Indie Creators and Engagement

[Nightdrift]

I recently stumbled upon an indie creator's post regarding the topic of engagement, and how audience members passively enjoying of creator works (ie lurking) rather than directly supporting via likes/comments/engagement would kill the indie scene (by extension, I believe dontations/patreon/etc fall in there but this was not mentioned by them specifically). As someone who does often lurk people's work, and someone who creates work as well...this struck a particular conflicted chord within me. I believe it's very easy to enter an unsustainable relationship with one's work, if one is not brutally honest about their expectations about being an indie creative, and what it entails...because being an indie creator trying to make it out there (ie livable wage) is really tough! But I think it is a very popular thing to try be and succeed in, in this day and age. (Melon's topic "What does a successful project mean to you?" from December has a few thoughts that also got me thinking about this as well...)

We all have different expectations and measures of worth of our work. Hobbies or business seem a little more black-and-white with boundaries, needs, and expectations, but the indie creator (at least to me) falls into a strange twilight zone with a spectrum of vastly different experiences, hopes, and expectations. Some people expect or demand that sort of attention. Some rework their strategies, or realign/sacrifice some things for other benefits. Some remain staunch to what they want to create and weather through business struggles. So what does it mean to be an indie creator who is sometimes both the "person" and "the business" in this day and age?

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Some thoughts

• I don't believe any creator is necessarily "owed" attention, but this seems to be a rhetoric that is used these days (likely out of understandable frustration): that one has to support an indie creator with everything one has, or not at all. On the other side, I sometimes wonder if people are truly keeping up with indie creators because they genuinely connected or care about the work, or if they're just doing it because it's trendy. And what does that mean for the creator then? I think there is something very sad about the whole thing, and I'm sure it's only exacerbated by the current online atmosphere.
• That said, I think a lot of engagement these days are often on social media platforms that are not really...built for that engagement, which likely discourages some folks from wanting to participate.
• It seems to be a fairly common concern among creative people that level of engagement (meaningful or otherwise) seems to always be dwindling. But what even is the expected level of engagement in these spheres? The nature of being an indie creator, whether an artist, musician, game developer, etc, feels to be to be the equivalent of the rock-and-a-hard-place: on one side, the desire to make a living from one's (often very personal) work, and the other, the need to build a willing (and fleeting) audience, or to produce work for free without recompense and hope exposure will get you somewhere. I can't even begin to imagine trying to reconcile these aspects without somehow going bonkers.
• People will always lurk, I think that has to be accounted for -- even still, there's plenty of folks who are the "long time lurker, first time poster" out there. Direct engagement is a product of time, the community/fanbase, and a bit of the creator's own disposition. Whether that direct engagement becomes positive or toxic though is a different matter.
• In short: I personally wouldn't wish becoming an indie creator (with the goal of making a livable wage) upon anyone in this current atmosphere, but I wonder if there are methodologies or agreements people can come to to make being an indie creator more sustainable.

[edits made for clarity]

[Icey!]

I don't exactly get the message. Is this about analytics and how numbers make people fell turned down?

[Nightdrift]

I don't exactly get the message. Is this about analytics and how numbers make people fell turned down?

Hey Ice! Hahaha, I will say that as I finished typing this, I thought to myself, "boy, I've typed a lot of word vomit". I've tried to edit some of the text to make some ambiguities clearer...that said, you'll have to forgive me: I don't know that there is exactly a question, but more of what I hope is a conversation starter, or a chance for folks to share their observations about what they think it means to be an indie creator. (Hm. Maybe I should have started with that. :omg:k:smile:

But maybe to put it another way: Hobbyists (by my definition, folks creating with less of a focus on turning a profit/liveable wage through the hobby) are able to produce their work with all their own personal desires with less consideration for business ramifications. Businesses live or die on breaking even/making a profit, so their choices and methods will often be driven by money rather than personal desires. So where does the indie artist fall, as someone who is likely trying to share their personal desires while also hoping to make money?

Or maybe to try posit it another way... The indie creator expects or hopes for engagement, but oftentimes only few will succeed to a massive degree; the marketplace is quite really big. In my vacuum world I've proposed, businesses consider engagement people buying their product, whereas hobbyists consider engagement people looking and enjoying their work (via comments, emails or just pageviews). I think that indie creators fall in the center of the line. What kind of challenges does that bring? Are expectations tempered enough, or unrealistic? Is there a better way of doing things?

I would say analytics and numbers do relate to this issue of what indie creators sometimes expect and become disappointed by: huge follower counts don't necessarily equate to huge sales, but sometimes that seems to be the expectation.

[Icey!]

Hmm... This reminds me of that one time when I tried out VidIQ (Don't ask why) and at the first day of using it, I realized that this plugin wasn't made for creative works, mostly for trendy YouTubers. I ended up uninstalling the plugin.

Engagement is something creators care about, and in the current age people would say the same thing, "WAnnaA GeTt A FaNNSSssSs!!?!?!? MMakE A TwitR!!!! FRrEO AdvERtiEING!!! PoesT DaiolY!!!" But from my experience, Social media users don't revolve around or care about you, no matter how successful you or someone else is (At least for the most part). Popularity is an illusion, and stopping because of a number is stupid. If you want to enjoy life as an indie creator, don't get upset when your work doesn't get the attention you expected. Continue creating and take breaks when you need to. As for Businesses. Who cares! They only care about the money, so, why should I care?

(I actually still struggled to read your post, I might have gotten it wrong.)

[Melooon]

I very much agree Night, I think what your describing is EXACTLY the point I'm at in life right now; Im trying to figure out how I can live a grown up life, paying my bills and having my own place to stay, but doing it with an income from my creative work.

An important aspect of it is that being an indie creative is a calling, there is no easy rout. I tried the traditional 9-5 office job and renting a trendy apartment in the past and I learned I could not life that way, I had to make my own things.
Ice, I totally agree with you too, and Id love to say who cares about money, but I also enjoy foood!

One big challenge is that no creative person should be forced to engage with a community to support their work, being a people person and being creative are things that don't really mix so well (just think how many great artists were very hard to get along with); with that in mind promoting your work on social media is very wrong for many people. I find I'm able to switch my brain between community mode and creating mode, but not everyone can do that.

I suppose the question really boils down to how do you convert your work into cash?

This internet is great for mass popularity support and niche interests support, but both of those are community centric. They depend on you being able to reach out to a group of people and engage them enough to support your work, essentially its like being an entertainer as much as a creative.

That forces creatives to monetize everything, sell perks and packs and upgrades and that kinda stuff. 99.99% of people wont support something (ether financially or with likes/follows) unless they think they will get something in return. What people don't really think of is that they were already getting something when it was free.

If I started to paywall gifypet I think Id become the most unpopular person on neocities overnight Its been praised and quoted and linked so often though it makes me feel good and that's a kind of payment. MoMG on the other hand gets very little attention, I think if that was my only web project I would feel very depressed about it; so there is a hard value to visible engagement even if its not money.

Being an indie creative can be lonely too, sometimes I'll work away on something for a week and the only praise I get is the one or two likes I get on the neocities update feed. Perhaps the issue is that the internet is a wonderful publishing tool, but it makes it too easy for you to hyper focus on your tiny area of life; when in reality what you really need is to build a broader real life community. I found I had that community in college, but outside colleges and jobs, that structure is hard to find.

Getting more practical on indie projects though; I think its very much about not putting all your eggs in one basket. Don't just make one thing and expect it to support you. Make a free thing, and a paid thing and a web thing and a physical thing. Show it on your site and on the web, but also talk to real people about it even if that audience seems a lot smaller its a different kind of audience. Iv been focusing a lot on local arts applications to help fund my next 3d worlds projects, Iv no idea if that will work out, but it might!

You seem to bounce around the idea of projects and indie life Night? Are you working full time at a job now and considering going indie? Or have you tried in the past? Have I asked you this before and forgotten? Holy nelly iv been writing this for ages, I had other posts I wanted to write before bed!!!

[grim]

wow, i really love this topic and it's one close to my heart.
i also super agree with you, melon, and it also sounds like you have experience with this type of thing :omg:3 i haven't even gotten to the point of being a creative where i am supporting myself and my livelihood depends on that--but i'm also not struggling with a creativity-draining type job while working to that point. i think a lot of people get frustrated with the struggle that comes either way, which is where the 'all creators are owed attention' feeling comes in. it is hard to support yourself with no attention at all (although attention doesnt guarantee money) but it's equally hard, maybe even more so, to create anything at all while surviving some of the jobs available to people, especially right now.

all around me, friends and people i follow, are trying to strike it out so that they can live on doing something they love! i think that's a really admirable thing and a lot of them are doing pretty good at it barring unseen struggles, you know?

a lot of people though, these people i see included, are constantly straining under the pressure of having stuff that is so numbers-driven attached at both ends to your livelihood and also your passion. it's so stressful when those things are entwined! especially with the state of most websites where creatives build audiences (the big few.. we know them all) in this new web2.5 environment that is trying to stir, and each website that was on the larger web that initially came out seemingly in support of creatives are also showing their ugly behinds. and i see a lot of people rightfully telling artists to make their own websites, and move to this independent site that actually cares, or this, or that, but a lot of hesitance lays in the fact that at least *right now* being exclusively off the larger web is not sustainable for people to pay rent and feed themselves off of, especially because even when you're on those platforms, only a quarter of your audience is paying for your merchandise or your patreon or your commissions or whatever you offer that is purchasable.

i have a lot of complex feelings about it too. i think that as an artist, if you make things that mean a lot to you and really strike a chord with the people you're subconsciously creating for, you'll eventually form a community of people who resonate with your work even if you don't super interact or put yourself out there. it obviously becomes harder if you're struggling to make a living for yourself at the same time as developing your skills, working on your passions, etc. and i do think that artists that can interact more and be more personal do have it easier because the community part will come faster naturally, simply because it'll be easier to find you i think?! but for instance, i follow a lot of artists who are very mysterious and don't do much socially at all but are visible because of the message or emotion in their work. that part is hard to pin down, because it doesn't seem like 'putting yourself out there' matters so much as what you're doing strikes a particular chord. but maybe that, if you *aren't* going to be striking that chord, you need to compensate with being personal/interaction? Σ(●ꉺ▱ꉺ●)

it's true that to thrive as an artist on these platforms, you have to work 'what is popular' or 'what will get attention on x platform' to formulate some pieces. you have to work with an AI algorithm and tags, posting times, many levels of mental and algorithmic manipulation. if you've ever done any research on what to do on various platforms to gain traction, it's a combination of both at such a gross level that i think there may also be a level of unawareness re: what to do to gain an audience at play... though, none of this matters if you lose the ability to create over worrying you're making something popular. seven years ago i was still getting into art as a potential job sort of thing and starting with boothing at cons, and even then the pressure to make certain things because it was popular or risk not even making your table back in sales was a big thing. getting older and also not going to cons for a long time, i've seen this worry shift from selling at cons and being popular on tumblr (honestly, way more innocent than twitter or instagram fame) to now being popular on twitter/instagram/tiktok (so now there's an algorithm at play) and selling online--on a consistent basis and with a regularly revolving menu of items.

back then, the pressure of having to draw free! (or whatever the cute boy anime flavor of the month was back then), was enough for me to get frustrated and do what i do with anything that starts to feel forced instead of enjoyable: i drop it like a hot sack of potatoes. this is before people were even slaves to the instagram algorithm, or at least perceivably so. i cannot even imagine the stress of people who have to produce at regular intervals and certain things and paying attention to all of these different factors to Pop Off on Social Media so they can Eat. yet this is the reality a lot of the people i know personally and even myself choose when i get back to it... like melon also said, it's a calling LOL

i think that getting in tune with your local community and doing artsy things around is also AN AMAZING point and i heard something like this recently... it might have actually been a tyler the creator interview, he was talking about how you build yourself at home/locally first and expand out. whether that means posting up at your cafe that does art stuff, or going to your closest art district in your state and seeing whats up there, finding local artists similar to you that you can concoct stuff with ^q^ it can be hard in some places but... there's usually people or an art community somewhere nearby even if they are small n hard to find. i even have resources for a place seen as sparse/in the middle of nowhere like new mexico bc i visit my BFF, it's surprisingly loaded with indie art culture. (people who do meowwolf stuff are out there) : D

> ":grin:omg:n't just make one thing and expect it to support you. Make a free thing, and a paid thing and a web thing and a physical thing. Show it on your site and on the web, but also talk to real people about it even if that audience seems a lot smaller its a different kind of audience."

this resonates so much ( •̀ᄇ• ́)ﻭ✧ agreed completely!

while not really answering any questions, i've thought that now that i can draw somewhat again, i want to do all of the things i thought were cool without the thought that i have to live off of it pressuring me off of it even if that is the eventual goal. especially if you just, baseline, are the type of person to view things as a chore once they are put into the mental category of 'work'... people can turn passions into jobs and feel like it's not a job, but it has to be a passion first and not *monetized* first... right? LOL
social media just encourages the idea of monetized passions, and even when you want to do that, it can't be what you Go Into It For. you have to be doing this for you, and for your message, ideas, and creations to get out there. and it has to be okay even if it fails or doesn't get the attention you wanted, because you love it so much. this is how i'm going to create everything going forward, and i hope it releases me from the drainage that i see a lot of my peers go through. i think the ones that have employed this sort of 'i don't care, i'm making this for me' ideology are sometimes the ones struggling less... >> !
of course, this also means you'll be willing to do whatever to keep this dream alive. for some people that means stuff like temp jobs etc while juggling that stress of being between "a hobbyist" and "making it your life." for others this means being on some sort of aid program while doing what you can to support yourself.

 it is honestly really hard to be a creative of any type and make *enough* money off of it, while having all of these moral quandarys on top. oh my god, there's so much i could say about it. ε=o(´ﾛ｀||)