Hi, I started on Tapas with zero following in Community. Now I have over 15k subscribers and 4 premium novels. I didn't get serious with my social media following until about a year and a half ago and it grew from a hundred followers to 1.2k followers.
During the years I didn't really have social media for my books and I wasn't a premium author, I put my full focus on the quality on my chapters, kept track of the genres that are trending, and tried matching cover quality to the artwork that seemed to be staff picked or in premium. I grew without social media marketing.
I totally consider artwork an investment and I don't regret dropping some $$ even when I didn't have much to spare (I had to skip some meals to save up for my favorite artist back then which I think helped my views triple after the change). Many will sugarcoat it about covers. But it's totally true that readers DO judge a webnovel by its cover. They will skip a story if the art isn't eye-catching even if the book is fantastic. This was fine back in the day when Tapas wasn't owned by Kakao and books could get thousands of subscribers with the simplest cover. Now, we really have to step it up because the industry is massively competitive for that 1% spot for a big break.
Besides the cover, you HAVE to be decent with editing. Be as clean as possible with your story. Of course, readers know we are not professional editors. But we also can't publish chapters littered with basic grammar mistakes. Like, it's a fast way to lose a reader in that first chapter. Tapas goes by Chicago style. Definitely check out some of the chapters of Premium novels to see how Tapas editors edit these works.
A short synopsis - 500 characters. A paragraph. People nowadays grew up in an era of Tiktok and we have to be quick to grab their attention. Trying to tell what the story is in 5 paragraphs will quickly lose someone. End the paragraph with a question.
Be confident in your story. Definitely keep marketing it when you can where it counts. I found instagram ads to be my best friend and sometimes Reddit communities.
Networking. Keep talking to people in the industry. You just need that ONE person to get the word out about your work.
