One of my primary goals for 2019 was to expand my Social Media
presence. This was to align with the launch of Men of Bronze,
but also to prepare Blood and Spectacles Publishing for the 21st
Century! The Internet can not be undone. It is always evolving and
changing and what was the best place to be last year, is not the best
place now. It is hard for a luddite like myself to stay caught up!
With the help of T and T Consulting Solutions, I have been
expanding into this brave new world of communication, marketing, and
sharing. I have decided to expand in a few different areas:
- Website
- Facebook Page
- Instagram Feed
- Blog
- Message Board
- Wargames Vault
- Forums
Website
My website will mostly be static, but will serve as a gateway into
the realms of Blood and Spectacles Publishing. If you need a good
place to start, the Website is the place to go. It will tell you a
bit about me, connect you to my publications, allow you to support
the work, and contact me. It is probably the easiest way to contact
me on the web! If you have a question or want to share what you have
been up to, feel free to Contact Me from the link there.
Facebook Page:
Good old Facebook. Remember when it was just for college kids? I
don't because I was all ready too old!
On my Facebook page, you can find a lot of stuff that is motivating
me, peaking my interest at the moment, or fueling my imagination. It
is not always game related and covers topics like local history,
military history, militaria found about town, nature pictures,
classic cars, and other random topics that interest me. Sometimes,
it even talks about gaming stuff!
Please stop by and follow me so you can stay up-to-date on what is
going on in the world of Blood and Spectacles.
Instagram Feed:
All the kids are doing it! You want to be cool don't you? It is far
too late for that in my case I am afraid. However, I have an
Instagram feed anyway! You should follow it!
Here is where I will post project updates on painting, board
creation, miniature pictures, and more. I think the Instagram story
feature will give me a chance to tell a more coherent story about one
or two projects from beginning to end. We will see if that is how it
works out, together.
Blog
Of course, Blood and Spectacles got its start on the blog and will
continue to be an active place for me to post my thoughts, reviews,
battle reports, and other relevant commentary that requires a long
form for communication. Chances are, if you found me online it was
at the blog. In fact, you are reading it right now! Inception.
Message Board
I am a bit old school, and still think message boards are pretty
neat. I think the way they are organized allows long term projects
to develop, share documents easily, and allow a story to unfold over
time. Sure, you can do all that on other social media sites but
there is a certain easy lay-out for slow boil and long term
conversations that happen on a message boards. Other Social Media
seems to lack this component and focus on instant one way sharing.
Blood and Spectacles has had there own dedicated Message Board for a
little while, but it has been a slow build on turning into the type
of Message board I would like it to be.
Typically, here is where I share stuff that is too Work-in-Progress
to share elsewhere, will have open play testing, and also a shared
space around various Blood and Spectacles games.
Wargame Vault
Of course, one of the main distribution channels for my games is the
Wargame Vault. This is an online site that allows creators to sell
PDFs and books to players directly. I like to use Wargame Vault for
my work using the Pay What You Want model. I should probably use a
$1 minimum model or some such, but I like to try and democratize my
games. If you like it, you will pay for it and support Blood and
Spectacles somehow, whether that be promoting us, buy more games, or
using the support button on the website.
However, Wargame Vault also has a place where players can comment,
review and rate games. I am not as fast there but I will respond to
items and comments there as well. Plus, I love the feedback these
platforms provide from a variety of players.
You can find all my Wargame Vault games here:
Other Forums
Like I said, I tend to be a bit old school about internet spaces. I
like to hang out on various online forums and wargaming blogs too.
Here is a few of my favorite online hang-outs. Typically I go by the
handle Easy E from way back when the internet was young and Portent
was still a thing.
In no particular order:
I am sure there are others, but those are the main ones I can think
of.
Room to Grow
There are some thoughts for future growth in the form of Podcasting
or Video creation for YouTube. However, those are hobbies in there
own right. With a full time corporate career as well as my Wargame
Design I don't know if I have time for all that. However, in the
future I could see some expansion into these areas at least in the
form of some video demos of games, video reviews, or other similar
content. Who knows?
You maybe wondering why no Twitter? I just do not find it a useful
space for sharing and I honestly do not like the one-way nature of
it. I prefer longer form writing and most of my Twitter activity
would simply be re-directs to content elsewhere. That just seems
stupid to me. Maybe I can be convinced otherwise, but what do you
think about it? Do you use it a lot for Wargames related content?
Conclusion
As you can see, in 2019 there was a ton of expansion into the Social
Media space. For an old-timer like myself it was scary. Prior, I
didn't have any Social Media pages. I was way to private of a person
for those types of things. This is a whole new world for me, and I
look forward to expanding my presence, sharing more with the wargame
community, and generally getting myself out there a bit more. We'll
see what happens.
Feel free to let me know what type of content you are interested in
seeing from me in the Social Media space to help drive the discussion
around Wargame Design? What would be interesting to you?
You can follow Blood and Spectacles Facebook page for more fun: https://m.facebook.com/pg/BloodandSpectacles/posts/?ref=bookmarks&mt_nav=0
Or our website:
Or our Messageboard:
Or our Wargames Vault Page:
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