It was one year ago that your friendly neighborhood blogger-turned-YouTuber-turned-indie comics creator came out with Soulfinder: Black Tide. The May 2021 piece I penned upon its release talked about zigging while others zagged; the series about combat veteran exorcists skipped crowdfunding and went straight to the Iconic Comics website.
Soulfinder: Infinite Ascent continues the direct-to-reader approach, but this year the book first came out via an Amazon Kindle digital release and then to a saddle-stitch offering in the lead-up to a hardcover.
One reason for that decision: calculated risk. Hardcovers are trickier to print, and the theory was that getting the book out to as many people as possible at a great price would result in positive views prior to the hardcover’s availability. The key, of course, is that the book must be good. Everything hinges on the quality of the product meeting or exceeding readers’ expectations.
Did it work? Short answer: Yes.
Amazon Kindle feedback has been good. YouTubers have offered substantive (positive) reviews. The same goes for readers who prefer to voice their opinions on Twitter.
As it stands, any potential hardcover buyers who are on the fence once that version is released — complete with artist Matthew Weldon’s colors and inks — will have plenty of objective reviews to consider. Given that it is on the hardcover books where costs can quickly be recouped and profits made (and then those profits recycled into the next installment), the good word-of-mouth for less expensive saddle-stitch versions will be a huge asset for my sales pitch.
Given my approach to selling the series, dear reader, I now ask you to look across the social media landscape and consider the approaches used by other creators to sell books. It is my assertion that what you will see, for all intents and purposes, are a lot of professional victims across the ideological spectrum.
Creators on the left claim that their books should be supported because the evil boogeyman of conservativism threatens to destroy everything we hold dear. Similarly, a population on the right rants and raves about how left-wing boogeymen are out to destroy everything we hold dear. Each rage-fueled population offers a purely emotional appeal instead of talking about the merits of their writing, art, and overall packaging.
It is my stance that ideologues on both sides of the political spectrum are cancerous to creative endeavors and, ultimately, any cultural body they inhabit. Years ago I lamented left-wing ideologues within Marvel who used rage to market their books, so it stands to reason that I would reject right-wing ideologues who do the same thing while essentially saying, “Well, it’s different when we do it.”
Am I a conservative man? Yes. The key difference, however, is that I’m a writer who just so happens to be conservative; I’m not a conservative who happens to write.
If you’re looking for a series in which the creative team puts the characters and their motivations at the top of the priority list, then Soulfinder is for you. If you’re looking for a writer who does not want to shoehorn his beliefs into books and browbeat readers with personal politics, then you should check out my projects.
If, however, you want a conservative man to validate your worldview with painfully on-the-nose messaging, then I promise you those creators are only a few clicks away. They are on every social media platform and they’re begging to tell you that your wallet is the key to saving the world from a laundry list of super-scary men.
Thank you for reading and your willingness to give me your time after all these years on WordPress. I don’t post as much as I used to, but I’m going to try and get here on a more regular basis with thoughts on my time working in corporate media, living in Washington, D.C., and as a creator trying to publish quality independent comic books.
Douglas Ernst Blog 