Otaku Links: Panels and Panel Lining

Otaku Links

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  • It takes a lot of work to run an anime convention, and a lot can go wrong. This story on Anime Matsuri should be required reading for convention runners about what not to do.
  • In other news, I spent a month reaching out to anime cons to figure out gender demographics. The main thing I learned is that these are really hard to find. Not everybody conducts them, and those who do haven’t been doing them for very long. In the future, I’d like to do a comparison infographic indicating how gender demographics have changed over time.
  • On the note of plugging my own articles, here’s a really basic tutorial for building Gundam models, even more basic than anything I’ve written on Gunpla 101. For example, this one doesn’t even get into panel lining! I plan to write many more Anime News Network features in the future! Anything you’d like to see me write about?
  • Dispirited but not defeated—one freelancer outlines the lengths she has had to go in order to get paid. It’s frustrating but true that you spend a lot of your time as a freelancer trying to get paid.
  • There Are No More Good Panels at Anime Conventions. Alain of Reverse Thieves discusses today’s fan discontent with the panel selection at cons. Which reminds me, I should sign up to offer more convention panels on otaku journalism and Gunpla topics.
  • Just for fun: Quality Anime. We love anime because it’s cheap and weird. Here are some of the Easter Eggs you may have missed.

Photo via Mitake, a Harajuku street snap model. 

Read this when you don’t feel confident about putting your work online.

Anime, Journalism

takeo rinko

When it comes to a lack of confidence, you’re not alone. Episode 23 of My Love Story! was a stellar example about how self-doubt can happen to even our favorite characters. If you haven’t watched yet, you might want to skip on this post (and if you want a premium Crunchyroll pass to watch it, email me and I’ll send you one).

In this episode, Takeo discovered he had a rival for his girlfriend Rinko’s affections. Another guy literally stops Takeo on the street and tells him that Takeo isn’t as good a fit for Rinko as he would be. And since Takeo doesn’t know anything about Rinko’s hobby, cake baking, and this guy does, he thinks maybe the guy has a point.

There’s a dramatic irony here because we audience members know that Rinko’s affections have never wavered. Takeo’s real enemy here is his own confidence. It’s a clear example of Imposter Syndrome, where Takeo doubts whether he deserves his good fortune. He thinks he’s just gotten lucky, when we know that his own actions are what make Rinko love him.

It’s easy to go, “Really Takeo? You think you’re a bad boyfriend because you can’t bake pastries?” but this is exactly how the unconfident brain attempts to rationalize. How many times have you felt unconfident about your assertions because of some anxious thought? Your story idea was rejected = you’re a terrible writer who will never hold down a job. A commenter disagrees with you = all of your opinions are terrible and wrong.

In my latest newsletter, I posed the following question to my followers: What would make you feel more confident about sharing your work online? I got some pretty legitimate concerns, and I’m going to try to address them here.

I’m worried I don’t have enough expertise.

Of all the responses I got, I relate to this one the most.

Take my work as a front-end developer. When clients are happy with my work, I assume they don’t know enough about site building to criticize my faults. Instead, I give tons of credence to commenters on the Internet, who have responded to my tutorials for building web servers and apps with stuff like, “Do you even know how to use a computer?” And that’s not even fair—I’ve had way more good comments than bad ones. I gravitate to negative comments because they reinforce the voice in my brain that is always telling me that I suck.

I use development as an example here instead of writing because I have no formal training as a developer. I constantly feel like everyone is better than me. I recently told a friend, “I bet you think my code is sloppy,” and he replied, “I wouldn’t know, you’ve been coding way longer than I have.” The point is that even though I’m always learning more, I’m already a relative expert.

It’s actually healthy to doubt yourself a little. What’s dangerous is when you’re 100% confident in your abilities, because that means you’re not considering what you don’t know. If you have enough knowledge to realize you could be doing better, you’re on the right track.

I’m worried I will be harassed.

This is an extremely legitimate concern on the Internet as it is today. There’s an environment of hostility against content creators. For example, it used to be that when there was an error in one of my stories, people would say “X is incorrect.” Now they say, “You lied about X,” assuming malice over a simple mistake.

I’m not going to insult your intelligence by assuming you mistake legitimate critique (error corrections and differing opinions) for harassment (threatening language, personal attacks). The former is not only unavoidable, but it will make you a better reporter. This sort of interaction can be intimidating at first, but learning to deal with it will help you develop a healthy thicker skin.

Meanwhile, harassment is completely uncalled for and you never deserve it. While it’s true that the only way to avoid harassment (in the form of unsolicited emails, tweets, and phone calls) is to not post anything at all, there are ways to make yourself less of a target. Use evidence to back up any assertions or opinions you post. I believe it’s good to make your audience emotional, but don’t make them angry for no good reason, especially if that’s not your intention. Share an article with friends before posting to look for any red flags.

If you do incite attention, check that you’re using strong passwords and two-factor identification to lock down your Internet presence. Most importantly, do not try to justify yourself by replying to any harassing messages. They’re just looking to get a reaction out of you.

I’m worried nobody will care.

Here’s a concern on the opposite side of the spectrum—that you’ll put something out there and nobody will read it at all! Actually, that was my reality for the first couple months of this blog. My only commenter was my husband. Look and see.

Success doesn’t happen overnight. The internet is a big place and chances are that if it’s your first attempt at putting up a blog, it’ll take a while for your readers to find it. You can help them along by posting your articles on social media. Don’t spam them, but sometimes I find that people don’t see my link the first time, so I usually link to my posts twice in a couple days. Definitely send your posts to me, too, so I can consider them for Otaku Links!

Think about it this way: is anybody going to care about your work if you keep it to yourself? Didn’t think so. Sharing can be scary, but it’s the only way to take that first step.

Thanks to everyone who replied to my newsletter and was brave enough to share one of their fears with me. My newsletter community is awesome, and we’d love to have you there, too.

Screenshot via My love story!

Otaku Links: Getting happy on the Internet

Otaku Links

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  • Masques and Murder is a name-your-own-price game about avenging your family as a Renaissance-era noblewoman, and it sounds fantastic.
  • I just read Ship It, an amazing screenplay about a teen girl who becomes the PR rep for a show that sounds mysteriously like Supernatural. It’s tightly written, funny, and painfully true for anyone who’s ever been a part of slash fandom.

Photo of Powergrid board game by me.

5 ways to launch your niche writing career today

Journalism

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Last week, I wrote about the ways I make money as a niche freelancer.

Some of you found it intimidating, which I completely understand. You can’t just flip a switch—it took me years to develop various income streams that, combined, are enough for me to earn a living. I’d find it overwhelming myself to start over from scratch.

However, you don’t need years or even weeks to get started on just one income stream. In fact, you only need a couple of hours in one day. Here are some of the “first steps” I took toward creating my career. Even better, these are applicable for any niche you choose to pursue.

Make a minimum viable product

I bet you’ve got an idea for a book or some equally sized opus kicking around in your brain. Rather than watch another year go by as you fail to find the time to create, try thinking small. Starting from your original idea, what’s the smallest possible finished product you could create?

For years I’ve wanted to make a massive book for my readers full of all the scripts and tips and tricks I use to reach out to clients and sources and come up with article ideas. Still, I only had 15 worksheets in mind, so I put out the Niche Journalism Workbook instead. It’s smaller than my original idea, but also more digestible for readers. Plus, I’m sure readers would rather get their hands on this smaller product of mine than, you know, no product at all.

Narrow down your big idea into its most useful or entertaining part, and resolve to release that. Could your novel be a short story? Could you pitch your research project as a news article? Or maybe your advice book could become a digital workbook, like mine.

Pitch one article

Launching a freelance writing career, with multiple outlets for publication, takes a long time. Pitching just one article is a lot quicker, and can have the effect of cascading into more work.

Start with one idea. Maybe it’s based on a blog post you’ve written. Maybe it’s based on a question you’ve had. If you have it, it’s likely a lot of other people do, too. (See my post on why anime wall art comes on scrolls.) Send that idea to five different outlets. Do your very best to address your emails to a human name, not just a press@ or hello@ email dumping ground.

Everyone is afraid of being rejected, which is why this short, simply, career-launching suggestion takes up lots of emotional space—but very little of your time. Remind yourself that a rejection for a story idea is not a rejection of you, and keep pitching new stuff.

Build a simple portfolio page

You need a website: you already know this. If you don’t have Web design experience, you know it’s going to cost you either money hiring a designer, time teaching yourself what to do, or both. Even if you do have experience, you might have trouble dedicating time to putting up a site.

Or so you thought. There are plenty of free, easy alternatives to launching a massive site. If you’re a reporter with existing bylines, you could use Pressfolios to show them off, no money or web skills required. Looking for something even simpler? You could use About.me for a standalone introduction page. My top recommendation is setting up a WordPress.com blog, which you can do in minutes and customize with thousands of free themes. Even if you’re too busy to blog, you can use WordPress as a static portfolio website with just a couple clicks. Whatever you do, include your email prominently on the page—just in case somebody wants to hire you based solely on what they see on your site.

You can set up a more informative site later, but the sooner you get up a temporary website, the more chances you have to introduce yourself digitally to any prospective editor or client who might be looking for a niche writer of exactly your type.

Launch a newsletter

Freelance careers are harder when you feel like you’re alone. But when you launch a newsletter and start growing an audience for it, you’ll always have an audience, no matter how small.

My newsletter is the first to hear about new blog posts I’ve written and more personal thoughts than I feel comfortable sharing on my blog. (After all, if they took the effort to join my newsletter, I tell myself, they care at least a little.) I also share new products on my newsletter first, and even though there are just a few hundred recipients, most of my sales come from there.

I write a newsletter (and subscribe to a lot of other people’s) for the sense of community that comes from it. It’s amazing how many friendships I’ve sparked from somebody replying to my newsletter, me replying to them, and it turning into a regular email correspondence. Start your own in a few minutes, for free, on MailChimp.

Incorporate affiliate links into your blog

This is probably the most controversial tip I’ve got for you today, since many people (friends of mine included) don’t believe affiliate links work. In my experience, they work great—so long as you are open and honest about using them and ensuring they’re relevant to your readers.

Ever since adding affiliate links to Gunpla 101, I’m able to write about one of my favorite topics, the 30-year-old Gundam anime franchise, and get paid for it—while keeping the entire site ad-free. I even just began earning enough to pay a contributor at a competitive rate. So for me, affiliate links are freedom, a way to write about whatever weird topic you want, provided that topic involves merchandise of some kind that your readers will want to buy. I think this would be a great income stream for a movie review site or a makeup tutorial site, for starters.

Sign up for free for Amazon Associates and take an hour to add relevant links to your existing blog (or come up with post ideas for a new one). Either way, don’t forget to include a note for your readers that you use them—it could be as simple as this one.

In conclusion, I want to pose a question to you, readers:

What’s stopping you from launching your niche writing career today?

Without knowing your specific problems, my tips are pretty general and might not work exactly for you. So let me know.

Otaku Links: Kickstarter-rama

Otaku Links

space_links

  • My friend Bill (who I have never actually met) has rapped about Magic: The Gathering and video games, and now he’s making unique electronic albums for every individual who backs his Kickstarter: Music To Die Alone In Space To.
  • On that note, just how much money does your Kickstarter need to earn for you to be able to actually deliver on your promises and not go broke doing it? Marian Call wrote up some Kickstarter math with a handy spreadsheet.
  • Also, have you heard of Inkshares? It’s a bit like Kickstarter for books. People pre-order their favorite drafts, and if enough people pick yours, Inkshares will publish your book.
  • What it’s like to be an idol otaku, a fan who spends his free time following the careers of idols, or Japanese career entertainers who are usually pretty young women. This article focuses on an idol otaku identified as Otaben, and is written by one of his friends for a very candid look into his hobby.

Illustration by Ashley Lange