Last weekend, I had trouble sleeping before the final day of ALT FCD, the show I ran with my friend Neo Edmund to try and replace a little piece of what the comics community lost with the postponement of Free Comic Book Day. You can watch the entire broadcast at www.altfcd.com.
It’s not uncommon for me to have insomnia on the night of a big show.
As I tried to tire my brain out, I was thinking about connections, and how being a connector is the easiest way to level up quickly and grow your career.
When I was starting out, searching for somebody to take me seriously, I found a group of humans living in LA who loved comics and worked in entertainment through a group called Comic Book Sunday. I did, and still do, think they were the coolest people on the planet.
Once a month a bunch of people would meet in a studio, or house, or backyard, somewhere in LA, and talk about comics.
When I was trying to be taken seriously, when everybody else in the whole world either laughed of scoffed, they all took me seriously and welcomed me in their little club.
From there, I connected with so many people who I still consider dear friends today, and I was just in awe of how the organizers brought so many people together.
I cannot count the number of amazing connections I made from that group and how it helped me level up about 100 times over, and probably more than that.
I’m still reaping the benefits of that group to this day.
Not only does Neo Edmund, the co-founder of ALT FCD, have a direct connection to CBS being one of the founders, but at least a half dozen speakers from www.altfcd.com have direct lines from that group to ALT FCD as well.
When Neo and I became friends I asked him how the heck he was able to do it, and he said something along the lines of “we just all loved comics, and wanted to meet up to talk about it, and then a few people turned into a few dozen people turned into a few hundred people”.
I thought it was magic, but he talked about it so plainly that it made complete sense at the same time. He even made it seem easy and logical.
Cut to a few years later, I was not getting very far in my career in comics, or movies, or anywhere, really. I had done a couple of Kickstarters, exhibiting at shows, and I was meeting people, but I was flatlining.
I really wanted guidance from successful creators about how they built their careers, but nobody has an hour to spend at a con yapping at some nobody.
I realized though, that if I could connect somebody to an audience then I could use that audience to entice them…
…and my podcast was born.
I interviewed dozens of creators, asked them all about how they built their careers, facilitated deep and meaningful conversations, and then, when it was done, introduced them to my audience.
I learned then that you could punch way out of your league when booking guests. I booked Paul Jenkins a couple of months in when I had NO BUSINESS interviewing somebody of his legendary caliber.
I realized, though, that you didn’t even need a big audience. You just needed to be memorable, to make a real connection, and to build a bridge.
And I did it again and again, because everybody wants to reach an audience, and they want to feel heard.
Our need for connection runs so deep that if you can facilitate that conversation, and make sure to deliver an amazing experience for people, then they will open up to you.
If you can make a connection, then you’re somebody special. If you are the pivotal cog, you become nearly irreplaceable.
I took every piece of advice they ever gave and implemented as much as I could, and eventually, broke through myself.
I learned from those first interviews how to interview creators well, bring something new into the world that people would enjoy, and that the guest would enjoy. The first one wasn’t perfect…they still are never perfect…but I’ve gotten so much better through practice.
I knew that if the guests were happy, if they felt the conversation had merit, and they left with a smile, then I had a chance of connecting with them outside the show and making a friendship. I didn’t care if that friendship led anywhere. I just wanted to be connected to more creatives I respected in a deep and meaningful way.
That podcast grew and evolved into The Complete Creative brand, which generates basically half of my revenue.
Meanwhile, at roughly the same time as I started the podcast, I was still barely inching forward, as I mentioned above.
I had a couple of publishing deals, but none of them worked out, and I was struggling to get my own company off the ground.
I had no idea how to get to the next level, but I had a group of other creators that I admired, and wanted to work with them on something with them.
I really, really wanted to get into anthologies but nobody was hiring me for them, so I took matters into my own hands. As I had realized much earlier, if nobody else wants to take a chance on you, you can just do it yourself.
I learned long ago that people LOVE being a part of something but hate organizing anything, and so if you can organize something, and do it well, people would willingly join.
But there was something else I learned, all the way back in those CBS days.
People join something, and they WANT to tell other people about it, when they’re having fun. When people are making connections, leveling up, and enjoying each other, word spreads by itself.
I decided that it wasn’t enough to make something amazing with friends.
It has to be phenomenal yes, that’s the standard for making anything, but, more than that, it had to be fun. It had to be so much fun that people couldn’t help but share it.
The creators had to love each other so much, and their stories so much, that they were overflowing with joy to share it.
They had to get so much out of it, whether that was friendships, or other work, or rising to the next level, or money, that they would never forget it.
In fact, they needed to get ALL of that and more.
So, I made sure that not only did people submit to an awesome anthology and they were proud of the final product, but that they had a good experience along the way and that they connected with each other on a real level; that they found each other, and made a little tribe together; that they laughed and mingled together; that they developed a real connection through the book.
If I could do that, then the book would transcend to be more than the sum of its pages and make a real impact on my career and the world.
The result of that was Monsters and Other Scary Shit, and if you don’t know, that book made my career.
Yes, I was doing okay before, but that book rocketed me up 100+ levels practically overnight.
The book was amazing, yes, but there are many amazing books on Kickstarter, and anthologies that I’ve now been part of, that don’t make $27,000 on Kickstarter; that people don’t talk about years later.
From that book, I made Cthulhu is Hard to Spell, and kept the “party “going”. At each step, remembering what I learned back in CBS. That book made $39,000 on Kickstarter and launched me up another 100 levels.
If you can connect people, and facilitate a good time doing it, then word will spread.
But I learned something else.
CBS, at its peak, wasn’t huge. It had a few hundred people, maybe a thousand, I think at its peak, which isn’t big for a group.
But they were the RIGHT people.
They were people who were influential, and who could move the needle in real measurable ways. They were producers, directors, editors, writers, and more who were working in the industry, looking for a place to connect.
CBS gave them that; a place that they could stop thinking about work and geek out about the things they loved, with people who they loved seeing, talk about comics and have a beer.
You didn’t really need that many people, I realized, to move the needle in a real way, you just needed the right people, to connect them together, to facilitate joy in them, to get them excited, and then, the rest kind of does itself.
It’s more complex than that for sure, because it’s a living, breathing organism and you can’t just bottle it, but a few dozen of the right people can literally move mountains.
Cut to 2020, the world ends as we know it.
And I know just what to do.
I’ve been researching virtual summits and virtual conventions for a couple of years…
…all I needed was a couple dozen of the right people to test one, see if it worked, and facilitate some joy for them.
Bought a domain, www.wannacon.com, and made a Facebook post, just like I did with my first anthology…
…just a domain and a Facebook post…
I asked who would be available to go live for a little bit, created a little website, and went about figuring out how to make the creators involved happy…
…because if they were happy…if they could connect with each other, and the audience…
…they maybe I could bottle magic again.
I ran that first event, and got a lot of amazing feedback from the creators, but really…
…I don’t think I did much.
I facilitated them getting in front of new people…
…I facilitated them meeting each other…
…and I made sure they looked great doing it, so they could just be the best version of themselves.
This is really important, because I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars running tests, making things, and trying to build myself up little by little…
…but the most successful things I’ve ever done…
…the things that really moved the needle…
They were time investments, sure, but Monsters and Other Scary Shit, before that Kickstarter ran, cost me $600 to make a cover.
The rest was all time and relying on the investments I had made in RELATIONSHIPS and CONNECTIONS.
That podcast cost me $100 to buy a high-quality microphone and another $200 max to build out the website and get the hosting service set, and it led to incalculable ROI.
These virtual conferences…
…in total cost me around $200 to run all three.
I invested A LOT into relationship costs…
With each step along the way, I built out prototypes, proof of concepts, and started with something manageable.
I invested thousands of hours of my own time in building out the processes…
…but the investment of capital…
…it’s been next to nothing…
The capital investment is small because I invest in relationships and connections all the time.
I invest in learning new processes, and going places nobody else even thinks about, so that when an opportunity presents itself I can pounce on it.
My goal, that I learned all the way back in 2020, is to find the right people, connect with them, help them connect with each other, and facilitate joy…
…and to not expect anything in return, but to hope for a good friendship out of it…
…which doesn’t cost anything, but it costs everything at the same time.
It’s not something you need a huge budget to do. It costs you something else, though.
It costs you completely changing how you think about everything, how you value time, and how you think about the people in your life, though…
…but as for money…nah…you don’t need much of that to make a real difference in your life.
I should note, that I invest heavily in making my own projects, making them the best they can be, and my exacting standards for my own work mean that when I make good connections, and they see my work, then they take it seriously. You don’t want to blow your shot. You don’t want to get somebody to your show, or give them a book, after you’ve worked so hard for them to notice you, and then blow it with a crappy product.
Making great work takes time, effort, energy, and money. I spent a LOT of my time at the beginning of my career making things until I was confident that I could make something remarkable again and again. That’s essential
And you really can’t leverage those connections until you can make something great consistently…and I mean great to the point people stop and marvel at it…
…but the stuff that really moved the needle for me and brought me to the next level never cost a lot…except it cost everything. If you’re at the point in your career where you’re CONFIDENT you are making something awesome and you’re not getting the recognition you think you deserve, then being the fulcrum by which people connect to each other is a valuable position, and it’s much easier to start doing it than you think.
Being a connector, a nexus by which people can circle around, and to provide value through those connections, is the cheapest and most valuable way to build a career and propel yourself forward.
If my career is a model for nothing, it is a model for that, and it’s imminently replicable as long as you’re willing to put in the time and the work. This isn’t something that pays off immediately, but it pays off in dividends when you do it right.
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