Hmmm This is a tough one. I see the dilemma. You pour your heart into something and post it out there for the world to see, and you wait eagerly for feedback. Something….anything! Even if you get a “You suck, go home” you’ll know where you stand, but you get NOTHING? How are you supposed to move forward from that? Why should you move forward, no ones paying attention or reading it? That’s the whole point isn’t it? To create something and let the world read it and enjoy it. If no one is doing that, then we might as well quit. Right?
Why do you ask me these silly questions? You know I’m going to say “no, never quit.” But lets talk about this.
You can’t take what people say, or don’t say to you as an indicator of whether you should keep going. If that was the case I would have quit this blog a long time ago, because it NEVER EVER EVER gets comments on it. Honestly I only know of one person who reads this blog. (some of you might be reading this post via tumblr, or Deviant art, I do get comments on those sites, but on my main blog site, I’m yet to get a comment left here.)
But that doesn’t mean NO ONE is reading. In fact I have a little story to tell. A few years ago I did blog post about a piece of software I was using at the time. It was a rather silly post and I’d link you, but unfortunately I lost it when my blog accidently got erased a few months ago. Anyways I just was being goofy talking about how much I liked this software thinking “no one reads this blog anyways, so what does it matter.” That same day the blog entry was posted I received an email from a PR rep of the company I just blogged about. She was a reader of my blog and saw I posted about the software, and offered me a free copy of the newest version (a $300 value) if I did another blog post reviewing the new software. I couldn’t believe it . Naturally I said yes, received some new software that I loved, and I realized how insignificant receiving feedback was. If I had quit blogging because no one left a comment, I would have never had such a wonderful opportunity. (Also keep in mind that this was before tumblr, and before i even knew what Twitter was. The only place I was blogging was this site, so I obviously had readers that never left feedback.)
Now I know what you’re thinking. “Well if i don’t receive any feed back, or no one says anything constructive, how am I supposed to get better?”
Well simply put: Ask for feedback. But you have to ask a certain group of people. If you ask your fans, it’s going to be all positive. They’re your fans, if they hated your work they wouldn’t be your fans. The danger in this is you’ll easily grow complacent and stale and not grow. However, if you listen to the people who constantly throw negativity your way, you’ll end up with serious self confidence issues, and you’ll give up because you’ll think you suck. The key is to get the opinion of your peers. Ask other people who are doing the same thing as you, they’ll have some good tips and pointers for you they’ll offer honestly. But you have to approach them and ask them. Your peers are too busy on their projects to just go around giving feedback to everyone else. But if you kindly and politely ask them for an honest opinion, you’ll get it and you can move forward from there.
One other thing you need to consider is how new is your comic? If you just posted your first page last week, you’re not going to get any constructive criticism because no one knows its there. If you’re comic is brand new, you have to advertise. Tell people about it on social networks and forums. My comic has 3 issues out and most people don’t know about it. It’ll take some time to build that fan base before you start getting comments on it. But keep in mind, much like my blog, you never know who’s silently reading it, and never leaving feedback.
So I know it can be frustrating not getting any feedback. It gets lonely and you start to think your wasting your time. But don’t stop. You never know who is reading and enjoying it. So keep on writing, keep on drawing, keep on posting, and keep on advertising, and you’re fan base will grow. You might not get ANY feed back for a very very VERY long time. But if you keep at it, keep working hard and the rewards will follow. Trust me, there are better rewards out there for all this hard work than a simple comment left on your page.
So don’t worry about feedback, the comics are what matters. Thats why we make comics, and not excuses.
Tomorrow I’m going to post some more cover sketches but in the mean time follow me around the web:
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And if you love my artwork don’t forget to pick up my comics!
See you tomorrow!
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