I almost quit Netherrealms yesterday.
About the struggles of marketing a deeply personal project.
I almost quit Netherrealms yesterday.
I’ve been struggling to seriously share Netherrealms for about two years now. Promoting has never been my strong suit, as I feel like a sellout really quickly (as I’m sure a lot of us feel like). I’m confused by lots of advice that seems to contradict each other (”be honest!” “but also be clear what you’re offering!” “but don’t sound like you’re selling anything!”) and most of my attempts fail - that’s okay, as long as I feel like the general trajectory is up.
Yesterday was one of those days where everything just brings you down more. The past few days were painful for me, because the Patreon pledge drive was basically met by crickets. I feel like I’ve done most things I could to give it a strong start, but after two days I had almost no responses (certainly no pledges) and well, that’s not a great predictor for the rest of the campaign. I even got the message that someone had canceled their pledge! And that was on top of a general downward trajectory for the whole Patreon in the past year.
On Tuesday, I had an amazing stream with lovely supportive friends on Twitch. Isabell Bartnicki and Ryuutsu made a remark about feeling more excited about Netherrealms because of the stream and the stories I told while drawing about the characters. I went to bed with the idea of sharing that with others, and how great it would be that others who missed it would be able to watch the stream to maybe feel te same way.
Yesterday morning I found out that the stream hadn’t been saved because VODs aren’t saved by default. 3 hours of great, honest, spontaneous interaction was gone, unable to be retrieved. I felt so defeated.
To be clear: I don’t feel entitled to people’s support. I want people to support Netherrealms because they believe in me as an artist and believe in Netherrealms as a beautiful project. I wanted to share this struggle because until now, I’ve always tried to keep a pretty positive persona even though I do get a little down in the dumps every once in a while, like everyone else. I didn’t share this yesterday for a reason. After a night’s sleep I already feel better, though still a little sad and not really knowing where to go from here.
I love Netherrealms and wish that I had some actionable steps to get more people involved. It’s the only way for me to free up time without running my body or mental health into the ground. Not knowing what I’m doing wrong and the general crickets is the most frustrating thing of all.
Anyway, that was my real talk! If you’re struggling with motivation and crickets as well: know you’re not the only one. And if you have any feedback for me on how I could help Netherrealms reach its audience, I’m listening! x)
Hello! I'm glad you're feeling better. Trying to keep the optimism up amidst all the challenges we face as an artist is not an easy feat, and for you to have come so far shows how strong you are despite the setbacks! I'm glad you didn't give up Netherrealms!