Yeah, it is pretty crazy. I'd like to imagine it's because a good number of people still use the forum, but who knows, they could decide to shut it down one day out of the blue. Honestly the one good thing for me about Discord is that some servers are really resourceful, and geared towards helping out creators, which is really nice when you struggling to get feedback and such. But yeah, Discord goes way too fast, and it's too chaotic most of the time.
Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, DeviantArt, TikTok, all that. Can someone find me this Tapas forum question that has this link that lists ways to spread your comic around? Because it's helping me gain viewers everyday. I can't find it :c
All I know is the site has "put on Reddit Reviews, this webcomic glossary, this randomizer" something like that. It's SUPER helpful.
I can't find it now, but there was a webtoon tweet recently, it was a poll asking if you were a were a creator on webtoons, about to be one, or a reader.
a very low percentage of people were readers. like.. 10%
So even on twitter, it's creator dominated, and we're all just marketing to each other. =/
I'm starting to think the only way to reach actual readers outside the creator communities is
a) get lucky, and get featured.
b) pay for ads on google and facebook and places outside the comics ecosystem.
https://twitter.com/webtooncanvas/status/1535405812314566656?s=20&t=3HjI2amU-Sj7G3cjAsAFnw6
Was it this Webtoon Canvas tweet? Since it's for the Canvas platform, its audience does skew towards creators.
Readers mostly consume official content on the platform without needing to ever open Canvas so I wonder what a poll from the Webtoon twitter would look like.
Actually... as painful as the truth may be, no. Creators make up less than 10%, possibly even less than 5% of the total Tapas userbase. The vast majority of people on the Tapas app, which makes up over 90% of all Tapas users, are just readers. It can seem like creators dominate, but it's actually because creators are more likely to engage with social media for comic hosting sites and to be active and vocal. Tapas has over 3 million readers, but only about 80,000 comics. 80k comics is a lot, but it's 2.6% of 3 million.
The problem is less that there aren't enough people who use the app to read novels and/or read comics... and more that these people are often drawn in by and used to reading content made by professional content creators with a very high level of polish on both the presentation and storytelling. If they're used to reading something with really polished art made by a team of experienced artists in a familiar and fashionable style, and a story deliberately structured to grab attention written by a confident, experienced writer, it can be really hard to convince them to try something a bit rough looking with a story that meanders a bit and get them to trust that "no no, listen, the characters are great!" or "this creator has a lot of potential!" It's like trying to convince somebody to go watch a low budget but interesting student film instead of the latest Marvel blockbuster.
For this reason, many creators end up relying on other creators, since they are more likely to give less polished work a chance either through a sense of community, mutual gain through promotion, or simply because they have a greater appreciation for the work that goes into even comics and novels that are a bit rough around the edges, or are in spaces where they're more likely to see these works (like the forums). It's definitely a good place to get a leg up and to start building a core of engaged people who give regular likes, but if you want to get beyond that, you really need to catch the eye of non-creator readers and the Tapas staff.
Assume that non-creator readers aren't aware and don't really care how much work you put in, and they don't know or care if you're a really nice person; they ONLY care if your novel or comic looks good and will entertain them on their lunch break like The Beginning After the End or Heartstopper do. The Tapas staff also want to direct them towards works that they believe will provide this, because people clicking on things makes Tapas money and pays their wages. If your comic or novel looks like people will click on it, and consistently seems like people who do click on it continue to keep clicking through pages/episodes to read more, the Tapas staff will want to show it to people because clicks = money, it's really that painfully simple.
If you really, seriously do want to build readers outside of just other creators, you need to understand that non-creator readers...
Yeah, readers can be kind of entitled brats sometimes, honestly! But like it or lump it, that's the audience you have to win over.
Everyone I'm pretty slow in realizing this but! If you check the desktop version compared to the app version of tapas(that I've recently downloaded mind you) I can actually see why it's hard for any of us who don't have the attraction we hope for. You see unlike the desktop version of Tapas you can't click onto the comic or Novel list since there isn't an option for that, and see all our series present there, also if you want to find your series, you literally have to type it in the search bar instead of scroll down the comic/novel list, and since hardly any of the readers go to the desktop version with it being mobile friendly it's almost impossible for us to get notice on this site. Now the series that I did see pop up on their app mostly was their mainstream anime looking series that all had the same looking art style cover, hardly any other series aside from that, now if you're trying to promote on tapas, I seriously wouldn't recommend it since your chance of being seen will only be by other creators who you go on the forums with, you're practically better off just promoting on other social media platforms, unless you want the developers of this website to change this issue.
Technically speaking, there IS a way to be seen in app without typing directly the name of your comic/novel in the search bar. Buuuut... it requires jumping through a bunch of hoops XD
Namely:
-Click on the "Community" section.
-Is your work among this week's featured comics? No? Well, then...
-See that teeny-tiny button called "Genres"? On the bottom left? Yeah, I know, it's so tiny it's pretty much impossible to see it at a first glance, but it's there.
-Now select what you want to see. Comics? Novels? Whatever you choose, the app will lead you directly to the "Popular" section of the type/genre of works you've chosen (e.g. Popular Fantasy Novels).
-Isn't your work among the popular works? Then select "fresh" from the teeny-tiny drop down menu at the bottom, the same where you chose your genre. Some scrolling may be required, depending on how big the genre you're posting in is and how long ago was your latest update.
-Ta-da! After only... 4-5 clicks, lots fiddling with a ton of different options and a quite a bit of scrolling, you can find your comic! 
...So yep, the option to find community comics IS there, but it's so buried deep down in the app and so hard to notice that basically no regular reader cares to check it. Heck, readers won't even check featured works that for whatever reason ended up at the bottom of the list on the home page! ò__ò (seen that happening multiple times, comics that got a staff pick but weren't at the top of the list would get basically zero growth compared to the most visible ones at the top unless the order was switched somehow).
Which is why, unless you get featured by the staff multiple times (in categories where your work can be easily seen, like with a banner in the Community section or in a collection), you really need to branch out and promote your work elsewhere if you want your comic to be seen. Not just on the forums (which only work to a certain degree), but on social media, through sites like ComicAd and/or simply by posting regularly and hopefully making it at least to the "popular" category 
Dang, at this point I'm better off going to webnovel, but I guess I just got to keep trying to promote on other sites if it works out that is, but thanks for this advice and info 
Keep trying! It also doesn't hurt to have your work on multiple platforms, actually that can be pretty great for added visibility! You never know which platform might work best for you 
Promoting on social media and elsewhere IS pretty tiring, and it's always a good idea to take a step back and focus on other things if you feel it gets too overwhelming, but it's definitely a way to get your work out there. Just try to find a strategy that works for you, without stressing too much about the algorithm 
The problem I see, and it's just my view, is that unless one has a wide social media following, trying to use social media to advertise your work is limiting. You need to have lots of eyeballs in order to bring eyeballs to your stories.
You cant expect your audience/fans/readership to grow just by mainly trying to promote on THIS site in the forums...most readers don't even frequent the forums; if you want to see your readers grow you're going to have to get out & promote on other social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Reddit, Deviantart and so forth...
Good point. Tapas is a business, like YT. And like YT it has its algorithms & doesn't have any real interest in content creators or their problems as long as creators keep showing up with hopes & creations in hand.
I mean.... you're talking to somebody who was invited to and is currently on the Tapas Creator Bonus Program right now... so... it's kind of hard for me to agree that Tapas simply don't care. 
They've really been going out of their way to support me and to promote and grow a work that honestly I know would never have a chance with most publishers because it'd be really hard to pitch, but I wanted to prove that if I just made it, I could make it work.
It's unfair to Tapas to infer that they're taking advantage of starry-eyed young creators, when people whose comics and novels don't get many views but still take up server space likely cost them more money than they generate. Clicks = money, remember? If you get clicks, that's great for Tapas because you're making them money, and in the hope of more works turning up that generate clicks, Tapas give everyone basically unlimited free hosting and the opportunity to get seen. Basically the big comics pay for everyone else to be on the site for free.
But.... Tapas is still a publisher; being a webcomics/webnovels publisher rather than print and having a low bar for entry that allows anyone to be on the platform doesn't change that. They feature stuff they feel confident will generate clicks, and... well, if somebody can't get 100 subs posting around on the forums discord, social media and stuff, it's likely there are issues with their comic or novel's appeal or readability that make it a poor use of a Tapas feature when something that generates way more clicks could go in that space.
I know it's rough, and I remember how hard it was trying desperately to gain readers to prove to them my comic could gain readers and generate engagement so that they'd give me a feature, because I had like 275 readers under my own steam after working my bum off for nearly a year before I even got my first staff pick. So what I'm saying is, if Tapas don't give you a feature, then prove to them that you can get clicks. Don't sit on your arse, moping and saying it's impossible; look to what you can actually personally do to improve your chances.
(Seriously, if I see another novelist complaining that they're not getting featured, but they haven't even uploaded a banner to make their page look finished... Yes, I see you, more than one person on this thread... 
)
Going beyond just being on Tapas to build an audience of non-creators isn't easy. You will seriously need to knuckle down and learn to write, draw and present your work like a professional and make something appropriate to the market, like treat it like you're pitching to a print publisher, if you want to get features and contracts here. It's not impossible though, and it's not like Tapas don't want more good comics and novels generating them revenue.
That's not the tone I meant to convey. They're a business & profit is the name of the game so they do whatever looks like it'll pay off. That's just reality.
You talkin' to me?? 
Edit: I get your points & pretty much agree with them all while still recognizing that Tapas isn't interested in us personally except to the end of where we can help them make more money. And don't misunderstand that, please, I'm down with making money & running a successful business.
Pff well yeah, that's just a given. xD It's like the 99% vs. the 1%, of course the latter will get way more, and have better opportunities than the former, because they're rich and already have more. A popular creator is definitely going to be less limited than less popular creators... but like, you're not going to get eyes on your work if you don't advertise. Doesn't matter if you have less reach, that's still better than doing nothing and having no reach. If you know the right tags and places to advertise, who to promote to, and if you get into your community a bit you'll at least get some people reading your work. Which eventually can lead to a good number of people reading. Unless you hit the creator jackpot, and/or have a really consumable style, gaining an audience takes time and effort. You shouldn't not advertise just because you won't get some immediate gratification from it.
closed Jul 12, '22
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