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Aug 2020

I did I rough break down over on another thread that went a little something like this (someone else provided the $2000 for Webtoons figure, I just went with them):

$2000 = 20 days = 4x 5 day weeks = $100 a day = at my country's legal min wage 10 hour work day at at 50 hour work week = 1 page/6 panels per day to reach their minim panel count per weekly update.

And yeah as @joannekwan says you can see from that it's an absolute slog, the weekly updates are huge and it is a full time job.

I follow Amanduur's work on Webtoon! Her Plain Boy & Prince series is hysterical :laughing:

@LannaEXP How long did it take you to be able to support yourself full time?

I feel like I should mention I haven't even been here a month yet, so I'm honest to God not expecting to be able to earn anything substantial for a couple years.

I don't know if I'm in the minority with this opinion but I actually don't want to make a living at this! I feel like making my comic is an escape for me and trying to make it into a full time living would cause me to fall out of love with my work.

That being said, I would maybe consider monetizing to get a little extra side income as long as my marketing efforts are minimal. :joy: It just sounds like a lot of upkeep with posting on all these different platforms. But if anybody does it, I would love to hear their experiences!

I've definitely heard people who want their hobby to strictly stay a hobby :heart:

Hard to say. Spent my entire life building up to it, so I'll put it into a very rough timeline instead:

I'm 27 now and have been posting creative projects/making actual content ever since I was about 16, with varying degrees of success. (I'd already been writing and designing characters since age 6~7 or so.) Dabbled in a ton of different things and eventually became a full-time creator 2 years ago.

For comic work specifically, I started posting my first one in late 2015 and managed to gather an audience, but had to take a break from it starting 2017 (after which I did completely unrelated creative stuff out of necessity) and only returned to it (via a complete remake) in October of last year. It's been going well but focusing on it full-time is a risky move on my end based on nothing but my belief that I'm onto something good. (If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's how to analyze my own failures, so I'm pretty confident on this one - still, stability is...something else lol)

I think my main takeaway from my own experience is that you'll always want multiple income sources and just keep getting to know people - I earn pretty much nothing on the platform here itself, but you never know who'll become a patron and/or die-hard fan who commissions you to draw your own characters haha.

I did hear from other self published writers that after 5 to 10 books you can start to sustain a bit.
But that's mostly talking about series. because the promotion part gets easier as for series. people trickle on. and it's a small snowballs effect that happens.

So I'm posting my second novel as weekly updates 1. to try and push people towards patreon and 2. to see the difference in subscriber gains compared to my daily posting of the first novel.

Even just with these two out, I've noticed it much easier to gain subscribers on the second novel. They're not related in the slightest and the second novel only has 2 parts out. Those 2 parts have pulled in 24 subscribers so I think there's definitely some truth to the more books you have out the easier it is to sustain.

very true. Works on tapas here. wattpad and is the same with Amazon. as people will trickle through. even if it's 10% it's still easier than starting from 0

question: is your plan to sustain from tapas or a different kind of income like Amazon or trad pub? epub, print, KU?

For now my plan is to post on Tapas and build an audience lol. I never expected to even reach 100 subs so fast and it got me wondering if it would be possible to one day turn this into a more full time job. I was just posting to post after my friend (and beta reader) convinced me I should share it on here. Then I reached the ability to monetize and people were liking my work so I announced my patreon and I'm going from there.

This all happened very fast for me lol so I'm still figuring out what I'm going to do or might do in the future

hahaha okay.
well, I did a lot of research the last month (started in february) but patreon isn't among the ideas.

but, then again. I was way slower than you in growth

I see it as a long game. Realistically it can take several years to gain enough of a footing to really make a living, and it requires a lot of hustling, multiple income streams, marketing etc. Having a day job for me allows me the flexibility to get this slow fire goin'. I want my day job to be ... not demanding though... its really hard to balance a very stressful day job with the work I actually want to do!

I've been furloughed for months and its been a mixed blessing. Im loving the extra time I have on my hands, but Im worried about my financial future. I want to make a living at this for sure but I know its going to be a long time before thats even remotely feasible. Anyone setting out to make a living really should keep in mind how long it can take. Nothing happens overnight unless you already have a good following.

This month, I made $130 :smiley:
$100 from WT's creator rewards, $30 from Patreon.
That's the most I've made since I started in May. Doubt I'll ever make a living from it, though :frowning:

Edit: Also, I work part-time for my local newspaper. Should probably figure out another job soon since I don't think the business will be around much longer ;;

I make a living with my art, but not via my comic. Graphic design and selling editable templates & clipart are a great passive income stream for me. :+1:

Most of the people I saw had them linked so I made my first post a couple days in asking for advice on Patreon for novelists. I figured the worst that happens is I never get anyone who's interested it signing up, but this way people have a choice! :heart:

@Dogss Yes, I said above I wasn't expecting to be able to earn anything substantial for a couple years :heart: I'm currently working full time too which is why I'm not worried about making it happen overnight :heart:

@disqette Congratulations!!! Hopefully it continues to grow! :heart: I'm sorry to hear about the newspaper possibly closing down ):

@Legendofgenii That's great! If I were an artist, the thought of making templates and clipart to sell would never have been something to occur to me :heart: Passive income is wonderful

Im actually thinking about learning graphic design to try and break into that. Did you study it in college or learn on your own?

I studied Illustration, but the graphic programs I use are pretty easy to use (mainly Illustrator and indesign), and I just taught myself over the years. :slight_smile:

There are some simple tutorials online. I don't think you need to go to college to learn them to be honest, just have a play with them and work it all out. :+1:

For clipart I usually make those in photoshop and save as high resolution PNG files. I basically look at what themes are trending then draw some cute images (bundles sell best). :sweat_smile:

It's clipart so it doesn't have to be amazing and people still buy it (one of my best sellers is a cactus!). As long as you are happy to license your work - go for it! :joy: