty much remember everybody treating me like the village idiot there. Then again, I was still pretty much a kid when I was at ToonZone, and I've noticed some forums like to harass kids who are members for not acting more mature and grownup. Another anecdote there was a Chipmunks forum I eventually became moderator of, there was one particular member who was like twelve or thirteen at the time, that one of the admins and one of mods kept picking on to no end for various different reasons, including her age; I kept trying to put a stop to it, but I was ignored, so myself another friend of mine (who was also on the moderating staff) went straight to the webmistress to put a stop to it, and it stopped... I'm pretty sure it's because of that I ended up becoming a big cyber brother to that member, but it really was harshly unfair, she's just a sweet kid who wasn't bothering anybody, yet she was singled out for a number of different reasons, it's happened to me before, but this time I had the power (somewhat) to make sure it didn't happen again to somebody else.

If you ask me though, there's two different kinds of forums: ones where the members take the time and the effort to turn the place into something of an actual community, and ones where people just simply go to. MC certainly is one of those forums that are very community oriented, but those kind of forums are few and far between, whereas the other forums, where people feel the need to be rude and hateful to certain people for certain reasons seem to dominate the internet. That can make it difficult to advertise on forums as well, and there are actually some forums out there that forbid people from advertising anything at all: no mentioning it in posts, no links in signatures, etc.

 

[Xerus]

I'm sorry you had to go through all that on Toonzone Too, Snowthy. Whenever I tried to post my own thoughts on there, people would badmouth me and the mods would shut down my posts for all the negative comments. I just never know the right things to post on there. Too many rules. So it's easier not to post on there at all.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Yeah, that's the problem with ToonZone, the entire community is like this, it's one of those forums out there (and there's plenty of them too) where it's like the community takes pride in putting certain people down for one reason or another;

Yeah I remember running into a forum once that pretty much existed just to give people a hard time, very bravely behind their computer screens of course, heh. As one of them proudly put it, "You've entered the lion's den!" Um, yeah more like the pathetic den, lol.

 

[D'Snowth]

I mean, just based on experiences of mine, here's a story of just how twisted and crooked some of these forums can be:

I once belonged to a forum where everybody seemed nice and friendly enough at first, even though there were at least a couple or so jerks, but every forum, even MC has its share of a few bad seeds here and there: eventually, several months later, a few members migrated over there because their own usual forum was down temporarily, they started causing trouble and such (including harassing me), and they did end up getting banned for their actions. Then, a month later, every single one of them all created new accounts and were actually welcomed back with open arms. They basically then made it their priority to harass me to no end for various different reasons, then guess what happened? I got banned for being a trouble maker and an instigator. They were the ones who were instigating trouble, and ganging up on me, and I was the one who was banned for being the trouble maker? Then when I tried to register a new account as well, I was immediately banned again. So, to go over it again, the trouble makers made trouble, got banned, came back, was welcomed back, and went back to making trouble with encouragement from the admin and mod; I was cyber-bullied, got banned, came back, was immediately banned again, and the trouble makers actually boasted about it.

What "hurt" too was that I did have a few people at that forum that I THOUGHT were my friends, and were on my side, but they decided to side with the enemies, one of which said to me, "Well, they're threatening to ban us too if they see we're on your side, and I really don't want to be banned, so I have to go."

But okay, you know what? This isn't what I came here to rant about, so getting back to the original topic, give me some ideas of what I can do to advertise without coming off as being shameless and desperate for attention? I get your point about vampire forums and such for Vampire Girl Newsie, however, I'm sure most people who are vampire nuts probably are because of Twilight, or those number of vampire shows on HBO, which this isn't anything like those at all, lol. I can see that most of you guys are okay with me plugging things here (thanks for that reassurance Jamie, I appreciate it), but like I said, you guys know me, and I know you, we're all friends and such, I need to branch out to newer groups of people; like back in Steve's early days on YouTube, yes I told some of you guys about it, but much of what became his initial following found him by chance or by accident (a few of which came to MC that way).

Again, a few people have suggested posting links on forums and such, well I've done that before, and that's how I got in trouble in the past with advertising and procelating, and that's how I learned the hard way that people see this sort of thing as shameless... so what can I do differently?

BTW Xerus, I did something similar to fliers once before: you know how when you go to office supply stores, the pen, marker, sharpie, etc aisle has like a big sketch book for you to test the different colors on and everything? I once drew a doodle of Steve on a page, and added the URL to my YouTube channel for people to see... I doubt it worked though, lol.

 

[CensoredAlso]

one of which said to me, "Well, they're threatening to ban us too if they see we're on your side, and I really don't want to be banned, so I have to go."

Wow...someone never left middle school.

Of course that's not specifically a forum issue, I encountered the same kind of people in school back in the day. And frankly I'd rather be unpopular than that weak of a person. Because those people have to live with the way they acted for the rest of their lives.

Again, a few people have suggested posting links on forums and such, well I've done that before, and that's how I got in trouble in the past with advertising and procelating, and that's how I learned the hard way that people see this sort of thing as shameless... so what can I do differently?

Well everything I've ever read basically said you first have to make the effort to contribute to a community for an extended period of time first, before you ever try to advertise.

Another thing is seeking out other people's websites and Blogs and giving them compliments first. Some will be nice enough to return the favor. But it does take time.

 

[Teheheman]

I see both sides of the coin. On one hand, you need to promote yourself if you're ever gonna get ANYWHERE! and sometimes, word of mouth is the only thing that gets you noticed. That being said, on the other hand, you don't wanna promote yourself so much that you end up being known as a spammer that just joined to promote your stuff and not a fan that just happens to do that. Personally, I would join a forum, post a while, and wait an appropriate amount of time before saying "Hey, I don't usually do this, but I did some cartoons/stories/etc. a while back, and was wondering what you thought." Or maybe do what I do, and post a link to your stuff at the bottom of your thing so if people are interested, they can see what you wrote. I used to be in the 'internet promotion' of my stories but it never really worked. BUT, if YOU believe that they're good, then that's all you gotta write for. You don't have to create or do anything that doesn't please you.

Daniel

 

[Sgt Floyd]

Again, a few people have suggested posting links on forums and such, well I've done that before, and that's how I got in trouble in the past with advertising and procelating, and that's how I learned the hard way that people see this sort of thing as shameless... so what can I do differently?

Well most forums have rules against making threads about your own websites and stuff. Usually you can advertise in your signature as long as you don't mention it or encourage people to take a look. It kinda deafeats the purposes of advertising I suppose.

As for bad forum run ins, I recently attempted to join Sonic Retro. Not only do they make you write a post explaining why you joined before they activate you, you have to "prove" to them that you aren't an idiot and they give you 20 posts. Then they basically decide if they like you or not and can then choose to not activate your account after 20 posts. For some reason I was rejected. of course they don't allow you to post or contact a staff member to ask why. I think it was because I disagreed with a staff member about graphics being the most important thing in a video game