Bite-Size 2.0: A Creator Discussion and Advice Thread

Re-joining the gang.

Preferred Name: Jens Richard
Pronouns: He/Him/They/Them/Blue
Genres you create: Comedy but try to do some serious stuff too.
Most known for ”Blue Life” and ”The Last BL Comic”

Where you plan to take your writing journey:
The become the ones that Tapas is interviewing.
Link to Tapas Account: https://tapas.io/jensrichard77

Numbers are important to me. They are the reflection from the readers.
What do they like.

In the beginning I was not that impressed by simple page counts, but the numbers where users have taken an action in giving a like or a comment.

My ”The Last BL Comic” has (in my standard) big numbers in page views and subs. But not that much in likes and comments contra ”Blue Life” where there are lesser subscribers but a lot of likes and interactions from the readers.

I feel more about my work that gives more interaction and I feel more connected and have more fun with Blue Life. But as my Boy Love kind of speaks another language in numbers I feel more responsible to continue the work. Not because the user is giving comments or feedback directly, but because the silent numbers tell me that there are people reading this and more and more keeps coming for some strange reason.
I must have done something right and must continue.

I'll just copy/paste most if the intro from the previous thread.

Preferred Name: Dani or Copper

Pronouns: They/Them, He/Him

Genres you create: Psychological drama, slice-of-life

Where you plan to take your writing journey: Finishing my comic and self-publishing for now. After a break I'll probably start on some much larger fantasy, horror and sci-fi projects I've had on the back burner.

Link to Tapas Account: https://tapas.io/Bloomer

Uuuh I like horror movies, medical and earth science, Psychology, animals, food and drawing.
Only been working in comics since 2009, but didn't get hardcore into it until I started my current project in 2015-2016.

• Numbers don't really mean much of anything to me, but I don't really see them as numbers so much as just people checking out and/or enjoying my comic. I admit to sometimes getting a little sad when a page doesn't do so well with views and interaction, but it's not the end of the world. Many of my readers view my comic in 5-2 page bulks so there will be update days when TGtaHR won't get much action.
  Sub wise, I'm just surprised I even have subs, I was expecting dead air. My comic is soooo not most people's cup of tea, so the fact that there are people wanting to suffer through my character suffering is nothing short of amazing.

• I kinda already answered this one. While I do get sad about a page not doing well sometimes, overall numbers don't make me feel much of anything. You kinda have to not care, people are ever change, evolving and growing. Even if they liked your work at one point that doesn't mean they always will, and while it's super awesome when someone sticks with your story from beginning to end, there's nothing wrong with them moving on.
  In short, it doesn't make me feel either or since losing and gaining readers is a natural part of the webcomic process.

• Yeah, I guess so. To me stats only really matter if you're trying to make a living off your work, it's totally understandable to care about getting ad revenue from views or income from sales. Although you shouldn't let it take over your life, if you start obsessing your passion may start turning into an obligation.
  If you're not planning on making money off your work then numbers are kind of meaningless, they don't really get you anything other than possible validation, which I find meaningful interaction to be much more valuable than a sub or view count in that case. Although at the same time if you are striving to improve and do your best, if you're not working on a super niche story, consistently low numbers might mean there are things you do better?

So I guess a good balance is to care enough to be proactive if your goal is for your story to be productive, but not so much it runs your life. People are all different, some come and go, some stay, other may be disinterested entirely. You can't really control that, so there's not much point on being super focused on the numbers.

Preferred Name: Anne or Jiji
Pronouns: she/her
Genres you create: It's a mixed bag-- I think it falls under regular fantasy mostly. Atleast i aim to- maybe romance as well.
Where you plan to take your writing journey: Nothing much, I just wish to be able to overcome my fears and anxiety in posting overall. I'd say it would be a big leap for me already if I managed to publish a comic and complete it online, regardless of how it could be received.
Link to Tapas Account: https://tapas.io/anne-ziel1

1.) I feel like I can feel validated by numbers since they're also partly a reason why I try and post own or created content. To share it with others. I'm not a v engaging person so they make me feel better or atleast make it feel like it was worth posting in a sense. Sometimes I get happy about getting a lot since its a nice surprise and other times I'm a bit indifferent.

2.) it brings me both haha;; I try not to let it frustrate me that much though I must confess I find it hard to not be a little disappointed when something gets lower traction/attention than usual so it badly affected me in handling art accounts offsite.

Might reword later for grammar and edit.

Yay! Bitesize is back!

Seems like my Bio is already there so let's just jump in!

• To me, for better or worse, numbers represent hard evidence that my work is a viable product. Maybe it's because my day jobs for the past few years have generally involved monitoring the analytics from a creative product (ie. a games and books) and agonising over KPIs (Key Performance Indicators: Basically a solid number of something like units sold or a percentage of clicks on an ad that your aiming for) with weekly data meetings. I've been trained to think of the numbers the same way. I have other achievements from my time in print comics, like my work is actually in print, I've done a book signing in a Forbidden Planet, which I doubt a lot of other people on the site have achieved... but that doesn't matter on Tapas. Only the numbers matter. If I want to pitch a Tapas premium, I need 2000 bookmarks; it's both fair and unfair in its own way.

• Eghhhhh... it's a mixture. I like seeing my number go up, but since the genres aren't equal in terms of effort or quality to performance, it can be a big source of frustration too. Sometimes it's hard not to think, "what the hell!? I'm a published creator, I've placed in national competitions, I've had my work praised by legends of the comics world and I can't get a few bookmarks on this one little platform!?" But... Well, that doesn't help me get anywhere. The numbers are what they are and I should use them as a positive tool and look at where I've had a good response and how I could build on that rather than dwelling on what I don't have.

• Yes, I think there can be. I definitely advise against trying to artificially push your number up just to see it go up with sub-for-sub, which not only has very little impact on your work's growth or visibility, leading to the number going up with no correlating audience engagement and an ultimately empty feeling. I think that it's worth playing the long game sometimes. The work you're doing now might not actually be "The big one", even if you thought it was your magnum opus, so treat it as a learning and data-gathering experience. Pay attention to what does make your numbers go up, but keep a mindset of "well, there's always next time!" and "That was not the result I expected, I'm going to apply this knowledge elsewhere". Even the top pros make works they really care about and fail to get the response they wanted.

That's an interesting question!

Hmm that's sort of similar to the numbers shown on our dashboard in terms of the trends. Personally, it just means I would code up my own script to calculate the numbers myself.

I like to understand my numbers - is the influx due to something I did via advertisement, if so what is it so I can repeat it? Or is the downward trend because of exams month or something I posted? When my novels gets on Staff Picks, how much is the rise in numbers? What should be my goal for numbers by the time I reach the middle of my novel? To me, all of that is fun and important.

Preferred Name: wnqs

Pronouns: She/her

Genres you create: Fantasy/romance

Where you plan to take your writing journey: I want to continue working on my current comic and have ideas for related comics in the future.

Link to Tapas Account: https://tapas.io/series/The-Cat-The-Vine-and-The-Victory

Numbers to me represent a shift in the way we all consume art. Comics are much more accessible to everyone than they were years ago worldwide. For me, every view is a person experiencing a much broader world of art, contributing to the growth of art and maybe even adding their own art to the collective.

I find the stats on my comic fascinating. The numbers at first glance seem really out of whack, but that’s because I have a lot of pages. I don’t feel validation in numbers as in numbers aren’t the driving force behind why I draw or post my comic.

Interaction between myself and my readers makes me feel joy rather than the number of people reading, if that makes sense. Knowing that there’s a core group of people that have been with me since the beginning (almost five years) is amazing.

I think the balance of caring or not caring about book stats really depends on why a creator publishes to begin with. If someone is looking to make a career out of making comics, then statistics are quite important. If you aren’t getting the numbers you think you should have to reach your goal, then you need to seriously look at why and figure out what needs changing/improving.

If a creator is like myself and doing it as a hobby, then stats are nice to have and interesting to look at, especially when the numbers are all over the place. I think it’s when someone who looks at stats and sees them as judging their self-worth that stats become a problem.

• By gathering little bits of everything I see. Maybe I went to a cool city and the landscape stuck to my brain as I wanted a location in the comic, maybe I watched a movie and I wanted to apply its themes to something else and see what would change and if I'd like it as much as I did originally (cough Megamind), or I read a fanfic where they approached something that was forgotten about a character and I was inspired by fellow fans being concerned about it, and sometimes I imagine a scene to music though it's rarely put into a story. I've also got many ideas from dreams, though it doesn't apply to Splitting Image.
• Thinking of how to tie the theme/setting to a scene, and seeing if it still matches with the original idea. Once the story feels more like itself, also seeing what's required to progress the plot and character development, and trying to reach into my mind and trying to remember anything cool about a subject (redeeming a character, a betrayal, a plan that goes awry,etc)
• I hoard a lot but I only write down what I particularly like; or I'd have a long long list of dreams to put into art. In my opinion, anything can inspire, but I'm inspired by things that I haven't noticed lately in my routine and works that really seem to have a lot of heart in them.

It's really crazy how much I can get from dreams. I've dreamed of a bus station being destroyed by a fleet of floating wooden ships and the buses being hidden inside; a spacewoman haunted by four weird spirits with strange designs and might or might not be external versions of her emotions; a tribe of scavengers next to a giant purple HR Gieger looking forest where the animals have psychic powers; a cyberpunk town where neon attachments are made of literal magic and can be infected by viruses all the same; and a student waking up to a giant obsidian egg in the campus. Every time I think I could work on just this cool idea, a ton more show up, so wanting or not I end up hoarding.

Oh boy. I live for talking about this.

• Music. 95% of my ideas come from music. Metal music to be precise.
They live in the guitar riffs and solos, when that tasty lick hits, then I get a flash of an image. Then the lyrics develop the idea further. I listen to a lot of music, because that's where all of the ideas live.

•As I mentioned before, the idea is sparked by the music. Now...Dragon Sparking was in development hell for around 10 years, and I kept fumbling around due to life getting in the way. But the music kept me thinking about Dragon Sparking.
In particular I must shout out Dragonforce. Without that band, Rip as a character would not exist in the form he has now. Their music shaped his personality, fighting style, and appearance. Listening to their music was the place I could get full images of who Rip was. There was something about the guitars that brought him to life...and a buzzing sensation I'd get in the back of my head, just past the temples, that's when I knew the music had brought a character action to life.

Going even further in, the bands Iron Savior, Freedom Call, and Dark Moor all pushed those images further. Rip is a child born of Power Metal, and without it he wouldn't exist as he does now. Not only that, whenever I felt like quitting, their music brought me right back into creating the DS world.

Additionally I use musical sections to craft my fight scenes. I get strong mental images that show me the movements, facial expressions, and emotional outbursts.

One additional thing I use is Wikipedia mythology lists. I'll read down the list without clicking anything and just use the blurb to come up with ideas. While listening to music of course xD

•Idea hording...not really? I'm kind of a flash in a pan, where if I don't use the idea almost immediately, it's gone. At most I'll do a quick doodle to remember it, other than that, I just write in the moment into the comic. I don't often have ideas about anything else other than Dragon Sparking. If I do, it's assimilated into the DS Multiverse I plan on creating over time.