JAVILAND Episode 11: Pursuing Artistic goals in a Lame Economy

The idea for this show came from a personal experience I've had in the last two weeks, which I shared on my site JAVILAND. Basically this episodes topic dealt with finding other ways to make money besides just via self-publishing. And to be honest, self-publishing isn't exactly a way to make a living, although there are opportunities to make money at it under certain circumstances.

Joining me on the Call were: Ted Seko, Ryan Dow, Argonsassistant, Colin Panetta and briefly between Superbowl touch-downs, Jim Lujan. In the chatroom were a wide spectrum of artists and cartoonists: Nemu-Nemu, Matt Munn, Cartooning Pro, Dungeon Warden, kaiki, MarkCalifornia, Missiondeep and Mark Rudolph.

Some of the things we discussed that could generate some additional revenue included teaching comic book workshops, speaking at schools & libraries and performing Live Art (creating and selling artwork). Sometimes a bad thing, like getting layed-off from work, can potentially lead to other avenues, like teaching workshops. Basically focusing as much as you can on your art and skills you have that apply to cartooning/publishing.

We also talked about the recent news that Ka-Blam, a print-on-demand service, will now distribute directly to comic book shops via their new ComicsMonkey distribution arm. A potentially seismic shift due to Diamond Comics Distributors recent raising of their minimum thresholds that they'll carry smaller, less popular titles.

Listen to the episode with the TalkShoe Player on the right, or go to our TalkShoe page and listen there. While you're over there, add Javiland to your iTunes feed and get every episode delivered automatically as they're posted!