At what point did you gain more Subs?

[JamesMulhollandFilm]

Hey everyone,

I'm about 5 weeks into uploading my Viking comics called Jorund.

It is 25 pages into a 62 to 64 page story and it's only got 3 subs. No matter what, I've got 3 so I will finish the story for them. But I was wondering what was the point were your comic started earning more subscribers? I don't want to constantly annoy these forums with asking people to read it every Monday? Maybe it's just not grabbing peoples attention? Or do I just keep grinding and at some point see more subs in the future.

Anyway, wondering if you went through this phase and when did it all change for you?

Thanks,

James

[juyunseen]

There's no real rhyme or reason to any of it. Some people get subs because they find an awesome combination of tags. Other people know how to advertise and market their comics. Other people are just lucky and happen to upload at a time a bunch of people are browsing new updates. There's not a tangible point at which anything happens.

I will say this though. I've been uploading my current comic here since January 1st, and in that time I've gotten ~26 subs. On the other hand I uploaded my stuff to Line Webtoon on March 28th (i.e. 13 days ago) and I already have 73 subs over there. I'm not sure if its just more people over on that site, or that my comic (a fantasy adventure type deal) is more appealing to people on Webtoon then on Tapastic.

The only way to succeed is to keep grinding away. I like your comic by the way. I threw you a sub.

[J.Lovelace]

I'm not an experst, and I may be wrong, but once you somehow get to the Trending page, things should go a bit easier. To get there you need some traffic, I think at least 200 - 300 views and a few likes to be shown somewhere on page 4 - 5 of the Trending section. So, the more pages you have, and the later people jump in to create said traffic, the better I guess.

[AoDLegacy]

I myself have problems getting noticed, but to be honest, activity and self promotion are your two biggest weapons, do not fear using them. However, the only problem you would cause is only if you abuse the weapons given, for instance, don't make a thousand threads dedicated to promoting, we call that spam. Innocently doing it in the threads given and participating in relevant posts also helps drive attention to you, and thus your comic.

I will also say that your comic has a great story and artwork thus far, you should be proud of your work here. Have a sub as well

[ryoko]

Well, it's only been a month-ish since you started posting. A lot of times comics get bumped out of the 'fresh' section really quickly and people miss out on seeing comics. I noticed that you're posting several pages at a time. If you post a page a day instead, it'll pop into the 'fresh' section more often and give you a better chance at being seen. Weekdays are better for posting as there's more traffic coming through. Right now, it's kind of in the Springbreak/Easter vacation time, so it's been a bit slower around here for views because of the holiday. As to if/when it'll pick up for you sub-wsie, it's impossible to say. It's really random. I've gone through weeks and weeks of gaining no one , then suddenly I'll have a bunch of new subs for no particular reason. You can post in the forum in the 'Latest page for the month' thread to help get your comic out there without feeling like you're bothering people, too.

[rainbowolfe]

I temporarily got a boost in subs when I just... did a whole lot. Back then there was at least one thread every week that was like "share your comic here" or "thread for comics with under XX subscribers!" So I posted on their a lot. I also spread myself real thin and was releasing daily updates .3. As well as mirroring on Deviantart.

I think I got kinda lucky, cause I started my comic on Inkblazers and when that site died I was able to tag along and gain some attention through topics related to it o3o But since then I've gone on hiatus, and everyone's forgotten about me-!

[Evan]

I've been gaining about 3 subscribers per month for about a year and a half now. It's a slow grind. Instant successes aren't common, but one tip I will give you is that updating twice a week (and cutting a normal update in half so that you don't have to work more) will increase your chances of being found in the Fresh section without increasing your workload at all.

[ahhvecadoes]

I update weekly, and since the beginning of the year I've averaged around 30 new subs a month. Once I started updating regularly (I didn't do so until January, been posting since Sept 2016), I started gaining them at a faster rate.

[thischickdoesart]

From my newbie experience with my comic Alice X, I saw a significant boost in subscribers and views when I got on the the trending page last month/late Feb. This seemed to be achieved after I had hit 1k-1.5k views.

While it looks like I've plateaued, I haven't lost a lot of subs either. I think at least 1/3 of the gracious 60+ individuals I have are actually following my story on a week to week basis. I haven't publicized so to speak except cross posting a random page here and there on my deviantart page and tumblr, and those are not the most popping places on the internet, lol!

What I can definitely say has helped me gain and keep a readership is consistency. I knew in my planning during the summer last year that I would only be able to produce 1 page a week. That's what I knew I could guarantee my readers on a consistent basis and I really believe that small bit of resolve has helped me to where I am (along with a decent story I would hope). Definitely keep grinding and be consistent with your execution, and make sure that at the end of the day YOU are satisfied with what you create.

[spadesart]

when i managed to sneak on the daily snack for the christmas collab :'v if i didnt get on that id still be at 400 subs (i'm at my 1 year mark)

[Aspie_Gamer]

For someone like me who has good writing, but mediocre (at best) art for my comic Life of an Aspie and has been plugging away for almost two years now, I can tell you that there is no magic key starting out as a creator even if you start off on the best footing possible. What I can tell you though is to learn general marketing skills. If you want people to care about your comic, you have to be the one who takes the initiative on that. Part of that is treating your potential subs as people, not something between you and your long term goal. For example, at my new job, the managers have been stressing during training how important it is to give our guests excellent service every time so that they keep coming back as much as they possibly can which in turn adds to the overall value of my particular store.

If we treat them as an obstacle standing in front of our next paycheck, not only will our guests be less inclined to tip, they will also be less inclined to return to our store in the future. In a similar way, if you take potential subs and your actual subs for granted, they will see through your façade and react accordingly which is why even if it feels sometimes like you are rolling a heavy rock up a hill that you try to give it 110 percent not just as a creator, but also as a person communicating with other people. That means answering questions your subs may have about something in your comic. That means taking an interest in your peer's comics.

And of course that means being passionate about what you do even if "behind the scenes", you are having a terrible day.

Wrapping this up, I can guarantee that I would not be where I am today had I not cared enough to start communicating with people here often with no thoughts towards them checking my comic out in exchange for me doing the same.

[lynestjules]

I've been posting my comic on here for a while, since last year actually and I only have 13 subscribers here on Tapastic, but I sell my comic on different sites. I might only have 13 here, but I have people who don't subscribe here, but check for updates weekly coming from Deviantart and Facebook.
But, I honestly don't know how to get more subscribers on Tapastic, I just continue to post for those 13 readers and hope that others will subscribe eventually.
I try to keep posting weekly, it's not always possible, but I'll try harder to have pages done way in advance (like I have now).
I hope you can gain some more subscribers soon.

[GesuGesu]

I'm one of the few who didn't have a problem gaining the first ... hundred subs in the first few months. I knew that I played on a story concept that some people have heard about floating around, so it was not unfamiliar territory for new readers to get into.

The first comic I posted was actually my final assignment from my Graphic Novels course at my university. It had been peer-reviewed three times: checked at each stage (from proposal, to script, to thumbnails) before I even published the finished version online on Tapastic.

Lastly, I do want to believe that I have an attractive art style. I like to draw clean lines, simple characters, and colourful palettes. Drawing in the popular anime/manga style helps, I think.

**TL;DR:
1) Familiar/Easy to get into premise (If people like SOL, it's probably because they can easily get into it without having to try and piece together complicated storylines that may involve edgy fantasy/sci-fi words and character ranking systems.)
2) Polish dat comic. Check if it's really the best you can do before revealing it to the world
3) Having attractive art (It's easier on the eyes. Visuals are important in graphic novels)**

[JamesMulhollandFilm]

@juyunseen Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Jorund is 62 pages long so I will keep grinding away and get that story uploaded. I have a few others after that but I will keep uploading. I was uploading 5-6 pages at a time but i'll slow it to 2-3 now so that I don't run out of material to upload

@AoDLegacy Why thank you. The art is down to Julio Falkenhagen and colors by Armand Jasmin. They were both amazing to work with so they get a lot of the credit. Thank you for your information, I definately do not want to spam anyone so i'll just keep grinding and uploadng once a week Thank you so much for the sub.

@ryoko Interestnig, I didn't think of uploading daily I was thinking of only uploading 2-3 pages a week from now on, but maybe you've the right idea and I can upload a page on a Monday - Wednesday - Friday, type thing?

@thekinginthesun Thank you. At the moment I have multiple stories completed so I can upload them. It will be scary when they're complete though as I'm not an artist, only a writer. But that should be next year before I've them all uploaded

Thank you everyone for youre advice it has been interesting to read and I think even for future people coming to the site that this thread will be useful for them.

Thank you again

[lunchtiiime12]

It really comes down to quality and self-promotion. Have an outstanding comic first of all, then go self-promote. It's a grind, so you'll want promote almost every day. I like to consider every 100 subscribers a level, and I'm almost level 9 after a year of heavy promotion and high-quality art. So just be patient and persistent... if you don't see small gains each month, re-assess the quality, of either the writing or the art.

[ryoko]

Yes! Several times a week will help you get seen if that's what you're aiming for. Otherwise, your comic will just disappear from the fresh section too quickly for anyone to see.