Do you "like" your own episodes?

[king-goldfish]

This never occurred to me before, but I recently noticed that some authors go through their own novels/comics and "like" each episode. Do you do this? Why or why not?

It seems a bit disingenuous to me, but I can understand the allure of making the numbers go up/perhaps getting a small visibility boost. Is this standard practice and a smart way to make sure you're giving your story every advantage it can have or is it shamelessly inflating your numbers to front that you're more popular than you are?

[Leyelle]

when I'm particularly impressed by them lol.

Not everyone of my own episodes I've liked. But if it made me feel something, or I think it's particularly notable, I like it the same way I would anyone else's stories.

[king-goldfish]

That's really interesting, I never considered liking only the chapters I myself prefer the most, even though that makes total sense. It feels more honest that way haha.

[llobucervallince]

you have to be your biggest fan, also kinda helps with the numbers when people consider reading your work.

[KevinReijnders]

Nope, I don't. I assume it's primarily done to play into the numbers game, and I do not care about that at all.

[BLTX]

I care about the numbers game, in the sense I want to get more recognition. But no, I don't. It always seemed just a bit... how do I put it... scummy? Probably not the right word, but that's how I feel.

[kyupol]

Used to but not anymore

[king-goldfish]

Yeah, that is my knee-jerk reaction to it as well. But that is my knee-jerk reaction to most self-promotion and marketing-type behavior. All of it makes me feel uncomfortable, but I have to do it if I ever want anyone to read my writing, so I had better start getting comfortable with it. Self-likes still don't feel great, though.

[ThunderChicken]

Nope. I just don’t like the idea of it. In fact if I’m scrolling it on my phone or touchscreen laptop and accidentally hit “like” I unlike it as fast as I can and hope nobody saw it! I don’t “like” my own Facebook posts either - Facebook is especially bad because you can see who did the liking, and a big sign of a scammer or spammer to me is somebody that likes their own post (they’ll post something like “Check this video out” or “check this T-shirt out” and then they like their own post).

Come to think of it, can anybody other than the creator see who liked their stuff on Tapas? I know you get notifications, but can you somehow see who liked other peoples’ stuff?

[king-goldfish]

Come to think of it, can anybody other than the creator see who liked their stuff on Tapas? I know you get notifications, but can you somehow see who liked other peoples’ stuff?

There's a tab on people's profile pages that shows their likes (though I think maybe it's possible to hide this publicly?). I noticed people liking their own episodes because if people like a bunch of my chapters at once (like ten chapters in five minutes, at a pace they couldn't reasonably be reading at), I sometimes check their likes to see if that's a pattern, cause it often feels like they're just shotgun liking a ton of things to get attention without actually reading anything.

[beebutterbee]

I didn’t realize you could even like your own episodes I don’t think I will though, but I’m also very bad at business/marketing stuff and am virtually unknown because of it lol even off of tapas I don’t have much of a following on other socials. So maybe the people self promoting actually know what they’re doing but I still can’t make myself do it… I would make a terrible businessman probably

[BoomerZ]

My comics isn't for me, so me liking it means nothing. It's the same for sub for sub. I want people to naturally like, subscribe, and most importantly read my story.

[JacobsComicz]

It depends. I want to see accurate metrics on Webtoon since I'm just starting out on there. However, on Instagram and Reddit I do like my own posts since I've been on there for a few years. I don't view liking my own posts as "scummy" since I'm the artist and I should like my own work, haha. It's not like I'm paying for bots to like my posts.

[king-goldfish]

Haha same, I tried to start an Instagram because people said it was good for marketing, and I think I have like ten followers there and never have any idea what to post. Social media is not my thing, and I don't think business would be, either!

Writing and art are such different skillsets than marketing and promotion; I wish someone had told me when I was a kid that I would have to get good at both of them.

[JacobsComicz]

It truly is two different worlds we have to navigate. I have recently started to post again weekly on Instagram, so I probably won't see a significant return on my consistency until a few more months from now. It's mostly people I know irl that like my posts but I have a couple of fellow online artists who follow and like my posts now so that's cool. I find researching social media marketing interesting, but it's also daunting since all of the biggest platforms don't seemed designed to promote newer artists anymore. I have better luck on Reddit which has a way better design for visibility. I love how you can choose what communities can view your post and will actually be interested in it instead of tossing my comic into the fathomless void of the algorithm. I use around 15 hashtags for my Instagram posts and its a 50/50 chance whether they work at all despite me having researched the heck out of relevant hashtags.

[king-goldfish]

I wish I could find it interesting like you do! Definitely daunting, though. It is encouraging to hear that you might need months to build up traction somewhere like Instagram. I also hadn't thought much about using Reddit to promote. I'm guessing you write comics rather than novels, but where do you like to post?

[jadendouglas]

I think ultimately it doesn’t really matter or really boost visibility since it’s one like per episode. You can do it or not do it. I don’t really think it reflects anything that some one could glean about a person either. They might like their own episode and not even consider any of that stuff. I hit like on my episodes cause it’s like leaving the little dents on the top of the soda cup unpushed. So more of an ocd thing for me. I also like other comics and novels that aren’t even my thing because while the story may not be my favorite content the fact people are writing or drawing anything at all makes me extremely happy and it’s at no detriment to me to give them some support in their journey to find readers.

Promotion on this site is really bad, there is very few ways people will find your work on here unless you go outside the site to promote. Don’t take it to seriously what people do to gain some visibility it’s all for pennies on the dollar at the level where liking your own self makes any impact so really it has minimal effect on anything at all.

[Ordinaryaverageguy]

No. I mean, no one else does, so who am I to break the pattern?

[Panpan]

I don't see an issue with this. We are our biggest fans after all. Let people do what they want with their own stories 🤷‍♀️

[Emalie]

I never did it with my previous project and much less have I done it with the comic I'm currently working on. I know some guys who do it and it's great. Not me personally, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy what I do, that's why I draw it or write it, right?