Bribes are good for getting their attention.
Send a nice fruit basket to the home office, or PayPal them some cash...everybody likes cash.
Never ever got that
Not a comic (so less competition) but I got a staff pick recently. It definitely boosted my subs by quite a bit, but I only got a handful of actual readers out of it, not that I'm complaining.
Like @darthmongoose said, cover art seems to be a big part of it. I redesigned my cover, and got a staff pick less than a week later.
yeah it helps a ton, especially if you are small and don't have a big social media reach (my comic twitter has like less than 30 followers, for instance, they did not find me organically, I had to reach out by doing contests). Like I got staff picks for Webtoon on my current comic and haven't on Tapas, the difference in subs is 2.8 K subs on Webtoon vs my 89 subs on tapas--just to give the comparison on just how much a front page spot helps for growth. It's like...a huge difference. So, my advice other than following the front page guidelines that was referenced earlier (phone and color comics tend to get front page way more often), is to just keep participating in their activities (so tapastry_tcc announces them on insta and twitter, as well as the webtooncanvas counterpart) because that really is how they notice you as well as just being chill on the forums and discords. Even if you don't win or get retweeted by them, doesn't mean they don't see you to remember you for later.
@nathanKmcwilliams @Chita
Get to work!
I don't think I've gotten any promotion by staff on tapas. Here's the thing....for me I'm not convinced that promotion would do any good in the long run for my comic. The times I've been promoted on (tapas competitor) sure subs may go up initially, but then they start the endless bleed of people leaving when they actually get time to sit down and read. I've done much better with plain old organic growth because by the time people actually find me they:
a. know what they're getting into.
b. are motivated comic readers who actively seek out new comics, and
c. tend to be a bit older, more proactive, and more intellectually engaged than people who want an externally-curated feed of content.
I'll reach Tapas and (competitors') main audience, the young, inexperienced, just venturing into webcomics crowd in a few years when they're older, more mature, and start to search for content on their own and the time is right. Webcomics are a marathon, not a footrace. Tapas curates their feeds to pull people into a pipeline, I serve an audience that's further down that process, so even though I'm not directly benefiting from Tapas' promotion, I'm definitely benefiting in the long run. anyways, just some perspective for people who may be frustrated that their comic isn't featured.
I've had both a 'New From The Community' and a staff pick. In both instances, the feature boosted my sub count, probably by around 90 subs each time.
As for how... I'm pretty active on the forums, so I think that's probably what bought my comic to their attention. And while I'm still a beginner at making comics, I've been drawing for a long time, so my work looks reasonably polished. Those two things are likely what did it.
I've gotten a staff pick once. It does significantly boost your subs, but does not always give you new active readers who engage with your work with likes and comments which I personally appreciate more than a lot of reads and does better for the algorithm.
Trending for a longer time high up in the category section (for me that'd be free to read BL) and actively promoting has gotten me more engaging readers.
As for how I got selected: I don't remember, might have been an event where you could advertise your work or a random selection. Being visible on the platform through the forums, posting frequently, having a visually appealing style/cover and being high up in the lists helps a lot I think for a selection.
I got staff pick a couple weeks ago and I got it before a year ago. I don't think there is a pattern to it really since all I do is post my chapters since I tend to be too busy to browse the forums and can't do any of the event stuff. My webcomic friend who posts on Tapas also got staff pick twice but they're the same as me when it comes to forums and events.
The staff pick definitely helps people notice my stuff which in turn does increase my subs but isn't a guarantee to success. I got more subs from my second staff pick than my first, but nothing really big happened in between the first and the second staff pick.
All I can recommend is to keep at it. Build your own audience through showing your stuff on social media and sites, consistently work on your story and put things out, and maybe one day you'll see a staff pick too. Pave your own road to success so you don't have to wait for a staff pick.
I've never gotten it for my comic, but I got a spotlight for my novel - I'm guessing because there's so much less novels than comics on this website. I'm still trying to figure out how I got that, since I only had like 20 subs on the novel. It's definitely a crapshoot.
Yes. I'm not sure what prompts it.
I've had Phantom Thief Kane2 be featured as a Daily Snack (back when it was still called that) with only a single episode upon launch, and that gave me 1k+ subs right off the bat.
Tomboy Harem5 got on lists twice. First was as Staff Picks, second is recently, it got placed under Summer Romances. The first feature gave me maybe a 100-500 sub boost, I'm not too sure. I'm not the type to keep track of growth ^_^;
I don't really do any promo in the forums or on social media. I just upload. I'm grateful for the good luck and notice. I can say for a fact though, I know my art is fairly attractive and that alone works plenty as marketing on its own.
Cool! Thank you for sharing. That sounds like a substantial boost (coming from someone who has maybe 15 or so subscribers 
) Yeah, it sounds like there's pretty nebulous criteria for getting picked. Still it's good to hear that people are getting picked!
