Just curious. Obviously this is a webcomics community, so that's what's on everyone's mind here, but I was wondering if anybody has any art or writing projects outside of comics that they're proud of? And if so, what are you doing to promote them?

As for me, I'm a novelist who is just now delving into comics. Now, I say I'm a novelist... all that means is that I write novels. Two and a half of them so far, with my agent pitching all over creation to try and get them published. It's going well, and there are a few nibbles from a couple of the major publishing houses, but nothing solid as of yet. And as for what I'm doing to promote them, aside from finding a good literary agent (as opposed to one of those fly-by-nighters who'll take anyone, anytime as a client, and then charge bogus fees for half-assedly sending queries to publishers), I've been blogging about the creative process of writing my novels for about a year now. I also went ahead and bought a domain name based on the titles, and am working with a couple of graphic artists who are willing to work for free to try and get some actual HTML and images up there, so I can use the site to promote the books.

Here's a couple of links to the blogs I have up regarding my writing projects:
http://gatehousebooks.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/aspiring_author_diaries

Anyone else have any interesting projects? Innovative ways to promote/build buzz? I'd love to hear about them!

Fellow novelist here :)

I write fantasy novels and I was published in 2006! The first book of my trilogy has been out in the market for about seven months now, and it is going really well! The publishing house is doing the promotion, really, and they are arranging magazine interviews and the like.

Here is the official book site
http://www.theartofveiling.gr/ [theartofveiling.gr]
and you can click on my signature (the button with the green eyes on the right) to see the publishing house's e-shop entry.

And here is its page on the book fair where the book debuted internationally!
http://www.mindpower.gr/en_2007.php [mindpower.gr]

Very cool, and congratulations! I hope sales are going well for you. Just curious, was your publishing deal for the single book, or the first two or three in the series? Like yours, my novels are a series, and we're trying to package together at least the first two and get a multi-book deal.

Again, congratulations... Nice to know someone out there is doing well in the novel arena!

Thank you :) The Art of Veiling is a trilogy and the publishing house has made a contract with me for all three books. (I had the two first books' manuscript done when I submitted it- they wanted the whole thing)

Thanks again! I am very happy with this since the trilogy is the fruit of about 9 years of work/research before I even begun actually writing the final version. heh heh. nothing like the simple plan I made for Wolf of just one month preparation ;)

Oh, I always have a few projects going, but nothing big at the moment. I write a little, when the mood strikes me but it isn't something I've been doing much about (and that annoys my mother so much. I guess I should do as she says and attempt to get something puplished. Heh).

I'm also playing around with several ideas involving "street"art, but I'm really not much of a promoter. I'm good at getting the ideas and sometimes I manage to actually do something but it's always just me and maybe some friends.

So... I'm not much of a big-projects-person I guess. But I'd still like to stick little paper wings all over things in the nearest large city and see what happens. People need little arty surprises in their lives. :)

I love to write poetry a lot, so that's what my comic is based off of. It's a "poecomic"...? Haha, it's really fun to do. I have some haiku's published in a small magazine called the Haiku Headlines as well.

As for art, I'm always drawing different things in an array of mediums (except paint...I hate painting)

Here's me DevArt: http://xxnicotinexx.deviantart.com/

Wow, I guess we must be the only people out there doing anything else with our words or pictures... either that, or we're the only ones interested in sharing our other projects. ;)

I occasionally work on non-comic related art projects which pop up at my deviantart site when they're at various stages of completion. I occasionally try to do something with graphic design or try to mimick someone elses art style... let me see if I can link to my newest thinger...


I usually go on a bit of a art push when I'm in downtime between comic projects. I'm also doing a series of new designs for classic NES games as posters for a friend of mine who owns a LAN center, thats really the only continuing "project" I have going, most of my other art projects are whims.

I do a lot of writing, but I never finish anything and have no intention on publishing. I write character-centered novel length (sometimes novella-length) adventure/mystery/comedy stuff.

I put one of my works in progress on DeviantArt:
http://usedbooks.deviantart.com/gallery/literature/

I do freelance graphic design on the side. So I've done some logo design work for my friend's comic shop. And then I did some flyer design for local bands in the Philly area.

Here's one flyer I made:
GANG Flyer [img255.imageshack.us]

But my biggest non-comics project would have to be a children's book I'm illustrating. The text is from a Syd Barrett song. Most of Syd's lyrics were said to have been reminiscent of his childhood and they had a fairy tale/nursery rhyme feel to them. So I found one of my favorites of his solo albums, and am making it into a children's book:



I have 2 of the 16 or so images drawn.

Right now, only this:



It's a fledgling poetry group that I started a little while back. It's a bit stagnant right now, mostly due to a lack of members.

I'm also trying to find illustrators for my poetry, in order to produce something similar to some of William Blake's work (as can be seen here [brown.edu] and here [upload.wikimedia.org]). Anyone interested in concocting something along those lines?

My only other project is a 25 piece portfolio that doesn't have to be done until March or April. Other than that I just write short stories from time to time.