More or less this isn’t a comprehensive look at Japan or even the cities I visited. Largely this is because at the end of the day, my friend and I decided to go with a package tour in order to accomplish as much as we could with a short agenda.  (Having done a small tour in Korea, I realized how efficient these tours can be in terms of packing in sightseeing.)

One of the key concerns that pushed this as a necessity was that unlike with Korea  I would have very little ability to read or fumble my way through the language.   It sounded like English would be available on a lot of signage in Japan, but moving about country without the ability to speak concerned me. (Believe me, if you have been in Seoul, you know that once you’re away from old, true downtown you’re in deep doodoo if you are relying on your ability to read English in different places.)

Also, you can’t appreciate all tourist spots that don’t have English support as much unless you are committed to carrying around a good tour book and/or tablet(phone).

So I knew I wanted to look at tours that had some English language support along the way and offered support with things that would be new to me in Japan (i.e., train systems).

After the earthquake/tsunami of 2011, however, there were very few operators who were advertising any sort of guided tours. It was startling not only to see a lot of operators simply drop everything from 2011, but also had no information on a 2012 schedule even when the country desperately tried to assure people that they were safe and open for travel.   Worse, several groups that I had tried to contact that had advertised heavily online and at various conventions/expos in the past just did not return any emails or calls.

More or less, this narrowed the field back down to either tours that were conducted by operators based out of Japan — mostly corporate or enterprising ex-pats who were willing to customize tours.

In the end, I fell back on a lot of old research I had down pre-tsunami and to a few official company resources like Japanican.com and Visit Japan.  Most of these companies buy their packages from JTB, the largest and oldest travel agency specializing in Japan tourism.

It didn’t hurt that their offices are also located at several convenient cities in the U.S., often colocated with Japanese supermarts.

In the end, picked this tour package (http://www.japanican.com/tours/tourdetail.aspx?tc=GMT01TYOOSC9ARH1)  for the highlights (Hiroshima and Hakone were key sites I wanted to add in).  We worked with the Chicago based JTB office which (at the time) had a retail setting at the Mitsuya marketplace near O’Hare. (Since then they’ve consolidated into one CHicago office in the city.)

In sum: JTB has absolutely FABULOUS customer service.   Although sometimes we had to rely more on email to communicate (as I was not based in Chicago), the entire experience with my agent has been excellent.  That said, the office is really an intermediary who works with a Tokyo-based JTB office for everything.  .

In any case, our liaison in the Chicago office (Hitomi) was super at handholding the entire time I was trying to figure out a lot of little details related to the itinerary and helping us also recustomize the stay to add additional days and packages into the visit. (FYI – I added a Studio Ghibli tour and a kimono tour into the mix and thoroughly enjoyed them.)

All I can say is, yes, the cost may appear daunting at first when you look at the overall package, but the entire trip is truly supported along the way.  There is little opportunity to truly mess up and get off course with JTB staff helping you along the way.  The only hiccup I recall was very minor regarding one luggage transport and that was resolved with the help of hotel staff and JTB staff in the Kyoto office fairly easily.

Great group. Great service throughout. Food. Hotels. Buses. Transfers. Really amazing job given the aggressiveness of the itinerary and the need to herd us foreign tourists like cats throughout each minitour. (Seriously! Westerner are like ADD cats, going everywhere.)

Flight

Because my friend and I had a different homebase, we had to pick a West Coast city to originate out of.   I also knew I wanted to avoid domestic carriers as I really found with my experience with Asiana in 2010 that the level of food and customer service and overall comfort was much higher on an Asian-based carrier.  Asiana doesn’t fly out of Los Angeles, so at the end we looked at JAL, ANA, and KAL.  Delta appeared to have a flight that would have worked, but cost wise KAL was the best.   Base fares were similar on many of the airlines but the taxes were not. KAL had the lowest tax rate and because many Tokyo flights go on to Korea, were offering really the best fare overall.  So KAL it was….  and they did a great job. Happy with them, although I like Asiana slightly better IMHO only because it was easier to get up and walk around on their flight (when I went to Incheon in 2010).

Anyways – this was my explanation for all the pictures and blogs to come.    I had a great time overall and want to go back and catch some places again that I missed or didn’t quite see the way I had hoped.

Photo Tools

With that, the only note I have is a photographic one. Those of you following my facebook saw all my iPhone shots. They are blended in to these galleries (sometimes with horribly typo-filled borders).  The majority of these pictures, however, are shot with my SLR.   That is why, unfortunately, there are SO MANY xD

There are still a few of my iPhone shots mixed in the bunch (and they may stray in out of order). These were shot with a 4S and often filtered using Camera+ or other editing tools.  They do look different because I just applied standard filters.

The SLR shots are not filtered or fixed. They need some light adjustment, which I may undertake for gallery quality submissions to Tumblr or DA.

ON TO THE PAGE

What is Binchotan?  Oddly enough it refers to a kind of charcoal used in Japan… and for whatever reason, at some point someone decided to make a mascot for it to promote its use, I suppose.

The character that resulted from this campaign is an orphaned girl who lives alone after the passing of her grandmother.  A series of animated shorts was made around her story and a few other charcoal mascots a few years back.

This gashapon actually accompanied a little comic book released a few years ago.  It’s exceptionally well made and is adapted from a scene in that animated series whereby the little girl takes on an odd job in a school pushing around the food cart. Here she puts the uneaten food back in the slop bucket, but the sad irony is that the disposed food is far better than what she normally eats.

Anyways, love this completely bizarre character because she’s simple, kind, pitiable and orphaned.  It’s also an interesting story where mascot becomes anime and toy after the fact. This isn’t unlike what happened with Vocaloids and is a very interesting model overall in terms of creating “looks” before “story.” I’d like to take this approach someday with a few projects and characters of mine.

For more information on Binchotan, you can check out http://www.charcoalhead.com/about/

She was a person of immense integrity, even more so in the artistic sphere.   I miss her terribly and miss her inspiration.

But she kicked me in the butt before she moved on from this world, and she and I said we’d be mostly playing with our own toys from now on, not those of others.

And the odd thing was when I was a kid, my sister and didn’t really have a lot of TV or popular media to draw our entertainment from.   We were largely    fine as kids inventing Dallas-type melodramas of our own with whatever poor toys happened to be handy. We were masters of story and puppetry as well as making up the most ridiculous sagas one can create for armies of bears and rabbits.

I didn’t need fandom.   I never even cared much about pop stars, movie stars, music stars, whatever…   our stories were way cooler. And somehow I had gotten way too immersed in it and caring about what was popular, and   in light of everything that happened in 2009, it was stupid.

But all this doesn’t really excuse the lack of art you know.   I think I doodled more, but painted far less. I think most of my pictures in 2011 came from sketches I did at conventions.   What happened?

In 2010, I went back to writing.   This was a conscious decision after man years of flip flopping.    As a creator, it is far easier for me to write and explain to you the dimensions of the sandbox, the rules we must retain within it, and who else is sitting there with you than it is to draw it.   I am simply NOT that quick or capable of showing you what I see in my mind.

In 2010, I started to travel for fun.   The biggest impact on me personally was a trip to Korea.   That trip resonated with who I am as a person. I saw an old, almost inexplicable beauty in my parents’ homeland and I realized I needed to see more of Asia to understand where I came from and who I am as a creator.

In 2011, the confirmation came that writing   was where I belonged.

I found the ability to work inside the schedule I have, using my phone or netbook or scraps of paper to craft at any time. This past year I even attempted to goad my poor Siri into taking dictation while I lolligagged in bed at night.

Moreover, response to my writing has been stronger than it has ever been for art.    While Deviantart and Tumblr have been environments of diminishing returns, the new works continue to grow in readership and the old ones still show they have a “tail.”   I’m gratified to find seven year old pieces of obscure fanfiction still floating around and fans still waiting for me to update them (auuugh), and other fans still waiting to stomp on me for ruining their favorite pairings xD.

And yet, I prefer artists… more open minded, more willing to acknowledge the talent of others, more willing to review, encourage, and be social.

The writing world is a very strange, insular one.   In many ways watching the e-book vs. print debates this past year has been nothing short of annoying.   As an outsider, and one who likes both my e-reader/smartphone and print options, it’s pretty obvious to me that these guys are arguing apples and oranges.   There will be no more “ONE CONTENT PLATFORM DELIVERY SYSTEM TO RULE THEM ALL.”

Let’s get real.   The way it works is that delivery constantly changes. You might have a dominant force, but there’s always a disruptive force waiting to mess with you.

So I don’t seem to really get these writers and the time they waste bickering. Maybe they like writing incendiary blogs to get pageviews, but in all seriousness, some of these folks are so full of vitriol and inflexibility that I now have no interest in reading their books.    Negative PR. Moving on.

So what about 2012

Well, 2011 threw me an additional curveball personally.    I think it’s time to stop playing casually.

I decided that other than Momocon and AWA, I will not pursue any artist alleys this year and likely the next year.   My goal is to finish the webnovel this year, work expediently to get it into e-book formats, and contemplate whether to make a limited print edition with illustrations in 2013. (Yes, a vanity press run with my own illustrations! Quel horreur!)

Each convention this year took away weeks of time from writing. As I got sideswiped with family matters in fall, I realized I lost a lot of mental creative time for half the year and was stressing out trying to get updates out on a weekly basis.

The reality is, 2011 was really confirmation that the tide has shifted away from AAs being a place that tries to benefit artists.   Many conventions have simply become too mercenary about making up shortfalls in revenue through the artists and blowing the table numbers out of whack.   There are still a few good ones out there, but the economy has not returned (yet) to where it was before the bottom fell out.   Worse yet, my peers no longer attend these conventions — even the ones who got me into the entire scene.

Where do you hope or expect to be at this time next year? Both artistically and otherwise? Are you excited for the new year?

I hope I will be able to say I’ve reached one of my goals or several.   If all goes well, I’ll make one huge trip to Asia this year and photograph the heck out of it.    No other travel this year… small trips are interesting, but I want there to really be something or someone at the other end to see. Travel is money.   Travel is also time, the   time I want to commit to accomplishing something with permanence. 2011 proved life is scarily short.   I still have a few things I want to scream into the creative void.

One of those things is that first novel.

And so, will be here supporting all my friends in the art world, cheering them on, helping them sort through life and stuff, but not going to be a road warrior anymore.

Have to do serious work. and hope that 2012 doesn’t throw more curveballs.

(Except maybe winning the lotto !   )

What follows are some thoughts… on the writing and the business side of things.  First the writing…

Writing a webserial.  Hm.

First off – if you don’t know what I’m talking about – it may help to visit my “About” stuff on the website.  That should cover the “why, what, WHY,” question in the back of your mind about why I even did this in the first place.  Moving on…

When I started I had no update schedule in mind. One kind reader told me to go weekly and since she seemed quite firm about that, I decided to go for it, knowing full well that “weekly” was actually quite a slow schedule compared to the webcomics I had been reading thus far.

So far, I’m glad to say that I’ve posted fairly consistently, missing a few weeks here and there when emergencies came up or I was too pressed with convention duties. However largely I’ve kept my promise to my readers and think have been rewarded for that faithfulness.

In terms of the writing — I think one of the hardest parts of doing this on a weekly basis is keeping all the details of plotlines straight over a long period of time.  I’ve now forced myself to reread the story from the beginning at least a few times, to the point that I worry I am starting to move eyes over the e-ink screen before I really truly process certain details that I had thrown into the narrative for later retrieval.

The other thing that has constantly worried me is the issue of changing “voice” or writing style along the way.    At times I think my tendency has been to veer wildly between long paragraphs of description and thought processes to short dialogue absent much descriptive language.  This kind of “style” inconsistency is something that really only can smoothed down in a straightforward editing session conducted in one day — not while working through a few pages of text at a time.  This lack of internal consistency normally would drive me nuts except I keep telling myself that this year (when I expect to finish my serial ) I will take everything and shove it in front of a few reader-editors to look for loose threads, sections that don’t have the same “voice,”  and begin the process of converting the webserial into an e-book.

Book Two Dilemmas

My intent is to start serializing Book Two within a two-three month timeframe after completing number one.  (The interim period would be devoted to recharging, concepting more of Book Two and hopefully generating a few dozen pages to establish the characters and setting.   Ideally I’d like to be done with an editorial review of Book One so I can see if there are major holes to fix and any new sections /revisions to provide to the webserial readers so everyone starts “Book Two” on the same page. It may be that this proposed gap will have to be lengthened should Book One be deemed a massive pile of crap by a designated editor xD.

But I guess that’s what new models are all about. I’ll have to probably gamble a bit and beg for forgiveness later.

Advertising and Marketing

Regarding the business side — I know, unlike the established ‘crowd of webfiction folks,’ that I advertise more.  I’ve taken my fun money — primarily given over to MMORPG item malls or Starbucks  in the past — and put in ten-fifteen dollars here and redeem coupons there to play around with  online advertising.

One thing that I also may do differently is avidly examine my Google Analytics stats. I examine everything from hits to time spent on site .  Analytics is free to boot, so there is no excuse not to try to use it if you’re honestly going to spend any money on advertising.

Project Wonderful

I know that these methods have worked as people have sometimes directly commented that the PW ad was how they found the story. However, to be quite honest, this is a costly way of finding readers.

I did a lot of experimentation — trying campaigns with tag words and on sites I personally read.  I  determined the following:

• For those who are starting out with a very limited budget, pick a site that draws the kind of audience you want reading your story and likely to like it, based on topics/subjects/gender/background.  Advertising on PW works well if your audience likes similar subject matter.  I can honestly thank Phoenix Requiem and Red String for the bulk of my initial readers and I’m grateful I was able to place ads prior to the completion of Requiem. (Post-completion, comic sites do not have a lot of traffic from what I have observed.)
• PW is very good for certain tastes – for those who enjoy humor, IT, chicks with boobs, and some fantasy.   As my story largely reads “vaguely Victorian, Austen, fantasy with elves and mysterious antiheroes” has a large cast, and a literary bent — the crossover appeal to most of the PW base is very limited.   I tried the humor sites. Doesn’t work except to get traffic to your landing page, but once they see your work is prose and requires five minutes of minimum investment, most will move on.
• Webfiction, by its very nature, is very niche. You are playing in a sandbox that is largely dominated by visual media and informative blogs designed to provoke response.   Your landing page may be super and great, but unless it looks like the page you advertised at (and is visually comparable) a visual person is not likely to stay.

I do not think PW, therefore, is useful for most webfiction writers.  Also, sites that work one week may not work another.  My initial strategy had to change multiple times as comics concluded or webcomickers found new ad networks and changed their available options. Project Wonderful is a LOT of work and likely doesn’t do well for long term advertising .

Overall, my conclusions are that something else would be desirable for webfiction.  I’d love to find another way in to the reading/ebook/Kindle-Nook market.

Wattpad

 Enter Wattpad.  This web community/ electronic app reader is Fanfiction.net/FictionPress in the modern age. You can post serials or complete works. You can simply use it as an e-reader if you don’t want to deal with the clunky interface of other content access points.  You can read your stuff on the web or on your phone.  This is seriously an amazing concept.

That said, accessing the 1 million readers on this community is tough. There is a lot of stuff being posted and to probably get your story out there, you have to take advantage of the social networking aspect of the site.   But even without a huge community presence, there seems to be no better alternative for serial writers as you can tap into a passionate reading base and mobile capability for broadcasting your story. Of course, the teenage base is pretty strong and it’s pretty easy to get lost in here if your story doesn’t match the userbase.  But I lucked out.  Staff posted to their Facebook a link to the serial, so I got an immediate increase of 1000 reads on the first installment.  It was more than I would have received otherwise.  Retention has not been so strong — probably have about 50-60 readers patient enough to keep reading, but it’s good enough. That’s 50-60 more readers than I had without Wattpad.

On Ad Artwork

Given that PW is heavily dominated by the webcomic type site, eyecatching art content is really critical.  Bad or bland art can make a very bad ad.  If you are a writer, you must get help if all you can manage are stick figures. Commission an artist to help you develop something that can be cropped and used as banners.  I have tested several ads in their network and know that in general “text only” doesn’t work much.

Your ad also needs to stand out from the rest of the ads competing for visual real estate on a webpage. The more ads there are on a page, the worse your ad does unless your ad dominates the others. Don’t bother advertising where there are too many ads unless you’re confident that your ad will win over the others on the page

GoogleAds:

Had a coupon. Too expensive and not enough conversions even with the voucher.  I’ll only reconsider this when the ebook is done.

Social Networking Redirects

While these did not account for a high number of visits, the time that people spent once they clicked through was very good.  I think Facebook, Deviantart, and Twitter have sent consistent numbers of people over who spent at least 10 minutes or more on site reading through content and looking at other pages.

One bizarre observation about webfiction vs webcomics

In examining my Google stats, I”ve noted that I have a consistent (but small) number of folks who search for the story as “tales of the big bad wolf webcomic”.   This has puzzled me enormously because other than the illustrations I used early on in the story posts, this project is a webnovel.  I find it fascinating that there is a lack of a distinction between webfiction and webcomic in this regard and possibly something to pay attention to in the future.  I think– ultimately– that text is not a dead web format and that with the right multimedia you can “brand” these hybrid projects as either webfic/webcomic or better yet — visual novel /light novel which is how it’s done overseas.

I do think that there is a way to entice webcomic patrons to becoming webfiction readers… but not sure yet how. Only one or two projects I know of have regular illustrations accompanying the text that I know of and they are too new to evaluate their success. To that end, I’d love to hear from others marrying text with images to find out how people “brand” your work.

And … thinking this is it for now.  I’ll save thoughts/observations on site content usage for another lunch break xD.

Questions? Comments? As usual, feel free to ask away/contact me at any one of my various handles

Because time is money, I need to pick conventions that are worth the stress of preparation and have some measurable or immeasurable benefit.

Rather than write about each experience, I developed a table and sat down one evening this past fall to sort out my thoughts by filling in data points in this table. I used this process to help me think through my decision whether to apply or go the following year (which is where the table ends).

The rows signify some aspect of the convention or my own preparation that I felt could possibly influence my overall experience. I’ll discuss the reasons for each factor below, in hopes that some of the newer folks to the AA actually start thinking through this prior to applying to “any convention USA.” Because of our current economic landscape, I urge new artists to be careful about where they jump. As always, start local to avoid costly food or lodging fees and start with a convention that doesn’t break your existing budget. Sales are never guaranteed!

These were the variables that I used in the linked
worksheet.

Location and Unemployment rate
Size of convention (more or less)
Price of admission
Demographic

These four variables really are some attempt to understand the real buying capacity of the attendee. Obviously a high overall unemployment rate or high rate among the convention’s key demographic (e.g., 25 and under) is a worrying sign.  It means that if a region is declining that it’s likely your conventioneers (presumably mostly regional) might have less to spend than in the past.  Of course there are exceptions, particularly with destination conventions, but it still need to be thought through.

The price of admission is rarely thought through from the standpoint of impact to the artist in the Artist Alley.  However, if your 10,000 person convention goes up 10 dollars year to year, that is 100,000 dollars moving from attendee to the cost of the convention. It’s also 100,000 dollars less from the general spending pool that goes to the retailers nearby and at the convention.
Duration

To me, this hasn’t been really an important factor, although theoretically buying behavior varies at multi day cons vs. one day cons.  I think people are actually more likely to be lost at multiday conventions as sales to the AA unless the AA is really what they value most.  The truth is, from what I can tell from comments here and there, the big draws for the young demographic is the Dealer’s Room, the cosplay stuff, and gaming.  Granted, the DR’s have largely flattened in diversity of product the past few years because of the bad economy and the weak dollar/yen ratio, so the AA tends to benefit slightly when the DR content becomes too similar.

Size of alley

This is the big elephant in the room.  Remember that hypothetical 100,000 dollars I mentioned before as spending power? Yeah. The more tables that are added year to year , the more artists there are. If the attendance growth rate is flat, well, that’s more artists fighting over the pie with the Dealer’s Room and the food retailers.

Composition of exhibited material:

This… debatable.  Really, a fixed percent sometimes has little to do with sales or performance. And sometimes, when the key demographic wants something and you don’t have it, well that’s really the main issue.   I’d like to capture more data before I say something, but my feeling is that 50/50 is going to be the deciding line for artists in future years and their interest in a convention. Granted, a little education of attendees could go a long way to keeping anything with a higher original composition rate more attractive to artists.

Location within convention space
My location within the AA
Crowding factor

Having an easy to find AA is good. Having one in a high foot traffic area is awesome.  Not facing a wall or column or being a dark corner, also good things. My storefront wants to be in a good spot. These are obvious no brainer influencers to overall interactions/sales with people.

My available items
Display used
What sold

These are mostly notes to myself and points of interest.  That said, I do like to experiment with my display within the confines of the rules. The more stuff I had visually assaulting people though (and increased points of interaction), the better I did.  I’m a firm believer in big is good. Very good.

Sales compared to other conventions
Sales compared to previous years

These figures were weird. More attendees and larger size definitely does not equate to more sales.  I’m satisfied that my other variables explain some of this apparent discrepency quite well.  As for comparisons to previous years – I’m trying to understand both the changes at the convention as well as possible changes in economic situations.   I’m hoping that next year I can hold these figures otherwise I can’t really justify the time and money going into stocking so many prints xD.

Do I want to return
What I would change if I return

More or less, these are the concluding points and the last two rows I fill out after putting the pieces together.  I will have to keep rereading this when it comes time to stay up and attempt to apply for these conventions.    Also, I used the last row to capture some thoughts I want to reflect on the next time, if there is one.

In sum

I don’t know that these variables are really all-inclusive, so welcome your input in the comments below as to what you think “your version of the table” should look like. If you like the worksheet and want to modify it for yourself, you can download a blank one here. And yes, I’d be interested in knowing how you’ve adapted the worksheet and what variables or “factors” you concluded were telling in terms of explaining or accounting some part of your experience/performance.

Other Feedback

Any other topics you want me to blog about related to AAs or anime conventions?  Let me know.