Distinguishing premium content?

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Hello!
So I recommended the Tapas mobile App to my friend, as she particularly loves BL stories and we have lot of those there. I don't have the app myself because of my phone memory can't handle it so I assume it's pretty much the mobile version but app.

Next day she complained that the story she found is all premium (paid), but I insisted that there are indeed free good stories to read. I tried to search for her (with my limited knowledge of BL), and what I got too was mostly premium too. I feel bad because not knowing how it works.

So my questions regarding the app are:

• Is there any way we can distinguish free and premium content from the thumbnail? (like small badge on the cover, or a small writing stating it's premium)
• Can we filter free and premium contents from the search? (knowing how crappy the search function is, I have low hope)
• If we didn't have features I asked, do you think it's good idea or not to be added?

Important note is that please don't take this question as something against premium creators My friend is just a casual reader and I just wanna help her find some free BL stories
(Also recommend one if you know)

[Rhonder]

So just looked into it due to this post (the app is kind of fussy, so I usually only use it to read comics I'm already subbed to xD;; ) but:

1.) I don't believe the icon is any help, but if you tap a series to open up it's "table of contents/summary", you can look up by the subs/views/likes statistics. Premium comics have an additional statistic, a rating, denoted by a star. If you see that star icon, the comic is premium. Otherwise it's free.

2.) The search bar doesn't seem to have any advanced options as far as I can tell, but on the app if you scroll alllllll the way to the bottom of the main page, there's a link titled "Community Comics". If you follow that it takes you to a page that filters out all of the premium ones. Further there is an "Explore by category" (or worded similarly) that you can use to further sort the comics by genre. Thankfully for your friend, BL is its own separate category from Romance, so you can direct them to just follow these instructions ^ to find comics to read :>

3.) tbh the search bar should have some options tho lol

[Harmony-S-S]

For recommendations I would say: Dragon husbands, I Hate You, #muted (This comic is so sweet XD), and if you want to, you can check out Betovering and Ghost Heart

[fleohr]

It's been a long time since I used Tapas app (I also have low memory on my phone D:), but I remember the premium ones have a retangular thumbnail, while the free ones are all squared. Can't tell if they changed the shape tho

Here are some happy/sad BL stories I have in my library (some of them are still on going):

For the Last Time :: 1 | Tapas

Hare and Bunny | Tapas

The Wolf and the Hungry Boy | Tapas

DREAM MACHINE | Tapas

Same Shit Different Day | Tapas

Taste

[mong2]

There isn't an obvious sign to distinguish them, but I do have some ways of distinguishing them

If you're using the app:

• CHECK the homepage for the premium comics/novels and "new" premium comics/novels. If it's premium, it will appear there for sure (best way to check if a new comic is premium)
• The covers of premium comics are rectangular, whereas the covers of free comics are square
• If the first episode has a "translated by" at the beginning or end of the episode, it is 100% premium
• Premium comics/novels will have a star rating
• If it has a lot of episodes (10+) and all the episodes have a download button, then it's free
• If it has the Wait for free timer on it, it's premium
  
  

If you're using the website:

• Premium comics will have a lock on their episodes and a ticket looking thing at the top
• Premium comics DON'T have a banner, free comics DO

I used to think tipping was a good indicator as well, but I recently found some premium comics that have tipping.

[mong2]

I don't read BL either, but from what I've seen, premium BL comics don't have the "BL" written on their covers as many free comics tend to do. So I think it's safe to suggest to your friend to read any comics or novels that have "BL" written on the cover/thumbnail

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Thank you very much for the comprehensive explanation!
I'll be sure to tell her.
Never been aware of some points before especially on the app, such as rating and wait for free, seems the app has pretty much a bit different mechanism.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Thank you very much for so many recommendation! (helpful since I don't read BL that much) I'll be sure to tell her

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Thank you for your answer!

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Thank you! Awww... I think she'd like a sweet comic

[mong2]

Np, glad I could help . Tapas doesn't do a good job showing their free content to new users, which is a shame. A little something you should mention next time if you recommend the Tapas app to someone would be to use the site instead since it's much easier to see all the free content and you can search by genre (Tapas recently created a BL genre). But if they insist on using the app, tell them to skip the comics on the front/homepage since all the "popular" ones are premium.

[eleoza]

tapas needs to work on their app. Free comics are hard to find on it. They said they'd work on it in a different thread but that was a long time ago. It's no surprise new users think tapas is a full paid platform this way. I just continue to hope they'll do something eventually.

Edit: There is a community tab, but that shows just a few free comics, I dunno what they're based on though.

That said, premium comics aren't that expensive :3 especially compared to other sites, if a story got you hooked and it's worth to pay for I think it's worth it, some people can't afford it even if it's cheap or are unable to make online purchases, but a lot of the premium comics are 'pay or wait' which lets you read a new episode every week or so, which is nice.

[aaladadonis]

I just went on the app and they have a community tab now uwu also explore is pretty neat. I’m just looking around right now because I’ve only just noticed and not sure when the app updated since I have auto update.

If your friend wants BL there’s actually a way to sort in explore, although of course they will show the premium first due to popularity but if you sort by date you get a variety of both community and premium. Usually my way for telling is that non-premium allow you to download while premium doesn’t (well only for those you’ve unlocked).

Also the community tab have a few recommendations but if you go to New episodes, you can find all the newly updated comics which should be all free. Community tab also gets banners too. I’m actually really hype about this because it’s an improvement from before.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Thank you for the answer

I have never been aware of the price because I never try it (and I don't know how the payment work), and the wait for free feature is new for me. Is it only works in app?

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Thank you for the answer!

I have never been on the app so this is informative, it is good to see them keep improving!

[craftymarten]

For community comics you need to scroll down to the bottom where it will say "Community comics" in orange (clicking on the banner only shows you the most popular ones in all genres) then you have to scroll to the bottom where it says Browse and click on the orange "BL" there, that will show you the most popular ones. Then you can click the 3 white lines in the top right corner and sort by popularity (the default) or upload date (you can sort by title too but a lot of comics at the top haven't been updated in years).
The app definitely doesn't make it easy to find new comics that aren't promoted or already popular.
You can look in "New Episodes" too though that doesn't sort based on genre and the comics need to have over 150 (I think) subs to show up.

[eleoza]

Oof, I'm not sure if it only works in the app, but after you read an episode the next one will be available in a week. And I think an episode that costs 300 coins equals to 20 cents? Can someone confirm? I'm not sure.

[eleoza]

"clicking on the banner only shows you the most popular ones in all genres"
This just made me realize they didn't add the BL genre in there O:

[mong2]

The wait for free only works in the app. So when you finish waiting for a key, you can use it to unlock an episode on the site, but it won't automatically start the timer again. If you unlock an episode on the app, the timer will automatically start again for the next key

[mong2]

For the people who can't afford it, they can watch ads to earn coins. I've been doing that and I've unlocked a good number of premium comics ┐(ﾟ～ﾟ)┌
(I only get max 200 coins daily, meaning 20 ads 10 coins each)