Otaku Links: Trash girls

Otaku Links

Screenshot via Gabriel Dropout on Crunchyroll

The evolution of an anime convention attendee

Fandom

I went to my first Katsucon eight years ago, in 2009.

I was 22, still in college. I had no idea that my boyfriend would one day be my husband. I was covering Katsucon for the school paper, and every single aspect of it felt newsworthy to me.

Fast forward to last year, when I didn’t even go. Last year I wrote about the range of emotions I felt when I sat out on Katsucon, an annual staple in my life for years and years.

I think this is a problem every otaku runs into as they age. After a few years, the novelty starts to wear off. A convention feels less like one big party and more like a somewhat-functional machine, as you begin to notice the volunteers and organizational structure. And as I got older, I began to see myself more in the administrators than in the attendees.

Because the attendees look basically the same as when I starting going eight years ago; fresh-faced college kids for whom the novelty of Katsucon definitely hasn’t worn off.

So what do you do when the novelty is gone? Give yourself a reason to be there.

This year was one of my better Katsucon experiences, because I had a role to play. John and I submitted three Gundam-themed panels, and two were accepted. On Saturday and Sunday morning, we were on stage, giving a presentation to attendees.

It made me realize that what I’ve really wanted for years is a reason to be at Katsucon. In 2015 I filled it with spending—John and I bought so much pricey Gunpla in the dealer’s room that we probably set back our saving for our Japan trip by six months. Having a purpose was what compelled me to get to Katsucon even though I’d broken my foot the day before—I had promised to be there as a journalist, and luckily I had John to wheel me around.

Now, I think I’ve found a role that works for me. Eight years ago, everything was so new and strange that I never would have imagined being a panelist. But now I think this is what I’ll do from now on. It feels like giving back.

A month from now, I’ll be at Anime Boston, a con I’ve never second-guessed attending. You guessed it—it’s because I’ve attended as a volunteer ever since my very first visit. The cost of a plane ticket is nothing to the feeling of helping contribute to such a fantastic event. I’m glad that I can help contribute to the magic of the con for starry-eyed first-timers.

Last year I wrote that I was worried about changing, about what it meant for me as a fan if I no longer enjoyed cons. But this year I realized change isn’t necessarily bad. I’d simply grown into a different role.

Top photo by Pat. Photos of Katsucon scenery by me. 

Otaku Links: Katsucon Bound

Otaku Links

Will you be at Katsucon this weekend? In that case, it’s a rare moment to catch the Otaku Journalist in the wild! I’ll be giving two panels—37 years of Gundam (Saturday, 9:15 AM in Live 2) and He is a Char (Sunday, 10:30 AM in Live 7). I’ll be wearing my own t-shirt line designed by Ben Huber both days.

Anyway, onto the links!

Photo via CNN Travel

How I find new writing jobs

Careers, Writing

If you’ve been reading my monthly income reports, you know that I’ve seriously increased my writing output, and it’s been paying off.

Whenever I find an income stream that works, I want to share the wealth with my readers. The same way I did when I discovered the surprisingly un-scammy world of affiliate blogging. So today I’m sharing exactly how I get freelance writing work most often:

I ask former clients.

This is the number one most likely way to get new work. Former clients are people who’ve hired you before, so they know what you can do. If you did a good job before, it’s likely you will again.

If it’s been awhile since you worked with a former client, you can give them a reason, but you don’t have to. I do if it’s relevant. For example, when I wanted to start working again with a client who commissions me to write tech tutorials, I was sure to let them know I hadn’t been in touch lately because my job as a web developer, learning new tech skills, had been taking all my time! I definitely think that tidbit worked in my favor when they decided to hire me again.

I ask other freelancers.

In a lot of fields, you’ll find that freelancers are very territorial and won’t share gigs. Not so in online writing. News sites and blogs need such a massive amount of content in order to drive traffic, it’s more than one person could possibly do.

Take my work at Forbes. I am one of hundreds of bloggers there, and the company is always looking for new ones. So when fellow writers ask me how they can work at Forbes, and I think they do good work, I forward them to my editor. Asking nicely will get you far! Insulting your fellow writers, like this Tumblr anon did, will get you nowhere.

Facebook communities.

An aspiring writer who is just getting started in his career asked me where I find new writing work. I considered all my original leads, and it turned out that for all my current jobs except for anime sites, I found them through a woman-only Facebook community! It’s a community for women writers that’s invite-only, and because it’s exclusive the leads are great.

I definitely think invite-only Facebook communities are the way to go. They’re invite-only to keep people who aren’t very invested out, and if you’re serious about writing you’ll definitely pass the moderators’ vetting process. Here’s a great selection of exclusive groups for writers to start with.

Always check your LinkedIn.

When I tell people about this blunder, it sounds like I’m exaggerating. But I really missed out on a $4,000 reviewing job because I forgot to check my LinkedIn for an entire week.

I have “writing and editing” listed at the top of my LinkedIn bio. Because of that, people looking for writers sometimes send me in-mail, which I usually never check. A lot of the time it’s stuff I’m not interested in, or doesn’t pay well. This time it was the exact opposite! And by the time I checked a week later, the website had filled the position. Don’t be me. Get your in-mail forwarded to your email, or set up alerts.

Local meetups.

Sometimes I find jobs this way! But not through local meetups for writers. Writers can give you leads to jobs, but rarely are they looking to hire anybody themselves! So instead, I go to meetups in the field I want to find writing jobs in.

For me, that’s WordPress. I go to meetups for people interested in building WordPress sites, learning to manage business blogs, and stuff like that. A lot of the time, the organizers or people who are attending are looking to pay for content for their blogs. And sometimes, they’re looking for web design, which I also do, so these meetups are doubly useful for me!

But I avoid cold calls.

It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten a job from just calling or emailing a client outright. So I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone.

Instead, I’d suggest returning to my second step, asking other freelancers. If you know somebody, or know somebody through somebody, who works somewhere you’d like to work, ask them about the best way to contact a potential client. Some prefer, for example, that you provide three potential pitches for topics you could write about in the first email.

Have you ever gotten a writing job in one of these ways? Or perhaps a different way, even an unusual one? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Otaku Links: At home in Japan

Otaku Links

  • This happens to me all the time—I KNOW an anime is streaming legally, but I don’t remember where. I just found out about because.moe, a legal streaming search engine with the answer every time!
  • Chic Pixel’s Ultimate Guide to Blogging. Would you believe this lengthy, advice-packed post is just part one? Come for Anne’s great blogging tips, stay for her kawaii Instagram posts.
  • Take a tour of a modern Japanese house. What’s a 4LDK? Apparently that’s how a large home in Japan is marketed—four bedrooms, a living room, dining room, and kitchen. I was wondering how realistically the large modern homes you see in anime are portrayed.
  • Even as I deeply respect his work, I sort of hate Ryan Holiday, and why shouldn’t I? His experience successfully manipulating the media is a reminder of the exploitable weak points in journalism. All the more reason for reporters to pay attention to his latest: I Helped Create the Milo Trolling Playbook. You Should Stop Playing Right Into It. This guy knows what he’s talking about.
  • Why aren’t problematic translations fixed? Amelia wrote a thoughtful treatise on the Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid dub, which some fans worry erases gay identity. Dubbing is hard work, and the same woman who dubbed Dragon Maid was once under fire for a GamerGate reference in a previous project. That alone tells me that this is an honest mistake, or that’d be a VERY wide spectrum of beliefs to promote!
  • America’s favorite Winter 2017 anime by state. Looks like I live in the well-known Blue Exorcist belt.

Photo by Tokyo Times on Flickr.