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".
Okay, sorry, I should have added in the post but didn't think to the following:
You're allowed to change.
There are actually quite a lot of comics people I know who are absolutely lovely now and widely supportive and generally well-liked who were absolute edgelords or really problematic or annoying in the past. Lots of them. For you, it was bacteria on your tonsils causing it, but for a lot of other people it could be caused by:
Being in an abusive relationship or stuck with an abusive family, being in mourning or traumatised by a horrible event in their life, being confused about their sexuality or gender identity (especially if their family don't accept it)...etc.
Sometimes people go through a phase of being kind of toxic. You know back in the day, I had a bit of a reputation on forums I was on for "going off half-cocked". I was involved in a ton of flame wars. I was angry and frustrated, really hot-tempered, and I had to be told by some people who cared: "Look, Mongoose. You need to be careful about what you say now if you want to go pro. If you keep ranting like this and oversharing, you'll look unprofessional."
And so... I started being more careful, and then when I eventually realised I'm gay, people remarked that I seemed a lot more relaxed and at peace with myself. Learning I was autistic also helped me a lot in terms of realising how I unintentionally frustrate people or come across intimidating.
The vast majority of people will not remember your past behaviour. They'll judge you on your current behaviour, and they probably would only look up past stuff if your current stuff seems a bit borderline problematic or edgy and they're like "...was this intentional, or....?" Over time, if you keep just acting chill, your good, helpful and supportive behaviour will outweigh whatever problematic stuff you did in the past (especially if you did it on like... discord, where things get buried fast).
Basically, any day is a good time to start being chill 
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.
Thank you so much for the reply!! This is really helpful! : D
I will say with my comic, what helped a lot was Tapas featuring it (it used to get featured as a Staff Pick a LOT lol), but that hasn't been happening as much so I'm trying to figure out what I did before Tapas started featuring it and try to do that stuff again? But I'm gonna use the fact that it's inspired by Gravity Falls and Stranger Things to my advantage haha. I mainly wanted more of those kinds of stories, so maybe focusing on that will help?
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
--> 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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
closed Nov 18, '22
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