To piggyback off the hating on popular creators point. 
Another creator's success is not your failure.
It's easy to feel jealous when all the people around you are getting opportunities and it feels like you're being left behind. But you if you put all your energy into shaking your fist and grinding your ax, you won't get anywhere. Instead work on improving your craft. Learn from those who've played the proverbial game and won; there's no shame in asking for help.
Might be an obvious one, but let this grandma talk for a minute.
Learn to promote/market your own work.
Yeah, keeping an update schedule is all beautiful and what not, but you're not getting your readers if you don't go out there and use the many tools we have today (your social media sweetheart) to reel fresh eyes in. The writing and drawing your comic/novel only takes up this much of the whole gig, you need to show off just what makes your work interesting. Ain't nobody gonna just find your work, go and scream it off the rooftops. 
Expanding on these two points as well - something that really clicked for me after doing a bit of research on horror genre conventions
When you subvert expectations/tropes, you are subverting the delivery of the content, not the content itself
Genres exist, as you two have said, to satisfy what the audience wants when they pick up your genre. Unique storytelling arises when you present these familiar points in an unusual way. This is not the same as not including these conventions at all, because this is when you stop writing genre fiction, and this is why you need to know your genre before you subvert it - no matter how you build a house, you need walls to keep the wind out, and a roof to keep the rain off, otherwise it's not a house.
This thread is having major good advice from everybody. They're like precious pearls of knowledge that have been crafted with blood, sweat and tears.
Thanks to all who wrote in this thread and the advice given.
Since everyone was posting advice and so was I, I kinda want to take it from the other side of the barrel right now.
Yeah, my story ain't doing too good 
my last two updates got very little reads compared to the times before that. And it sucks. But this ain't the first time this happened and in no way the last. It sucks, but we've all been there. So the best I can do is write on and appreciate what I already have and not think about what I don't. I'm up here writing advice, but it feels like it's me writing it to myself, and I'm not sure if I'm the only one doing that here. So yeah, this is just an extra reality check from me. Though I'm giving advice, even we who do that aren't always able to follow our own rules 🤷🏼♀️ And I think that that is completely fine as long as we can admit it.
I think the best advice I have is make the story for yourself.
Pour out your soul into your work. Because constantly caring about what other people think or like, and writing the story for them will drain you. It defeats the purpose of making good art. Tune out commentary (unless you're asking for feedback on your story), sit down with your headphones, and just fucking draw. Don't be afraid of the blank canvas; just draw what you know is right. And if people don't like it? That's okay. Because someone will. It was never between you and them anyway.
Even the writers who wrote good stories won't be special within a couple years. Your story after some time won't matter either. So the most important time is now. Focus on your art now, and on telling a good story. It's hard because you want to succeed, because you want those likes, but you should still do it because you like drawing or because you like telling stories. Even the tiniest fan can bring happiness.
That's true too. It's important to do all this for yourself first and foremost. Too much people's commentary can feel like a drag. Very true.
Good points, you guys, can add only one small thing I always need to keep in my anxious mind.
Everything needs time. You won't ever be just randomly done with your work, become mega popular or real pro in a sec. Just remember hard work and dedication always pays off, and this process is not fast.
I'm really really itching to start refuting the "do not subvert cliches as they are there for a reason" advices (You were right I do not want to hear that... because it's BS, not true and promotes mediocrity), but that would be derail. So.
Nobody cares about your world
Most of your readers will read your story out of boredom. Your worldbuilding, details you had put in the background, or subtle touches you do on the characters - few will notice that. Almost nobody of those who did notice will care about it. You'd be lucky if you get one hardcore fan per one thousand readers - the guy who will notice and will care enough to notice that you have been always leaving a skull somewhere on each page of your comic. Maybe one of a hundred of these guys will finally ask something about the world that you crafted. But I'd not count on that.
All the rest? They'll skim through your page in half a minute and will more interested in discussing the character relationships rather than that bit of lore that you cleverly and subtly dropped in MC conversation.
I will derail minorly and say you may be mixing up cliches vs. conventions, and turn it into another piece of advice
Clichés are overdone methods of delivering conventions
For example in the most ham-fisted way possible - your vampire novel is not cliche if it includes vampires, your vampire novel is cliche if your vampire is pale as snow, suave, charming, has a penchant for black clothing, and sleeps in a coffin (and hey, even that doesn't nail it as a cliche if you do something different with it).
More nuanced, I'm going to explain with romance because I'm writing this rn and I know more cliches. A romance convention is that scene where the characters sacrifice something to affirm their transition into the 'improved' self that's compatible with the other person, leading to the happily ever after. A cliche version of this is the man running through the airport to catch the woman just before she gets on the plane, confessing his love (hopefully sacrificing something) and she throws away her dashing career hopes and doesn't get on the plane. Happily ever after
Non-cliche ... well, the sky's your limit, but the beat must still be there. If the woman gets on the plane anyway ... well, that's the story of her putting herself before everyone telling her she needs a man to be happy, not the story of her romance. If it were a romance, the man would get on the plane with her, happily ever after (and there's your subversion).
Romance readers need to see the characters take the last leap into being right for each other and completing their character arc, else you've written a tragedy or a drama or a coming of age or something that isn't a romance, no matter the romantic elements.
"You're not cool:"
Jesus, thank you for posting this one. It always baffles me how people can actually look at someone's hard work and then shit on it because they didn't like it.
Not all cliches are about story beats though. These advices can be applied as "fantasy readers expect there being elves and orks in your story, so you shouldn't remove elves and orks from yours".
fantasy readers expect an element which separates the world of the story from the world we know, whether the presence of a single magical object or an entire secondary world, classic tolkienised elves and orcs are a cliche method of delivering this
(you are right that i should've written conventions not beats, however)
This is so important! I get so happy when artists I follow get noticed and subsequently get really popular. It feels good to see their hard work pay off.
But it still stings a little when I come back to my own work. Seeing how far behind them I am and knowing I will probably never reach even lower tier numbers. It's okay to feel sad that you'll never get the validation you want while simultaneously being genuinely glad for those who make it.
To be fair, I think most of the advice isn't "don't subvert things" so much as "it's not a replacement for good story telling". There is modern trend to simply subvert things and call it good because "it subverted expectations". The advice is more "surprising doesn't automatically equal good" rather than don't do it at all. Like when people say "that didn't make any sense" and the response is "but it surprised you".
Those are not advices those are reality.
I am no Thanos, so reality cannot be whatever I want. Even when he could, he still lost.
Also let me share another truth:
1. There is always exception to things said above; people who get popular overnight because their work is noticed by the right people, people who make garbage but still acclaimed anyway, etc.
2. That is most likely not you. Do not hope.
People will like things you personally don't
Don't trash an audience just because they like something you don't find appealing. People are allowed to like Twilight and 50 Shades of Gray just as much as one is allowed to like polka music and fast food.
It may be audience envy, but you just gotta keep trucking to find people who will appreciate your work.
I've been trying something similar. My story has a lot of LGBT characters but at the moment very few of them have been confirmed LGBT and many of them haven't yet made an appearance in the final story, just an earlier version that used to be public, and drafts that have literally never been for public consumption Yet I have been promoting it on LGBT threads and BL threads, based on prominent stuff that doesn't happen until later in the story.
Is that a bad thing?
