Today I am writing to both thank everyone who has ever participated in the Jon’s Creator Showcase as well as bring this era of my community content to a formal close. If you somehow haven’t heard about #TheJCS, you can read about it here. For those of you who have, I am sure this news is somewhat sad but know that in spite of my ending the program, it was well worth starting and something that everyone should be proud to have participated in. This program lasted longer than I ever expected it to, and by no means am I disappointed with it when all’s said and done.Continue reading “Saying Goodbye to the Jon’s Creator Showcase”→
When it comes to #TheJCS, I can hardly believe that it has been going strong for four years now. It’s really amazing and I cannot stress enough how grateful I am to the community for keeping it going steady for so long. That is why, with a heavy heart, I have to announce that I’m breaking the chain today. While I will be celebrating the anniversary in this post, I will not be accepting submissions as per the norm during the month of January. Rest assured though, the Showcase isn’t over, it’s just taking a mini vacation for one month. Additionally, I’ll be posting an update with this so you can know what’s going on and why I’m not tackling this project this year. Thank you in advance for your understanding.Continue reading “Jon’s Creator Showcase – Forth Anniversary & Site Update”→
Can you believe we’ve been at this for three years already? I’d like to thank every single one of you for continuing to support this project and allowing us all to discover some really cool stuff along the way! Today I have 32 submissions to share with you across multiple categories. So get comfortable with a nice warm beverage and enjoy everything we have to offer today.Continue reading “Jon’s Creator Showcase – Third Anniversary Edition”→
I never thought this project that almost died in 2018 would still be going strong three years later. Your support on this has been awesome and I’m excited to see what 2021 has in store for cool creative content! Hope you’ll join me for more Showcases and other fun events year-round!
The 2020 Complete Collection
Happen to miss out on any of the showcases last year? No problem (and not like I blame you, it was a year)! I’ve got your back, nowyou can read up here!You’ll find links to each host and their respective showcase along with other helpful information if you want to learn more about the program or help keep it going.
Reflecting on the Past Year
Last year we tried a lot of different things with The JCS with mixed results. We saw some truly innovative approaches to hosting that I’d love to see more of, one of them being a digital magazine! Super cool. Let’s look at a few other things I personally tried as a bit of a check in.
New promotional materials were largely received well and have been fully integrated. I’m pleased with this result. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the visual schedule. Since we had some people cancel, others change usernames, and other kinks means I won’t be doing that again this year as it’s too much effort for something that quickly becomes functionally useless if any changes happen at all. Plus, nobody used it.
The idea behind the visual schedule was a good one though. People always ask me who’s hosting next as opposed to just checking the schedule here. While I am the event organizer, this does get kind of annoying since the info is publicly available at all times, but it looks to be a necessary evil for now at least.
Now on to the good stuff! I’m hosting this month so I want your AMAZING content from December of 2020. Anything from written posts, drawings, to videos and more! If you made it, are proud of it, and it’s creative we want to see it. Full instructions below:
Submissions are open from 1/4/21 until 1/22/21
Share something YOU created, from December 2020. This can be anything from a blog post, piece of art, video, podcast, or anything you created! Do this by using #TheJCS on Twitter and preferably tag me @JS_Reviews if you don’t reply on the main thread. Alternatively, you can email me, reply here below, or hit me up on Discord. See my contacts page for that stuff.
When putting your submission in, be sure to mention that we are looking for December 2020 content. These threads get long and people get confused by the 15th tag and have no idea what this is for. Build good habits and avoid the headache of needing to repeat yourself to people!
Invite a few friends to join in on the fun! Do this by tagging (I suggest 3) friends when making your submission. It doesn’t matter if the person you are inviting only has a few followers or millions, if you think they are an AWESOME creator, please don’t hesitate to tag them!
If you get asked a question like, “What’s this showcase thing all about?” please do your best to answer. You’ll find some useful resources below:
Finally, if I don’t happen to see the question myself, you can tag me @JS_Reviews on Twitter.
Last, but certainly not least, explore the showcase and help promote it! Look over some of the submissions that came before you, retweet some that you enjoy, and maybe even follow a new creator or two! While it’s true that I’ll be compiling everything for a MASSIVE post at the end of the month, there’s no reason to wait on discovery amazing creators and interacting with each other.
Once again, I’d like to extend a warm “thank you!” to everybody who has participated in the project so far. Your support is greatly appreciated and I’m so glad that there are all these people who enjoy this community initiative of mine. Whether you’ve hosted, participated each time, or this is the first you are hearing of it, thank you so much!
This is the first showcase of the year as well as the decade, and if this is any indication of what’s to come, then we are in for one fantastic year for this program! Today we are celebrating the second anniversary of Jon’s Creator Showcase along with 50 other wonderful individuals who decided to participate this month. Along with the usual posts, you’ll also be seeing some “best of the decade” submissions from several folks. With that, let’s dive in!Continue reading “Jon’s Creator Showcase – Second Anniversary Edition & Best of the Decade”→
I seriously can’t believe that #TheJCS has grown to become as large as it has been. It’s thanks to all of you that the project has become as successful as it has, to which I am truly grateful. Here’s to another excellent year of the showcase as we look back over 2019 and see what 2020 has in store for us!
The 2019 Complete Collection
Happen to miss out on any of the showcases last year? No problem! I’ve got your back, nowyou can read up here!You’ll find links to each host and their respective showcase along with other helpful information if you want to learn more about the program or help keep it going.
Reflecting on the Past Year
Last year I had several goals for Jon’s Creator Showcase, let’s look back on those and see what went well, and what didn’t:
Goal:More participation outside of the anime community. I love the anime community and we have had a good amount of participation outside of it before, but I’d love to see other hobbies and interests represented EVEN MORE. This could be travel, board games, film, literature, or anything really!
Result: This was a rousing success! It took a little doing, but the showcase has really branched out over the past year. We’ve gotten videos, artwork, book reviews, and a whole lot more! The topics have seen an uptick in variety as well, which is also great! I don’t see this stopping anytime soon as the program gains more traction in the community.
Goal: Post type variety. Unsurprisingly nearly all of the content featured in our monthly issues are text posts. That’s awesome but wouldn’t it be cool if we had image posts showcasing art, video, and even podcasts? It think so too! I want to encourage more content creators to participate beyond the blogging community.
Result: I pretty much covered this in the last point, but we did manage this. All of the things I listed above were featured at least once throughout 2019. So, goal achieved!
Goal: Personally, I’d love it if just one person with a big following participated this year. They often get linked but ignore joining. The showcase is for everyone, big or small, and we want to celebrate the wonderful creations that YOU are putting so much effort into creation. Don’t think you are ever too big or too small for this project, because, you aren’t.
Result:I’m going to say we achieved this one as well! Some of you guys have actually become pretty big yourselves! That’s great! While we still haven’t penetrated to the masses, I am still happy with the level of reach we managed to achieve in just one year’s time. Here’s to continued growth!
Goal: On the same side of the coin, I’d like to see a hand extended to smaller creators trying to get off the ground. It’s hard to get recognition so be mindful of who you nominate in this next year.
Result: Would you look at that, all goals hit! We could still be a bit better about this, but in general the mix of large and small creators has been very healthy. Several new faces emerged across 2019, which was awesome!
Image Overhaul & New Promotional Material
I’ve been really excited about this one! Recently I’ve been working on rebranding my personal image, but I thought the showcase could also use a bit of a makeover. While the old material was great, it used the old hashtag and just didn’t fit what the showcase ultimately became over the past year. Here’s all the cool images I’ve made for the showcase which you can use to promote the showcase yourself!
New banner!
A new cover poster!
New informational poster!
A new promotional image! Thank you to everybody who OK’ed me using their images for this.
Hosting Schedule 2020
Like always, you can find the schedule here via the Doodle poll, but I also made a visual schedule for convenience. The tweet below has the image and all of the hosts tagged in order, just in case you are unfamiliar with any of them. Be sure to say “Hi!” while you are there!
Here's a (fixed) visual calendar for #TheJCS 2020! Be sure to say hi to the hosts!
Since the decade has come to a close, I have a special twist for this month’s hosting! You may choose to optionally submit ANY creation of yours from the past decade (2010-2019), regardless of if you have shared it for a showcase before or not. This is a special one-time deal, so feel free to take advantage! Of course, I’ll personally read/watch/review anything you send my way so long as you follow the instructions below:
Submissions are open from 1/3/20 until 1/30/20
Share something YOU created, either from December 2019 or the past decade (2010-2019). This can be anything from a blog post, piece of art, video, podcast, or anything you created! Do this by using #TheJCS on Twitter and preferably tag me @JS_Reviews if you don’t reply on the main thread. Alternatively, you can email me, reply here below, or hit me up on Discord. See my contacts page for that stuff.
When putting your submission in, be sure to mention that it is ANY content from the past decade this time, not just the usual December 2019 submissions (though that’s fine too of course). There’s always a little confusion on this, so let’s start making good habits this year by mentioning the desired date range.
Invite a few friends to join in on the fun! Do this by tagging (I suggest 3) friends when making your submission. It doesn’t matter if the person you are inviting only has a few followers or millions, if you think they are an AWESOME creator, please don’t hesitate to tag them!
If you get asked a question like, “What’s this showcase thing all about?” please do your best to answer. You’ll find some useful resources below:
Finally, if I don’t happen to see the question myself, you can tag me @JS_Reviews on Twitter.
Last, but certainly not least, explore the showcase and help promote it! Look over some of the submissions that came before you, retweet some that you enjoy, and maybe even follow a new creator or two! While it’s true that I’ll be compiling everything for a MASSIVE post at the end of the month, there’s no reason to wait on discovery amazing creators and interacting with each other.
Once again, I’d like to extend a warm “thank you!” to everybody who has participated in the project so far. Your support is greatly appreciated and I’m so glad that there are all these people who enjoy this community initiative of mine. Whether you’ve hosted, participated each time, or this is the first you are hearing of it, thank you so much!
I hope you all have been well this week. I wanted to take today’s normal Friday slot (though this is coming out a bit late) to update you all on a few things. We are going to talk a bit about what’s going on with the blog, what stuff is coming up, and some general life stuff when it comes to me. Some really great news, and some not so great news in this one, but either way, I’m glad you are all in for the ride with me here!Continue reading “What’s up with Jon? – State of the Blog & Other Stuff”→
Before we dive into this special Anniversary Edition of the Showcase for January 2019, let me once again say, “Thank you!” to all you awesome people who have helped out with the project since its conception. That includes hosts, people who submitted something, and of course, readers just like you!
A reminder, this time around I did something a little different in that we have a featured creator this month. They wrote something that really stood out to me. Of course, all of the submissions were wonderful and are certainly worth your time, I just thought this would be something fun to do as a change of pace. A competition element was attached to this edition as a little extra bonus for folks, so if you are the featured creator please contact me at: jonspencerreviews@gmail.com to receive your prize!
Thanks to YOU and the efforts of the community Jon’s Creator Showcase is now celebrating its first successful year! To think, this project was almost completely shutdown after the first month of operation, and there was a bit of a rough patch towards the end, but everything worked out and it is now a fairly beloved staple in our community here. To every single person who has hosted, submitted, or promoted the project in any way:
Jon Spencer Reviews 