Book Project : The Social Media

Last Sunday I talked about how I plan on using social media to sell a photography coffee table book I have coming out so on this post, I'll be giving a little back story. Now this experience is unique to my book and the market so obviously what works for me may not work for your situation.

The book is about Cosplay in America.

Cosplay (コスプレ kosupure), short for "costume play" is type of performance art in which participants don costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea. Characters are often drawn from popular fiction in Japan. Favorite sources include manga, anime, tokusatsu, comic books, graphic novels, video games, hentai and fantasy movies.

Basically, if you walk into an anime or comic book convention, you see folks dressed up as their favorite characters. Cosplay usually refers to those who are into anime and manga while comic book folks tend to be more costuming. Cosplay loosely can define both.



Cosplayers tend to be creative folks. Many cosplayers create their own cosplay instead of buying off-the-rack outfits (though only the most popular characters are available) and sometimes their cosplay project requires months and may take the cosplayer several tries to achieve the result they want. Hundred and maybe thousands of dollars are spent on their craft.

I've always been interested in passionate people so cosplayers naturally fall into this group. Some revise and remake outfits over a course of a year or more just to get the details as accurate as possible.




Now story is key. People are looking for a story to follow and if you can weave one on several social media sites, they'll want to follow you to see how it progresses. This makes a perfect use for my book. I wanted my project to be transparent and to involve cosplayers. Almost every major move I made has been broadcast on several mediums. As they spend time watching and following you, they become involve in this "reality show". With this project, I update everyday - 7 days a week. I engage the audience, ask questions and keep them inform.

So let's go through the sites I use.

deviantART is a social network focusing on artists of all types. They tend to be younger in age - I'm the only one of my friends who is actually on dA (for short). Like other social networking sites, you can "follow", add comments and post your work as well as have an online journal. I found dA very useful for letting folks know about my project. Every time you log on, you see the latest from your followers. I can see new images, new journal entries. So every time I update my dA page, my followers can see new images and new info. Currently I have 334 followers. Here's my dA page.

For general photography, I can't see dA as a useful site to use.

Flickr. I used Flickr for both hosting my images and to draw interest. With my images hosted on Flickr, all I do is use the particular image's web address and paste it into MySpace, Twitter, Facebook and so forth. Anytime someone clicks on the image on whichever social media site to enlarge it the image, it brings them to my Flickr page. This way, instead of uploading the same images to multiple sites, I just paste a web page.

When you make someone your contact, whatever new images your contact uploads, you can see on your front page. In order to keep my images fresh in people's mind, I upload a new image almost every day. Most of the images are outtakes from the book and are label "Web-exclusive, not in the book". I allow very few images from the book to reach the web. Many images are also of behind-the-scene variety.

To further expand my reach, I join groups related to my book's subject. Some group numbers over 24,000 members worldwide. Again, you can see random groups on your front page so again, my image can be possibly be seen by 24,000 people. The newest uploaded image always comes first as so within a day or so, your image will get push back. Yup, you need to feed this beast.

Another reason for picking Flickr is that cosplay and photography goes hand in hand. Any convention you walk into and you'll encounter a barrage of people with cameras - I've even seen Canon 5D MKIIs there as well as a 4x5 camera. I saw one man cart a Profoto 7B with a ringflash. It is obvious to me that photographers would also be interested in the cosplay book.

Flickr is a great way to keep up interest by posting new images almost everyday. And with 1,600 people photographed on my project - I have enough to probably last a decade ^^

YouTube. To connect with people, I've posted updates via a video blog or vblog. They tend to run less than 10 minutes long as that is the limit YouTube allows. Video is a great medium to allow viewers to get to know you. In my videos, I talk about the process which I go through on the book project. I thank people who help me. For example, in order to get promo postcards out around the country, I made a video asking for the viewers' help to put the cards out at local anime/manga/comic book store or conventions. Those who respond, I pack promo cards into a mailing packet and send it to whichever part of the state (or even country) they are in. The following week, I made a video where I made sure to go through and thank every person who I mailed out a packet to. Again, they feel part of the process when they hear their name mention in a video. My plan is for every convention I travel to this year to make a video.

Another use for video is testimonial. A few weeks ago, I bought a copy of my book to the SoCal Cosplay Gathering and video the cosplayers talking about the book. So it isn't just me talking about MY book, it is cosplayers talking about the book. I remember how there was a wedding photographer in SoCal whose website has clips of brides talking about their experience. This hits home to brides. They can hear other brides talk about their experiences with the said photographer. Smart marketing !

Obviously using video will depend on which market you're in. For wedding, headshots or event photographers, videos will be a useful facet of your marketing.

ModelMayhem. I chose this site despite drawbacks to expose my work to folks who would be interested in the cosplay book. A quick forum search of the term "cosplay" will yield profiles of models and photographers interested in cosplay. I then, friend them. Like I mention before, you can not update your images to your followers as opposed to Flickr or dA or even YouTube. For beginners, Model Mayhem is a great way to find subjects to develop your look. For photographers looking to cast, this might be ideal for the more alternative models or real people. I've found a few professional photographers there but most are what is called GWC (Guy with Camera). There's a few legit models but I understand most agencies tell their models not to have a page on this site.

Twitter. I make sure my twitter stays on target and I tweet information relating to cosplay, anime or Japanese culture. The more informative your tweets, the better it'll be. No one wants to hear you ramble on all day about this and that unless they are your friend. Saying that, I do make sure to not be informative all the time. My tweets are broken into either replies to mentions, progress of the book, random observation and re-links to posts of importance. Because the information stream is much faster here than it is on Facebook or MySpace, you'll need to cover the same ground over and over at different times of day to catch your audience. Crucial information is reposted about 3-5 times to make sure it gets out there. Honestly besides the twitter I use for PIX and for my book, I don't have a personal twitter - I gave that up about 5 months ago.

I'll bypass Facebook and MySpace as these are the typical social network that most folks know already.

To tell your story you have to use whatever media best suits your target and you must upkeep the content. Social media is a hungry beast and needs to be fed.