The promotional life of an indie comics writer

Where should you have an online presence?

In the previous issue of Amazing Journey, I made the case for Kickstarter as the best place for getting your indie comic out into the world.

But for indie comic writers who are not able to put out an issue each month, either in comic book stores or on Kickstarter (where it’s practically impossible to do), staying visible is a constant challenge.

With the often-repeated mantra of “you have to have an online platform,” and expectations in the book side of publishing that such a platform is a prerequisite for even getting a publishing deal, a lot of writers struggle with how much time they should be devoting to social media.

The answer, based on my experience, and which sounds unhelpful, is “it depends.”

Let’s unpack that as we survey the current social media/online platform landscape. And because the number of useful platforms has increased in the past several years, I’m splitting this post into two parts, with part 1 looking at X and Instagram, and part 2 looking at Substack/newsletters, websites, and YouTube.

X (f.k.a. Twitter)

X remains the king of time sinks while offering the tantalizing promise that you are just one witty tweet (I guess they are now called posts?) from going viral. With constantly rotating relevant hashtags, there is the temptation to just post about the current flashpoint. But in my experience, that rarely, if ever, does anything to help you reach readers or other writers.

For example, this tweet about me trying to pre-order an SNES Classic 7 years ago is probably my most-viewed tweet ever, but brought me 0 new followers.

At the current level of my writing career, I find X best-suited for meeting other creators, bloggers, and “industry folks,” rather than using it as a bat signal for potential readers, or to drive traffic to an offsite link. The best thing about X is the ability to follow and interact with just about anyone on the platform, and I’ve probably “met” the most people via X than any of the other platforms combined.

As with all of the social media platforms, X makes it extremely difficult to promote external links, causing people to do multi-tweet threads where they put the link in the second tweet. Of course, 99% of people don’t actually read anything other than the first tweet, so this tactic has minimal returns. And you can forget about posting Substack links or mentioning the word “Substack” on X, as that is the equivalent of your post being loaded into a cannon and shot into a black hole.

Similarly, lots of Kickstarter creators report that they are driving fewer and fewer backers to their campaigns from X, and my own experience bears this out. At the end of the day, each tweet is a fleeting moment, and you should keep that in mind every time you post.

That’s not to suggest that you should neglect how you present yourself on X (or any of these platforms). Even if you only using X to network with other people, you should still craft your profile so that it best highlights your work.

Below is my X profile, where I feature a fun header from Agent Carter (leave a comment if you want the backstory) and let people know that I am a comics writer and fantasy author, that I have a comic available for pre-order, and that I will be attending NYCC in a few weeks.

If someone wants to learn more without leaving X, I pinned a tweet with the first 12 pages of Blood of Atlantis along with another pre-order link:

And in terms of getting people to share and engage, X makes it the easiest for others with larger platforms to share what you are posting.

Finally, as a writer looking for artists to collaborate with for comic interiors, covers, or swag, X is way behind Instagram in terms of usefulness, with one exception: Portfolio Day.

Portfolio Day is an event that occurs the second Tuesday of January, April, July, and October, and tons of artists will post their work under the #PortfolioDay hashtag, as well as sharing others’ work.

X’s interface and social proof makes it easier to find artists during Portfolio Day than Instagram in my experience, although I usually end up following the artists I find on Instagram and not X.

Best practices

• Share comics you’re reading and Kickstarters you’ve backed. It’s an easy way to highlight other creators.

• Follow other writers and engage with them organically.

• Take 30 minutes the day after Portfolio Day to scroll through the top posts to look for new-to-you artists.

Instagram

I put X first because as a writer, a text-based platform is naturally going to more strongly align with my work than an image-based platform. But as a comics writer, Instagram is a close second, and if you’re an artist, it should probably be your primary focus.

Instagram is a bit more complicated to use, given the number of different ways you have to interact with people on the platform.

• There are regular posts, which your followers will have a higher likelihood of seeing than your tweets and which can also be seen by non-followers in the “Explore” tab.

• There are Stories, which are fleeting 24-hour vertical posts only seen by your followers.

• There are Reels, which are Instagram’s version of TikTok videos that the platform is giving outsized reach at the moment.

It is tempting to want to chase that reach, to spend time creating short videos with enticing hooks to build your view and follower count. But that path is really more suited for people who are selling services or are in a very defined niche (such as fitness, meal prep/food, for example).

As comic creators, we are obviously in our own niche, but whereas a person seeking out a fitness influencer is trying to get in better shape, we are trying to find readers looking for new comics to read.

Our best way to do that is to get the book in readers’ hands, but it’s a lot harder to make an Instagram reel to convince someone to do that, than it is to sell a workout plan by making videos of you working out at the gym.¹ I still try to make fun videos that don’t require too much effort into making. Fun fact: this video of me creating my own version of the MCU opening credits with Russell Dauterman’s costume variants is my most-watched Reel:

jaauerbach_author

A post shared by @jaauerbach_author

Fortunately, comics are a visual medium, and so showing off the art in your book, which doesn’t require making videos with snappy editing, is still effective.

I created a 3 x 1 row of images showcasing our Blood of Atlantis banner image, so new people finding my profile immediately are drawn in and hopefully want to learn more about the series.

Best practices

• Follow lots of artists, which will tell Instagram that you like comic art, and it will in turn show you other comic artists’ posts on the Explore tab.

• Do some hashtag research to find a few popular hashtags to use. These will help push your Reels and posts out to people who are not followers.

• Instagram is not a “click here and do this!” type of platform. It’s very hard to get someone to leave the app and go buy something. So lean more into making people aware of who you are and your comics.

• Use Stories to highlight other interesting posts/Reels you find, or to post more casual photos.

Sound off!

Hopefully the above was helpful, but I’d love to hear about your experiences on X and Instagram.

What has worked for you? What hasn’t? Let me know in the comments!

Missed the Blood of Atlantis campaign? You can pre-order the comic here.

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Amazing Journey back issues

True believers unite (#1) | My comics origin story (#2) | Comic event series (#3) | The comics of Kickstarter (#4) | Single issues or trades? (#5) | From prose to comics (#6) | Adapting a celebrated fantasy series into a comic (#7) | Charting a career in comics (#8) | Comic book spoilers (#9) | Lessons from Kieron Gillen’s masterclass (#10) | Comics marketing 101 (#11) Designing memorable characters (#12) | The importance of comic book shops (#13) | Finding community at NYCC (#14) | Writing issue number one (#15) | Announcing Blood of Atlantis (#16) | Comics marketing 102 (#17)

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Rich Douek

recently launched a video series called Comic Book Kitchen where he pairs a comic book with a different dish, breaking down the comic and how to make that dish. I love how he has paired two of his passions into a fun way to promote other comics, and I’ve also learned some new recipes along the way.