Hey guys, it's Scott.
It is Tuesday, September 12th. Forgive my voice, I have ‘cotton voice.’ I'm not sick at all, I just talk way too much at these conventions and then usually lose my voice. But Baltimore was fantastic. I wanted to start by just thanking everybody that came out. There were so many people from Our Best Jackett, free subscribers, paid subscribers. It really warmed my heart. Thank you for coming up and saying hello. I really appreciate it. And at this point in my career to show up and be welcomed like that, see lines like that, it really means the world. So just thank you everybody for being so inviting and for all the support. I really appreciate it.
Super quick bit of housekeeping. So we're going to do our master class next week, how to write a superhero comic. I'm going to have a special guest. I'm really excited about it. I'll do a craft lesson with it and then we'll invite somebody on who is very well versed in superheroes. And then it won't preclude doing a class class like, the week after where we look at your work and published work together to talk about a topic. So I really want to dig in, get back into it, do at least two classes this month.
And then we'll have our big Black Jacket reopening also probably next week. We're going to reopen the Black Jacket Club just for maybe 10 or 15 people. It'll give you a chance to come to a dinner. We have dinner at New York and we have dinner at San Diego, which we pay for. You can go to either one and if you're in town, it's on me. And we have giveaways and special guests and special prizes and all kinds of fun stuff. And being in the Black Jacket Club allows you to show me your work privately. It's been one of the real joys of the last couple of years, honestly, developing this program with Office Hours where I've gotten to know a bunch of people, met with them multiple times, read their work, helped them send it out, introduced people to editors, all kinds of stuff. So it gives me a chance to really connect with you on a personal level and really help in any way I can. So just keep your eyes open if you're interested in that. It'll be opening very, very soon before New York.
Last thing, next weekend is Zapp Con. It's only Saturday. It's a one day convention. It's in New Jersey, Wayne, NJ. It's me and Tom King and Amy Chu and a bunch of other great people. So come by and say hi. It'll be a blast. It's going to be fun and low key. We're just there for a day so it's a it's an easy ride out and in.
Okay, so yeah, so Baltimore was great. First of all, apologies to everybody at Dreamers and Make Believers bookstore. It was one of the great little comic shops I've been to. If you're anywhere near Baltimore, go check it out. They've got a cafe, they've got an especially robust section for LGBTQIA+ graphic fiction, really warm store. Anyway, I was supposed to be there at 6:30. There was lightning in the sky. They got us off the plane, put us back on the plane, got us off the plane, I mean I have not seen lightning like this in a while. I took a video of it in New York and in Baltimore and it was definitely a bit like “maybe we don’t fly.” I’m a nervous flyer, always have been. We took off, we made it (even though I was like three hours late), we ordered some pizzas to keep people full and waiting. And when I got there everybody was there.
It was it was the one of the best times I've had in a while. I really appreciate everyone who stuck around for the Q&A and the signing and for checking out Night of the Ghoul and again I can't say enough good things about that store. So it was a blast. I was there till about 10 to 10:30 and then went back to the convention center and the hotel.
The next morning I got to see my sister, which was one of the big reasons for going to Baltimore. My sister Susie lives down there with her husband and her young daughter. He's a pilot for Southwest and so they live right near the hub and I hadn't gotten to see their new place yet, so I wanted to go down and say hi and get to spoil my niece and be Uncle Scott for a few hours. So we walked around their neighborhood and went to a diner and it was great.
And then the convention. If you've never been to Baltimore Comic Con, you should really go. The thing that's so wonderful about it is it's really comic-centric. So many conventions are a lot of fun, but they have this huge circus-like feel where they have TV and media and video games and films and everything, which is really fun. I mean, having the entire geek pantheon at a con is a blast. But Baltimore is really comic-based and it’s especially focused on comic book icons and legends. It’s the kind of con where it’s really exciting and heartwarming to see that the longest lines are for José Luis García-López, Chris Claremont, and Walt & Weezie Simonson. It was really nice, and those lines were the longest and it was it was honestly just heartwarming to see the way the fans and the organizers really honor legendary creators. There were also incredibly healthy lines for Brian Michael Bendis and Tom King and me and I really appreciated it.
The energy around comic books and comic creators that con is just unparalleled. So thank you everybody there for making it a wonderful time. I got to go out to dinner with Tom King, which was great.
We haven't seen each other one on one in a while, and we got to tell each other bad Batman jokes and I got to tell him how much I loved everything coming up in Wonder Woman. If you have not heard, he's writing a new Wonder Woman series and it's fucking awesome. You've got to check it out. It's definitely going to be something special. And we got to talk some secret plans and all kinds of stuff and catch up as dads and talk about how happy we are that our kids are in school and all kinds of stuff. So it was great hanging out with him, and then I had the Ringo Awards where I got to present with the amazing Sarah Anderson, whose work I've loved for years. Sarah's Scribbles—it's like, all your anxieties writ large and they're hilarious also so go check it out if you don’t follow her.
And I did lose the Best Writer award, which was bittersweet because I was happy to lose it to Ed Brubaker, who is obviously a good friend and one of my favorite writers. Again, there’s no one better to lose an award to. It was great to see his face, he Zoomed in live from California. Big congrats to Ed and all the great work he’s doing.
Afterwards it was BarCon and as miserable as BarCons can be, this one was very fun. It was in the lobby of the hotel and there were couches and there was space and there were brand new creators and established creators and there was just a very casual vibe. It wasn't intense at all. I mean that's what makes BarCon miserable is when it's like, I don't know, there's like a tense energy around it and it feels like people are trying to network and all that, and here it was just relaxed and everybody just catching up and I got to catch up with Jamal Igle and Cully Hamner and Amy Chu and Pete Tomasi and just on and on and on.
It was it was really, really fun. And that was it. That was really it. I was just there for that one day and then flew back and I was in dad mode over the weekend and and back to work. So again, Zapp Con this coming weekend though Saturday if you want to come, it'll be a lot of fun.
I thought I'd do a post today that's free because we have so much coming for paid subscribers. We got the two classes this month, we have special things in New York, obviously, you can skip all the lines at New York if you're a paid subscriber. I would really encourage you to sign up for a paid subscription. It's only $7 a month, if you're going to New York, $7 to get to skip the massive lines there at all is definitely worth it, but we'll also have other things soon. We're going to have the chance to send in two of your signed books, all that kind of stuff for free. So yeah, get a subscription if you can or get one for a friend. We love doing this and I want to keep it going as long as possible.
But I wanted to talk about something today that's been on my mind for a little bit and I was talking to friends over the weekend about it. For aspiring creators out there, I think sometimes one of the questions we get a lot is where to focus your attention when you're trying to promote a book. How to pierce the veil on social media. How do you get attention on social media? How do you use it to your advantage? And the thing I'd say, I want to answer the question in two ways. I will talk a little bit about how I think you can use social media effectively for a minute. But the bigger point I want to make is how unimportant social media is compared to real data you can get from going to a comic shop and having comic people, dyed-in-the-wool comic buyers, who you are friends with, who you can talk to.
So, social media. What is it good for? I know the song, right? Absolutely nothing. No, it's good for a lot of things. It's good for giving voice to people that don't normally have it. All kinds of stuff. But in terms of promotion, what it's really good for, honestly, to me, is if you don't have a huge following, you don't have 100,000+ followers where you can just use it the way I do to remind people that you have something coming out, is to meet other creators that are in your level and have them help you and you help them. It's for networking in that regard. There isn't some magic bullet where you can suddenly, I mean I'm sure there is, like, where you can embarrass yourself in some viral way and get your book noticed that way, but I would not do that or recommend that. Instead what I would recommend is using it to try and connect with people who are at the same stage of their career as you and getting them to read your work and like it and promote it and you in turn promote them and try to form networks that way. I mean, try in an honest and sincere, creative way with people whose opinions you genuinely value. That’s how I did it coming up, it was just a different time. I mean, the problem with social media now is that it’s so corrupt and fractured. I mean, people don’t use Twitter the same was they did before. There isn’t the same kind of central conversation about comics that there was five, six, seven years ago where everybody was on Twitter, everybody was talking, everyone was looking. Now it's completely infused with distractions and people in your feed that you don't want there because they paid to be there and half the people aren't there anymore and people don't take it seriously the way they did as a form of town hall.
So again, don't take it very seriously. Take it seriously as a means of, if you have lots of followers, just reminding people that you have work coming out you're proud of, or if you do or you don’t, of meeting people whose opinions you value and whose work you really like so that you can form a network that way. But here’s the big caveat, what I think a lot of us can fall victim to is thinking that it’s real. You can go on there and start having people tell you how great your work is or how much they hate your work, which is also really common. And you can start to take it as a general litmus test on how your work is doing or being received. I have plenty of friends who are internet darlings and whose books don't sell. And I have friends that are internet villains, or not villains, but who are not internet darlings and whose work sells really, really well. And there is a sweet spot in between. You don't want to be someone whose work is bashed all over social media for some reason and sells great. You want to be the person that has both.
But the point I'm trying to make is that if you really want to, especially if you're doing licensed stuff, but even with creator-owned, figure out how to make your stuff move. Go to a shop. The first stop I make, I swear to God, every time that I'm going back to superheroes, every time I have a big ongoing series and not something that I know is just a book that I'm just taking a big risky, strange swing on, is 4th World Comics and Red Shirt Comics, but 4th World Comics, I've been going there from the moment I broke in. I've been going there from years before I broke in, but from the moment I broke in to test my ideas with them. They know all my secrets. I go in there. I also have about three or four people who've been talking about comics online and who I've become friends with over the years, like sincere friends, who I also run my ideas by because they are dyed-in-the-wool comics fans. I know that they're gonna tell me the truth, but they also have a really good sense of the market.
And the idea isn't to change what you're doing to fit the market. So if I have an idea like Court of Owls, right? And right now I'm dabbling with going back to superheroes. Like I'm talking ideas, talking about things to do for a while from now, but still. The idea is, when I go in, when I have an idea, I talk to these people. I go in and I say, what do you think? What's the state of the market? What's selling? What's not? Who's hot? Who's not hot? All of it. And I get a sense of that landscape so I can say, “look, this is what I'm thinking. How do you think it would fit?” And if they say, “I don't think it would fit right now,” then I try and figure out how to make it fit. I still want to do it, but what if I did it in such a way where it comes out in fewer issues? What if it comes out in a bigger format? What if it comes out with a different company as if it's an indie book? I try and figure out what's going to give it the best shot of succeeding in the market given what it is.
With superheroes, it's a little different. I go and I'd same thing, ask them, “what about this? What about that?” And if they say, “I think this is the thing that people aren't going to like about it,” then I figure out a way of getting that thing through. I think, okay, how do I acknowledge to readers, they might not like this, but I think it's worth it. I did that in, like I said, in Zero Year, I do it obviously in the Commissioner Gordon was Batman in Superheavy. It opens with him saying this is the dumbest idea in the history of Gotham City because that's what my comic shop said everyone was gonna say. And they said, “but if you make it fun…” So he says, “let's go have some fun.”
Anyway, the point is, go to a comic shop, familiarize yourself with exactly how things are doing. Which books are taking off? Which books are not taking off? Which things have been successful? Which things have not? Which creators have good relationships with retailers and why? One thing I did when I was coming up was send signed books to retailers all over the country, just myself, with American Vampire and that stuff. I would call stores. I would call them to thank them on the day that the comic came out. I still try and do it when I have a big release. I still try and send signed stuff like bookplates.
Having a relationship with people on the front lines who are there every day selling your stuff? That's way more important than having relationships on Twitter and that stuff with people who are saying things about your work one way or another. Does one preclude the other? No. It's good to have a big, robust relationship with both, and you can, but what I’m saying is it’s very easy to go down a rabbit hole of logging onto Twitter and seeing a good comment about yourself or fishing for a good comment about yourself or seeing a bad comment about yourself and letting that seem like the totality of how your work is being received, and also how it’s doing. It’s easy to be like “I’m doing great” because people like my work on Twitter. There are plenty of books that people really like on Twitter and critically that aren't selling. And when they don't sell, they get cancelled. And the thing is, it doesn't mean they shouldn't be exactly what they are. It just means if you're in that boat where you're a critical darling but you're not selling, talk to retailers about how you can sell, what you can do to make this book that you love, that deserves to be read, read by more people. That's it. It's not you should be one or the other. It's not one cancels the other. It's doing both at the same time. It's trying to be synergistic about it so one catalyzes the other.
But the core thing is to understand that the brick and mortar market, or if you're digital, the digital market, but really for most of us who are print, going to those stores, talking to those retailers, then forming a relationship with with stores, like literally call stores, look at what are the biggest comic stores or what are the stores that are really popular in each state. Call them and say, “listen, I have a book coming out. I'm really excited about it.” Do signings if you can. Send them signed books if you can. Say, “can I send you five?” Whatever. But that to me is having that, having that real world relationship with marketing, with sales within the retail structure. That's key. And then there's a whole other thing about publicity and if you get a publicist and whatever. But just as a basic lesson, discerning what is real from what is not is super important in that way.
And again, it's not minimizing the importance of being on social media or about using it effectively, but it's about seeing social media or that stuff as important when it comes to sales and things that have a stronger barometer when you actually dip your foot into the waters of the direct market itself in this physical world. So I can talk more about this if you're interested, too. But I thought it would be a nice thing to just bring up as a starting point for conversation. Again, we're going to do masterclass next week. I'll pick a date by Friday and then we'll do a bigger class later. So please sign up if you can for paid Best Jackett. And yeah, let's all let's all have fun together. Bye!
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Newsletter #155: Your Local Comic Shop and You