This week’s installment of Against the Grain admittedly hits a little more close to home than I’m happy to acknowledge, but nonetheless I think it’s one of those topics that all of us creative folks need to be reminded of every now and again. While we may all produce different things, between writing and cartooning and podcasting and countless other content genres, at the end of the day it’s all about the people that might very well stay up until three o’clock in the morning enjoying our work – the fans.
Well, that is hopefully eventually they’ll transcend that divide from reader who occasionally checks out your stuff into fan who obsessively follows your work and is likely to buy just about anything that you offer up for sale in your store! Our fans are the ones that really make it all worthwhile, both financially and otherwise, because not only are they in fact more likely to help pad our wallets either by purchasing books or simply bumping by up the advertising value of our sites, they also help to keep us going mentally with encouraging e-mails and comments about just how much they enjoyed that last column or how they’ve printed out their favorite comics to decorate their dorm room or cubicle at work. Of course, in the same right however, they become just as dependent on us as we do on them because, well, simply put – they love what we do and they just can’t get enough of it. They support us day in and day out by logging in and reading, but they can’t do that until we keep up on our part of the bargain…
That’s right – it may be their jobs to read and laugh and enjoy the brilliance that we throw up on the Internet several times a week, but it’s our job to create those columns and comics and so forth, and sometimes that can be quite the daunting task because I think we can all agree that creativity isn’t just something that can be turned on like the kitchen faucet! We all hit that proverbial writer’s block from time to time and that’s completely understandable, but I think it’s how we choose to deal with those slumps that can have either a very positive or a very negative affect on just how our fans perceive us. Do you cast off all other aspects of life as those deadlines pass until you can create something worthy of being posted, or do you take a more casual approach to the tune of “It’ll go up when it goes up…” and let that be the end of it? Of course, neither angle is entirely healthy, either for the creator who’s writing or artwork begins to cut into quality time with friends and family when they consistently find their deadlines wooshing by without stop, or for the just plain lazy creator who’s readership begins to dwindle from a lack of care or attention. So what’s a writer / cartoonist / podcaster to do?!
The basis for this topic has been brewing inside me for quite a while. As I’d mentioned earlier, I’m certainly no stranger to the act of posting columns or comics later than promised, but I think even more significantly though, my frustration stems not from my plights as a creator, but moreso as a reader – a reader who wants nothing but to enjoy the next installment from my favorite writers and cartoonists and podcasters, only to find that they haven’t been posted yet. Sometimes it’s because the creator had an emergency and wasn’t able to make the update, sometimes it’s because they couldn’t come up with anything, and sometimes I never quite know what the reason behind the delay is. All I know for sure is that I was ready to take a few minutes out of my day to be entertained and I had to walk away empty-handed because what I wanted wasn’t there. Talk about a real bummer, indeed…
And I think what sets me off on this the most is when I hear creators actually complaining or otherwise trying to justify their lack of timeliness, as if their fans have no right whatsoever to be upset that their favorite works haven’t been updated as promised. The most common argument is of the ilk, “I don’t make any money off this, so why should you feel entitled to get anything at all?!” or “What do you expect for something free on the Internet?” Since writing or cartooning or whatever has always been primarily a hobby for them, they take a fairly lax approach to it and consider it to be based primarily on their own schedule, as opposed to anyone who might be reading it … which don’t get me wrong, is completely fine if that’s ultimately your prerogative for creating in the first place! If your only goal is to draw cartoons from time to time for people to enjoy and you go into it having no intention of doing it on a regular basis, then by all means have at it … but be prepared for the consequences of that decision as well.
My analogy goes something like this – your buddy gives you the address of this really great local comic book shop to check out. They’ve got the best selection in town, the guys that work there are really cool, and you really feel at home when you go there, so week after week you swing by with your paycheck to pick up your favorite books. But when you stop by one week, you’re greeted by a sign stating that the clerks are out for lunch and that they’ll be back later, so you pick up lunch and head back to work empty-handed. Over the next few weeks, it seems that the shop is closed more and more, no matter what time you stop by, and as much as you absolutely love that comic book shop, you’re now behind on some of your favorite books and end up visiting a different store on the other side of town to pick them up because they’re open, whereas your preferred store is unpredictable. Months go by and you stop visiting the cool store for the larger chain that’s always open, and when your buddy asks how the guys are doing down at the shop, you tell him that you just haven’t been there in such a long time because they always seem to be out to lunch or closed early…
It’s very frustrating to be a dedicated fan who wants your content – on fairly reasonable terms, those of which being the ones that you originally set – but can’t get it because you’re not keeping your schedule, and ultimately although some content creators will disagree with me, those who are truly invested in what they do, either financially or just passionately, will understand that nothing good can come from turning your readers away simply because you weren’t prepared to give them what they want. Sure, maybe some of them won’t care, but the ones who truly notice and are bothered by it are the ones that you should be trying to please the most – they’re the ones who stand in line at conventions to chat with you for a few minutes or pre-order your latest book online so that you can afford to print them in the first place! The passion of ones fans can swing both ways, and from those folks – the best you might get is an e-mail stating concern or disappointment for your tardiness, but the other 90% who wouldn’t think to e-mail you will more likely than not just eventually remove you from their bookmarks and throw in the towel.
I can vouch for this perspective firsthand because I’ve sadly had to do it myself in just about every medium previously mentioned – humor columns start to get more sporadic, podcasts go from weekly to monthly (…or worse…), that same comic appears on the index page considerably longer than it should. No matter how much I love someone’s work, if they don’t give me new material to keep me coming back, what’s the incentive for my return? I can only read through the archives so many times – eventually I have to decide whether you’ve just thrown in the towel or truly don’t care about your readers enough to keep us posted on your creative efforts. You can only hit that refresh button so many times before you have to make that decision to possibly go find somebody else to entertain you, and as a content creator, that’s one of the last decisions that you would ever want your readers making!
And I’m not saying that we as creators have to spoon-feed our work to our fans just as fast as we can crank it out, but in the same right we have a responsibility to meet the deadlines that we’ve made public for ourselves to our fans. If I say that Against the Grain… is published on comedic-genius.com every Sunday, that doesn’t mean that it’s ok to put up next week’s column on Monday or Tuesday because I decided to go out bowling with some friends instead or even because I couldn’t find anything to write about. I want as many people as possible to read my work, so in a way it’s somewhat insulting to those readers who show up first thing Friday morning for The Humor Column, only to find that last week’s is still my newest column. It doesn’t even matter the reason – you can only give so many excuses before that’s all that you do and like it or not, most fans won’t tolerate excuses forever.
So what can we do to help ensure that our work is available to the masses in the timeliest of fashions? And believe me, it’s certainly even been a struggle for yours truly from time to time, but I think just taking your work seriously and truly holding yourself to task is the most important thing in trying to keep a working schedule. Obviously, procrastination is your worst enemy … which makes it increasingly difficult, as many of us either do our best work under pressure or simply can’t start working on something until the evening that it should normally be posted, but regardless, try not to let it come to that. It’s ok to work on something that isn’t due until later on in the week, or even further ahead if you find yourself in the mood for writing on a particular topic at a particular time. But know your deadlines and keep in your mind that breaking them is one of the worst things that you can do – remember that an editor at a mainstream publication wouldn’t tolerate unreliability, so when you’re publishing yourself, you have to take that role as the editor and recognize that it impacts you negatively when your work isn’t released in a timely manner…
Probably most importantly, however, would be to understand that unless you’re a super-writer or what-have-you, you’re going to occasionally miss your deadlines and while that’s not necessarily ok, per se, it’s not the end of the world by any means, either. Just do your best to recover from it as quickly as possible, don’t allow yourself to get caught up in excuses (“I was really busy last night!” or “I don’t owe them anything!” or “I was sick…”) – pick yourself up and get back on track as best you can, as fast as you can.
And if you do need a bit of inspiration, I think it helps immensely to remember this – if people are actually noticing that you’re not posting on time, that’s simply because they’re fans of your work and they’re looking forward to see what you create next. They may sometimes come off as harsh or demanding, but that comes from being passionate about something and that’s the exact kind of passion that most content creators strive for with their work! No one draws a comic strip or writes an article with the idea, “I don’t really care if anyone reads this or not…” and if you do, why are you posting your work online in the first place? If you truly have no need for an audience, an empty shoebox or a floppy disk will hold your creations just as well and save you the hosting charges to boot. Otherwise have a little respect for your fans – the ones that support you the most – and give them what they want, for cryin’ out loud!
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