I don't really get why people are always talking about switching to Tapas/Webtoons. You can publish on both. It's not an "either or" question
In the end you should just continue publishing and becoming better at what you do. Try to promote on Reddit, Instagram and other social media too, both platforms are doing a lot of events on their social media now.

I agree with everything you just said and I must say I am stumped by the whole thing and have been for a while. Still looking for a solution to no avail, but it looks like the real attention comes in when you get featured so I've heard. This is happening to artists and writers alike! But like everybody says it's best to post on both sites (it increases viewership) I hope this helped any at all or brought or just a little bit of clarity!

I think it's why I don't see a lot of merit in the sub4sub types, as you are subbing just to inflate numbers and not because they are genuine fans and want to interact with your work.

I think people underestimate that most of the time, it can take years to build any kind of fanbase.

I've heard that apparently tiktok is a great way to gain numbers but I'm not built for that haha

Honestly, this is somewhat true for me. I was very fortunate enough to be featured a few times which was how I gained a pretty good/ loyal following.

I know some writers (not sure about artists) promote their works via tik tok or insta or even twitter. Some, are also on amazon... Other than that, I'm not sure where else to promote. My best advice is to just continue what you're doing! Tapas has a pretty active/ supportive community compared to other platforms i've been on for writers.

I agree, I guess this has something to with popularity, if you don't have many likes, subscribers, and views, you won't be on the list of the front page for new viewers to read and subscribe. It's almost as if we are being blocked by so many potential readers.

What's worse is that Tapas focus too much on romance, drama, and a slice of life. If your genre doesn't have any of those, it will be a gamble or very difficult to get your comic popular.

Also, the majority of the popular comic art styles are so anime, so I guess they will add in comics with anime art style even if it lacks the popular genre.

I suppose our road to making our comics popular is to use other comic websites, and social media.

the issue is the way tapas advertises on the front page, you get no option to filter the comic genres you don't want, heck I sometimes get direct notification on a new romance comic

I truly wish tapas and webtoon had better search filters, and the ability for readers to tag work under 'reading' and 'to-read'

I think that's mostly just because the population on the forums are mostly creators looking to promote. So promoting here will mostly net subscribers that are other creators. Readers most likely will just look at what's featured to pick up what to read instead of looking through the forums.

And honestly? If I were purely a reader, I would probably not look at the forums as a main source of finding series to read unless if I were deliberately looking for obscure comics that may have potential, because for the most part it's people trying to self promote rather than recommending series they enjoy. Saying as someone who self promotes on here as well

I think because of this, you occasionally get disgruntled people on webtoons subreddit who are annoyed at when people promote their own work (you're allowed to on the weekends) when I guess they just wanna talk about the webtoons they're interested in (I think?)

I've once heard that if you promote your webcomic on their subreddit, they would do anything to spam bad scores to it until they pummel it to dust... so, promotion on the subreddit is out of questions.

so far I haven't heard anything too bad for the authors promoting there. I did promote a couple of times and gained some readers and no one review bombed me (yet)

Not meaning to be rude but duh, to get readers you have to expand your horizon to social media, ad space, stuff like that. The forum is more for discussion, and the only people who are really interested in that are creators/writers since they have similar goals, experience, passions, etc. It's only natural it isn't a good place to promote since creators are too busy making their own work to read other people's. (Unless it fits their preferences, but even then it's up in the air.) The Discord server is basically the same, but more people desperately trying to promote over eachother every second due to how the app works, so no one really gets seen unless you're already mega popular or really active.

The platform as a whole doesn't have anything to do with your readership problem, it doesn't matter where you post if you're not branching out with your advertising it won't get that many eyes on it. Sure, Webtoons caaan get you more subs, but it depends on your comic. There are many comics on there with less than 1k subs that just don't fit the demographic's preference. That being said, as Kelheor stated, why not post on both? Aside from my stand-alone site I post my comic on 5 other platforms (Tapas, Webtoons, Comicfury, The Duck Webcomics and FlowFo.) weekly/semi-weekly, and post in chapters/bulks on 2. (Dillyhub and Global Comix.) It doesn't take more than a few minutes to update them all. Just use both, it won't hurt anything.

I definitely get what you mean >.<; All the advice is go to places and promote, but that is what every other author is doing, so it's just full of authors.

I haven't been on the Tapas forums for too long, but I haven't really created a promotion post because I noticed that people were getting next to no likes on their posts in the promotion threads compared to a general post about anything. So it felt like everyone was just promoting rather then reading. At the end of the day, it's like looking for a webtoon to read, but you don't choose the genre or anything, so it's basically luck if you find something you'd want to read. So instead of promoting, I'm here to just to talk with other creators and learn tips.

Building up a follower base on social media can help alot I think. I mainly post my art on Twitter where I kinda have a small following. When a new chapter on my webtoon comes out, I post it a link to it and the views tend to jump up a good 20 or 30. I also have another webtoon which I don't promote on Twitter (on purpose, I'm experimenting!) and that isnt over 100 views after 7 weeks.

Even on Twitter, there's things called 'Art Shares' where you share your art with other artists. While it does help to get followers, I've kinda stopped doing them for the same reason why I'm not really doing promotion posts here. Instead, I'm trying to be more casual/natural, just replying to others and slowly building things up. I mean, after doing those 'Art Share' posts on Twitter for a year, I sent art of an apple I made to a popular post and doubled my followers overnight and I was like "Eh?". The followers I gained from that do interact with my work as well, and hopefully, see my webtoon!

This ended up being a bit longer then I thought it would be, hopefully it makes sense!

To gain more readers there are different things

Mirror your content, post your series in many sites/apps as possible, check out where you can post your webcomics or novels. If you can translate it to other languages, Webtoon and Tapas aren't the only platforms out there.

Promoting on several platforms such as Discord Servers, Facebook groups, SubReddits, Twitter, Instagram, Forums, etc.

Something I see is that (Especially writers) authors, instead of building a proper posting schedule to allow new readers to adapt to the content, to make the algorithm have a steady flow; they just dump their entire series expecting people will get interested like that, when the reality is no. Another thing that annoys readers or even other creators who are subscribed to other's stories and especially on Tapas is notifications of authors constantly editing the chapters several times and well, not knowing when exactly does an author updates.

Fanbases aren't build in thin air just because you've been posting your series for a few months, no, it takes years even more than 1 or 2, and several authors originally start with less popular, even shorter, series, some even change accounts so much that followers cannot keep track of then, as well, the most important thing is to make things accesible for readers, you're asking way too much even if you believe it's not, most of people only care about scrolling and see the next post of the content they see, so you either have to make extremely catchy stuff so they click the link to your series or chapter or be more creative with promo art, chapter previews and such.

Sadly, for most of authors that are not popular, what I've seen that boost their flow is for them to become content creators, not just mere writers or artists. Basically overwork yourself with challenges, art studies, tutorials, art classes, fanarts, tips, vlogs, streaming, speedpaintings, original art, fancomics, NSFW, memes, animations, promotional art, reading sessions (Of other people's content), constant engagement with other people be it fellow creators, those who aspire to be creators or just readers. And all of the above on different formats for several platforms, be it TikTok, Youtube, Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

Nice to see that someone else has thought this. I've wondered if Tapas isn't really a home for writers instead of a mecca for readers, so that there are far more writers on Tapas than there are readers.

I've been meaning to ask, can you get to the forums from the main site? I've only been able to get here via Googling.

If you click the arrow button under tapas merch shop, keep clicking until you find tapas forums! Hope this helped.

It's on the desktop version, check to the right were your series name/ edit series buttons are! I hope you find it, you should be able to see it.

@MalonTheArtist Ahhh, thank you. I see it now!

@UrMom In that case, I'm honestly surprised it's still up considering how Wattpad shut down the forums out of the blue. I'm thankful though. A high-traffic Discord server is a good place to get talked over, not to mention you can't sort topics like you can here. I'd get overwhelmed.

Your welcome @bulgariansumo I'm glad you found it

I don't think there's much we can do. The market is too damn saturated. You need luck on top of tiring aggressive promotion.

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...

1. Mostly read on phones, so it's got to be readable on a phone and have a cover that looks good browsing on a phone.
2. Are used to reading things that establish the premise very early and strongly, sometimes even writing out the premise as the title of the story to compete in the attention economy.
3. Take it for granted that art and writing quality are consistently close to or at professional level and aren't used to going out of their way to look at anything that isn't.
4. Will give up and try something else at the slightest hint of boredom, confusion or difficulty reading because they're spoiled for choice (though they may give something more of a chance if it's in a niche with more limited options).
5. Mostly just want to be entertained and so tend to not take risks with unusual genres, unfamiliar styles or anything with a challenging premise.

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.

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