Volume 3 Cover (Patreon)

Something Really Big just came through for OJST, and Matt and I only have a couple weeks to turn around a bunch of brand new drawings and designs and copywriting to get it to fruition, so I'm happy and excited but also, oh jeez, completely creatively drained. I've worked so hard this year to keep my weekends (mostly) free, but it looks like we're both gunna have to knuckle down and work seven days a week until mid-May. It's do-able! It is. I can get this stuff done. I really can. (If I tell myself that enough, it'll become true, right?)

I had the opportunity to sit down with a woman my age who's just started drawing (one year ago!) and has just released a well-received debut self-published illustrated novel. She asked what she should be doing; what software does she need, what's a better deal than Amazon's print-on-demand services, how do you make money doing this? I tried to compact 17 years worth of knowledge into a two hour conversation, sharing stuff with her that I've been doing automatically since I was a teenager but that she'd never even heard of. This stuff is so second-nature to me and I'm surrounded daily by people doing the exact same thing as me that I just... kind of take this information for granted. It doesn't feel special. But to someone who has never dipped their toe into this world before? Good lord, how completely baffling and overwhelming and opaque! I'm kinda thinking maybe I wanna make a presentation for next year's ECCC, a "How to Make Money Through Your Webcomic/Self-Publishing" talk. I mean, all this information is available in a million blog posts already, it's all already been said before. But I really enjoyed talking with someone, with actively sharing with another human being, face-to-face. So, I dunno, I'm thinking I'd like to put together a PowerPoint presentation and verbally walk an audience through this stuff too. It's something I'm thinking about! I'll just... put this together in all the free time I have. No problem. (weeps)

Hey, thanks for all the super kind and supportive words on my last post, you guys. I get all emotional and I chicken out from replying to everyone because I have too many feelings and just writing "Thank you" over and over doesn't feel like enough so then I default to not saying anything at all. But, y'know, thank you everyone.

Ok, I've gotta get back to work now.

Thanks for everything you guys do for me,

Erika