The Mushy Middle

Hello and welcome to Pesto Comics.My name’s Adriano -- I’m the writer, publisher, producer, and the guy who pulls these teams together to make sure you get awesome comics on your shelves and in your mailbox as frequently as I can possibly make happen.We’re just about to launch our latest campaign with Naked Kaiju Woman #3, which will be our 13th Kickstarter campaign.Beginner vs. Intermediate: The Path Gets MurkyI’m not quite a beginner, but I certainly don’t feel anything like an expert.I feel like I have so much to learn -- not just with crowdfunding and creating comics and writing and working with artists, production designers, letterers, and colorists from all over the world, but also managing all of that, the business financials, all the different plates I have to keep spinning.The more I learn about how a business works, how a comics business in particular works, and the differences between the direct market and crowdfunding -- you can imagine how all of this starts to get a little overwhelming and a little confusing.So I find myself pining for the days when I was a beginner -- just a little bit.The path was a lot easier to find. “How do I start? How do I get into this?” That seems to be the question most people have.I didn’t make it out to the East Coast this year, which I’m hoping to do next year. But since I was stuck here in Toronto, it turned out to be a little fortunate -- I was able to do the show at Gotham Central.I had a lot of fun there, and one of the questions I got more than a couple of times was, “How do I get started?”And I feel like that’s the easiest question of all to answer, and the answer is: go do it. Go try.There are so many tutorials, so many books, so much information for someone at the beginner level who has no idea where to start. It’s not as daunting as it may seem.Now with everyone having a course, everyone having something to share, and everyone building that “I made it one step up, so let me tell you how” content -- there’s more than enough beginner-level material out there.If you’re struggling to start, you should not have a problem doing so.The challenge comes when you’re an intermediate, because now the path isn’t so clear.When you’re a beginner, broad concepts are very useful -- just having an idea of “I did A, then B, then C, then D.” But once you’re at that intermediate level, things get a little more murky.Now you have to start looking at branches. Just like all the different plates I’m spinning -- at the intermediate level, you have to start focusing on each individual plate and how that all works.And the thing with that is -- there’s not that same glut of material out there. There’s not so much you can learn just by taking a course, picking up a book, or watching a tutorial.You have to figure it out a lot of times in trial by fire. You figure it out through experience.And the one quote I love about experience -- because I’ve found it to be very true -- is that experience is the most expensive education.You have to go out, try, learn, fail, and then try again. It’s the most expensive way of doing it.Learning from MistakesI have an unfortunate example of that.As I’ve gone to print-on-demand for the prose books I’ve been putting together -- including Big Smoke Pulp -- one of the things I found at the reprint of Volume One is that some of the formatting just didn’t go exactly right.Now I have a bunch of copies that are burnt and have to be resent to backers.It’s an expensive lesson, and something I’m happy to make sure doesn’t happen again. The books look great otherwise, but those copies are absolutely unreadable -- so now there are dozens of books that have to be reprinted, resent, and repaid for.That’s something a tutorial wouldn’t have shown me -- that yes, three out of four books are formatted perfectly, but this fourth one just decided it didn’t want to line up right.Even though the digital proofs looked good, I didn’t get a physical proof. That’s my mistake.I should have left more lead time to make sure I had the physical book in hand before it went out to folks.I didn’t want to delay fulfillment any longer, so I sent it out -- and now I have a bunch of disappointed backers.Fortunately, the main book ended up fine, so the majority of backers didn’t have this problem. But there’s a handful who received the paperback version of Big Smoke Pulp Volume One who are very upset with me.We’re going to fix that. We’re going to get the proper books out to all those people.I just wanted to share this because it’s something you wouldn’t have learned at a beginner level. You may have learned formatting basics -- but those little things are things you just don’t learn until you’re in it.Navigating the Intermediate Level</p