A big thanks to all you patient Wave Riders out there for sticking with us during our break. We are currently in the process of writing season 5. We’re hoping that this new season is the one that really takes our little labor of love to the next level. However, to do that, we have to take some time and make sure we get the recipe just right.
I’d rather release something I’m really proud of at a later date, than unleash something unworthy of our talented cast, crew, musicians and audience to stink up the internet in perpetuity.
Our Indiegogo Experiment
Last year, for Creeping Wave’s 4.5th season, we opened up an Indiegogo, which allowed us to pay our musical guests and actors for their hard work. We felt it was necessary, since many artists found themselves out of work during the mandatory lockdowns. These closed bars, nightclubs, comedy clubs and theatres throughout the country. Many of the people we work with found themselves without venues in which to share their work.
We would like to continue to pay our talent for their contributions. However, we can’t depend on Indiegogo or crowdfunding to do so. We’re hoping to secure sponsorships for the show, and find contributors who will help us fully realize our goal.
Reeducating Myself
This means that we have had to reexamine our marketing strategies in order to draw the attention of the right people. I’ve even gone back to school, to build on my degree in multimedia marketing, and keep my skill set up to date. When I was working with marketing groups and in film and video production, it was a very different world than it is now. While I’m miles away from the days of shilling my Angelfire page on Myspace, or posting my latest animations to Newgrounds.com, I feel that there’s always room to evolve.
Over the past 4.5 years, I have been performing a guess and check method to root out my target audience. I’ve taken bad advice, and made desperate stabs just to gain recognition. At times I posted up to 6 times a day on Instagram, just to keep my engagement up. However, selfies and random pictures don’t really do much to establish anything about The Lucid Nap as a company or the shows we put out.
Finding Our Audience
I feel like I wasted a good deal of time targeting fringe epochs of the population. l’ve been advised on different occasions to direct my efforts towards goth and alternative types (because of the horror aspects of the show I suppose), video game enthusiasts (because of the action elements), comic book readers (since it started as a comic book) and conspiracy theorists (at it’s heart, the show is a loving spoof of the cryptid and conspiracy culture).
However, these groups are laser focused on their interests. While there may be overlap with my work and their passions, I find that they more resent my intrusion into their culture than anything else.
I need to start marketing my show based on its own merits. More than that, I have to stop trying to feverishly force this square peg into every round hole I come across. That sounds perverse, but I think you get my drift.
The New Season
I’ve spent a good deal of my life placating people I didn’t really want in my life. People who didn’t really share my goals and motivations. Like the proverbial crabs in a bucket, I felt myself being dragged farther and farther away from my goals. Still, I played nice, and went along with things that felt patently wrong to me, all in the hopes of gaining a paltry sort of acceptance. I convinced myself that was what networking was. Turns out, it isn’t… or I’d be super popular right now.
My attempt to break free from this pandering mentality, and the people who held me in it has been the major inspiration for the new season.
When we last left Napoleon, they were packing for a trip back in time to 1995. They have been tasked with finding the second cylinder of dominion, which was destroyed some time in the early 2000s. Apparently, there are 6 in total. As the name suggests, the cylinders, once activated, allow their wielder dominance over not only this dimension, but all dimensions at large.
Napoleon isn’t really interested in inter-dimensional domination, but since they activated the first in the set, it has to be their hand that does the deed. The longer the cycle is left unfinished, the more would be inter-dimensional overlords make an appearance, trying to force Napoleon into their allegiance by any means necessary.
Napoleon, of course, doesn’t really take their duties seriously. They didn’t want to set off the cylinder, they just did it because they were told to (by a very cute demon girl.)
In a sort of passive rebellion, Napoleon spends most of their time playing Mario Paint on their Super Nintendo and drinking Josta. They’re more interested in landing concert tickets, for shows they missed the first time the 90’s rolled around, than they are anything inter-dimensional.
Unfortunately, their lackadaisical attitude lands them in trouble once again. Due to a major error in judgement, which caught the eye of several inter-dimensional overlords and the offense of the Temporal Mitigation Agency (basically Time Cops), Napoleon is issued a grievous punishment. They are forced to serve out their time in 1995 as a Highschool History teacher.
The high-school in which they are made to serve their sentence isn’t a normal house of learning however. It’s run by disguised supernatural creatures, hoping to foster good relations between humans and cryptids. The faculty is always on the look out for students, about to come into “the change.”
It seems cryptids and humans both go through some awkward transformations during puberty, but some of them are more dangerous than others. Will Napoleon be able to weather the tides of supernatural pedagogy and find the second cylinder? Probably not… but I’m in the process of writing the script at present, so we’ll see.
Changing Direction
My website previously focused on my art prints and store. People would see the art, and never really make the connection it was for an audiodrama. They just assumed I was selling pretty pictures. I still am, I’ve just changed the way in which I present them.
First and foremost, I want people to know about my Creeping Wave Radio. I even mention it in the tagline.
I’ve started revamping my website so it looks more like an online magazine than a storefront. Since an audio drama is basically an online play, I’d like to show more examples of my writing than my artwork. I feel like showing that I’m a capable writer will make people more inclined to give my audio drama a chance.
I have relevant artwork linking to my I heart Radio page for Creeping Wave Radio, my Tik Tok Travel Diaries and My YouTube page for The U Mind Podcast.
I use my art as the featured image for each article on the web page. I’m changing pace here in that I’ve previously avoided writing about real life experiences. I was always afraid of offending someone, or getting too personal.
Online, I’ve always tried to always perpetuate a super friendly, slightly awkward, but relatable persona. It’s not a complete and utter falsehood of course, but its only one facet of myself.
I find that a spend a disproportionate amount of time worrying if my posts are on brand or if my mask is slipping. I’ve spent so much time trying to cultivate an agreeable online persona that I completely missed out on finding an audience that could relate to my actual self and my work.
I’ve taken great pains to hide the less marketable aspects of who I am. That hasn’t worked. We’re going to try this approach for a while.
