Business Casual

Looks like I accidentally wiped all of my posts away in a botched MySQL update earlier today. I'm restoring as much as I can, but I haven't backed up in a while. That's a bad me.

The good news is that since I was duplicating my posts on the forum that I do have all of my posts around. I'll just have to do some of the restore manually. Or, I could write some super complicated MySQL and try to import from the forum database into my posts database. But since that seems like just as much work as manually importing, I'll just go the mindless manual way.

After attending my first comic convention last year at the local Minnesota con (Fallcon), I got more excited about my comic than I had been in quite some time. It was possibly the best I had felt about the time I was spending on the strip since those original doodles I did back when I first started this site. I also seriously thought for the first time that I could actually have a possibility of actually making a buck or two from this little webcomic endeavor of mine.

And now, a new convention season is starting around me. I'll be attending the smaller, one-day Microcon here in the Minnesota this weekend and hope to get some more momentum for me and my comic. And this year, I even have promotional postcards to hand out if I can find the nerve to try and pimp my comic a bit. I'm incredibly horrible at this sort of thing, and it's probably one of the main reasons that Business Casual hasn't taken off as much as I would have liked. The other reason is, of course, my limited art ability. But we're not here to discuss that.

Also, after this weekend, I have at least 2 more conventions that I'm going to attend in 2008. I've got the decent sized 2 day Fallcon convention in early October here in Minnesota. And, I'll also be in the DC/Baltimore area during the much larger Baltimore Comic-Con in late September. And the really special thing about these 2 conventions is that I hope to not only just attend the conventions, but actually display and promote Business Casual as well! I'll be on the other side of the table this time.

So I'm looking to expand all around. I want to start selling Business Casual related items on the site and at these conventions. I want more people to start noticing Business Casual, and I want the comic to grow. This year is the first time that I've really started to look at the strip as something more than just a little thing I do for fun every now and then and a couple of my friends read every so often. I'm starting to believe that I could make a little something happen with what I have. So, I'm trying any and all avenues I can to better the business side of my strip.

What could I sell? How can I promote the site? Where and in what should I invest money and time to get the most out of this? Where can I improve? These are the questions that I need to start answering. I'm not delusional and believe that I'll be able to quit my day job with this. I can dream of that day, but I have more realistic goals. I may state what exactly these goals are in a month or so when the 5th anniversary of Business Casual rolls around, but for now, I just felt like rambling on about the comic. Hope you didn't mind.

And please, if there's anything you'd like to recommend or see from Business Casual, don't hesitate to drop me a line and let me know.