Category: Careers

I couldn’t believe my ears at Anime Boston when people were raving about a Winter 2017 show called Kemono Friends. But a few weeks later, I’m the one recommending it!

Kemono Friends looks downright awful. And it gets worse from there, according to this Tokyosaurus YouTube video about its production:

• The anime was created to promote a cell phone game which was already canceled before the anime began airing.
  
• Only ten people (not counting voice actors) worked on the anime, including the director and producers.
  
• It cut a lot of corners. In the earlier episodes, the wheels on the bus the characters ride around in don’t turn. Also, the majority of the characters are girls with animal characteristics—and they have both animals ears AND human ears.
  

But despite all that? People friggin’ loved it.

With a simple “hero’s journey” plot that shows instead of tells, and plenty of relatable characters with easily-digestible storylines, it’s a simple, sweet show. Accompanied by an undercurrent of bizarre mystery, it stood out as a mold-breaking show partially because of its risky cheapness.

This is a certainly low-budget and undeniably flawed, but unabashedly adored show. It reminded me of an illustration I’ve seen going around Tumblr about two cakes:

I was thinking about this after doing a collaboration video with Crunchyroll last Monday. My video isn’t perfect—I flubbed my lines and misstated at least one fact. Plus, there are already a lot of way better videos out there by people more talented than I am. I feel stupid admitting this now, but for the day after the video came out I did not spend my time celebrating this great opportunity to work with one of my favorite companies, or feeling good about sharing one of my favorite hobbies, Gunpla building, with a much wider audience than usual.

Instead, I felt that time feeling like crap. I kept thinking that I could have done a better job if I had redone the video. I kept thinking somebody else entirely could have done it better than me.

Of course, that’s not how the audience reacted! Just like Kemono Friends fans were happy to watch a quirky new anime and the audience in the cake comic was excited to chow down, people were happy to find another Gunpla fan, and sent me all sorts of praise. I got email from people who said it inspired them to make their own Gunpla, or even their own Gunpla videos.

Even if I wasn’t 100% confident about it, I know the world is a better place because I got over myself and made something. The world is a better place with more cakes in it. We assume other people look at us through the same harsh lens through which we view ourselves, every fault magnified. But I assure you you’re being way harder on yourself than anyone else would be.

To make your audience happy, you don’t need to be the most talented person. You don’t need to invest tons of cash into a project to make it watchable. You need an idea that you believe in and the enthusiasm to power through and put it out into the world.

You might think you suck, but your audience doesn’t. If even a show as cheap and weird as Kemono Friends could find a massive audience, who is to say your idea is too “out there” to succeed? If you have an idea you’re so passionate about that you can convince your audience to be passionate about it, too, it doesn’t matter how you get it out there as long as you do.

Lead image via Kemono Friends.

Freelance can be unpredictable. This week, I’m swamped with paid work. Last week, not so much. And since last Wednesday lined up with International Women’s Day, I decided to use my excess free time to build a new woman-created project I’ve been thinking about for months.

Now it’s here, it’s free, and it’s called The Geek Blogger’s Guide to Your First $1000. It’s part auto-bio, part how-to, of how I figured out how to get this blog to become profitable over the years, where profitable does not mean “wealthy” but does mean “gives back more than I put in.”

Get the course!

This guide is for you if you:

• Have (or want to begin) a blog about a topic you totally geek out about. Passion is a huge part of my monetization process!
• You want to make an income without being sleazy or alienating your audience. Look elsewhere if you want black hat or grey hat methods.
• You’re open-minded and willing to do the work in order to get something back. Each of these methods involves effort up front, but I think they are worth it.

Mailing list members should already be well-acquainted with this course if they want to be, because I sent it out to my 500+ current newsletter subscribers last night.

If you’re not on the mailing list yet, you can get the Geek Blogger’s Guide to Your First $1000 as a six part e-mail course delivered to your inbox over a week if you sign up here.

Whither the old course, the Niche Reviewer Crash Course? You can still opt in for that. I’m using MailChimp to organize all this, so now, when you subscribe you the mailing list you can select one or both courses to receive when you sign up.

I put a lot of work into this course so whether you’re a current subscriber or new here, I want you to have it. And if you like it, be sure to let me know!

Get the course!

Last year around this time, I attended an energy healing session.

This requires some context. I had decided to put renewed effort (and capital) into my business, and I was working with a pricey business coach. Her online business model was smart and succinct, and she was doing incredibly well for herself. So when she provided a free energy healing with the coaching package, I figured I’d give it a try.

Fast forward to me on my couch, a phone to my ear while the energy healer directed me and five other women to “raise your hands to the sky and feel good vibes flowing through you.” Over the course of an hour, she walked us through breathing exercises, told us about our past lives (“Your ancestors are grateful for the career you’ve chosen,” she told me, maybe not realizing I write about anime), and cleansed our “aural grids,” whatever that means. By the time the hour was over, some of the other women were eagerly signing up for follow-up sessions, which run to the tune of $300 an hour. Me? I was vowing to never tell anyone about it.

Honestly, I got nothing out of it, and felt sort of stupid I even attended. And yet, I can’t write it off completely—my business coach, who is wildly more successful than me by every measure, swears by her regular energy cleansing sessions. Maybe focusing on your spiritual outlook first helps other people succeed at business, but not this skeptical atheist.

This may have been the only such session I’ve ever attended, but certainly not the only one I’ve heard about or been invited to. I’m not sure why, but the narrative of business success (for women especially) is tied to the spiritual. Perhaps it’s because women are encouraged to “have it all” and strive at every aspect of their lives in order to feel successful at even one thing, so mental health, “self care,” and fitness are all tied to having a brilliant career.

Now that I’m getting over my embarrassment, I want to say this is some of the worst business advice I’ve ever received. And I feel that even well-meaning, non-superstitious people believe it.

Here’s some more pseudo-psychology advice that hasn’t helped me at all:

“You can leave your work at the office”

At one meeting for local women entrepreneurs, I met a shaman. Her day job is going out to the wealthy suburbs of DC to burn candles and ring a bell to “purify” McMansions. We were talking about taxes until it became clear she was in a much, much higher tax bracket than I was.

By this point, I was almost thinking, “Sign me up!” But there’s no way I wouldn’t erupt into giggles between sutras, because I think this is all bull. Just think of how amazing this woman is, being able to do all this with a straight face. She really believes in her work.

I have no problem parting rich people from their money, but without that devotion, I would just feel like a fraud every day. We spend the majority of our time working. If you go into work that directly opposes your belief structure, you’ll be depressed even after you go home.

“Build it and they will come”

A lot of business and life advice for women centers around “putting an intention out into the universe.” Create a vision board of your dreams. Chant personal mantras. Write your goals on a piece of paper and burn it while meditating into the flames. You get the idea.

Frankly, I don’t think the universe gives a shit about what I “intend” to do. Last month I launched Asuna, my first WordPress theme from scratch, and since then have sold exactly one copy. Time to double down on daily affirmations? Probably I’d be better off, you know, advertising it.

“How you do something is how you do everything”

I heard about a woman who charges thousands to train people to run races in order to increase their earnings, stating the correlation that lots of successful people run races. By that logic, I should be rich—I ran two 10K races and four 5K races last year.

The idea is that if you can put the time, effort, and capital into running races, you’ll discover that you have renewed endurance to put into your business. But I’m not sure there’s a connection. Some of the times I’ve earned the most money in my career have been times when every other aspect of my life was falling apart. I once had a period of emotional stress in which I stopped eating. I didn’t really notice what a wreck I was until I attended a conference for work and the promotional fanny pack (long story) they gave me to wear slipped down to my ankles. And yet, I was doing pretty well as a careerist, getting lots of bylines and recognition for my work.

It is certainly easier for me to work hard when I am happy and healthy. But whether I’m good or bad at other aspects of my life doesn’t transfer to whether I’m good or bad at my career.

“Fake it ’til you make it” 

Haha, I have imposter syndrome. I will not attempt to sell a service or product until I am at least twice as qualified as I need to be.

Different things work for different people, but none of this advice has worked for me. If I had to boil down what has worked for my business is one word: persistence. I go back to my work every day. I try a variety of techniques, including some of the events and programs for women entrepreneurs listed here, which you may also find sort of questionable. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, and sometimes I try something so dumb I vow not to tell anyone (except only all of my readers, a full year later). I decide if it’s for me or not, and move on.

Photo by Claire on Flickr