I have 200 followers, but I've started thinking about paid notes and memberships
I was considering turning the story I wrote into a manga, and after drawing a few illustrations, I showed them to an acquaintance—or rather, a friend.
Well, acquaintance, friend, or more formally, someone I consider a teacher. Our relationship began when I started attending vocal lessons, which is where I met them.
I met them while I was at my previous job, and I've been diligently attending lessons even after becoming unemployed. Thankfully, I've been able to scrape together the tuition. For about the past year, the only real-life human beings I've communicated with have been my vocal teacher, my chiropractor, occasionally my mother, more rarely my younger brother, and my older sister via LINE. The teacher's presence is significant.
I'm learning vocals, but we talk about all sorts of things, not just music. Sixty percent of the reason I go to the classroom is because I want to talk to the teacher. I've also frequently mentioned that I started creating stories. A year has passed, and I reported that I was turning my story into a manga. I also showed them the illustrations I was in the middle of drawing.
I summarized what kind of illustrations I'm using to conceive the manga in yesterday's article.
The teacher's reaction to the illustrations
"This would definitely sell if you made it into a tote bag or something! If this character were holding a microphone, I'd want one myself," they said, giving me their stamp of approval.
As a professional, I am a designer, so I have confidence in the overall balance of my drawings. If a client told me, 'Put some character here and make it look decent,' I could do it. My ranking as a designer isn't particularly high, but I'm sure I'm seen as someone who is reasonably useful, and as a designer, I'm satisfied with that. But that's as far as it goes. I could never imagine myself reaching the heights of an art director. Like Kashiwa Sato... or YOKO FUCHIGAMI...
As for my original illustrations, if you look at the details, they're a bit shaky, but I can get by with drawings that look good at a glance. That's my current level.
On the other hand, because I trust my teacher, I also think there is a charm in my drawings that I don't see myself. I can say this from my own life experience, too. There are works that harbor something invisible to the person who drew them. Works that possess the energy to make people think they'd be willing to pay for them.
My current activity policy is to get a foothold on the next step, no matter how small, once I find it.I want to gain confidence after being praised by ten people, not to mention a hundred, but once I've reached one person, why not move on to the next?
I decided to think about monetization
First, simply put, I'll go look at services where I could make things like tote bags or T-shirts, just as the teacher suggested. After all, Naoki Saito also introduces BOOTH in his projects.
…Yeah, I understand well that we live in an age where you can easily create original merchandise.
Of course, I have a sense of reality, so I know that just saying, 'I made a tote bag' won't cut it.A character BAM!If a T-shirt like that appeared, someone who knows nothing about it would just go, '?' I would too.
If I were to do graphic design for merchandise, the concept isn't solid yet.
I was thinking it hadn't clicked yet, when just yesterday, I received information in the Daytona Park newsletter that a collaboration T-shirt between 'JoJo's Bizarre Adventure' and Freak's STORE would be sold.
A design that dares to use a faded print style, like vintage clothing.
…I see, it's interesting to turn illustrations into punk-style graphics like this and incorporate them into fashion goods.This is the image for turning things into merchandise.
I've started to see the worldview I want to project when my work leads to promotion.
It's still a long way off before I turn them into merchandise, but I've seen the direction for branding/marketing, so to speak.
I've found a direction for my marketing... in other words, I've started to understand the vibe for the logo design used in the titles of my works. I've also started to understand the mood I want to convey in my work. Perhaps it would be better to treat my work not just as output, but as a product.
If I'm going to treat it as a product, I want to properly set up my storefront. Fortunately, I'm already on a platform called note where I can monetize if I want to... so, I'm listening to the advice of Kappy, who is active by publishing works on note.
As a major premise, the fact that "the work needs to be interesting" remains unchanged. It doesn't matter if it's free or paid.
Furthermore, as long as I'm asking people to pay, there is an added layer of pressure. Even before that, I myself am hesitant to pay 100 yen for a paid note and haven't joined any memberships, so it's completely unknown how many people would be willing to tip an unknown author.
But in this world, there are definitely people who believe in others' dreams and support them, dreaming along with them.
I want to meet people who will do what I cannot. I want to meet people who can do what I can't—people who will pay to support someone—and help my work grow to the next level. My curiosity is growing to see a world that I can no longer see on my own.
While finishing the first episode, I want to get things in order for monetization and memberships.
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