Hi, Eorzea!

This is something I was originally going to publish in The Babbler Issue 45, but it got a bit long and really doesn’t have much to do with adventuring or Eorzea or even chocolate, so I thought I’d put it here in the website blog instead. If you want to skip the introduction and just get on with it, click here to jump right to How to Make a Publication!

First, some news! The Babbler Archives can now be reached at readbabbler.com! Amazing! It’s not the most important thing, but it is nice to have.

But Why?

You might be wondering, why did we even start The Babbler in the first place?

Because it was something to do!

That’s literally it. In April 2022, I got a little bored and thought it would be fun to make an ‘alternative’ publication that was just for fun, and didn’t focus so much on clubs and DJs, and instead just stories and randomness. I thought of it more as a tabloid like The Quibbler, which is where its name came from (and not from my name! I’m not that into myself!).

I made one very short issue in April, then let it sit there doing nothing all the way until July 2022! Three whole months! It wasn’t until then that I really committed to the weekly schedule, and then we introduced Chappy’s Corner with mazes and games, and Lopp decided to contribute, too, so we added Song of the Week and later Movie Reviews. From July to August is when The Babbler really came into being.

But…why?

One of my favorite things about running The Babbler is just how much I’ve learned from it. In the beginning, it was mostly just image editing and some layouts. Then I moved on to cover design (not always the greatest, I know, but we’re on a tight schedule!), and now the archive has taught me so much about website design, stylesheets, making blogs, and even javascript.

While obviously FFXIV doesn’t need to be flooded with a million billion individual publications, I do think it’s something worth giving a try. Variety is fun. If you have a venue, it can also be a great way to highlight staff and guests, introduce lore if you’re into roleplaying, or just have an extra something-to-do during your downtime.

Pick a style, and stick with it! For example, The Babbler is really just something where we have fun, and mostly stick to ourselves. We do like to highlight aspects of the community when we think they match how we view Eorzea, as far as monetizing things or whether or not they’re SFW, which we always are. We’ve made it no secret that we’re not very fond of DJs or the club scene. That’s not an audience we’ll ever pursue. But that doesn’t mean you can’t!

Point is, it’s up to you what you make of your publication!

How to Make a Publication

Okay, now we get to the actual how part! It’s actually really easy. You don’t need to overcomplicate things, just get started!

I’d recommend thinking about the purpose of your publication first, and who your audience might be. What do you plan to write about? How often? Weekly is fun, because a week in Eorzea can sometimes feel like a month, but that’s also a hectic pace.

Will you have help? Do you want to “hire” people to work with you? Remember, for every extra person you bring on, that’s like +10% chance of random drama! It’s also difficult to find people who are both willing and able to write with a schedule. You may find that not everyone is as excited about your own publication as you are, and their actual contribution might just be a single review of their own venue before they decide to run off, never to be seen again! It happens!

Think about scale! Don’t take on too much too quickly. Don’t spend a bunch of money on random stuff thinking it’ll help you take off when you don’t even have a single reader yet. Start small!

Choose something that works for you, and be careful of burnout!

Content Delivery!

Got it? Okay, next you’ll want to think about how you’re going to deliver your content!

Carrd is probably the quickest and easiest way to throw something up without too much hassle. It’s used by countless venues for menus and other things, but is more than enough for a small publication. Downsides: No real archives, and there are limitations to how many ’elements’ you can have on a single carrd, unless you subscribe to their service. On the other hand, it’s completely free to start! Free is good!

If you want to add some bells and whistles (though they aren’t really necessary given there are much better and faster ways to get information across through our tomestones these days), you can try one of the many services that allow you to turn PDFs into virtual flipbook magazines. Flowpaper and FlippingBook are possible options. Some services use a modified version of something called Turn.js 5 to present pages in a flippable magazine style, and you can get started for free, though they do require a subscription if you plan on having multiple issues. If you want to just play with it a little and see how it feels, you can also find Turn.js 4 for free.

One of the more popular magazines in that style is GPOSERS Magazine, who have been publishing since 2018.

Of these options, I’d probably recommend Flowpaper. You’ll need to design PDF pages to use these, though.

Again, Carrd is a generally great service, and well known here in Eorzea. The free plan is more than enough if you’re wanting to keep things short, but the Pro plan only costs $20 a year and you essentially get free hosting and unlimited space on your carrd.

But the possibilities are truly endless. Some even present their publication as shareable images, which is another fun and easy way to do things. I’ll recommend some software to get started with that below!

And, of course, regular websites are always an option!

The key is to have fun! I admittedly look down on those who try to monetize what should be a free and open experience here in Eorzea. The cost of running a publication, if you’re smart, is next to nothing, and we have enough groups out there trying to get popular or make gil (or more) off the backs of adventurers. But it’s up to you which path you take.

Tools!

Here are some of the tools The Babbler staff uses to get issues out every week! And they’re all free!

GIMP

GIMP (Graphical Image Manipulation Program) is a fantastic and powerful tool that rivals Photoshop, and it’s totally free. You can do pretty much anything you’d need with it, from chroma keying, separating foregrounds from backgrounds, or enhancing images. But! I wouldn’t use it for anything that involves text, like posters! For that I’d recommend…

Inkscape

Inkscape is my favorite. It can be a little buggy at times, but it’s an insanely great vector tool that I use for anything involving text or logos or other designs, like our weekly covers. You can even make full PDFs with it! Amazing!

Google Docs

I don’t personally use Google Docs too much, except for Google Sheets, which (like Excel) can help you lay out information and calculate certain things. I do use it for keeping track of Chocobo races at the moment. Google Docs is also nice for sharing documents in general!

Discord

We use Discord to chat and share stuff! Wow!

Ghostwriter (Or Another Markdown Editor)

Carrd uses what’s known as Markdown, which is just a simple way to format text in an editor so it can do things like this or this or this. So basically, it just lets you use asterisks (*) or hashtags (#…also known as an octothorp) or other things to make your text do what you want.

I use Ghostwriter for most of my writing. I’m not exactly sure I’d recommend it, because it can get a little slow and I can’t get the spellcheck to work, but it does what I want, so it’s fine for now! Other Markdown editors exist, though, so I’d definitely recommend finding a nice one!

Programmer’s Notepad

You probably won’t need this unless you plan on making your own website to go with things, but Programmer’s Notepad is a really nice editor that handles all kinds of file types, like html or css or even py (for Python). It even has tabs for different files, like web browsers!

Promotion

Promotion can be pretty simple. Here at The Babbler, we actually don’t do a whole lot to promote. We have Party Finders up, but only maybe two at a time on different Data Centers. We do have a Twitter (X?) account, but to be honest, I often forget it exists!

Other than that, we’re just kind of out there and if people want to visit, they can! We also have a Discord community, though we don’t directly promote that, either - just a few links on The Babbler itself. I’m not sure we’ve ever directly mentioned it anywhere else, in fact!

We definitely do not do shouts. I’m just not a huge fan of that, personally, and I feel that you’re more likely to annoy people than gain an actual following that way. Networking can work, but depending on the style of your publication, you may find your audience ends up filled with streamers and venue owners looking to promote themselves more than actual readers. That would feel meaningless to me, but that’s just my opinion!

Just put your stuff out there, and if people like it, they’ll come back for more!

Perseverance & Consistency

There is a pretty simple key to everything. It doesn’t matter what tools you use, or how much you spend. Perseverance and consistency are what really matter. Schedule a publication day, and do your best to release on that day every time. Not before, not after, but on that day around the same time.

There have been weeks over the last year that I’ve missed our Monday schedule, but those were because I was sick. That’s it. We’ve released later on Monday sometimes, but never too late. Even if you’re not really feeling it that day or month or whenever, if you actually care about doing it, you should at least get something out.

And that goes for the very first issue, too! Just get started! You can spend forever planning, but that doesn’t really get you too far. You definitely want to make something good, but having something at all is better than nothing. Usually.

One thing you should never do, though, is cut corners. Don’t plagiarize. Someone will know. I’ll know, and then we can’t be friends. Take a little pride in your own work, check for typos even after publication, and at least try to make sure things are nice. I miss typos all the time, but try to correct them as soon as they’re spotted. One thing I always think about is that, if I don’t care about whatever I’m working on, I can’t expect others to care, either. So you basically have to be your own biggest fan, in that sense!

Which is weird! But it’s not a bad mindset to have. As the creator of your publication, you have to care more about it than anyone else. Otherwise, what’s the point!

If you’re feeling like you’ve taken on too much, scale back. Don’t try to do too much. Don’t make it hard on yourself.

I’ll probbaly add some more detailed how-tos in the future, but I just wanted to share some of my thought process in how to make a publication. There’s obviously quite a bit that goes into it!

Anyway, that’s it for now! If you use this guide to make your own publication, or are inspired by The Babbler to start one of your own, let us know! We’d love to see it! Otherwise, good luck and have fun!