#creator advice

Are you creating because you want fame and popularity, or for no reason other than your passion for it? If it's for fame and popularity and not purely from passion - don't. Fame and popularity must be 0% priority, it must come from the heart. Create the characters you want, create the stories you want to - not what you think others want and will like. You are your own target audience.

What is the character's purpose to exist? What is their story to tell and the reason to tell it? What is the backstory? Who are they, as a truly 3D being - like any real person is ?(you know this has happened when suddenly, your characters have developed 'minds of their own' and you no longer feel you can control them - you will know what I mean when you experience what this truly feels like.) How does their name and appearance reflect them, as a person? How would their time period and culture have shaped them? You will find more questions like this and you should be asking yourself every single question you can think of regarding your character - including the reason why your answer is what it is. The answer should be in character and make sense for said character.

Do extensive research on all topics and experience which you will portray in your creations. Also, if the characters are from the past, do extensive research on their time period.

I give this following advice in #5 as an extreme horror creator, and I'm including this as I assume that you ask me because this is the genre you want to go into creating: A) you need to be 18+ to do this, plain and simple. This is not a genre appropriate for minors to be creating for, there are various reasons for this. B) your work needs to have a message, however, getting graphic and brutal (though you should not be creating extreme horror unless you are able to execute this properly), in your face and over the top with it - that's completely okay. Making people uncomfortable and disturbed and upset is the goal of extreme horror - not entertainment or to comfort. C) give an explanation for an antagonists reasons, though never an excuse nor ability to redeem. D) cross 'red lines' E) understand you will be controversial, get lots of backlash, many people will simply not have the comprehension to understand your creations. You need to be prepared for this and you need to just ignore it. Opinions only matter from people who are into the same genre. F) you need to practice a lot before posting. G) You need to consume and understand the points of other extreme horror media.

If you do not have direct, exact lived experience with things you portray in you character and work, you need to do extensive research, listen to many people who do have that experience, and talk to people personally about their experience. You need to be aware of if it is a subject you should not ask one about and only ask (still keep the questions vague) if they offer first to share. Furthermore, do not touch any subjects unless you are confident that you can portray and handle them with the necessary maturity, awareness, capacity, and knowledge.

Commit. You must have the passion to truly commit. This must be something you are willing to dedicate years and years to. Understand you are a beginner and have so much to learn. Be receptive and take constructive criticism from those more experienced than you. And don't give up. Failing and making mistakes is essential to improvement. It's how you learn what not to do in the future. Those with lots of experience who point these things out are trying to help - not insult.

Don't ask bigger creators for promotion of your work. Don't try to push your characters on theirs.

If you do gain a following, be humbled and never, ever let it go to your head. I've seen this happen to so many people and it's always their downfall.

Push yourself out of your comfort zones. It's how you grow as a creator.

Uh..... "you only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow, this opportunity comes once in a life time, yo!" Basically. Never let a chance at achieving your dream pass you by due to self doubt or anxiety. Especially a truly big chance. These are truly rare, most people will never gain any following - hence why you shouldn't care about fame to begin with. BUT.. ."Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity, to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment, would you capture it or just let it slip?" okay I'll stop with Lose Yourself but those lyrics are true.

The most important thing to remember—and this goes for any field—is that if you do work in that field, you are valid. Yes, I mean this to include photographers who only work with their phones, or people who research deeply and historically, but may not have published yet, or fans who write tons of fic and know every detail about a show. Do you have a place where you feel like you have strong knowledge, and would love to talk about it? You’re valid.

At this convention I shared panels with people who’d been writing since the 60s, and people who only started writing recently. I spoke with folks who only did fan writing. I met writers who’ve done both independent work and tradpub. I viewed art from artists who made their living by it, and artists who enjoy doing it as a hobby and side gig.

All still valid.

And the best part? Almost every single one experiences imposter syndrome at some point. We all have weaknesses that create little worms that wriggle under our skin, making us itch with anxiety, and tiny voices that whisper in our minds that we aren’t as good, or as interesting, or as… as… whatever adjective you might think of… as someone else. 

Even when we think we conquer a fault, it is still there, waiting beneath the surface. (Seriously, ask me, and I will tell you my biggest weakness is that I can neither world-build nor plot… despite knowing I’ve accomplished both.)

Anyway. 

The point is, we are all individuals. We all wonder if we are important enough to share what we love. We all wonder if we are good enough at what we do for someone else to be interested in it. Are we unique? Are we worth it? Will anyone care?

Yes. Yes, they will.

So, if you want to share, please know that somewhere out there is an audience for your creation (story, photograph, in-depth essay, or whatever it is…).

If you do not want to share, that’s okay, too. Create for yourself. It’s still valid.

And when you worry about what others might think, remember that the people around you are thinking that exact same thing. We all wonder: am I doing this right?

We are not alone in our fears.

I had a great time in Buffalo. Yes, there were hiccups on my panels (and oh dear gods was I ever terrified when the moderator of my first panel fell ill, and I ended up being a surprise mod for it). Yes, there were things that I wish could’ve gone differently. But overall, I’m pleased with how my own participation in my panels went.

Will I be anxious again at the next convention? Hah, yeah. Will I have imposter syndrome again? Always (in fact, I’m working on a T-shirt design). 

But I know it’ll work out, too.

Interactions

First and foremost, interactions are the most important elements of Tumblr. These can include asks/ comments/ reblogs/ reblogs with comments and any sort of interactions with other blogs.

Asks are important because while you're having fun and chatting away with people, your name shows up on their blog and their followers might be intrigued by your user name or what you said and they check out your blog.

Comments. When you read a fic or see a beautiful edit and leave a comment on that certain post, most of the time the creator will check out your profile and other people who leave comments might find you sweet and head to your blog as well. It's nothing deep with an underlying meaning. It's simple curiosity. If what you write is kind or relatable, people feel drawn to you.

Reblogs. Reblogs are one of the most important part of Tumblr. That's the only way your art can be spread. Sure, tags are important and helpful, but reblogs are the ones that keep your art alive. When you reblog a post you're essentially sharing someone else's content with 10, 100 or 1000 people without your knowledge.

Reblogs with comments are possibly the most important and significant part of this site. You don't just share someone else's art, you also add your positive comment to it, which draws people's attention. When you reblog someone else's art, they might check out your blog and they might reblog yours. Of course, it's not a rule nor should it be expected, but from my personal experiences, I have gained loads of followers through my mutuals. Their kind words and love for my fics have drawn quite a large traffic to my blog and vice versa.

Masterlists / Navigations

Many people will tell you that tags are enough and you don't need a Masterlist. I disagree. Whilst tags are good and useful, tumblr's tags aren't reliable and on top of that people can be quite lazy. The easiest way to showcase your art - whether it be fanfiction, fanart, gifs, drawings, video edits and such - is to basically offer them to your visitors/followers on a silver platter. It can be a bother at times, always keeping it up to date, but when people have to search for your content they get discouraged because let's be honest, we like things that are easily accessible.

Masterlists can be a single Tumblr post or a Google drive document where you add the link of your creations. In my Masterlist you can find different characters, organised by different fandoms. If you use Google drive make the document readable [but not editable] for the public.

Some people, such as myself, create Navigation posts, where they add relevant sub menus which help their followers navigate easier on their blogs. These can contain where to send "asks", "rules" that the owner of the blog might set, "blog recommendations", "side blogs", "about me" menus and the like.

Tags

Although I mentioned that tags can be unreliable, they're still a necessity. Search for relevant tags and use them when you post your art. Meanwhile reblogging is the easiest way to get your creations out there, people do regularly search for tags when they wish to see something and the only way they will find you is if your post appears in tags.

If you're not sure whether your tags are working, you can always head to your dashboard, click on the 👤 in the right upper corner, go down to the posts menu and look for the post you want to check on. Once you found it, click on the tag that you would like to search for. If it shows up in the recent tab of the search results, it means the tag is working, but if after 5 minutes of posting it's still not there, you might need to reupload your work. Unfortunately Tumblr has some issues with the tags and it takes two or even three attempts at times to upload something correctly, whilst other times it might work immediately.

On a side note, if you reblog nsfw content or triggering content, you might want to tag those appropriately. Tw food, tw blood, tw. etc. Depends on the content of the triggering post.

You can also create your own tags. Such as "XY's inbox" for your asks or "XY shares" for anything that you reblog from others. This way people can block those tags and see only those posts on your blog that they might find interesting.

Taglists

Taglists aren't a necessity, especially because there are many different ways to notify your followers of new creations, but it's certainly useful. The reason I think taglists are important is because tumblr won't always show your posts on everyone's dashboard, especially if they follow loads of people. However, when you use a taglist, and mention people on your newest posts, they will be able to get a notification of your update.

Of course, if you feel like tagging people might be bothersome, you might create a side-blog where you reblog your posts and people can turn on notifications to be notified of your updates. This option has been rather popular recently, because usually we reblog and post many things on our main blogs and people don't want to get notified about every trivial post, so a side-blog with the most important posts might just be it for you.

Simplicity

This might be confusing so let me be less vague. As I said, we can be rather lazy and that doesn't mean we're bad people, we might just had a difficult day or too much to study or work and we just want easy access to content. Being simple is a necessity. Though it's good to be creative and unique, such as creating a Masterlist that's called "Where the stars shine", it's not obvious for many what is hidden behind those words and they might not be curious enough to check it out. By being simple and obvious, as I said before, you're offering your content on a silver platter. Simple and neat. Sometimes people just need things to be easy to find.

I have been told many times before that my blog is very organised and I feel very proud about that because it means people can find things easily. Of course, it's not proven, but I think that could be a factor in growing your blog. But as I've said, these are only my personal observations.

When I decided to make a plush toy, I'd initially thought about commissioning a very small run of custom felt demons from my friend Becky Margraf. But as I brought the idea up with more and more people I realized the supply would be totally inadequate for the demand, so I started getting serious about a commercial-sized run (in this case, around 1200 units, which is the minimum for most places. If the campaign really takes off I'll be looking at more).

Back in March at Emerald City Comic Con, a couple folks from Soft Stuff Creations had visited our table. Their postcard boasted that they'd done plush toys of Kate Beaton's Fat Pony and KC Green's Question Hound, which caught my eye, but at the time I didn't think much of it—I wasn't planning on making any toys! Fie and tosh!

Fast forward to this month when I was frantically researching different plush producers. I fondled stuffed toys at friends' houses, scoured Pinterest for patterns, and took a ton of photos at the toy store around the corner from my house. I also checked in with other comics friends to see who they'd used and whether they'd been happy (ALWAYS ASK YOUR FRIENDS AND PEERS FOR ADVICE ABOUT SOURCING PRODUCTION STUFF. THEY ARE YOUR GREATEST REPOSITORY OF WISDOM). Turns out lots of folks recommended loved Soft Stuff! In the end I got quotes from Squishables and Soft Stuff Creations, with a wistful glance at Happy Worker, who looked amazing but were out of my unit number and price range.

I opted to go with Soft Stuff because their production and prototyping timelines were much shorter than Squishables, which is a shame because the folks I talked to there were super enthusiastic and helpful and probably would've been great to work with, but I’d like this to move fairly quickly.

Most places will have you pay about $250 for a prototype. That fee includes a couple rounds of revisions (while the plush is at the factory) and then the cost of shipping the approved prototype to you. If you like it and want to go ahead with a full production run, that cost gets deducted from your invoice.

Making toys is...expensive. Turns out. Way more expensive than making little black and white books (even hardcover ones with spot foil and ribbon bookmarks). There’s quality control testing because the toys will be played with my children, and there’s a lot of legal stuff to get through in that market. There’s design. There’s shipping, There’s manufacturing.

For the notes I'd sent over, Soft Stuff quoted about $7.50 per toy, which racks up when your minimum production run is 1200 units. Granted, they keep the estimate numbers on the high side until the prototype is approved, so there are no nasty surprises, but I can't imagine it'll go down a ton once I figure out the specifics.

So I sent off some artwork and built a paper model so I could take exacting measurements of how I wanted the toy to be proportioned, and then I waited about a week and a half for photos of the prototype from the factory (that's what you see on the left in this update's image). Because of the time crunch I'm trying to overcome my obsessive issues with not wanting to spend money on things unless they're perfect, but I still had a couple notes. Gotta strike that balance between attention to detail and not hamstringing yourself with endless waffling.

I swore I'd keep this campaign simple, and yet after talking myself out of sticker sheets and bookplates and enamel pins I somehow settled on the most expensive, time-consuming add-on of all, but I think it's going to be worth it. There's something iconic about this character that people relate to, and I wouldn't be surprised if having the plush gives the campaign a huge boost.