February 28th, 2006
Finding My Audience
This post is sort of a spin-off of yesterday’s post. I went into the success I’ve had at advertising on Tom Tomorrow’s blog and how I plan to experiment with other blog ads in the future. I’m finding some people out there who are very enthusiastic about MISFIT’S JOURNEY. I believe very strongly that there are more people out there who would love it if they knew about it.
On the other side of the coin, there are webcomics fans out there who aren’t particularly going to be into this strip. For example, the popular webcomics portal site Keenspot has in the past indicated that most of its readership is younger — in other words, people who are between 16 and 21 years old. I don’t think MISFIT’S JOURNEY would do especially well on Keenspot because it’s going to tend to appeal to people who have graduated from (or left) college and have been out in the real world for a spell.
I think that college age readers could still get something out of reading MJ — especially if I write some episodes specifically for them — but I’m getting more enthusiasm for this story from what I would call a “graduate school level demographic”. Some people relate to me as a person more than others. I’m still in the process of luring people like this over to the MISFIT’S JOURNEY site. I definitely see evidence that some of Tom Tomorrow’s fans will like this comic. Many readers of Salon may like this story. I think that many independent film fans will like it and that it may appeal to some indy rock fans too. I’m certainly trying to bring fans of Harvey Pekar and Robert Crumb over here.
The first several episodes of MJ that place during a period of my life where I’m trying to reinvent myself and I’m questioning what I want to with my life. During this time, I liked to read books and watch movies about people who found themselves in similar situations. I enjoyed reading AMERICAN SPLENDOR because many of the things that make Harvey Pekar unhappy made me unhappy. I enjoyed reading about Carol Tyler at that time for the same reason. I also enjoyed watching movies like The Accidental Tourist, Men Don’t Leave, and Clean And Sober — films about characters who were forced by often tragic circumstances to evolve and reinvent themselves.
I hope that people who are drawn to films and comics like this will be drawn to my comics as well.
Part of the reason I’m doing MJ is to experiment with promoting and marketing webcomics. Now that I’ve got an episode of the story done that I am happy with, I want to experiment with all the different traffic building resources that are out there. I don’t think I’ve completely mastered webcomic promotion yet. This is something I intend to work on in the weeks and months to come.
On the last page of the first MJ episode, I mention that I think I’ve got a wide variety of appealing personal qualities and that I can get just about anyone to like me if I sell myself in the right way. This is something that I want to demonstrate in both future installments of MJ and in this blog.
I think, though, that there are certain types of people out there that this series is more likely to appeal to. I’m going to focus on luring those people over here.
March 4th, 2006 at 6:12 pm
hey read your comic via bradblog ad. keep it up.
March 5th, 2006 at 12:47 pm
Kewl! Thanks! (See? The ads are working!)