Episode 595 - Oversold to the Moon!
Aug 8, 2022
How do you describe your work to sell it to people? Writing blurbs is a real skill! You generally have to avoid doing these four things: Underselling, Overselling, Selling the wrong story, or Revealing too much. It's quite a tricky balance to master. I've been writing feature blurbs for comics here on DD for many years now (about 16), so I've developed a technique but even I haven't mastered it!
Topics and Show Notes
- Overselling is when you promise too much, more than the work can ever provide. It might help you attract an audience but it'll probably piss them off when the promises aren't met.
- Underselling is when you downplay the work too much so that it doesn't really sound interesting and discourages people from checking it out at all.
- Selling the wrong story is when you advertise things about your work that it's really not about, like advertising it as a love story when it's really about violent action. You'll just attract the wrong audience and lose readers.
- Selling too much is when you reveal major plot points and crucial story elements. People don't usually want to look into a story if they already know how it's going to go.
My technique with featured comics is to use a standard format. I introduce the main character and then the issues facing them in their world. Then I talk about the art and the story style. I do this so I can personalise the story for people, centering it onto that character or characters. Mentioning the issues introduces some stakes so people start to wonder how the character will deal with those. Talking about the world of the characters gives everything a context, a playing field unique to them and their situation. Talking about the story style, genre etc filters things to the correct audience, as does the mention of art. This works for me because I have to do it over and over hundreds of times, another style might work better for you. :)
This week Gunwallace has given us a theme to Sad W - Hurry up and wait! All the loose energy and stress of a Friday afternoon when it’s almost time to go home but your boss throws an urgent last minute job onto your desk. Hurry, hurry, quick, finish! Damn, you made a huge mistake, do all that bit again. Hurry! This is a modern sounding, high energy, track, thrumming with urgency.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Forum post - Writing spoiler free blurbs - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/179116/
Featured comic:
Remedial Magic - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2022/aug/01/featured-comic-remedial-magic/
Featured music:
Sad W - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Sad_W/ - by Sstavix, rated E.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
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Episode 459 - 2019 Year in review!
Dec 30, 2019
It's been a great year! DD has continued to grow bit by bit, we've been stable and a great host for many many webcomics. DD is one of the only truly independent community focused webcomic hosting sites left. Most of the rest are commercial hubs that are not community centered. Part of our commitment to the community on DD is showcasing our best webcomics every week, which we've been doing for 17 years now, and I've personally been doing that for about 13.
Episode 151 - Fave Features of 2013
Jan 27, 2014
Banes and Ozoneocean revisit some memorable featured comics of 2013 to see what's up with them now and also give them a second shot at the limelight! If you didn't catch these comics the first time around then now's your chance to check them out. This is a nice little eclectic mixture of webcomics, from he family friendly stylings of Chevalier and My Friend Fear, to supernatural horror in DoorMan, Ecchi comedy soap in Blitz, action budy comedy in Handsome and Ransom, and satirical puppetry weirdness in Cavecomicdd! This is an interesting bunch.
Episode 144 - Bold New Experiment with the Top Ten!
Dec 2, 2013
For this Quackcast it's just Ozone aaaaaand HippieVan! We're discussing various things, the most important of which is the Top Ten rating system for the front page of DD. It has been frozen solid since the site stopped tracking stats about TWO years ago. Hopefully we'll restart hat when we figure out how to code it up, but for now HippieVan and Irreverent came up with a good idea: The Top Ten comics will be based on how many "likes" they have. This will be calculated every week by HippieVan. So now comics have the ability to get into the top ten if they can get enough "Likes", so start campaigning people and you'll have a spot on the front page! Unfortunately we're not including Adult rated comics in that list because those can't be seen by people who aren't signed into the site so would just look like blank boxes on the front page. Never fear though, Adult comics are still ranked proudly on the comic search page in their true like order.
Episode 143 - 2013 DD Awards Reboot
Nov 25, 2013
Niccea is the guest for Quackcast 143 because Banes and I are talking to her about how the 2013 DD Awards are going now! With the great DD blackout of 2013, the DD awards suffered a titanic blow... Things were just getting underway for the year when BOOB! ...or "BOOM" rather... it was all over. But on the urging of kawaiidaigakusei, Niccea kicked it into gear again! Now the awards are progressing in good order, but Niccea can always use more help so if you'd like to be in on this please follow the link in the Quackcast notes to the award forum.
Episode 142 - Drawing on iPads and Androids
Nov 18, 2013
This week Kawaii gives us a detailed rundown of many of the drawing apps available for the ipad! Banes talks about some for the iphone and I mention some for Android devices. People should send in pics they’ve done in mobile drawing apps to Kawaii’s email - kawaiidaigakusei@gmail.com, we'd love to showcase them in a Newspost! don't forget to tell us what app and device you used.
Episode 141 - The Gullas and Banes are BastardsCast
Nov 11, 2013
The Gullas and Banes are BastardsCast is brought to you by the Solid Gold Dancers! Check out those costumes... nice! Well now that's over, let's introduce Quackcast 141. Skyfox Kawaiidaigakusei, Master Banes, and Captain Ozone come together to chat about this week's comic feature which is The Devon Legacy, then they go on to chat about what Kawaiidaigakusei will be doing for DD as our new featurer and Monday Newsposter. They also wax nostalgic on the history of The Duck, possible improvements, then get back on track and chat to Kawaiidaigakusei about comic featuring qualifications... and finally just chat about DD stuff in general. Next week: Drawing on mobile devices! Apps, apps, apps!!!!!
Episode 140 - Ducks of future past, episode ZERO
Nov 4, 2013
Big changes are coming! In this Quackcast we talk about what happened to the duck, what's happening now and what we're trying to make happen in the future. Banes and I chat about all this stuff. Some the most important aspects we mention are the new current domain name for the site http://www.theduckwebcomics.com, a possible name change for the Quackcast, the help from JustNoPoint and ComicRocket in getting us online again, new helpers coming along to do things like features (kawaiidaigakusei replaces Skool in doing features), and all sorts of bug fixes and new features for the site now a real possibility. Then we get onto a lighter note with a discussion about some Superhero movies and cool Anime series.
