How to Get Work as an Artist

I’m tired of seeing resumes on my desk. If you’re an artist and you’re trying to get work, why are you sending me a resume? More to the point, why did the fancy school on your resume not teach you to submit a portfolio?

Don't get me wrong - I’m a proponent of art school, and I’m also a person who went to an art school. But still, I’m worried for the kids going to art school and what they’re learning about selling themselves or perhaps more aptly, what they're not learning.

To the point, if you’re an artist and want work, at minimum, this is what I need from you in order of most important to least:

• A portfolio - Preferably one that's online, which showcases 10 - 15 pieces of your best stuff. Catered to the job you're going for, of course. In other words, don't send me a bunch of stationery if I'm hiring you to be a web designer. I want to see your web design work first and foremost. Feel free to sprinkle in a little of what you can do with print too, if you feel it's great.
• A way to contact you. I honestly can not tell you how many times people forget this, or they give an unreliable phone number or email address. Make sure we can get in touch and that, if you're serious about the job, you are either there to answer your phone or able to call me back within 24 hours. It's called being professional.
• A cover letter which tells me why you’re a fit for the job and something that’ll intrigue me about you as a person. Assure me, briefly, that you have the skill set I'm looking for and so long as your portfolio looks great, I'll happily bring you in for an interview.

The resume is almost optional. If you’ve had work before, and certainly if you’re going for a managerial position, I will definitely want to look over your credentials. But if I’m hiring you as a staff artist? I want to see what you can do, and we can then talk about the ways you go about doing it.

“But what about all the programs you need to know, like Photoshop and InDesign and don’t you want to know if I am using a Mac or a PC and, and, and…” No! Shush! Bad!

I do not care if you know Photoshop or not, if what I’m hiring you to do does not specifically cite Photoshop as a necessity. Macs and PCs are becoming more similar by the day, so I no longer worry about dragging a Mac native into a PC office – there are ways to make a great artist comfortable in any computer environment and from my experience, it’s worth the investment if you’re phenomenal.

The fact is this: There are ten thousand ways to make beautiful art or amazing designs and all I want you to be doing is working at your best. If I am looking for a designer and I want him or her to create a business card template which can be sent to a printer, then I assume he or she will know how to follow a spec sheet and create something lovely that is also of the correct format and file type that the printer requires – nothing more, and nothing less. How it’s done is none of my business, so long as it’s done.

Too, the time before a job interview is a great time to showcase your creativity. I love people who think outside the box when they submit things. I once got a portfolio that looked like a menu. Another person sent me a DVD with portfolio and a short, well-done movie about himself in place of a resume. Brilliant!

In the end, if you’re an artist and you think you can just follow the crowd when it comes to applying for work, you are going to get left in the dust. Reach deep down into your creative pockets and bring forth something that is truly you, and I guarantee you’ll not only find a job that fits you well, but one that’ll be worthy of your skills.

How to Write (Good) Fanfiction

I've been asked when I was going to cover this topic, so without further ado...

You may think good and fanfiction can't be in the same sentence together, and if you look at some of the stuff people post online (My Immortal, anyone?) you may have a point. However, many people enjoy writing fanfiction, myself included, and it's been that way for years even before the Internet. Some of these unofficial or non-canon stories are well-loved by fans and there's no reason you yourself couldn't pen the next great fic to go down in fandom history.

In a very broad sense, we write fanfic for many reasons:

• We are looking to practice our writing or get started as a writer.
• We feel we can do a good job of writing in a world which we love.
• We simply get inspired to tell stories not seen in the actual canon.

Fanfic is not for the weak of heart -- people, even those who claim to be easy going about such things, will defend their own ideas of a popular tale, quite feverishly. But that shouldn't discourage you! You can learn many things from writing fanfiction, and not the least of these is learning to handle criticism gracefully.

Through writing, you will also learn what it feels to love what you're writing about. This is a very key element necessary in creating original works of your own. And of course, you can and should learn the basics of setting up scenes and characters for your own ideas, which fanfiction can teach you how to do.

When you write fanfic, you should write what you want and how you want, because there's no better use of fanfiction than to test the waters of reception for any given idea. If you are going to be a serious writer, you would do yourself a disservice following the popularized "rules" of fanfiction, such as pairing your original characters with actual characters, creating powerful characters, or alternate realities. You should simply strive to write characters in situations you would find fitting to them while keeping the whole thing interesting and enjoyable to your audience. Many of the best fanfics out there are the ones that don't follow the rules.

Still, you should try to follow these basics, as always:

• Use proper grammar and spelling
• Stick to one style of writing. If you're going for 3rd person omniscient, don't switch to first-person mid-story.
• Try not to make the whole thing one big porno. At least add some feelings and conflicts and stuff.
• Don't write "drabbles"... you cheater!
• Write as if you were gonna' sell the thing (but stop short of actually selling it)

And one last but very important item:

• Don't publish your fanfic if the author of the original work has expressed that they do not appreciate it.

Feel free to fanfic to your heart's content, but with one big word of caution: the minute you really start to enjoy the process of writing is the minute you should start considering penning some stories of your own. That is something you can be truly proud of and who knows: maybe people will soon be writing fanfiction of your stories!

Why Inspiration is Your Friend When Writing

If you're a writer, you've probably had this happen to you: You're sitting around, engaged in something as far from creative writing as possible, when it strikes. Inspiration! The thing that never comes when it's called and all too often comes when there's nothing to be done about it.

For as bad with timing as inspiration is, it's still our friend, regardless. Too, it's important to deliver on your inspiration right away, or at least, as soon as possible. Why?

• Something happened to inspire you. This likely means you're in a "good state" to write. If you can manage it, pull away from your current project and start acting on your inspired thought. Keep a journal and write it down, if nothing else.
• There's no guarantee you'll remember your awesome idea later. And that goes double for still being inspired when later finally comes. Don't waste any of it!
• Understand that inspired thought is rare and wonderful, even if you don't know how to use it right away. Again, write it down. A way will be found.

Sometimes people will come to me and complain of writer's block, but they have a million great ideas "saved for later". Don't be tempted to do this with your inspired thoughts. There's no guarantee of a "later" if you're stuck on the beginning of something! See what ways you can work with your inspired thought right now! When later comes, so will other inspirations, and you can use them, then. I say this too much -- don't fall in love with your first draft, and in a nutshell, this is why.

When inspired thought comes to you, don't squander it! Get a journal and log it, keep thinking on it, and as soon as you can, get writing!

Creative Writing From Start to Finish - Part III

We've come to the final part of our series on creative writing today, and I certainly hope you’ve enjoyed the journey. Since we’ve gotten through concept development, outlining, story structure and writing, it’s on to the last steps: timelining, theme weaving, and editing.

 
You might consider this the boring part of the tutorial and quite frankly, there was a time where I would have agreed with you. Nonetheless, the things we cover in this portion are equally, if not more important than the things we talked about in the last two chapters. And I promise, I’ll try to keep it all interesting. In fact, you may even enjoy it.

 
Writing timelines is a skill I always recommend people develop if they’re going to tackle a story, and especially one that is told in multiple parts or will otherwise be quite long and detailed. I don’t always save doing this for the end, and will often start timelining in the same instance that I pull my first story concept together, and work on it throughout the whole process. In general, my timeline isn’t finished until I’ve put significant work into my story, already, so there’s never a bad time to do one.


For a decent timeline, you’ll want to lay out major events of your plot, theme(s), and the actions of each of your major characters, in parallel lines along a span of time – the beginning and end of your story. When starting out, you may have a timeline that looks as simple as this:

But more than likely, you’ll finish with one as big as or bigger than this:

Whatever you end up with, your timeline has one purpose – to keep complicated plot points in line with one another. As you write your timeline, you will begin to see things line up in ways which may lead you to a theme, or two, which could help tie your story together.


Themes are sometimes credited as the glue of a story, since they do such a nice job of unifying things. At its core, a good theme is simultaneously the lesson and inspiration we get through reading and one of the best ways a reader can make a connection to our real world from one of fantasy. The main theme supports the plot. As with many things, themes are best if kept simple and able to be described in one sentence. A good theme may be as simple as “If we work hard and stay optimistic, we can achieve anything.”


The best way to define your theme is to read through your writing and see what kinds of ideas have already tied themselves together. It’s very likely that you’ve placed a theme into your story without even realizing it. Working with the above example of working hard and being optimistic, you may choose to emphasize a point in your tale when a character achieves something through hard work, in an especially poignant fashion. If you find an instance where a character does not get what they want through hard work, you may keep it as a conflict or re-work it so it better fits your theme.


There are artsier themes, as well, and you may choose to keep them secondary to the main theme. Themes revolving around the rising and setting of the sun, change of seasons, and other such things are in this vein. For example, you may choose to align each of your characters with a season, and when your summer character has her moment of glory, you may choose to depict it happening on a hot day in July. Themes such as this are wide open, and serve as nice little extras your audience will appreciate if done well.


Your final phase of writing will come with the editing process. As we’d discussed in the last entry, you will want your story to be moved along in a way where each scene is set up to show off a character trait, move the plot, or both. Everything else is fluff and should be discarded.


Let’s think of an example scene where two characters are conversing. One character may reveal she’s looking to have more adventure in her life, thus revealing something about her character and setting up a major plot point where it is assumed she will soon be on some epic journey. Her companion may state that he’s traveled to a place full of wonder and excitement, revealing something about his character in turn, as well as taking the next step into the plot. It’s very tempting for beginning writers to start a scene such as this with the two characters talking about the weather and what a nice day it is, but unless the weather is a factor in the plot or a character’s future actions, our audience doesn’t need to know too much about that stuff and it can be left out.


Finally, as you review your writing, you want to make sure you’ve done a good job of showing and not telling. What I mean by that is, it’s easiest to simply state that major plot points are happening as they happen, and give away the objective of characters by equipping them with dialogue which states specifically what it may be – but it’s hardly interesting.
 

Check your work and read over it. Are things too obvious? Do you leave room for your audience to imagine once in a while? Did you find yourself writing more of “the full moon was out” and less of “faint rays of light glinted off of broken glass, providing the only illumination to the ground”? Now is the time to fix little nuances such as these and make them more interesting.


One last word on editing – if you’re doing a professional job, pay for a professional editor. You will be glad you did.


So that wraps up our little course on creative writing! I hope you’ve enjoyed and I hope you’ve learned something in the last three weeks. There is so very much more to cover on this subject than what I’ve given you here, so I recommend you look into books and other articles on the subject as you continue to grow as a writer.


Remember – there’s no better way to learn how to write than to start writing. Stay creative, until next time!

Creative Writing From Start to Finish - Part II

Today we continue our discussion on the creative writing process.

When we began our discussion on creative writing, we covered the basics, such as plotting story beats and breakdowns. This time, we’re going to get into the meat of the matter and do some serious writing! We’re going to be fleshing out the skeleton of a draft you have on your hands, by this point.

If your story seems to be flowing well, even before you put little details into it, then you’ll have an easier time of some of the things this blog post will cover than if you start writing and hope to pull it apart and re-align it, later. Short of that, however, you shouldn’t feel bad if a central theme or some of the deeper aspects of storytelling aren’t present just yet. We’ll be covering them, next time.

One thing you can do if you find your story doesn’t have the kind of flow you want it to, or if you think you would like it to be a bit more solid, is to break down your plot points. Most stories have at least an A and a B plot, and often, C, D, and E plots, too. Your A plot will be your central story – it involves the main tale which is being told. B through Z plots are all secondary, and it’s up to you to keep track of them alongside your A plot so the whole of the story can dovetail and make a great ending.

As a general rule, when it comes to content I often allocate 60% of my story to the A plot, then the remaining 40% to my B, C, D, etc. plots. None can be more important than the other in terms of the audience’s interest in its resolution, but the A plot should be more important in terms of what is being resolved, and especially if your story is one piece of a bigger continuity. For example, my A plot may involve my main character going on a journey to recover a hidden treasure, and my B plot could involve secondary characters staying behind and getting into trouble without the main character there to help them.

When you square away your A plot and its subplots, you can begin to do some long-form writing by following your breakdowns and story beats, and fleshing them out. If we talk about the writing process in the same way we'd talk about sculpting something, doing story breakdowns would be akin to setting up armature wire, and at this point we're ready to pile on some clay and begin to give our piece some shape. There are of course, many things to keep in mind as you write and they all go beyond the basics such as spelling and grammar.

Now is the time to decide if you’re going to be telling a plot-centric tale or a character-centric one. As I alluded to last time, sometimes you know which your story will be, right from the get-go. Sometimes it’ll take some feeling-out. Look at your outline and ask yourself if there’s more plot than character interaction, or vice-versa. If it’s even, then you may simply choose one or the other, or go with your strengths.

This should set you up to decide what narrative mode the story will be written in -- again, that is if you haven’t already figured that out. Third-person limited and first-person are often the most popular and I recommend them more than their omniscient counterparts to new writers. You may think these are terms for novel-writers only, but they are equally important for comic book writers to familiarize themselves with.

In my mind, omniscience is key and which person is in charge of it all is secondary. As a general rule, each chapter of a story should not go outside the boundaries of any one character’s point-of-view. In a third-person-limited story, for example, it is considered bad form to allow the audience insight into a character’s thoughts, and then into another’s without a means for doing so from the main character’s perspective. “Joe thought about a purple cow and Jane thought about a chicken.” would be better served as, “Joe thought about a purple cow and he could tell Jane was thinking about a chicken.”  as it does not imply an omniscient point-of-view and clearly marks Joe as the important figure of the tale.

When you’re sitting down to your keyboard, and your first words are flowing, consider focusing on your characters to keep things natural. Ideally, characters and plot work simultaneously, but that’s not something we always see at this stage. Now is the time to get acquainted with the “feel” of a certain character, a setting and a world in general. There will be plenty of time for editing, and we’ll certainly be doing plenty of that, next time, so write to your heart's content!

Not worrying about what you’re keeping in and removing at this point is absolutely okay.  You will write things that neither advance your story or do a particularly good job of defining character, and that’s also just fine. Do try to keep it in mind, but with the understanding that a little fluff won’t hurt you now, and in fact, may inspire you to jot down some really brilliant things as you go.

Writing dialogue is one of the most important tasks you’ll be tackling at this point. I’ll happily admit this: Dialogue or speech is sometimes a headache for yours truly. The golden rule is generally assumed to be this: Write your dialogue as if it didn’t require you defining whose mouth it came from. With practice, you should be able to write a line of speech and have your audience (and certainly yourself) immediately recognize who said it. And this is more than attributing accents or dialects – it gets right down to which words a character selects for their normal speech. As I said, it sometimes takes practice to not give a character lines which would be more akin to the ways you yourself speak, but it’s worth the time to commit to learning this very important skill (and you can indeed learn it)!

Try speaking your dialogue out loud. Does it sound funny to you, or does it sound like something you yourself would say? If you’ve got a good support network, get the opinion of a friend. People are quite valuable at this point in the writing process, if you have some good ones to lean on.

Of course, other people can also bring real headaches to your writing, especially if their critique is not what you were expecting. Go with your gut. If they point out something you yourself thought was wrong, then fix it. If someone has an issue with something you thought was great, then reevaluate it or get a second opinion before you erase it.

It’s always bad to write plot just for the sake of plot. If you go on for twenty, two-hundred or two thousand pages of an outline and get no deeper than, “this happens”, then you’ll bore everyone in your audience to tears. Far better you get used to writing “this happens so that this happens” and better still, “this happens, then this happens, so that this can happen”.

When moving your plot along, it’s also important to step into your protagonist’s shoes. How would you feel if the things happening to them, were instead happening to you? How can you best set up the plot around your character so that their experience becomes the reader’s? Set-ups are made this way: by the simple act of positioning a precursor to a conflict or other action. You may start out by showing a character getting ready for a big date, being nervous, and giving a sense that a lot rests on the outcome, before you show people a marriage proposal, as an example.

Naturally, this part of the writing process is going to take the longest, and you are certainly going to want to take breaks when you feel uninspired or when the dreaded writer's block hits. My best advice for combating writer's block, is this: don't ever waste a good idea. If you get a thought for a great plot twist or something that'll otherwise really grab your audience, don't wait to use it. See how it could fit your block, now, and use it right away if you can. I promise, another idea will come to you, later.

When you've finally finished your manuscript, you are ready to do some editing, which we'll cover in a blog post, next week! Stay creative until then!

Creative Writing From Start to Finish - Part I

Today starts a series of entries on one of my favorite subjects: creative writing. I’ve written on this topic in the past within other blogs, but I figured the Digital Storyteller audience could benefit from a solid, step-by-step system outlining my writing process.

This series will happen in three parts – one today on finding inspiration, one next week on story beats and breakdowns, and a final chapter on time-lining and themes. I hope you stick around and get a little something out of it. Please note that my methods aren’t what I would consider universally good practices, and are simply ways which I myself like to write. You may be different, and you may even think I’m crazy at points, but that doesn’t mean you have to employ my methodology. In writing, as with any artsy thing, there are a million ways to do it right.

So! Where to begin?

Let’s take the question of “where to begin?” to start. If you are asking yourself this without having at least a tiny piece of an idea for a story, you should probably hold off on writing and first consider why you want to write at all. Here are some common reasons cited by people who say they want to become writers:

·         Writers make a bunch of money and I want a bunch of money.

·         I want to write so people think I’m smart.

·         I don’t like my day job and want a different one.

·         The idea of being a writer is sexy to me.

Yikes. You’d think I was kidding, but unfortunately I’m not. If any of the above are primary reasons you find yourself wanting to write, then now may be a good time to put the pen down and call your therapist. You need counseling and a life coach – not writing.

Now, if you instead said you wanted to become a writer for any of these reasons…

·         I have a great story itching to be told.

·         I read a newspaper article that made me think of an idea for a book.

·         My nephew makes me think of a character I’d like to write a story around.

…then you’re in much better shape than the therapy crowd and may just have the chops to do some writing! The key truly is to know that you have a desire to tell a story, no matter how much of it you’ve planned out already.

So, once you have a story in mind, where do you take it? You might find it best to return to the thing that inspired your original idea to do an in-depth analysis of why the story is appealing to you. Perhaps you read a book and thought about a story of your own set in a similar universe or written in a similar style – go ahead and read it again. If it was a friend or family member who inspired you, then you should hang out with that person a little bit and take mental notes. Whatever it is, now is not the time to lose your inspiration, but to build it up.

Once you have your inspiration covered, it’s time to immerse yourself in the world you’re building. Notice situations in your own life which could translate well into your story. Perhaps people in your life could become the basis for characters, and perhaps things you see in your daily life could be situations they find themselves in.

Start figuring out what your story will be about by defining where and/or when it will take place, who the main cast will be, and what conflicts will arise to challenge them. Sometimes, this’ll be clear as day to you. Other times, it’ll take you days, weeks or months to decide. Writing is often like decorating a house. Sometimes you buy a whole set of furniture, knowing it’s all going to come together to be something you love, and sometimes you buy one thing and slowly hand-pick items to go around it.

As I’ve alluded to in previous entries, I myself usually start by writing (and drawing) character breakdowns as my muse starts speaking to me. When you get to this stage, try to define things beyond your characters’ physical appearance, such as their wants and fears, but feel free to leave them vague until you hit a solid hook for any given character, which would make them interesting to your audience and to you as a writer -- and likely affect your plot.

Speaking of your plot, it’s a good idea to start considering it as soon as possible, too. If your story is character-centric, then you may have an easier time forming a plot as you develop your characters, who will be doing most of the “driving” in your story. If your story is plot-centric, then you need to consider a truckload of elements beyond your cast, such as major events, actions, and other outside factors which will push your story along. It may even be that you won’t know if you have a character-centric or plot-centric story at this point, and that too is okay.

One of the best ways to define your story at the very beginning is to see if you can break its plot down into a single sentence. “A boy falls in love with a girl who has secretly come from the future because she knows he is the key to saving her world” is a good example.

One other way you might write your plot’s first draft involves working backwards, starting with your ending. Too, some writers find it easiest to work in a formula, defining the basics of the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

It’s important to note that you needn’t, and shouldn’t, finalize things in one sitting. Invariably, you’re going to get a better idea the minute you walk away from your desk, and you’re going to want to use it. Don’t be afraid of swapping your ideas, especially at the start. Inspiration is your friend and you should never fall in love with your first draft.

On the other end of the coin, if you find yourself having trouble coming up with ideas, you might take a break for a while. I often take months to fully develop my first story ideas before moving into the breakdown phase, which we’ll cover in the next entry. Don’t be afraid to relax and take in ideas until you get something really great.

I consider myself done with the first phase of story-planning when I have these elements defined:

·         Setting: The wheres and whens of the story  -- its backdrop

·         Characters: The whos and whats of the story, not just limited to living beings but also important things and locations

·         Conflict: What is the main challenge that must be overcome, how is it resolved and what is the outcome?

·         Plot Synopsis: When I can tell my story in one sentence, then I know I’m ready to expand on it

You may choose to do more at this point, and you may even choose to do less. Some writers like to plot out their stories with outlines and others simply like to sit down and write, seeing where their whims take them as they go. Don’t feel pressured to do one or the other – as I’ve already said, they are both correct.

We’ll be covering breakdowns in our installment next week. Stay tuned!

How Will You Go to Market With Your Comics?

I think you all should know by now that when I post these "How to do X with your comics" posts, that the word comics could be anything -- a novel, a webcomic, a blog, a fanfiction -- anything at all! To that end, I'm going to try to cater them more towards a broader concept as I go along. Wish me luck - here we go!

 

To those who aren't used to hearing me talk in business-jargon-ese, when I say things like "go to market" what I essentially mean is "sell". And let me clarify even further by saying that doesn't necessarily imply that people are using money in any way to get ahold of your work. Whether they're paying for it or not, let's talk about the ways in which someone is going to read your stuff.

 

The thing that got me interested in writing this particular blog entry was the dissolution of JManga. If you haven't heard about it, or you have heard and just need a quick recap, here it is:

 

Basically, JManga was the result of Japanese publishers getting together two years ago to create an outlet for people to read translations of popular manga titles. They were an online store selling comics from Japan, in essence -- but the way they went about it was a little odd. People couldn't buy their favorite manga from JManga without subscribing. Once they subscribed, users were then given a monthly allotment of points which they could spend on digital copies of manga books. There was of course, one other stipulation -- the customers were not allowed to download the books they were purchasing. They would however, have lifetime access to them for as long as the company was running.

 

Well, I probably don't need to tell you what's gone on since the company has decided to close shop and thereby take everything, including all the books a countless number of people purchased, down with the ship... Public backlash is one term for it, but I've not really seen a huge outpouring of anger from JManga customers to this point. For the most part, the attitude seems to be one of "Fool me once, shame on you..."

 

"Fool me twice, shame on me" is how that little saying ends of course, and having thoroughly fooled its customers into buying soon-to-be nonexistent comics from them, it's likely they'll only get support in the future from terribly gullible people. The public is now aware that, without a proper contingency plan; that is, a plan of action should the worst-case scenario befall a company that doles out digital copies of its work for a fee, their money could be lost and they could be left with nothing if they choose to do their shopping with such an entity. More to the point, perhaps: because of JManga, even people like me who weren't ever customers of theirs, are going to demand the ability to download, store, carry, hold or otherwise be in control of stuff they buy, online.

 

So what does all of this have to do with you, the person on the other end who is creating content for the masses, rather than just buying it?

 

Consider the problems with JManga's business plan, of which there were many, and try to avoid making these mistakes, yourself:

1. Don't expect people to pay you before you show them what makes your product great. This is the old "expecting fire before throwing on a few logs" scenario I always allude to. If your service is new, even if its associated products are old and familiar, people are going to want a sample of its capabilities before they buy-in. Without that, it'd be like building a car that steers more like a boat, and expecting people to line up to buy without a test-drive. People who drive cars don't know the advantages of being able to steer one as if it were a boat. People will simply think that's weird until you can prove to them that it works better. This is why we teach giving as much of your comic or story away for free as possible. It gets people genuinely interested, builds trust and word-of-mouth advertising. They'll gladly buy when they're hooked and when they know you can deliver, but don't expect it right away.
2. Don't force a repeating fee on people. JManga required users to enjoy its comics by subscribing, and then charging a hefty fee (masked by a point system) to see content they otherwise may have been able to buy at a bookstore or, yes, download from a pirating site, for much cheaper. People aren't naturally inclined to subscribe to things period, and they certainly aren't going to do it before they know how often they'll be using the service or if they're not assured that they can't get what they want elsewhere without a subscription. Sometimes it works -- like in the case of Netflix which, I might add, gives you a month to try it for free, gives you limitless "rentals" in a month, is priced competitively and, let's be honest, is a thing many of us have been convinced we can't live without. But be warned that this business model is a hard-sell for most comic book readers who are typically loyal to a handful of books and don't care to buy comics "in bulk".
3. Don't try to fix a problem that doesn't exist. People can go buy manga from bookstores and comic shops. There are also countless online book and comic retailers with proven business models out there, such as Amazon, which could be easily copied. Why JManga came up with a very strange system of making money and didn't partner with any of these is beyond anyone's guess. Don't feel pressure to reinvent the wheel in hopes of getting a few more bucks out of your work when there are many proven ways to get your stories in front of people that will lead to getting you a paycheck.
4. You can't miss with a value-added service. If anything, JManga operated on a least-bang-for-your-buck premise: You had to pay for it each month, and then you had to use their points system to buy a book, and those points weren't worth the same value as the dollars being shelled out to buy them, and you couldn't download your book, and you could only read it on a computer because there was no Kindle/Nook/iPad support, and, and and... Operating on the assumption that you're the only game in town is dangerous. If anything, you should give people more for their money if you want to stay competitive. If you don't give people what they want, then someone else will, and in business it's a sure bet that someone's eventually going to come along and do something better than you can, in your market. When that happens, people won't stick around you for long. Remember to always take care of your tribe so they can take care of you.

As ever, most of this goes back to understanding your customers and all of these factors can easily be avoided if you keep the people you're writing for, at the center of your focus. Don't be the next JManga. Instead, be the author that keeps giving back to the people who invest their time and money in what you're creating.