I've been on webtoons for a while but it seems they only care about who's the most popular. Tapas feels more like a community meeting friends and chances to grow comics on here. Does anyone else feel the same way?
Dec '24
Dec '24
Tapas does not care about Community except for a few big titles (like Heartstopper). In recent times they’ve buried the community titles instead of being able to see them on the front page. They’ve made it harder to earn (and therefore give) ink. They’ve eliminated Inksgiving.
The only place on Tapas that has any sort of community feeling is right here on the forums.And that isn’t exactly front page anymore either - now they’re pushing Discord.
I don't post work or comment on Webtoons at all anymore. Not on the featured or community titles. To be honest, I find the comments section occasionally swings toxic and mean-spirited to the point that it just doesn't seem worth it. 
In contrast, the Tapas community has been supportive and kind since day one. It's night and day. Many gravitate towards the Discord, but I mostly lurk there and seldom post. I'll check the forums once or twice a day though, time permitting. 
Webtoons... don't even get me started on them...
I'm tempted to post a comic there that praises North Korea, Kim Jong Un, and promote the single minded unity of the people under the banner of the songun politics and juche idea... 
Tapas is for Kakao what Webtoon is for Naver: I.P. mills for Korean Netflix.
The Community/Canvas tabs are holdovers from a previous business model based on looking for the next out of nowhere hit. Now they have a machine grinding out K drama fodder and don't need to wait for another golden goose to show up.
Once they think the financial benefits will outweigh the backlash both Canvas and Community will be deleted off their servers. I'm surprised these forums haven't already gotten the axe.
In that case, I'm glad they're giving me a space to work and post in while I build enough of a backlog for at WT run!
I wound up happy that they separated the real comics from the cheap manhwa since that makes it way easier to see how I'm doing vs. other webcomics without the fluff. I don't feel like I get much support from Tapas itself though, besides having a space in general.
Webtoons is the only place my shit gets any sort of attention so I value it over tapas tbh. No one comments here, barely likes or subs, but webtoons usually get my comics a decent following. Right now my comic has 15 subs in tapas, and over 100 on webtoons and that's my smallest comic yet; RGA! has 30 on tapas and 1,200+ on webtoons. Another comic got 4,600+ on webtoons...
But yeah, more community here I suppose, but it doesn't do much in terms of comic growth in my experience.
I kind of gave up on Webtoon. My growth has become quite bad there and it kind of seems like the subs don't keep up to date with the comic. Out of the 300+ subs there, I only get like 1-2 likes per new update, and I only got 1 dedicated commenter when a new update drops. Though I do cherish that one guy a lot u__u If it weren't for them, I probably would've stopped uploading there long ago
On Tapas, I get more likes per new update, though no dedicated commenters. So from my very basic analysis it seems like there are more people that try to keep up to date with my comic. Though I guess it could just be possible they are just liking without reading....
As someone who's been intimidated by that platform for some time, do you have any advice for posting to Webtoon that's different from Tapas?
Frankly? No. I probably just got lucky-- and keep getting lucky since I average about 1000 subs between my 6 comics and a handful of my comics have gotten feature by the site ("Rising Star", "Staff Picks", "Hot today" categories, not like, big main page banner stuff.). Just schedule chapters consistently and nothing more. Same thing I do here. I arguably do more for my comics on tapas, in terms of advertising.
I just drop my comics on that site an forget. Sorry that's not much help or advice;;;
As someone who has been on this platform since around 2018, the community used to be better for sure. (Which again, is due to a change in ownership.) I used to have more creator friends on here but a lot have vanished or jumped platforms to indie publish instead. That said, you can still find some community here among creators who try really hard to make it work.
I don't know about Webtoon, I have only recently started posting there. The benefit is that it is a lot bigger and more well-known so followers and friends who were previously on the fence about reading my work have better acess to it now. (Then again, I mostly write and Webtoon doesn't have an option for publishing that). But obviously, that's the opposite way to go about things haha.
Same as a fellow small creator. My series "Hiroshi and the Neon Ninjas" barely got views on Webtoon. Tapas, on the other hand, feels friendly to organic search, with the forums being that extra push.
Of course a platform is going to prioritize titles that make them money. Otherwise, they'd go under. If your work shows growth and promise, they will reach out. It has happened to several creators, as they've reached out in recent months to join Premium, Creator bonus program, or Early Access, even if the creator doesn't have the stats to apply. You should've been around Tapas when the novels teams didnt exist for a hot minute from layoffs. Now THAT was a fun time to be a writer here.
Inksgiving is not eliminated. It's been postponed. There was a reason said by staff in the Discord.
The Forums have long lost that charm it once had because active people moved to Discord, vanished, and went Indie because their work outgrew what Tapas could provide them. There used to be big creators like TurtleMe and CJ Young here, but the Forums became just a place for spamming and sub4sub. At least there IS a sense of community. Wattpad got rid of their forums and don't have a discord (except if Premium which my friends who are in that program said its dead)
I recently joined the official Webtoon Discord, and it’s pretty friendly, much like the Tapas one (honestly, they’re quite similar). However, I’ve been part of this community for much longer than the other, so I feel like I definitely wouldn’t trade this for anything.
I’ve been here for about three years now, and I’ve had the chance to meet incredibly talented and admirable people, learning so much from them. Thanks to Tapas, I’ve even had the opportunity to work on commissions. On the other hand, things haven’t gone as well for me on Webtoon. It’s just not the same.
On Tapas, my novel has a decent number of subscribers, and with my comic, I’ve received a lot of support here.
I don't look at views really, so it's entirely possible. Nor do I particularly know what a normal "view to interaction" ratio is, even if I were paying attention. I just know I get way more likes and comments there than here hah;; but I wouldn't be shocked if it was inundated with bots tbh.
Ive only been on webtoons for over a year but I feel like there's more of a sense of community here than on WT, since that site doesn't have a forum and while it does have a discord, it isn't advertised on the site. And even though my comic isnt really what the site is looking for in terms of appealing to its target demographic of tween girls, it has more subscribers here than on WT and any other platform for that matter (though it could be because I've been posting to tapas for 3 years). Im hoping I can continue to be in this community though I'm scared that wont be for long and that I'll be cast away.
Also seeing comments about how tapas was much more community orientated and that its push for manwa has been recent has me thinking (to quote Tony Soprano) that I came in at the end, and that the best is over 
Tapas gutting monetization options really hurts 
My funds are still being held hostage because I can't hit the threshold. To be honest, out of all the comic sites I've tried, I like NamiComi the best in terms of UI and monetization options. But that site still has a pretty small reader base currently.
