Episode 432 - How to get more readers
Jun 24, 2019
Just Banes and I for this one! Today we have 3 topics: 1. Being positive and how that really helps us in online communication and social networking, as well as giving a boost to those we talk to- very important in comic communities. 2. How to get more eyes looking at your work. We always need to build our audiences! 3. Updates for drunk duck to modernise the site… We're going to have to raise a lot of money for this! How is the best way?
Topics and Show Notes
-1. There's an old myth that “being positive” helps you get over diseases and makes you a happier person among other things. Well, it doesn't unfortunately, but what it DOES do is make you more popular and interesting to people as well as giving people a boost when you communicate with them. This is a great tip for good online communication: be positive and be sincere.
-2. How to get more eyes looking at your work? The trap everyone falls into is expecting ALL their traffic to come from the site they're being hosted on thorough its own internal mechanisms like the search and front page features on Theduckwebcomics.com . Of course that's silly, you're competing with all the other members of the website for that limited limited piece of the pie, and that's exactly the same for all webcomic hosts. To get more readers you have to jump the queue:
2a- Network: comment on the work of others, especially comics that you like so you can always be sincere, do fan art for people, collaborate.
2b- Make yourself visible, participate in discussion and things and have a link banner. On DD that would be in the forums or the newsposts.
2c- social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube etc.This takes time but it can work.
2d- Buy advertising. This is a great way to get a big boost very quickly! On DD we have the option of banner ads https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/jan/25/give-your-comic-a-boost-and-help-us-at-the-same-time/ which give you a big ad on every page of the website, or supporting us through Patreon https://www.patreon.com/user?u=5127951 Which gives you a link on the front page, links or ads in weekend newsposts, and a link ON the forums.
-3. It's time to think about getting fixes and a redesign for the site again! We have good plans for it already and know all sort of things we'd like to fix like good page organisation for creators, likes, threaded comments and comment notifications for a better social experience (we have SOME of that already but we need more), a nicer colour theme, a site that works better on mobile devices, translations of the site into other languages for Italians, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, French, etc
The trouble is that we need money to make that happen because these are fairly big changes. How would we get there?
Banes and I are thinking of a mix between direct donations to Paypal and a Kickstarter campaign - I hate Indiegogo, too may obstacles and it takes a really big cut.
Site redesign look and feel here: - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/177679/?page=3
Suggestions for money making and new features here: - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/forum/topic/178185/
This week Gunwallace has given us the theme to Android Blues: Cold blue, ancient mechanisms, clicking and pulsing… springs contracting, gears turning, cams slipping, servos spinning, capacitors whining… the machine works perfectly and mysteriously.
Topics and shownotes
Featured comic:
Ice Massacre - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2019/jun/18/featured-comic-ice-massacre/
Featured music:
Android Blues - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Android_Blues/, by Stahlberg, rated A.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - http://www.virtuallycomics.com
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei/
VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!
Episode 431 - Political messages in your work
Jun 17, 2019
This Quackcast is about having political agendas in your work and expressing them well! We're talking about deliberately putting in ideas that you want to get across to people, NOT the idea that all work has agendas and ideas no matter what. That's not relevant to this discussion. When you want to want to get your ideas across there are good ways to do it and poor ways. When you do it poorly your work either has the opposite effect (people will laugh at your agenda or despise it), or it becomes propaganda. Propaganda is for preaching to the converted, it's terrible for changing minds. The only thing it's good for is motivating people who are already on-board with you.
Episode 424 - Selling your creative dish
Apr 29, 2019
On one side we have creators of content and on the other we have the consumers. The consumers number in their billions and they're voraciously hungry for constant stimulation! Pretty much all creators are consumers too… So why don't they want the beautifully made, clever, spicy, artisanal dish you're selling? Why do they prefer the nice, bland, familiar mass-market high in fat, sugar and salt fast-food of the mainstream instead?
Episode 417 - Can we be better?
Mar 11, 2019
What is Social Marketing? Basically its word-of-mouth and viral marketing smashed together and weaponised: Marketing companies hijack hot-button social issues and hitch their client's brand to them in clever campaigns (“We can be better”, etc). The purpose isn't really to make a brand seem progressive, modern or new, rather it's another way of getting it trending on social media that's guaranteed to work, unlike the legion of hit or miss but mostly failed “Viral” campaigns. Whether people say negative or positive things about this issue is irrelevant to the marketer, as long as people are talking about the brand is all that matters. Free advertising is the goal, but it has a social cost.
Episode 416 - Making cuts
Mar 4, 2019
The entire team is here this time, no one was cut… So we're chatting about CUTTING, as in cutting out scenes to make a story cleaner, leaner and less flabby, but also NOT cutting because in a webcomic you don't have to, and when you cut badly you end up with a “D movie” effect where story scenes don't follow, don't make sense and plots seem to go nowhere or happen for no reason.
Episode 412 - Hiatusssss D:
Feb 4, 2019
A huge thank you to the fantastic Amelius, creator of Charby the Vampirate! We mined her great newspost on the topic of the comic hiatus for this Quackcast. When you're reading a comic and it goes on Hiatus it's an awful thing… suddenly all progress stops and you don't know for how long it will be gone for. Some authors are great, they'll reach a point where they can't work anymore for some reason or they'll take a little break, but they will tell you they're going on a hiatus and when their comic will return- and Lo, it comes back exactly when they said it would. Crappy authors will say they're going on a hiatus and never return.
Episode 402 - Audience expectations with characters
Nov 25, 2018
We're all back together this week and we're chatting about audience expectations for characters versus the intentions of the creator. Which is more important? Well it's a bit of a balancing act… You don't want to pander to your audience because that's not fun and they won't enjoy it anyway, but by the same token you shouldn't just do whatever you feel like regardless. As a creator you build up a contract between yourself and the audience; if you betray that by subverting their expectations with characters in ways that are very “OUT of character” just because you feel like it then you can start to lose their respect and attention. Killing off characters all of a sudden can be a big responsibility too, try not to take that lightly.
Episode 399 - How many characters is too many?
Nov 4, 2018
How many characters is too many? Ensemble casts can be fun and the interaction between characters can be more interesting than the actual plot of a story! But keeping track of characters from the audience point of view or even from the creator's perspective can be hard when you have a lot. Characters can copy each other and just become bad clones or you can forget what some are meant to be doing and create plot holes, audiences can stop caring about some of them or just become really confused. So how do you keep track? I think breaking them into small groups can be one good way to do it… What are some others?
