Q & A: How to "broaden your horizons" without losing your niche

You've got questions...The Giant Squids have got answers!

Lensmaster JigsawForte asked an excellent question today on THE GIANT SQUIDS (and how you can become one) lens. It's a question that a lot of Lensmaster's have been curious about.

This question is answered by Loyalis (The Captain), who is not only a Top-Rated Lensmaster here on Squidoo, but also the creator of the Captain Squid Blog and most recently SquidTop!

Question by JigsawForte:

I'm moving slowly, but I've just started cranking out more and more lenses... I guess the problem is that my stuff almost feels like it's TOO "niche" sometimes. Is there an easy way to "broaden my horizons", so to speak, or should I just keep focusing on building up a narrow band of related lenses?

Answer by Loyalis:

Jigsaw,

I went through and took a look at your lenses....and got sucked into Last Resort and ended up reading the whole thing. I'm secretly a web comic fan so that makes answering this question easy.

You are off to a great start with your lenses so far and you've done a good job fleshing out your character as well as Last Resort as a web comic. I think you have a great niche picked an obviously one you are very passionate about. I think that you can 'broaden' your lens topics a little and not lose that focus.

For example, I just read your whole comic and now I'm sad that there's no more until Sunday.. what other web comics do YOU read and would recommend? What software do you use to ink your panels? How about a Lens on the cast of Last Resort that summarizes the comic and has a plexo to a Squid Who lens on each character? ( I do this a lot to showcase a group of lenses on a single topic like my Tom Petty Greatest Hits (http://www.squidoo.com/tom-petty-greatest-hits) lenses and my recent Star Wars Minifig (http://www.squidoo.com/star-wars-legos-mini-figs) lenses

As far as the 'focus' level of your current lenses I think you are dead-on content wise. Perhaps making lenses about web comics and having them funnel into Last Resort with appropriate examples? (You did this well with the 'Fursona' lens of yours). Maybe a Hey Monkeybrain lens on Anime vs. Fursona. (Fantasy/Sci-fi folks love that stuff, I've gotten a great response on my Star wars vs. Star Trek (http://www.squidoo.com/startrek-vs-starwars) lens from avid fans of one side or the other.)

Think of it this way, you want to create lenses that touch on other areas of web comics enough to get people who might not even know your blog exists a chance to find Last Resort. Perhaps a lens listing all of the different web comic directories? (and highlight the ones Last Resort is on, obviously : ) ).

I hope this gives you some good ideas and helps answer your question a bit! If you have any other questions feel free to contact me, I'd be happy to help.

Great Job so far and I definitely look forward to seeing you hopefully join the ranks of Giant Squids (even if yours would be a furry squid ;) ).

The Captain (Joe)

Comments

[Jigsaw Forte]

... Holy crap, there are people on the internet that are actually interested in answering my questions?! O_O

... I kid, I kid,

Great advice -- I'll definitely have to try that Anime vs. Furry, and the SquidWho Lenses on all the different characters sounds like a good way to add lots and lots of lenses into the mix, assuming I can get them all into good graces. ;)

Thanks!