Creators Over 500 Subs! Share your Tapas Tips!

Wait, so does the point 3 means I have nothing to do here with my non-romantic dark sci-fi/action comic that is "too manly" for that site​.
Ok, seriously now, is there any chance for larger audience with genres like sci-fi/action?

Well, I have
Scarlet Society with 536 subs on Tapas2 and 8832 on Webtoon1 | 4871 on Webtoon Spanish1
Then Love Quotes with 874 subs on Tapas1 and 469 on Webtoon | 3103 on Webtoon Spanish

On Scarlet's side, I wasn't in charge of the first episodes, I started drawing for it on chapter 4 and it already had around 5K subs back then, and it was mostly on Webtoon, I eventually told the author that we could cover more ground by publishing on Tapas, Webcomics and translating the content for Webtoon Spanish, Akaya Media and Faneo.

Love Quotes was a short project so it was more common for it to have these numbers on the English platforms, the Spanish sites on the other hand didn't had as much traffic when we started publishing both series, so yep.

Most of the time, I consider that the Cover of Scarlet is quite Clickbaiting, considering that the first thing someone sees and gets interested in is the Cover, so you kinda expect artwork similar to the miniature, and despite we clarified that the series originally had another artist, first chapters were done around 2017-2019 we still get some complains from readers.

However, what I think is what actually caught the interest of others onto the series I draw for, is probably the fact that I usually participate in a ton of stuff.

• Whenever I make promotional art, wips of chapters, or updates with a sneak peek I share it in probably more than 100 FB groups and Discord Servers, I also share those on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Reddit, despite the last two don't have as much activity (Both from me or visitors). I also make short videos from time to time, be it speedpaintings, tiktoks, live-drawing streams, etc.

• I also participate in several #ArtShares on Twitter, sometimes focusing in the art of a single series or picking random illustrations with a link to the rest of my work.

• In artistic/webcomic communities, sometimes I share the before and after of certain panels or comparatives, I believe several came to Scarlet probably not for the story but because of the evolution of my abilities, since I usually get complimented about how much I've changed or how much motivating my process is (Despite I believe it's not that great). I've also participated on Themed Collabs of drawing a character of your series and then sharing the whole collab with a small promotion to other people's series, personally I don't consider them that helpful but they are good if you later on want to share your character and the collab on social media

• I try to updates chapters often, for Scarlet I try to at least have an episode every two weeks, or once a month, for Love Quotes, due to it's easy production, it could be a new episode once a week (Still had to take a few breaks due to other works)

I don't believe I've done very "Webtoon" or "Tapas" oriented behavior, just the basics of what I'll find logical to do: To cover as much ground as possible

I guess for me, it means selling my comic's concept based on the draws of the niche. Like for my comic, I usually market it a psychological horror that explores the inner workings of a cult, and a lot of my promo is about that. When you're in a niche, there tend to be less comics that are like yours- so you try and find people who are interested in that specifically.

Leaning into it would be committing to being part of the specific niche you fall into. As an example, I wouldn't try and fit a romance into my stuff since it doesn't fit the story even if it's more likely to appeal to more people. Then again, appealing a bit more to mainstream stuff isn't always a bad thing either

Since you have a comic inspired by Gravity Falls and Stranger Things, that is big draw for a lot of people that like works similar to that! (I've also seen your comic very often and checked it out when looking horror comics, so whatever your doing already seems to be working )

this reply was all over the place rip someone can correct me if I'm wrong

Sure, I'll throw my hat in the ring. My current comic is The Shapeshifter's Wife, which has a slow build of ~320 on Tapas, but a ~4,200 on Webtoon. Which is a huuuge freakin difference and I'll dive into that:

Tip 1: So my first tip is to spread your comic onto different platforms. They have different demographics, hence my huge difference in stats.

Tip 2: Make sure your first 3 episodes have the heart and soul of why the hell you are making this comic at all. This includes your hook, of course, but those first 3 episodes should be very polished, and try to make them longer than your other ones (on WT I uploaded in JPG so I could fit all the panels), make sure it's your best foot forward.

Tip 3: Webcomics are weird because we are posting short spurts about once every 2 weeks. 50 comic updates look like nothing on a script, and would be a normal slow build for a graphic novel, but is actually about 1-2 years worth of posts where nothing happens, and a year for your readers to wait. So remember, you're making a webcomic, which is a very different medium, and you may need to skip straight to the Good Stuff that you're excited to draw. Don't wait to show you love interest, don't wait to show the fun sword fight, just get to the good stuff so your readers don't give up on you.

Tip 4: You get out of the community what you put into it. Doesn't really matter where you're posting, discord, reddit, tik tok, instagram, wherever. You cannot spam links in art shares and then run away and expect anything to come of it. You have to comment on other peoples content, on other people's social media posts, engage with other creators, and remember to be nice.

The staff who choose who gets promoted are on all of these social media channels, they see your posts, especially if you are chatting with their official posts. This is how they find you for promotion, and I know the reason why I've been promoted on Webtoon and on Tapas is because I paid attention to what they ask for when it comes to making phone friendly, app friendly content that matches their art expectations, and I have an active twitter and I show up in the discords and participate in community events when I can (long covid made me take a 4 month break but I'll get back to it soon hopefully)

This doesn't at all guarantee you'll be selected (I've seen wonderful comics that haven't been selected at all and it's been YEARS) but I don't think begging the staff to promote you, or being mean or self deprecating on socials, and ignoring the rules of the platform by posting content they literally can't promote will help you get promoted.

Tip 5: And for my last tip, it doesn't matter if you go viral anymore. Sub count isn't what matters the most, it's the engagement rate that matters. We live in the age of Tik Tok, where you can go viral easier than you could at any other point in internet history. Problem is, going viral from front page promotion or a really good video and getting subs doesn't mean that your subscribers will come back.

WT and Tapas both use engagement ratings to determine which series to green light or invite to the creator bonus programs. So sit back and do the math: how many of your subs are leaving comments, coming back every time you update, or liking your stuff? Subs alone may unlock ad revenue, but ad revenue is so little nowadays that I consider it a waste of time to solely focus on it.

Is there more you can do to get readers excited about your next update? Can you pace things better so they have to know what happens next? Are you leaving enough flash backs and summaries when things get complicated, so your return readers don't get so lost that they immediately unsub? Are you interacting with your community in the comments and online so they feel like they are welcome to leave comments? Try and make it a welcoming place they want to return to.

Alright so I've been thinking more about that niche marketing thing, and I think it's suddenly making more sense to me:

If I recall correctly, @darthmongoose regularly mentions that Tapas's demographic is mostly women in their 20s, and I realize that my comic might not really appeal to that group that much.

However, when Tapas does promote JumpHero, it normally does do pretty freaking well, which means that the readers who do want to read my comic do exist on the platform.

I wonder, is there something I could do to maybe prove to Tapas that they should promote my series more? Like work to gain a following on social media to show that my series could bring new people to the site? I hope this doesn't come off as begging to them; I know I shouldn't depend on Tapas, but they do bring a lot of benefits to the creators they support.

Idk, please larger creators, let me know what I should do.

Alright thank you for the advice.

And assuming you actually read my support message... I'm sorry I didn't think it was actually derogatory, but I can kinda see what you mean. Gonna replace it right now.

Albiet, I haven't changed it it in years anyway, and my writing style and humor have kinda changed a bit since then.

I guess that my only problem would be the fact that I've seen these types of snarky people get humbled over the years. Or from my experience, it could be health issues that makes people so confrontational in the first place.

Like... all it took for me was to get my tonsils taken out and it was like a huge reset button on my brain. While I REALLY feel bad for the animosity big creators get (no one deserves hate EVER), I feel we should consider the provokers' mental health? Like... after the surgery I was having all these scary realizations. One of them being that some of these people could end up being classified as "chumps" and could ruin their opportunities right before getting THEIR operations. Luckily for me, I was able to restrain myself before the surgery, but I do think about the people who were unable to do so. Hot damn that's a horrible fate. That wouldn't be teaching the person a lesson, that'd just be making them lose their purpose right when hope shows itself.

And it's not like people can say "Well you shouldn't have done [blank]" because a lot of the time they don't know what they're doing. Their brain isn't functioning at full capacity and they can't help but spew hatred. But once they become healed, it's like a lobotomy's been healed. But they can't grow in certain circles because of what they said before and what with being on the internet, it's difficult to prove your case (I remember doing it with one YouTuber. We're cool now and we still talk to each other now, but HOT DAMN did it suck that he didn't want to believe me). And like I said, I get people wanting to distance themselves, but... what I guess what I'm trying to say is this situation (and I want big creators to take note of this) REALLY does goes both ways and is more complex than just "the person is just an edgy troll".

I know I'm not 500 subs, but this comment stood out to me and I feel like I should probably share my perspective if that's alright (since people in this forum could end up working in the industry)? Because this is a worst case scenario and I'm still thanking God that I was able to "survive the storm" lmao.

As someone who was a bit snarkier before and could relate a bit to what Kate said about smaller creators having this animosity, I kinda disagree with what you’re saying. Yes, people should be forgiven for what they’ve done in the past, but that doesn’t mean that what they did in the past never happened.

I’m gonna own up to my mistakes, cuz when I was I younger (I joined Tapas as a teen) I did kinda think many “big” creators were actually lame and didn’t have actually unique stories. But when I got older and got to interact with these creators, I realized that actually they have very creative and unique stories and totally earned the successes: plus, they’re still people just like you and me.

So yeah, my brain wasn’t as developed at the time, so that could “justify” why I felt that way, but that doesn’t mean it would have been impossible for me to do better. We can’t just allow every negative behavior just because someone can’t help it, because chances are they will be able to eventually help it. Critiques like what Kate said are meant to help everyone and anyone get better.

Regardless, getting criticized over negative behavior won’t hurt your chances in the industry; but rather how you react to that criticism. If you learn to take it as a mature person and strive to change for the better, you’ll be allowed in great places.

Oh yeh totally, I agree with this 100%. Especially the bit at the end.

Even before the surgery, I still tried my best to stomp out any negativity in any capacity possible. Being complacent was never an option. I should reiterate that just shrugging it off and saying "eh it was the sickness" is wrong. You should try and show that you're capable of growing. "I'm out of this rut, here's what I can do".

yeah it is unfair that 'kids these days' have their entire lives documented on the internet. Like I'm a millennial, so not that old, but social media didn't really exist as it does now when I was a teenager. And even 10 years ago, the type of language and humor we used was a LOT different than the language we use now, which out of context would be quite incriminating. Like we had livejournal and deviant art-- and I definitely started some fights on livejournal when I was 16 -- it was very common to dog and pile on popular stories because like that was what we did on livejournal. We complained about twilight or whatever was trending. but I count my blessings every day that livejournal died, that I made that account private anyway, that all my art and photos were lost when my picture uploader went bankrupt, and that I have a different username now and was just never famous.

So like, if you are a teen, just know you don't have to be attached to the username you use now, and you probably shouldn't use the same high school username 10 years from now when you want to go pro.

Alright here we go

Looking for oasis has 600+ subs but like who's line says the subs don't matter unless your a dom- wait-..

So the biggest thing to keep in mind is that any tips and tricks listen here is doomed to change. What I mean by this is simply that I have been on this website for 5+ years now and have done multiple comics over that time. The audience has changed. The algorithm has changed. The "big time" creators have changed. They will continue to do so.

I don't think this is a bad thing but it is something to consider. Back in the olden days people came here for gag a days, then BL, then basic "vanilla" romance. Tho you might not have a lot of subs now you could potentially have some at a later date. My first comic got to 100 subs in less than a month because I guess D&D was big and then it immediately died. It's just weird shit that happens and all you can really do is ride the wave sometimes.

That being said some tips:

Cross promotion is key - what I mean by this isn't "promoting in other places will make you more popular on tapas" the idea is to promote everywhere and have mirror sites to figure out what site works best for you. Right now romance and drama is very popular on tapas but it might not be that way for long so having other options is good. On the flip side of that tapas isn't big on other genres, horror dosnt get a lot of love and fantasy is over saturated however it is possible that by posting on tapas you will be able to find the tapas audience that is thirsty for that content.

That leads into the lean into you niche that a lot of people already hit on. Altho you might not be the most popular comic on tapas you could find people thirsty for your kind of content and will find your main site or support you on Patreon which can ultimately do more for your confidence then having 1000 subs.

Finding your niche if you have to ask what your niche is you really need to ask what your comic is about. Why are you writing your comic. Everyone has a "I wish we had more of this" or "I wanna try a love story" before making our comics. If you think we need more enemies to friend to lover to enemies again stories then that's what your leaning into. The relationship of these people and how it's violently toxic but damnit the readers still enjoy it!! Don't be afraid of your own creation.

Important tips for the slow burn friends out there

Slow burn tends to feel bad on every platform because a lot of people are here to get to the "kissing" part of the story. But a lot of slow burn people prob aren't gonna get to that "kissing" scene till chapter 34. This can also be for action comics if your trying for a very slow going story where your "super hero" dosnt get his powers till chapter 13 because it's about how he dealt with problems while he was mortal that defines what he dose while he's powerful. That's ok! You keep on with your slow burns and remember that bingers are here for you.

@darthmongoose pointed out that they try to have >something< every update which is a good meathod! But things to remember about this meathod is that it can become very... Uh... Thor love and thunder if you just try to have "jokes" every update. Or very fifty shades if you try to have "reveals" every update. For slow burn comics your always gonna have those quite moments of characters absorbing information and silent panels of set up and such. This is ok. Remember that even tho we're working on a cerialised format, once you get enough pages out your bingers are going to want that "slow burn" flow to be elegant and purposeful.

I'll tell you what, and this is not so much a tip as an observation, I've managed to get to just over 14k subs on my comic and you know what? I'm not confident I could do it again. So much has been just wild chance, launching as EA kind of shot me up from... I think I was at 5k before that? The visibility of being in the "New Releases" section was kind of what did it? But I'm still a bit bewildered. I see comics that I'm certain are better than mine hovering at the 1-2k mark and I'm like... I dunno what mystical power sets these levels, you know?

But the important part isn't the sub count, it's the view/like/comment count on every episode and I actually find my numbers there match the numbers of comics with much smaller sub counts than mine so that's really interesting. The prestige of being on contract attracts a lot of curious, but ultimately, dead subs.

Kind of a waffle there but the point is, numbers b weird

Hey hey!

I hope these tips are still helpful!
As we're speaking, we have three comics running on Tapas/Webtoons at the moment,
(Not posting the links, because I don't want to self-promote here, this is meant to be educational, not a venue for me to access more readers )

Tapas/Webtoons readership

• Criminally Empathetic with 1.7k/1.2k followers, started 1 year ago (made by me)
• Witch's Recipe with 500-ish/ 6k followers, started 6 months ago (made by my partner)
• Evil Vile Devil with 100-ish/200-ish followers, started 2 weeks ago. (made by me)

--> TL'DR: Start by making a short comic that you can finish, inject it with some popular tropes, use good tags and promote it on Tiktok.

Tips:

1. Of all social media to use for comics, Tiktok is King. I personally hate it, I don't like the whole production aspect of making a whole video to promote a comic, but my partner found so much success on Webtoons with that! The secret is not to make the best Tiktok you ever made, but to just find a popular sound, and put art on there that's comic related Don't try to be creative, just be #relatable xp
   Instagram is very hit and miss, and Twitter feels like screaming in a void.

2. Cut up your pages in smaller sizes. My main comic (Criminally Empathetic) has long updates, and because I have dayjob, and not much time, I can only update it every two weeks. I miss out on a ton of watchers like that. My partner then made theirs (Witch's Brew). They cut their pages up in 3, sometimes 4 episodes, and can update MUCH faster. The traffic is better there. I did the same to my newest comic (Evil Vile Devil). Because we can guarantee weekly updates, even if they're short, they keep being relevant easier.

3. Start with a short and simple story. Your epic will wait, I promise. Especially if it's your first story, if you don't get readers fast enough, it's going to kill your mood, and you will sit on a story that will never end, and never continue. The readers of your short comic are more likely to still be around for your epic later on.

4. Try and write with a popular topic in mind. I know, the site is overrun by isekai villainesses, at some point there was a bunch of DnD parodies, there was a lot of High school BL as well... but those are the things people click on. ESPECIALLY on WEBTOONS. My advice there is to pick a popular theme that you enjoy a little bit, and just change it slightly so that you make it your own. It doesn't have to be something like isekai, it can just be something so simple like vampires, or fairytales. I am always impressed whenever I see someone writing a story that is truly unique and devoid of the typical tropes, and if that's your wish, you should make such stories.
   But to attracts readers to your account, practice with a short story with popular tropes.

5. Please make sure to give readers a proper idea of what to expect. If you write romance, make sure your main romantic pair is on the cover, for horror, show a hint of what to be scared of, etc. Use the useful tags. Don't try and be deep. If you write a Mystery that's slice of life, but that has BL elements, be sure to also use a BL tag. Don't omit it because you feel people will not take you seriously. And especially on Webtoons, do add a BL/GL in the corner of your thumbnail if it's in that genre.

There's always more advice to give, but these were the most helpful to us. In how to make our work process easier, and how to gain more viewers.
We're persuaded that regular updates gets you more readers than stellar writing.
I hope this helps you!