The Short of It
Hi! I'm Paula Richey, owner of OtherRealm Studio. I create comics and cosplay accessories to earn money at comic cons to create more comics.
This year has started out pretty rocky and the comic cons I depend on have been postponed or canceled, and the shops that host them are closed as of this writing, and I'm looking around at a lot of people who are in the same boat. Invisibility has always been a huge problem for any small business, more so for creative businesses, and even more so for individual creators.
Independent creators of the most excellent, most original, and most fun stories I've ever seen are feeling their invisibility now more than ever.
Meanwhile, a whole lot of people are stuck at home with nothing to do and discovering that the vast majority of entertainment from gigantic megacorporations doesn't exactly hold up on a second viewing or reading.
Can we please bring these two groups together?
I'm already at work creating IndieGen.xyz, a free-to-use, permanent virtual indie creator convention, where visitors can browse books, comics, games, web series, movies and more by medium, genre, maturity rating, and locale! Instead of wading through dozens of pages of corporate-sponsored ads, they can immediately find original creators and support them directly.
IndieGen.xyz is an idea I've had for a long time, and current events make it clear that we all must find new ways of reaching readers and audiences, as well as become a little more resilient. I want to list independent comic shops, game shops, and more in the US by state, so that people can go there IRL once that's possible again and so that creators can also get out and support and promote their local shops.
Imagine - you could be among the first to discover and support the next incredible hit show, comic, game or book series!
What We Need & What You Get
Honestly, I'm running this project on a shoestring. Whatever would ordinarily need fancy software or nuanced algorithms, I'm just putting in by hand.
So. Much. Data. Entry.
On the other hand, you get a human-curated experience when you shop! Each vendor definitely has something on their virtual table that's represented accurately by the search tags and is ready for sale and delivery.
I've bought the initial hosting package and put a deposit down for my web developer, but I refuse to ask him to work for free. I'll pick up what art gigs and comic sales I can to keep him going on it, but working on the site itself is at least a fulltime gig for me, too.
I'm asking for $500 so I can get further along on these goals:
- Pay Web Guy in Full on Completion
- Upgrade the Hosting Package Toward Permanency
- Get Some Evaluation/Data Entry Help
- Get More Eyes on these Amazing Talented Creators and Hardworking Retailers!
… in that order. I always pay the talent first. (I say as I stare judgmentally at every entertainment industry in existence)
It will take more than $500 to do all this - but this is my minimum so that I don't have to lie awake staring at my ceiling wondering what on Earth I have gotten myself into.
And in return, you will get:
- My Undying Gratitude
- Warm Fuzzy Feelings from Helping Creators Be Seen
- A Terrific Site to Find the Best Independently Generated, Locally Owned Original Stories
- SWAG of a currently undetermined nature. I need to shop around a bit and find out what the most people are excited to get. Feel free to comment!
Potential ideas include virtual convention badges, IndieGen.XYZ logo stickers, pinback buttons, and maybe a mystery box of convention swag if a few sponsors want to chip in some items.
Unfortunately I can't guarantee a virtual booth to anyone. Some entitled clown will surely demand to have something completely inappropriate listed, and that will throw off my family-friendly convention atmosphere and visitor experience groove.
In addition, I will be prioritizing content that there's more demand for... so please be patient. This is a massive project and the only way to do it right is to evaluate each and every application according to what the real humans who'll be shopping will want, not what an algorithm thinks they want. We've all seen how genre tags get stuffed with mislabeled stories on certain other sites.
If anyone is wondering about stretch goals, most of them involve more permanent or efficient versions of the lists above. Hosting, advertising, and fair wages paid for all that data entry would all be fairly high-return uses for funds. A simple plan, well-executed, is the way to success - so I won't be getting too caught up in elaborate potential futures.
The Impact
Independent creators have been invisible a long time, but we all keep creating - for you. We want to reach you, to make you laugh, to make you swoon, to make your heart pound, to make you feel and see new worlds and new perspectives. We have a drive to communicate with you because we love crafting these new worlds in our chosen mediums, and we love you.
Those bean-counters in the huge plastic corporations mostly love your cash. If you've ever left a movie theater feeling vaguely disappointed, or watched a movie or read a book a second time and become uncomfortably aware of all the plot holes and lazy writing decisions, you might have suspected this already. Or maybe you disagree - but you can't deny that it's better to have more stories.
There are more stories. More than you can imagine. And they're good. Characters worth caring about. Games that are challenging and fun. Engaging kids' books. Plots that surprise and yet make sense at the end. The variety is endless.
There truly is something for everyone.
As a creator myself, I've been lurking around lots of creative communities in most media. It's so strange to know that creators are a minority in the real world, because online, it's so hard to find readers/gamers/audiences! Creators are working so hard all the time that they can't devote much energy to outreach and advertising. They certainly don't have access to PR teams and ad agencies.
IndieGen.xyz can't change all of that, but it can certainly make a good sized dent in the problem.
Risks & Challenges
There are some things that could go badly.
- My plan for how the site will operate may not be practical. I'm pretty sure that the reason there isn't already a hugely popular site that everyone visits for new indie entertainment is that there's no way to monetize it. That's fine by me, but no one else will want to take it on.
- My team might change, and that would create delays.
- It might never get fully off the ground - but I believe that when something is worthwhile, it's worth giving all you've got. IndieGen.xyz is worthwhile to me.
I have a vision for how this site will work. It'll start out a little bare, but if I schedule an hour every day into reviewing applications and populating the booths, it will grow. And if everyone pitches in to help spread the word, we can generate more.
Twenty years ago, nobody had any idea that Facebook would exist, let alone be the essential social platform it is today, or that eBay would stick around any longer than the rest of the dot-com bubble. There are possibilities in the future that no one yet has dreamed of.
I'm running IndieGen.xyz lean and light. It will search, organize, and list virtual booths according to what you want - no shuffling or suppressing or algorithm reprioritizing. Each booth has an attractive picture that illustrates what the stories you'll find there are all about. You click through onto the creator's or store's own site and pay them directly - I don't need a cut.
I want to station my own booth among all the wonderful creators I've discovered, so that we can all independently generate the best entertainment in every media that this generation has ever seen.
Other Ways You Can Help
If you can't contribute money but you believe in this idea, that's great! What I need more than cash is visibility. As is the usual case for indie creatives and the small retailers who help us out. Having an audience to buy our creations is honestly our preferred way of solving the cashflow problem.
- Share this everywhere and talk it up! This will be a place of discovery, of epic tales of wonder and heroics and actual decent writing and all the rest of what you miss most that's fallen out of fashion in the mainstream entertainment industry.
- Indiegogo share tools make your contribution of moral support quick and easy! Somebody you know might be looking for this very solution - why wouldn't you hit a share button?
