Otaku Links: Spring season wrap-up

Otaku Links

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  • A Cosplayer Is Running For Political Office. Everyone is sending me this link, from my editor to a former journalism professor. It’s neat to see how this Green Party candidate stays true to herself. I’ve seen enough political scandals to know that many politicians have WAY worse hobbies than cosplay, so power to her!
  • How am I going to wait for the next season of My Hero Academia? In the meantime, I loved reading these translated character sketches from creator Kohei Horikoshi. Thanks to @LossThief for sending me this when I asked!
  • Day of Gar Gar Stegasaurus wrote an angry but poignant essay about homosexual erasure in Kiznaiver. Maki went from yuri mangaka involved in her own lesbian romance to suddenly straight heroine, and it’s a little odd.
  • The secret life of K-pop fans over 30. Colette went to K-Con and wrote about the not-insubstantial group of older fans who have made a place for themselves in K-pop’s youth-obsessed culture.
  • About a year ago, my friend Scott let me beta-read his short story about a brave and capable science fiction heroine. Now, he’s about to be published in an anthology of diverse sci-fi—Enough Space For Everyone. With two more weeks to go, the Kickstarter is a third of the way there!

Screenshot via Kiznaiver

Getting published isn’t everything: a cautionary tale

Careers, Writing

cosplay-book-tale

A few days ago, my friend Ejen Chuang sent me some direct messages on Twitter, leading with “Your book has been repackaged as a UK magazine-format book.”

He sent me some snaps of a book/magazine hybrid that doesn’t look familiar to me at all, except for the fact that it uses photos of cosplayers I selected. Oh, and there’s my name listed as the author of it. All published by a publisher, Imagine, I’ve never heard of/worked with.

I’ve known about The New Cosplay Book since May, but this is my first time seeing it in the wild. And I’m not exactly proud of it being out there, because it’s such a glaring indication of my biggest mistake as an author.

new-cosplay

Back in 2014, I was so starry-eyed with the possibility of writing a Real Book, I probably would have paid for the opportunity. I signed the publishing contract without really looking at it. I proceeded to write the manuscript in seven weeks as ordered, documenting it on the blog. I ignored the warning signs through readers’ innocuous questions like, “What is it like working with an editor in traditional publishing?” (I didn’t) that proved this was not a traditional book deal. I was just excited to see my published work in bookstores around the world.

And that happened. You can now pick up a copy of Cosplay: The Fantasy World of Role Play at any Barnes & Noble in the US, and some places in the UK, too. But I knew I was replaceable. I didn’t attend a single one of the book signings I was invited to, since the publisher told me I would be expected to pay my own way to get to the locations (London, Toronto).

Still, I was thrilled when my typically uncommunicative contact at the publishing house reached out in January to let me know the book had done well enough to garner a second printing! She asked if I had any changes to make to the original manuscript before that, and I excitedly outlined a strategy for getting all the previously unidentified cosplayers in the book credited. (Since I was under a time constraint, I simply credited photographers when neither I or the photographer could remember a cosplayer’s name.) I never heard back.

Then in May, one of the photographers I’d worked with told me she’d become aware of a second cosplay book using her photos, and was reasonably upset she hadn’t been paid. When we used her photos for Cosplay, it was presumed to be a “one time use” license. The link she sent me to Imagine’s website was how I got notified that there was a new book with my name on it.

I was shocked. I hadn’t heard a word from my publisher since January. At first I was angry. But flipping through my contract again, I realized that I had no right to know about what they did with my work after I handed it over in November 2014. Even if they sold it. Back then, I sold my rights entirely for about $3,000. (And since then I haven’t made a cent, since royalties aren’t included. I don’t get paid when the book gets bought.) They don’t owe me a response at all.

I wrote to my original publisher on the photographer’s behalf, but never heard back. What made this an especially awful mistake was that I unwittingly roped eight fantastic cosplay photographers into working for free. I used my reputation as the Otaku Journalist to convince them to work with me, if we weren’t friends already (“Look at my blog to see how seriously I take fandom,” I told them). But ultimately they were working for the publisher, not for me.

If I could do it all over again, I’d model it after what Ejen did. That’s what I wrote in my Forbes article, I Wrote A Book About Cosplay, But This Guy Wrote A Better One. “I’m grateful to the publisher for giving me that opportunity, but I hardly consider that book as my own work,” I wrote. “If I had the chance to do it again, I’d want to tell a story about [cosplay’s] people.”

I’m no longer proud of what I did with Cosplay—writing an impersonal 101 and hardly protecting the photographers that worked with me just so I could see my name in bookstores. I’m much happier with my self-published books, for which I chose the topic and content myself, for which I paid my artists and editors on my own terms, for which I still control the rights.

Last November, I wrote about how writing a book didn’t change my life. It didn’t make me wealthier or better known or better established as an author. But now I realize it did change my life in one key way—it made me wiser. I won’t be signing a contract like that again.

Top photo by me, other photos by Ejen.

Otaku Links: SD Week

Otaku Links

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Hope you’re having a less hectic Friday than I am. The thing about freelance work is when it rains, it pours. A bunch of my dormant long term clients suddenly had new work for me, so I’m glad it’s almost the weekend for a different reason than usual—I don’t want to relax, I want to catch up!

  • It’s SD week over at my other blog, Gunpla 101, where me and two of my contributors are sharing our recent builds of the cutest Gunpla grade—SC (Super Deformed).
  • By the way, if you are interested in Gunpla and writing and would like to write for Gunpla 101, email me. Pays per blog post, competitive rate—I’m a web writer myself, so I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t!
  •  Zac and Jake at Anime News Network just unveiled the site’s first webcomic since Anime News Nina ended—it’s called Vice and Luna and tells an alternate fantasy story of ANN in a world where fairies are real.
  • I love discovering new anime blogs. Fanservice Check is a blog that lets you know which anime feature lots of panty shots and naughty situations so you know to avoid—or seek out—those particular titles, your pick.

That’s all the links I have this week. This is why I need you! If you have recommendations for Otaku Links, you are welcome, nay, ENCOURAGED, to let me know.

Photo of SD Gundam Musha Victory by me.

I asked, you answered. The 2016 survey results are here!

Writing

2016-survey-results

The first thing I have to say is, wow. I got 22 results last time I held a blog survey, and this time that quadrupled with 80 respondents total! I tried to keep the survey short and sweet but I know you have a lot on your plate every day, and I’m so glad you took some of your time to help me figure things out over here. According to Google Analytics, between 400 and 500 people read Otaku Journalist every day, so we’re looking at a full 5% of the audience. That may not sound like much, but when you consider that marketers are happy with 4% engagement, I’m thrilled.

I was never planning to keep it all to myself, so let’s take a look at the breakdown before I announce the giveaway winner.

The first question was, “How did you find Otaku Journalist?” and I’m not surprised to see that 24 respondents, more than a quarter of everyone who filled out the survey, said some form of Twitter. For better or worse, Twitter is where I spend most of my online hours, even after I tapered back my involvement after this experiment. I have 5,600 followers and Twitter says my tweets get 200,000 impressions a month, so I can see how that might lead people here.

My second question was about what people like to read on Otaku Journalist:

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This was a mandatory question, so this pie chart is out of 80. The biggest chunk is “Personal fandom essays” with 37.5% of the vote. “Geek career advice” and “writing advice” weren’t far behind. Honestly, I thought one of those latter two would end up with the biggest piece of the pie, because I assume you want to read blog posts that apply to you—complete with advice that you can implement to make your life better. But there’s another reason blogs are still around, and it’s that we all are hungry to connect. I thought my personal essays—anecdotal, geeky stories about my life—might be egocentric. What I was missing was that when my audience shares my interests, these stories aren’t so self-centered after all. Advice, well, I was already planning to write more of that. But stories? Now I’m wondering which ones I can dig up for you.

Also: why did I give people the ability to pick “Other” without clarifying what they meant???

The third question asked you to “check all topics that apply,” instead of just picking your favorite topic on Otaku Journalist, and it wasn’t all that helpful because it was VERY similar to the pie chart breakdown.

Fourth, I asked you about a course.

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Out of 80, this means that 57 people (71.3%) said yes. I’m impressed it was even that many, when I gave so little information about what a course might entail. Also, I totally said I was going to create a course already and never did, because my post about it got exactly one comment and I wasn’t confident anyone cared. Well, I guess people care!

By the way, here’s what you said you wanted to learn about:

results-3

Ethics and bias in fandom reporting has a really bad reputation on our post-GamerGate web, so I wonder if my wording here is why that in particular was so unpopular. But the things you wanted to learn about the most were a three-way tie. It’s time to dust off my old course outline, and make these three items some of the most prominent.

Also, I probably should have asked something about the course STRUCTURE. Like, do people want videos? Workbooks? Other? (I’m never letting people choose “other” again.)

The final question was optional: anonymous comments or critique about Otaku Journalist. Now, usually this would be terrifying. If I asked my Forbes readers how I could improve and gave them an anonymous forum, I’d probably be ripped to shreds. But of course, readers here are the absolute best and the vast majority of critique was “I like what you’re doing, so do more of it more often.”

Here’s some critique that stood out:

  • A few people asked to hear about my life as a web developer. OK! I can contrast that with being a journalist. Or tell you about how I can just reference anime to other developers and they instantly get it. And one day I want to tell you about the sexual harassment thing I dealt with at my job, but not until I’ve had a little more time to get past it.
  • More people asked me to write more often. When I started this blog, I used to write three posts a week. Then, it was two posts and a link round-up. Then, one post and a link round-up. Now I also miss weeks entirely! I can’t promise going back to three a week, but knowing people are looking out for that Monday post is motivating.
  • One person suggested I post my freelancing output, and I loved this idea. I blog about how you can make money blogging, but you don’t really get to see how I personally do that. I occasionally post this stuff in Otaku Links, but a monthly breakdown of what I did to get by as a geek entrepreneur might be pretty useful and cool.

Finally, it’s time to announce the winner of the survey drawing. Twenty-three people entered by commenting on the post. I assumed the first commenter to be “Submission 1” and the last to be “Submission 23.” With that in mind I went to Random.org and…

Screen Shot 2016-06-19 at 8.18.44 PM

Congrats to Jenny, commenter #18! I’ve already contacted her about claiming her prize.

Thanks to everyone for entering and participating. This was a super enlightening exercise and I feel renewed energy to work on new stuff for you, which seems to be what everyone wants anyway!

Photo by Martin Fisch.

Otaku Links: Looking ahead

Otaku Links

otaku-links-haman

Weeks like this, there’s nothing to do except keep busy and not think too much. I’ve been nonstop booked—attending a women’s only coding night, meeting my entire family for happy hour (yes, we all live in happy hour distance still), planting a garden, donating my delicious O+ blood—and only passing out a little—and taking on a cool new project for Anime News Network.

And of course, I’ve been skimming the early replies to the Otaku Journalist survey and feeling closer to you than usual. Thanks to the 50+ people who have already filled it out! It means so much to me to know you’re reading and responding. I’ll share some infographic stats on Monday, but for now: links.

  • I’ve been watching a LOT of Gundam lately. Last week I linked my Gundam X and Gundam ZZ reviews; yesterday I just turned in my Gundam X part 2 review, now I’m zipping through the rest of ZZ and oh yeah, I just noticed my review of the Zeta Gundam compilation movies is out.
  • How to write a book. Not anime related, but Ryan Holiday’s commitment to making Greek and Roman philosophy not only palatable, but relevant to modern day readers is very much in line with the Otaku Journalist manifesto.

Gundam ZZ screenshot by me. If you want a clean version, here you go!